Clarion Housing Association Limited (202320826)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202320826

Clarion Housing Association Limited

25 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

The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of:
1. Theft of the resident’s belongings from his van.
2. Request for CCTV footage relating to theft of the resident’s belongings.
3. Repair issues to the CCTV and communal gate.
4. The complaint.

Background

The resident is an assured tenant of a 2 bedroom property since August 2011.
Between 2021 and 2022 there were several repair issues with the gates to the secure car park to the resident’s building and the landlord raised numerous jobs to repair them.
On 5 July 2022 the resident told the landlord between 11PM on 30 June 2022 and 1 July 2022, someone broke into his van while parked in the secure car park. They stole all his work tools, and he could not work until he replaced the tools. He said the gates broke on several occasions and the landlord did nothing in terms of arrests. He assumed the CCTV cameras worked, and asked the landlord what measure it took to rectify the issue.
The resident chased his complaint with the landlord between August 2022 and November 2022. Internally the landlord asked for the complaint to be logged on 2 November 2022. It also asked the resident on 14 December 2022 for details of the theft and his ideal outcome. He responded on 29 December 2022 and reiterated his complaint. He also asked if it could refer him to someone in relation to compensating or replacing his tools. This was because he felt the lack of security made the theft possible.
The landlord provided its stage 1 response on 17 January 2023 and:
1. Apologised for the distress and inconvenience the resident suffered because of the theft.
2. Said it had actively attended to repair the gate multiple times throughout 2022 but usually within days of the repair, the gate was vandalised and broken again.
3. Advised it would also have been able to provide the CCTV footage had it received the request within 2 weeks of the incident occurring. It could not do so anymore as he had requested this out of time, and it only stored the footage for 2 weeks.
4. Told him he could claim from his content’s insurance for the stolen items in his van. If he did not have contents insurance, he could claim from its insurer. It then explained the insurance process to the resident
5. Explained it did not believe there had been an active service failure, and the repeated vandalism was outside of its control. As such it would not uphold his complaint.
6. In recognition of the delays involved in his complaint it offered £50 for providing its response outside of its timeframes.
The resident escalated his complaint on 18 January 2023. He said it deeply offended him as its information was incorrect. He did not say he requested the video in the past 2 weeks. He reported to both the landlord and the police on 1 July 2022, and 2 weeks later the police told him that the monitors were not working, therefore the police could not retrieve the recordings. Secondly, the gate being damaged was something it needed to rectify, be it every day or otherwise consider he paid for that. He asked, if the cameras were working, how was it that the gate became damaged, and no one received punishment. He said Its £50 compensation offer was an insult.
The landlord provided its stage 2 response on 4 April 2023 and acknowledged that it provided incorrect information around the resident’s CCTV request as both his and the police’s requests were in time. There was a defect in the capture device which it only found when it looked to download the CCTV images. It also apologised for the incorrect information provided around the insurance claim and inconvenience caused as he could not claim from its insurance. Based on its failings it offered the resident £350 in compensation. It broke this down as:
1. £50 offered in its previous response.
2. £250 for the time taken to resolve the complaint, inconvenience suffered or a degree of disruption to the household, misdirection by giving contradictory, inadequate or incorrect information.
3. £50 for its response outside of published timeframes.
The resident brought his complaint to the Ombudsman on 11 October 2023. He explained the situation and the effects on him and his finances, his family and colleague who also had their tools in his van. He said the landlord did not engage with him throughout the process, nor did it consider the impact on him or his colleague. He said he wanted the landlord to compensate him and his colleague for the loss of their tools which were stollen due to poor security. He also said the landlord recent work to rectify the security of the car park was a sign and admission of their failure to provide security for residents.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

The resident has raised concerns about the impact of the situation on his health. He had also raised concerns about loss of earnings. However, the Ombudsman is unable to consider this. The Ombudsman is unable to draw conclusions on the causation of, or liability for, any impact on health or loss of earning. The courts must decide on personal injury and loss of earnings claims as they can consider medical evidence, the circumstances, and make legally binding findings. However, the Ombudsman will consider the general distress and inconvenience the situation may have caused the resident.
The resident identified that the solution he sought was for the landlord to compensate him and his colleague for the loss of their tools. That is not a remedy which is within our powers to provide. The resident may wish to seek independent legal advice around his desired outcome.

Theft of the resident’s belongings from his van

The resident informed the landlord of the theft of his belongings, and it informed him this was a matter for insurance. This was a suitable approach for the landlord to take to try to aid and resolve the matter. However, the landlord incorrectly informed him that he could claim from its insurance. It acknowledged its mistake in its complaint response and offered the resident compensation. Its offer of compensation was reasonable, and based on this the Ombudsman finds that there was reasonable redress.

Request for CCTV footage relating to theft of the resident’s belongings

The landlord told us that the resident requested the CCTV footage at the beginning of a cyber-attack. As such it has limited records of the resident’s contact. It appropriately acknowledged that it provided incorrect information to the resident around his request for CCTV footage in its stage 2 response. It explained it could not provide the footage due to damage to the capture device. It explained the reason it was unaware of the issue was because nobody manned the CCTV device. It only discovered the issue when it attended to retrieve the footage.
The landlord also explained to the Ombudsman that a parking enforcement company monitored the parking through CCTV. It is unclear if this was the same CCTV which was broken, or if the enforcement company had their own cameras. It contacted them on 13 July 2022 for any footage, but the outcome of the request is unclear. It is also unclear if the landlord explained this to the resident. It acknowledged to the Ombudsman that it has no evidence that it followed this or addressed it in its complaint response, and this could be viewed as a service failure.
The landlord’s policy says it will say sorry to put things right and also award compensation of £50 to £250 where there has been a service failure resulting in some impact on the resident. In this instance the landlord has recognised its service failure around the incorrect information. To put things right, it offered the resident compensation of £250 which includes this element of the complaint. It however did not recognise its failure to follow up with the enforcement company around whether they had any footage which it could provide to the resident.
The landlord also did not recognise that it did not appropriately communicate with the resident. Based on this, the Ombudsman finds that there was a further service failure and orders the landlord to pay the resident added compensation.

Repair issues to the CCTV and communal gate.

CCTV

The landlord explained to us that it does not have a process for CCTV servicing. It became aware that the CCTV had broken following the resident’s request and its attendance at the site. Its evidence shows that it raised repairs for the CCTV on 17 July 2022. It also raised them again the following day and asked for the repair to be dealt with as urgent.
The landlord confirmed it received a quote for the work on 27 July 2022. It then chased for the quote and instructed its contractor. According to the landlord’s records they “attended for the quoted works” on 28 February 2023. Although the contractors attended, it is unclear if they fixed the CCTV at this time. Nevertheless this represents a delay of over 7 months in total, and this was unreasonable.

Communal gate

The landlord’s repairs policy says that it should categorise repairs to communal areas dependent upon the nature of the work (emergency which it will attend to within 24 hours to make safe or complete a temporary repair. It will complete non-emergency within 28 days). It says that it should complete repairs within 28 days.
The landlord explained to us that the gates were not meant as a security measure for the car park. The evidence shows that there were known repair issues with the gate to the car park. It shows that the landlord raised several repairs to fix the issue. It raised 3 requests on 8 April 2022 and its contractor attended to one of these on 14 June 2022 and it said it left the gate in working order. It also attended to another one of these jobs on 28 June 2022 a few days prior to the theft. This is a delay of over 1 month in attending to the repairs and it is unclear why. There is however no evidence that this delay caused a detriment to the resident at the time as he continued to use the car park.
The landlord’s records also show that it completed all the works it raised on 8 April 2022 on 6 October 2022, 5 months outside of its repair’s timeframe. It has provided no explanation on what caused the delay. Despite this however, the Ombudsman is unable to draw a conclusion that the repair issues with the gate led to or contributed to the theft of tools from the resident’s van.
The landlord raised further works in relation to the gate on 15 June 2022 due to further damage. Its records show that it attended the following day, and then completed works in relation to this report on 22 July 2022. Its records do not explain whether its attendance on 16 June 2022 was an emergency appointment. However, it should have completed the repair by 13 July 2022. This means there was a 9 day delay in the landlord completing the repair and this was not in keeping with its policy.
We also asked for further information to show that the landlord kept residents informed around the delays to both repairs. It provided us with evidence that it wrote to residents in relation to parking enforcement beginning, and an introduction letter from the parking enforcement contractor. It has not shown that it specifically addressed the delays in repairing the CCTV or gate and this was inappropriate.
In summary, there were delays in the landlord’s handling of the repairs and its communication. Based on this the Ombudsman finds that there was service failure. The landlord awarded the resident compensation of £250 in its stage 2 response.
This was in relation to the time taken to resolve the complaint, inconvenience, and misdirection. Its compensation offer does not address any of the failings found in this report. As such, we order that the landlord pay the resident added compensation.

The complaint.

The landlord operated a 2 stage complaints process. It said it would acknowledge and log a complaint within 10 working days and aimed to respond to stage 1 complaints within 20 working days. This was due to a cyber-attack which affected its service provision. It aimed to respond at stage 2 within 40 working days. Where it was unable to do so, it would provide the reasons for the decision and manage expectations. If needed it would provide an action plan (at stage 1) outlining what it intended to do and if possible, a timeline on when it would provide a full response.
The resident raised his complaint on 5 July 2022. It should have logged and acknowledged the complaint by 19 July 2022, and we have seen no evidence it acknowledged the complaint. According to the landlord’s notes, it did not log the complaint until 3 November 2022. This was unreasonable and is a delay of 76 working days.
The landlord acknowledged that there were delays in its response to the resident’s complaint across both its responses. It awarded the resident £50 compensation at stage 1 for its delay in responding. As stage 2 it offered an additional £50 for responding outside of its timescales. The landlord also offered an additional £250 and in its description of what this was for the landlord referred to the time taken to resolve the complaint. It is not clear if this means the substantive matters or the complaints process. While appropriate that it acknowledged the delays, this offer of compensation does not appropriately reflects the level of detriment faced by the resident.
This is because there was a 116 working day delay at stage 1, 14 working day at stage 2. The delays were outside of landlord’s policy time frames, and the resident also chased the landlord on several occasions at stage 1. Its offer at stage 1 does not adequately reflect the level or delay. Its offer of £50 would be sufficient for the 14 working day delay at stage 2.
In summary, there were significant delays at stage 1 of the landlord’s process with logging, acknowledging and responding to the complaint. There were also delays at stage 2. However, its offer at stage 1 does not adequately reflect the level of delay, or inconvenience to the resident. The explanation for the £250 does not specify how much relates to each failing identified and is therefore unclear. Based on this, the Ombudsman finds that there was service failure. Based on the above, we order that the landlord pay the resident added compensation for the failings identified.

Determination (decision)

In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was:
1. Service failure with the landlord’s handling of:
  1. The request for CCTV footage relating to theft of the resident’s belongings.
  2. Reports of repair issues to the CCTV and communal gate.
  3. The complaint.
In accordance with paragraph 53.b. of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was reasonable redress with the landlord’s handling of theft of the resident’s belongings from his van.

Orders

Within 4 weeks of this report the landlord must:
1. Provide the resident with an apology for the failings found in this report.
2. Pay the resident compensation of £600. This is inclusive of its previous offer of £350 and we break this down as:
  1. £200 for its handling of the resident’s request for CCTV footage.
  2. £200 for delays and communication issues with its handling of the CCTV and communal gate repairs.
  3. £200 for its complaint handling failings.
3. Provide proof compliance with these orders.