Applications are open to join the next Housing Ombudsman Resident Panel – find out more Housing Ombudsman Resident Panel.

The Guinness Partnership Limited (202313119)

Back to Top

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202313119

The Guinness Partnership Limited

22 March 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:
    1. Handling of repairs to resolve a roof leak.
    2. Response to the complainant’s request for reimbursement of costs incurred in rectifying the damage caused by the leak.
    3. Communication.
    4. Complaint handling.

Background

  1. The complainant is a leaseholder of the landlord. The complainant rented out the property, which is a flat situated within a larger block, to a tenant. This report refers to the tenant as the ‘resident’, the complainant as the ‘leaseholder’, and the freeholder as the ‘landlord’. The property was managed by a letting agent on behalf of the leaseholder, which is referred to as the ‘agent’.
  2. On 12 January 2023 the agent reported to the landlord that a damp patch was forming in the corner of the bedroom. A job was raised by the landlord to investigate. The letting agent reported sending “several chasers” before notifying the leaseholder on 7 March 2023. The leaseholder raised a formal complaint on 16 March 2023. She was unhappy that repair had not been attended and that the landlord had failed to communicate with the agent or herself.
  3. On 20 March 2023 the landlord completed an internal investigation at the property. It could not inspect externally without scaffolding, which was erected on 12 April 2023.
  4. On 14 April 2023 the landlord provided a stage 1 response. It acknowledged that after the repair had been reported on 12 January 2023, it failed to take action. It added that none of the 3 callback requests which had been made after the first report had been responded to. It confirmed that the repair would be completed on 17 April 2023. It offered £100 compensation, made up of £50 for stress and inconvenience, £25 for poor communication and £25 for delays in complaint handling.
  5. On 18 April 2023 the landlord attended. It “completed what work it could”, but the scaffold needed to be extended to complete the remaining repairs. It reattended on 24 April 2023. However the resident, who it said had requested to be present during the repairs, was in hospital and so the appointment was cancelled. On 12 May 2023 the resident informed the landlord he was out of hospital, and so the works were rescheduled for 22 May 2023.
  6. On 22 May 2023 the operative responsible for the roof repairs were themselves admitted to hospital. The contractor was unable to replace the operative. On 25 May 2023 the leaseholder escalated her complaint. The landlord and leaseholder continued to chase throughout June 2023. The repair was completed on 26 June 2023.
  7. On 27 June 2023, the landlord issued a final complaint response. It maintained that its stage 1 response had been appropriate and acknowledged that since the stage 1 had been issued, there had been further delays with the roof repair and other associated failings. It provided context for these delays and offered a further £150 compensation, made up of £100 for the delays, £25 for poor communication and £25 for delays in its complaint handling.
  8. On 6 September 2023 the landlord issued a new final response letter following correspondence with the Ombudsman, addressing issues with damp and mould which it had failed to address in the earlier complaints process. This included compensation the leaseholder had requested to complete remedial works to the inside of the property. It acknowledged that “reports of damp and mould were not acknowledged”, added that “internal damage/decoration is typically the leaseholder’s responsibility” (but offered £100 decorating vouchers as a goodwill gesture). It offered a further £350 compensation for the delays and the complaint handling failures.

Assessment and findings

Handling of repairs to a roof leak

  1. The Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles are to ‘be fair’, to ‘put things right’, and to ‘learn from outcomes’.
  2. The terms of the lease set out that the landlord is responsible for external repairs. The leaseholder remains responsible for most other repairs, including internal repairs and the treatment of damp and mould. The landlord’s responsive repairs policy sets out that routine repairs should be carried out within 28 days of being reported. There were approximately 168 days between the landlord first receiving a repair request, and the repair being completed. The landlord therefore significantly exceeded this timescale.
  3. The reason for the initial delays is unclear; the landlord appeared to raise a job in response to the agent’s request on 12 January 2023, but failed to take action. The landlord was right to apologise for this in its stage 1 response. Once the landlord had carried out its initial investigation of 20 March 2023, progress initially appeared to follow the proscribed timescales; scaffolding had been erected and some works completed. There then followed a delay which was outside the landlord’s control, as the contractor needed to extend the scaffolding.
  4. The information the landlord received from the contractor to explain the following delays however is unclear and at times conflicting. The evidence shows that the contractor explained that a follow-up appointment on 24 April 2023 was cancelled because the resident had requested to be present during the repairs, but was in hospital. There is no evidence to corroborate this, however this would have been an appropriate reason to delay the repairs for a short period, although the landlord should have updated the leaseholder. On 22 May 2023, the contractor cancelled another appointment, this time citing that its own operative was in hospital, without whom the work could not be completed. Again, there is no evidence to corroborate this, but internal emails suggest this was expected to be a short-term absence. As such, this would have been an acceptable justification for a short delay; it would not have been proportionate to instruct a different contractor. However, an email from 30 May 2023 stated that it had been cancelled due to the resident being in hospital. A further email from the contractor on 23 June 2023 to the landlord, stated that the reason for the holdup had been “the need to complete an extension to the scaffolding”. This was completed, alongside the repairs, on 26 June 2023. It is unclear therefore what the cause of the delay was, or if the works would have been able to be completed had the appointments gone ahead as intended in April and May 2023.
  5. The landlord offered £150 compensation, over 2 stages, specifically for the adverse effects caused by the delays to repairing the roof. In this case, when considering compensation for distress and inconvenience, it is important to note that the leaseholder was not resident at the property during this time. There was also no discernible impact on the leaseholder in this case prior to 7 March 2023, as the letting agent had been managing all correspondence and the leaseholder had not been aware of the leak. As such, the Ombudsman has considered the time and trouble the resident went to chasing the landlord after this point, in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance. The guidance states that where there has been a failing which causes a loss of confidence in the landlord and results in the leaseholder going to time and trouble to resolve the issue, compensation of at least £100 is due. As such, no further award is made in this regard. However, although the landlord adequately ‘put things right’ with this compensation offer, the reasons for the initial delays remain unclear. Although it promised to “provide feedback to senior staff members and contractors” as part of an attempt to ‘learn from outcomes’, there is no evidence to support that this happened, or that it led to effective learning. Therefore, there was a service failure in the landlord’s handling of repairs to resolve the roof leak.

Response to the complainant’s request for reimbursement of costs incurred in rectifying the damage caused by the leak.

  1. The evidence shows that in the areas impacted by the roof leak, damp and mould was present. The resident explained that she had received a quote to remediate the damage, of “around £600”. In cases such as these, where damage may have been caused and/or worsened by the landlord’s failure to act, a landlord should consider whether a compensation payment is appropriate. If responsibility for the damage is disputed, it should direct a complainant making such a claim to its public liability insurance. There is no evidence that the landlord did this, which was a failing.
  2. In the landlord’s final response letter of 6 September 2023, the landlord stated that the internal remedial works were the leaseholder’s responsibility. However, the landlord’s damp and mould policy states that “in line with our Compensation Policy, we will pay compensation as a result of our failure to deliver the service we have committed to. This includes where furniture or belongings have been damaged.” It adds that “each case will be considered on its own merits, taking into account the individual circumstances of the resident and their household.” Although the wording of this policy does not specify that decoration would be included, it should be accepted that in view of what is fair and reasonable in all circumstances of the case, this policy requires the landlord to ‘put right’ damage caused by its failings. In this instance, the landlord should have taken responsibility for the damage caused by its failings and either repaired the damage itself, or compensated the resident accordingly.
  3. The landlord showed that it did make some attempt to ‘put things right’ by offering £100 in decoration vouchers, which mitigates the finding somewhat in this case. However, there was nevertheless a service failure in the landlord’s response to the leaseholder’s request for reimbursement of costs incurred in rectifying the damage caused by the leak. Orders are made below.

Communication

  1. A key failing which was present in this case was how different departments of the landlord often entered into long correspondence with the leaseholder, in which it appeared to provide conflicting information. For example, the evidence shows that the leaseholder invested a significant amount of time and experienced frustration, because the landlord responded to her requests for updates to the repair to the roof with information about the ongoing Section 20 consultation. This correspondence incorrectly suggested that the leaseholder may have to wait until as late as September 2023 for the repairs to be completed, causing distress. The evidence shows that these were separate issues; the progress of the one should not have impacted upon the other. This also meant that when the leaseholder was trying to chase the repairs, which may have helped to speed up the works, the repairs team were not necessarily notified that the leaseholder had been in touch.
  2. The landlord offered £50 compensation over the first 2 stages of the complaints procedure for communication failings. The Ombudsman has seen evidence of a number of missed call backs, a lack of updates given to the leaseholder or her agent, and the resident being provided with conflicting information which caused confusion and frustration, as above. Although some of the impact of these missed callbacks is mitigated because it was the agent who appeared to be inconvenienced, the frustration and time and trouble to the leaseholder was nonetheless not adequately put right by the compensation offered. The further complaint response of 6 September 2023 added a further £350 compensation because it had not accounted for the “stress and inconvenience caused by the delays”. It is the Ombudsman’s view that the landlord had already offered reasonable redress for the substantive delays themselves, as assessed above. However, much of the distress caused to the leaseholder surrounded the inadequate communication she received throughout. As such, the landlord has offered a further amount which provides reasonable redress for the impact to the leaseholder.
  3. However, the offer was not made until some 6 months after the time of the original complaint, and after the leaseholder had involved the Ombudsman.  Therefore, the landlord failed to effectively put things right at the earliest opportunity, and to learn lessons from the outcome at the time of its original investigation. As such, the landlord did not act in line with the Dispute Resolution Principles, and we have therefore found service failure.

Complaint handling

  1. The landlord offered £50 for delays in complaint handling. This was appropriate, as “at stage 1 [the] response was 7 days overdue. At stage 2 it was 2 days overdue”. The landlord therefore adequately ‘put things right’ in respect of these delays.
  2. On 22 June 2023, the leaseholder notified the landlord that her tenant had issued a notice to quit. She complained that this equalled a loss of “£700 per month” until the property was in a condition be relet. The landlord advised that it was sorry to hear this on 26 June 2023, adding that a stage 2 response was on the way. However, it failed to address this point. The Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code), states that every element of a complaint should be responded to. It was right therefore that on 6 September 2023, the landlord issued a new final response letter, in response to missed complaint points highlighted by Ombudsman. It failed again however to acknowledge or respond to the resident’s complaint about a loss of income from lost tenants due to damage. As a result, there was a service failure in the landlord’s complaint handling.
  3. Although the landlord offered further compensation for its complaint handling failures, as was appropriate, it did not account for the further failing of not responding to the above complaint. Orders are therefore made below in respect of the further time and trouble the landlord’s complaint handling has caused to the leaseholder. The landlord is also ordered to respond formally to the element of the leaseholder’s complaint which was missed.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was a service failure the landlord’s handling of repairs to resolve a roof leak.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was a service failure in the landlord’s response to the complainant’s request for reimbursement of costs incurred in rectifying the damage caused by the leak.
  3. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was a service failure in the landlord’s communication.
  4. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was a service failure in the landlord’s complaint handling.

Orders

  1. Within four weeks of the date of this determination, the landlord must:
    1. Provide a formal response to the leaseholder’s complaint about a loss of rental income in line with its complaints policy. It should provide a clear answer to the leaseholder’s request for further compensation, and ensure its position is in line with its compensation policy.
    2. Reimburse the resident for the remedial works conducted to put right the internal damage caused to the property by the leak. This order, and the timescales attached to it, are both reliant on the leaseholder providing receipts for the works done, and should not exceed the value of £600. The value of £100 (already offered in vouchers) may be deducted from this amount.
    3. Pay the resident a further £100 compensation, in respect of the additional time and trouble resulting from the complaint handling failures highlighted in this report.

Recommendations

  1. That the landlord pay the resident the total of £600 (plus £100 in vouchers) already offered, if it has not already done so.