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Southern Housing (202301122)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202301122

Southern Housing

1 April 2025


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 the resident’s reports of repairs.

Background

  1. The resident is a tenant of the landlord and lives in a house. The landlord does not have any vulnerabilities recorded for her.
  2. The resident raised a repair for a rotten fence post and uneven paving slabs at the front of her property on 17 October 2022. The landlord attended on 11 November 2022, but the repair was not completed.
  3. The resident contacted the landlord to make a complaint about its handling of the repair on 11 April 2023. She had chased its contractor in February 2023, but “got nowhere”. She asked the landlord to repair the rotten fence post and fix the uneven paving slabs.
  4. The landlord sent the resident its stage 1 complaint response on 16 May 2023. It gave a history of the repair and explained it had incorrectly raised the job as a communal repair, which meant it did not go ahead in November 2022. It said it had booked the repair for 18 May 2023. It apologised for its handling of the repairs and offered her £90 in compensation.
  5. The landlord repaired the fence post on 18 May 2023, but the paving slab repair did not go ahead at that time. The resident asked to take her complaint to stage 2 of the landlord’s procedure on 24 June 2023. She was unhappy the paving slab repair was outstanding, and with the landlord’s communication about the repairs.
  6. The landlord sent its stage 2 complaint response on 27 July 2023. It apologised that the paving slab repair did not go ahead and said it had booked it for 17 August 2023. It offered an additional £155 for its handling of the repairs.

Events after the complaints process

  1. The landlord did not complete the repair on 18 August 2023. It booked a further visit for 17 October 2023, but the repair did not go ahead at that time. it attended on 2 November 2023 but was unable to complete the repair due to adverse weather conditions. It attended on 13 December 2023 and replaced 1 paving slab.
  2. The resident contacted this Service on 14 December 2023 and asked us to investigate her complaint. She said the paving slab repair was outstanding as the landlord had only replaced a broken slab, and the others were uneven. She said the landlord’s handling of the matter caused her “stress”.
  3. The resident chased the landlord about the repair on 15 December 2023, and she said she was told that all the uneven slabs would be re laid. The resident continued to chase the landlord throughout early 2024.
  4. The landlord inspected the paving slabs on 24 April 2024 and agreed the slabs needed re laying. The landlord completed the repair on 15 May 2024.

Assessment and findings

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of repairs

  1. The landlord’s responsive repairs policy states that it is responsible for paths that are “access points” for the resident’s property. It also states that it is responsible for boundary fences.
  2. The landlord issued its final complaint response in July 2023. At the time of its stage 2 response the substantive issues in the case were outstanding. For fairness, this Service has increased the scope of the investigation beyond the landlord’s stage 2 complaint response to fully consider the landlord’s handling of the issues raised in the complaint.
  3. The landlord was on notice about the repairs on 17 October 2022. The evidence shows the landlord sought to progress with the repair in a reasonable timeframe, but due to poor information management the repair did not go ahead in November 2022. This was a failing in its handling of the matter that inconvenienced the resident. She was further inconvenienced by the need to chase the landlord about the repair in order for it to progress the matter.
  4. The landlord used its stage 1 complaint response to apologise to the resident, and offered compensation for its handling of the repairs up to that point. It also set out when the repair would go ahead. This was reasonable in the circumstances and evidence it sought to learn from the outcomes of the case, and put things right.
  5. The evidence shows that the landlord completed the fence post repair on the date it said it would (18 May 2023), but it did not progress with the paving slab repair at the time. This is further evidence that the landlord’s information management around the repairs was poor. The landlord’s oversight of its contractors was poor and can reasonably be concluded to have contributed to the delays in completing the repairs.
  6. The landlord’s stage 2 complaint response appropriately apologised for its handling of the repairs and offered compensation for the delays after it issued its stage 1 response. The stage 2 complaint response lacked detail about the repairs it planned to do. It is reasonable to conclude that the lack of detail and clarity in its stage 2 response contributed to the confusion later on. Had it set out what repairs it planned to do, in detail, this would have helped manage the resident’s expectations.
  7. The evidence shows that the landlord failed to attend to the repair on 18 August and 17 October 2023. It is noted the landlord recorded the 18 August 2023 visit as a “no access” appointment, but it has provided no evidence to corroborate this claim. The resident disputed this and said her husband had taken the day off work for the appointment. Considering the landlord’s overall poor communication and lack of supporting evidence it was unable to access the property, it is reasonable to conclude it failed to attend the appointment. It is noted that it did attempt to complete the repair on 2 November 2023, but was unable to due to a storm. This was outside of the landlord’s control.
  8. The landlord’s contractor replaced 1 slab in December 2023. The resident was evidently frustrated with this as she was of the view the whole path needed re laying. The evidence shows that the landlord chased its contractor for its position on the repair in December 2023, and early 2024. The evidence shows it received limited responses. It is unclear why it did not inspect the path at that time to decide what works were needed, particularly as its contractor provided limited responses. That it did not do so contributed to the delay and increased the detriment experienced by the resident. She was further inconvenienced by the need to regularly chase the landlord’s for updates around this time.
  9. The landlord did inspect the pathway in April 2024 and agreed to re lay it. This was a reasonable approach. Had it done so earlier this may have reduced the inconvenience the resident experienced. The landlord progressed with the repair within a reasonable timeframe after its inspection of April 2024.
  10. The landlord offered the resident a total of £245 for its handling of the repairs. At the time of its final complaint response some of the repairs were outstanding and were not completed for nearly 10 months after its final complaint response. This impacts on the degree to which its offer of compensation put things right. We have determined there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the repairs.
  11. Our remedies guidance sets out that for findings of maladministration an order of compensation between £100 and £600 may be appropriate to put things right for the resident where they have been distressed and/or inconvenienced by the landlord’s errors. For the reasons set out above we have determined an order for a further £250 in compensation is appropriate to put things right for the resident.

 Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of repairs.

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks the landlord is ordered to:
    1. Apologise to the resident in writing for the failings identified in this report. The apology should be in line with the Ombudsman’s guidance on apologies, available on our website.
    2. Pay the resident £495 in compensation in recognition of the distress and inconvenience caused by errors in its handling of the resident’s reports of repairs. Its total offer of £245 should be deducted from this total if already paid.