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Clarion Housing Association Limited (202323615)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202323615

Clarion Housing Association Limited

21 March 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:
    1. A compensation payment offered in a previous complaint.
    2. The associated complaint.

Background

  1. The resident is the leaseholder of the property, a ground floor flat. He has held the lease for approximately 25 years.
  2. In 2022 the resident raised a formal complaint with the landlord, which was finalised at stage 1 of its internal complaint process on 28 November 2022. The landlord offered the resident £150 compensation as a resolution to his complaint.
  3. On 30 June and 29 August 2023, the resident contacted the landlord to express his dissatisfaction that the compensation had not been paid. He received no response. On 10 October 2023, the resident tried to submit a complaint to the landlord online, but the landlord’s website would not allow it. He contacted the landlord again on 26 October 2023 and his complaint was recorded.
  4. The landlord issued its stage 1 complaint response on 21 December 2023 and apologised for the delay. The landlord said:
    1. The resident had refused the compensation payment in January 2023 and the payment had been closed down.
    2. When the resident later requested to be paid, a new payment was raised and was credited to his service charge account in November 2023.
    3. The resident’s letters had been received but were recorded on the system incorrectly and were not forwarded to the correct teams to action. The landlord apologised for the error.
    4. Further training had been provided to all involved to prevent the same mistake occurring in the future.
    5. It offered the resident £150 compensation, made up of:
      1. £100 for the time and trouble in pursuing the outstanding compensation.
      2. £50 for the delay in handling his complaint.
  5. The resident escalated his complaint with the landlord on 17 January 2024. He said he was unhappy with the outcome and level of compensation offered. The landlord responded at stage 2, on 19 February 2024, and said:
    1. It was satisfied that the information contained in its previous response was accurate, fair, and in line with its policies and procedures.
    2. It offered the resident an additional £100 compensation in recognition of its identified failures.
  6. The resident remains dissatisfied and brought the complaint to us.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. In his correspondence with this Service, the resident has raised matters that have not been through the landlord’s complaint process. The resident also had wider concerns about the landlord’s operating practices that are not included in this complaint. In the interest of fairness, the scope of this investigation is limited to matters that completed the landlord’s internal complaints procedure on 19 February 2024. This is because the landlord needs to be given a fair opportunity to investigate and respond to any reported dissatisfaction with its actions before the involvement of this Service.

Compensation payment

  1. In the landlord’s original stage 1 response, dated 28 November 2022, it informed the resident that he would be contacted within 28 days to arrange the payment to be made. When it contacted the resident on 23 January 2023, the landlord’s notes recorded the resident had refused the payment and the payment was then closed down. This was a reasonable action for the landlord to take.
  2. On 13 February 2023, the resident emailed the landlord and requested the compensation was paid. The landlord acknowledged his request the following day. The resident chased the landlord on 5 April 2023 after hearing nothing back from it.
  3. The landlord’s internal notes suggest it was aware the payment was outstanding on 30 April 2023, and it had been passed to the complaints team to deal with. In his letter to the landlord dated 30 June 2023, the resident said the compensation payment was still outstanding and he would not be making further service charge payments until his account had been credited with the compensation. He included an email trail, dated from to January to June 2023, which referred to the outstanding compensation.
  4. The resident wrote to the landlord again on 29 August 2023 to chase the outstanding payment and received no reply. He attempted to contact the landlord via its online complaint form on 10 October 2023, but his request would not submit. The resident contacted the landlord again on 26 October 2023 and the outstanding compensation payment was made on 15 November 2023.
  5. The resident agreed to the compensation in February 2023 and the landlord’s records confirmed it was aware the payment remained outstanding in April 2023. The resident could have reasonably expected to be contacted within 28 days, as per the original stage 1 response, for the payment to be made. This did not happen, and the compensation payment was made 8 months late, after multiple attempts by the resident to chase it.
  6. The landlord’s complaint responses acknowledged the delays involved, it apologised and demonstrated it had learnt from the failures by implementing training for those involved. The landlord also offered a total of £200 compensation for the failings in dealing with his previous compensation payment.
  7. In relation to the failures identified, the Ombudsman’s role is to consider whether the redress offered by the landlord put things right and resolved the resident’s complaint satisfactorily in the circumstances. In considering this, the Ombudsman takes into account whether the landlord’s offer of redress was in line with the Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles: be fair, put things right, and learn from outcomes, as well as our guidance on remedies. 
  8. The Ombudsman’s Remedies Guidance suggests that an award of £200 may remedy maladministration where there was a failure that had a significant impact on the resident. Considering the delays with the compensation being paid, the poor communication, the apologies made and the offer of compensation, there was reasonable redress in relation to the landlord’s handling of the compensation payment. 

Complaint handling

  1. The landlord’s complaints policy sets out the timescales in which the landlord will deal with complaints:
    1. It will acknowledge and record a complaint within 2 working days.
    2. It will issue a stage 1 response within 10 working days from when the complaint was recorded.
    3.  It will issue a stage 2 response within 20 working days from the request to escalate the complaint.
  2. In his letter to the landlord dated 30 June 2023, the resident expressed his dissatisfaction regarding the outstanding compensation payment. He attached an email trail, which he said referred to him chasing the payment. It should have been clear to the landlord, that his letter was not a service request, and he was unhappy having to make repeated contact to resolve the matter.
  3. The landlord’s complaint policy defines a complaint as an expression of dissatisfaction, however made, about the standard of service, actions, or lack of action by the organisation, its own staff, or those acting on its behalf, affecting a resident. It further states that the word “complaint” does not need to be used, and when a resident expresses dissatisfaction, it will give them the choice to make a complaint. The landlord did not offer the resident this or acknowledge his dissatisfaction. This was unreasonable.
  4. The resident wrote to the landlord again on 29 August 2023 and received no response. He also tried to complain to the landlord through its website on 10 October 2023 but experienced technical difficulties when he tried to submit his request. The landlord’s complaints policy states that a complaint be made in a number of ways, including by letter or through its website. In this case, the resident tried to complain by letter and the website, both of which were ineffective.
  5. The resident contacted the landlord again on 26 October 2023. The landlord acknowledged and recorded his complaint 5 working days later, in line with its policy.
  6. The landlord contacted the resident on 1 December 2023 and apologised for the delay in its response. It explained it was waiting for further information to finalise its response. The landlord issued its stage 1 complaint response on 21 December 2023, 35 working days after it had acknowledged the resident’s complaint and 25 working days later than the timescales set out in its policy. The response acknowledged the delay and offered £50 compensation.
  7. The resident escalated his complaint with the landlord on 17 January 2024. The landlord issued its stage 2 response on 19 February 2024, in line with its policy. This was appropriate.
  8. While the landlord acknowledged the delay to issuing the stage 1 response, and offered appropriate redress, neither response acknowledged the failure to record the resident’s complaint at an earlier stage, despite his repeated expressions of dissatisfaction. This failure led to a delay of 4 months in the resident’s complaint being recorded, further time and trouble on the resident’s part to get his complaint recorded and prolonged the time taken to resolve his substantive complaint. The landlord’s failure to acknowledge this impact was unreasonable.
  9. This leads to a determination of maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling. An order has been made for the landlord to pay £100 to the resident for the inconvenience, time and trouble caused. This is in line with the Ombudsman’s Remedies Guidance where the failure adversely affected the resident, and the landlord did not acknowledge the failing.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 53.b. of the Scheme, there was reasonable redress in the landlord’s handling of the compensation payment.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling.

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks of the date of this report, the landlord must:
    1. Provide the resident with a written apology for the failings identified in this report.
    2. Pay direct to the resident £100 compensation for its failures in complaint handling. This sum should not be offset against service charge arrears if they exist.