Mosscare St. Vincent’s Housing Group Limited (202302340)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202302340

Mosscare St. Vincent’s Housing Group Limited

28 June 2024

Our approach

The Housing Ombudsman’s approach to investigating and determining complaints is to decide what is fair in all the circumstances of the case. This is set out in the Housing Act 1996 and the Housing Ombudsman Scheme (the Scheme). The Ombudsman considers the evidence and looks to see if there has been any ‘maladministration’, for example whether the landlord has failed to keep to the law, followed proper procedure, followed good practice or behaved in a reasonable and competent manner.

Both the resident and the landlord have submitted information to the Ombudsman and this has been carefully considered. Their accounts of what has happened are summarised below. This report is not an exhaustive description of all the events that have occurred in relation to this case, but an outline of the key issues as a background to the investigation’s findings.

The complaint

1. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of:
   1. The resident’s complaint about issues relating to a leak.
   2. The resident’s reports about the conduct of a member of its staff.
   3. A missed appointment.

Background

2. The resident has been the assured tenant of a property owned by the landlord since 2000.
3. The documents provided to this Service suggest that there was a leak in the bathroom at the property in 2020. The resident said the leak caused damage to her laminate flooring on the ground floor below. She reported it to the landlord which attended and repaired the leak. However, she said that the landlord’s surveyor who attended gave her the impression she could not claim on the landlord’s insurance for the damaged flooring because she had not sought permission from the landlord to install that flooring. The resident says she did not have her own insurance and therefore could not claim.
4. In November 2022, there was another leak at the property which the landlord said was caused by frozen pipes. Also in November 2022, the resident asked for an inspection of her floor and this was arranged by the landlord.
5. The resident phoned the landlord on 1 February 2023 and made a complaint. The landlord’s record of the call reported that she said there had been a flood from the bathroom after some pipes became frozen and caused a leak. She said her flooring had been damaged and the landlord had inspected in November 2022 but no further action had been taken. She said she had been told to claim on her household insurance. But she felt the leak was not her fault and did not understand why the flooring was not being replaced. 
6. In its stage 1 response of 10 February 2023, the landlord said that the leak the resident complained about had been caused by an external tap which had not been closed off in November 2022 and had then frozen. This had fractured the pipe and caused the leak. Because it considered that it was not responsible for the leak, it said it would not replace the flooring.
7. The resident was not satisfied with this response and asked to escalate her complaint to stage 2 of the landlord’s procedure. In her request, she said that the stage 1 complaint had addressed the wrong leak. She said she was, in fact, complaining about a leak from “a few years ago” that had damaged her laminate flooring.
8. The landlord, initially, did not escalate the complaint. When it did so, in April 2023, it interviewed the resident about her concerns. She said, during the interview, that she was not certain when the leak had occurred but that, when it did, the landlord’s surveyor had advised her to make a claim against her household insurance.
9. In its stage 2 response of 6 July 2023, the landlord said it had investigated the resident’s concerns about its response to the leak. It said that it was not responsible for the leak but, “as a gesture of goodwill” it would offer to pay for 50% of the cost of replacing the flooring and to help with the installation. It also offered her £30 in consideration of a failure to notify her of a new appointment after a missed appointment in May 2023.
10. The resident was not satisfied with this response and came to this Service. She said she wanted the landlord to pay for all of the flooring.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

11. The resident said that she felt the impression given to her by the surveyor had meant she had missed an opportunity to claim on the landlord’s insurance and replace her damaged flooring at that time. She decided to raise this complaint because she believed that she had not required permission to install laminate flooring and so had been misled by the landlord’s surveyor.  She believes this may have occurred prior to 2016 though evidence suggests it occurred in January 2020.
12. Ultimately, the resident had the opportunity to complain about the landlord telling her to claim on her own household insurance in 2020, which seems to be when this leak occurred. However, she did not do so. Paragraph 42(c) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme (the Scheme) says that the Ombudsman may not investigate complaints which, in our opinion, “were not brought to the attention of the member as a formal complaint within a reasonable period which would normally be within 12 months of the matters arising”. In this case, the resident did not raise the matter until February 2023, which was at least 3 years after the conversation took place. For that reason, we will not investigate this part of the complaint.
13. Instead, this Service has focused its investigation on the landlord’s response to the resident’s complaint about this issue to see whether its investigation and response was reasonable and fair.

The resident’s complaint about issues relating to a leak

14. On receipt of the original complaint on 1 February 2023, the landlord understood that the complaint dealt with the most recent leak in November 2022. This was an understandable confusion as the records show the resident referred to frozen pipes in the complaint call. The November 2022 leak had been, in its view, caused by a frozen pipe to an outside tap. The confusion over which leak the resident was in fact complaining about appears to have been an honest mistake and there was no service failure in the landlord’s response at the time.
15. The resident clarified this misunderstanding in an email to the landlord on 21 February 2023. Unfortunately, the landlord failed to respond to this escalation due to an oversight. The resident contacted this Service and, on hearing from us, it began to investigate. The investigation then issued a stage 2 response on 6 July 2023. The evidence shows that some of this delay was caused by the difficulty the landlord had in contacting the resident to discuss the complaint.
16. The landlord’s investigation of the resident’s concerns was fair and proportionate. It was delayed because the resident was uncertain about when the leak had occurred and the landlord gave her time to check her records. The landlord asked for further information to support the resident’s claim but she did not, on the available evidence, provide any further information. Although the landlord did not consider that it was responsible for the leak in 2020, it offered to pay for half of the cost of installing flooring and to help install it as a gesture of good will. This was reasonable and resolution-focused approach which meant that, overall, it responded appropriately to the resident’s complaint.

The resident’s reports about the conduct of a member of its staff

17. The resident claimed that staff members and in particular 1 member of staff had been rude to her during the stage 2 investigation. The landlord said it investigated her reports. It apologised for any upset caused and said it would speak to the member of staff concerned. This was an appropriate response to the resident’s report of rudeness.

A missed appointment

18. The resident claimed that the landlord had missed an appointment with her on 24 May 2023. The landlord investigated and found that, in fact, the appointment had been cancelled at the resident’s request and rescheduled for 8 June 2023. It said that the resident should have received a follow-up text with the revised appointment date. The resident said she did not receive the revised date. Therefore, the landlord apologised, said it would report this issue to its head of repairs and offered the resident £30 compensation for the missed appointment. This was, again, a resolution-focused response to the resident’s concerns.

Determination

19. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was no maladministration in the landlord’s response to:
    1. The resident’s complaint about issues relating to a leak.
    2. The resident’s reports about the conduct of a member of its staff.
    3. A missed appointment.