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The Guinness Partnership Limited (202319243)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202319243

The Guinness Partnership Limited

17 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 the resident’s:
    1. Reports of safety issues in the kitchen.
    2. Associated complaint.

Background

  1. The resident was an assured tenant of landlord from March 2019 to June 2023. The property is a 3 bedroom, semi-detached house.
  2. In May 2023 the landlord inspected the property prior to the resident’s mutual exchange with another resident. It found that the kitchen was unsafe and needed to be replaced before the exchange could take place. The landlord later changed its position and allowed the exchange to take place before it installed a new kitchen.
  3. The resident contacted the landlord on 20 June 2023 about the outcome of the inspection. She said the landlord had visited the property many times to fix various issues during the 4 years she lived there. However, the landlord had never told her that she was living with an unsafe kitchen. The resident asked the landlord to log this as a formal complaint on 14 July 2023.
  4. The landlord issued its stage 1 complaint response on 1 August 2023. It said the resident had not raised the issues during her tenancy. It said the issues only came to light after it inspected the property before the mutual exchange. The landlord also confirmed that as the issues complained about happened over 6 months before the complaint was made, it had not investigated these concerns. However, the landlord acknowledged that there had been poor communication and a delay in it responding to the complaint. It offered a total of £75 compensation in recognition of these failings.
  5. The resident escalated her complaint on 7 August 2023. She said she had moved into the property via mutual exchange and at the time the landlord had not spotted the kitchen was unsafe. She said that during her tenancy the landlord had carried out multiple repairs, gas and electric safety checks. However, the landlord had not found that the kitchen was unsafe. The resident asked the landlord to explain why the issues with the kitchen were not identified when she moved in.
  6. The landlord issued its stage 2 response on 31 August 2023. It said that, due to the time that had passed, it was unable to find the inspection report from when the resident moved in. However, it said it had found the electrical safety test completed in January 2019 which confirmed there were no safety issues. It said that, therefore, it would not have known about the electrical issues until it inspected the property in May 2023. The landlord also acknowledged the communication and complaint handling issues it identified in the stage 1 response. It offered to increase the compensation offered for this from £75 to £100. The landlord also outlined what it had learnt from the resident’s complaint and what steps it had taken to address the identified failures.
  7. The resident contacted this Service on 31 August 2023. She confirmed that she wanted us to investigate the complaint and was seeking more compensation. She said the landlord’s compensation offer was not enough because she and her family had been living in a property with health and safety hazards. She also said that following the inspection results the landlord cancelled the exchange, but changed its mind a few days later. She said this led to a lot of time and money wasted.

Assessment and findings

Scope of this investigation

  1. As part of her complaint the resident has raised concerns that the health and safety issues were not found when her tenancy started in 2019. She also said that none of the contractors that attended during the time she lived at the property identified that the kitchen was unsafe. The Ombudsman may not consider complaints that were not brought to the attention of the landlord as a formal complaint within 12 months of the matters arising (reflected at paragraph 42.c of the Scheme). Therefore, as part of this investigation, the Ombudsman will only consider the landlord’s handling of the issues from July 2022 (12 months before the resident’s complaint in July 2023), up to the point the resident’s complaint completed the landlord’s internal complaints process (31 August 2023). Any events before or after that timeframe may be referred to for context but will not form part of this investigation.

Safety issues in the kitchen

  1. Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 places a statutory obligation on the landlord to keep the structure and exterior of the property in repair. The landlord also has a responsibility under the Housing Health and Safety Rating System, introduced by The Housing Act 2004, to assess hazards and risks within its rented properties.
  2. The landlord has confirmed in its complaint responses that it no longer has a copy of the inspection report from when the tenancy started in 2019. This is reasonable given the amount of time that had passed. However, it has been able to provide a copy of the electrical safety inspection report it carried out in January 2019. The report did not raise any concerns regarding the electrics at the property and found the overall condition of the installations to be satisfactory.
  3. Landlord’s are required to carry out repairs within a reasonable time. However, that obligation only starts at the point the landlord is made aware of the need for repairs, not before. The Ombudsman has not seen evidence that the resident made the landlord aware of any health and safety concerns with the kitchen before the inspection report from May 2023. Therefore, its obligation started from that point.
  4. The resident has said that following the inspection report the landlord cancelled the mutual exchange but then changed its mind a few days later. She has said that this led to a lot of time and money wasted. However, the Ombudsman has noted that the resident has not provided any details about or evidence of the costs incurred by the cancellation.
  5. The landlord has not explicitly explained why it cancelled the exchange following the inspection report. However, the Ombudsman has seen evidence which shows that, following the inspection report, the landlord had to review whether or not the exchange could go ahead before the kitchen was replaced. It was therefore appropriate for the landlord to have cancelled the exchange until a decision was made in this regard. In this instance, the landlord decided to continue with the exchange and replace the kitchen after the new tenant had moved in.
  6. The evidence seen by the Ombudsman shows that, following the resident’s initial contact with the landlord in June 2023, there were several failed call back attempts. This caused the resident unnecessary time, trouble and inconvenience as it led to her chasing the landlord for updates. In its complaint responses the landlord acknowledged that on 4 occasions it had failed to contact the resident within the agreed timeframes. In recognition of this communication failing the landlord offered a total of £75 compensation.
  7. Having taken into consideration the impact this had on the resident, the Ombudsman finds that the total amount of £75 offered for the poor communication is reflective and proportionate to the circumstances of the case. This is because the landlord’s failing did not have a lasting impact on the resident and it has compensated her for the inconvenience caused by poor communication. As such, the Ombudsman considers that the landlord has made an offer of redress which resolves its poor handling of reports of safety issues in the kitchen. Therefore, the Ombudsman has made a finding of reasonable redress.

Complaint handling

  1. The Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code) says complaints must be logged within 5 working days of the complaint being raised. The landlord’s complaints policy says it will respond to a stage 1 complaint within 10 working days of it being logged. It also says the landlord will respond to stage 2 complaints within 20 working days from the date of the escalation request. The policy says that should more time be needed at either stage, the landlord will inform the resident and an extension will not exceed a further 10 working days unless agreed. The policy timescales are in line with the Code.
  2. The Code also says landlords must address all points raised in a complaint and provide clear reasons for any decisions.
  3. The resident contacted the landlord on 20 June 2023. She said the landlord had visited the property many times to fix various issues during the 4 years she lived there. However, she said the landlord had never told her she was living with an unsafe kitchen. The landlord contacted the resident on 23 June 2023 and she agreed for this to be logged as a service failure with a call back. However, the resident confirmed she wanted this issue looked at as a formal complaint on 2 July 2023. She said the landlord had not contacted her following her initial contact about the inspection results. The records show the landlord then logged the complaint on 14 July 2023.
  4. The landlord has not explained why it took 9 working days to log the resident’s complaint. In the absence of this, the Ombudsman cannot reasonably conclude that there was a good reason for the delay. It then issued its stage 1 response on 1 August 2023, which was 12 working days after it logged the complaint. Overall, this caused a delay of 6 working days in the landlord issuing its stage 1 response. In its complaint responses the landlord acknowledged the delay in it issuing its stage 1 response. In recognition of this failing it offered the resident £25 compensation.
  5. The landlord issued its stage 2 response 18 working days after the resident escalated the complaint. This was within the timescales in its complaints policy and the Code. That said, it later wrote to the resident on 16 July 2024 following this Service’s involvement. It acknowledged that it had failed to address her safety concerns about the kitchen door, had failed to provide her with the requested repair logs and failed to explain that there would not be an inspection report as outlined in its mutual exchange policy. In recognition of these failings the landlord offered to increase the compensation to £100.
  6. The Ombudsman may make a determination of reasonable redress where a landlord has offered compensation that provides redress for failures and satisfactorily resolves the complaint. This is not the case where the landlord makes an offer of compensation after its complaints procedure. Redress should be prior to when the Ombudsman accepts a complaint for investigation and on the landlord’s own initiative. In this case, the landlord reconsidered its position following the Ombudsman accepting the case for investigation. Therefore, we will not make a finding of reasonable redress despite the landlord now offering proportionate compensation for the failings in its handling of the complaint. As such, the Ombudsman has made a finding of service failure and we have ordered the landlord to pay the compensation offered in its letter of 16 July 2024.

Determination (decision)

  1. In accordance with paragraph 53.b of the Scheme, there was reasonable redress by the landlord in respect of its handling of the resident’s reports about of safety issues in the kitchen.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was a service failure by the landlord in relation to its handling of the associated complaint.

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks of the date of this report the landlord must:
    1. Apologise to the resident for its failures. This written apology must be from a member of the landlord’s management team and should follow the Ombudsman’s apologies guidance on our website.
    2. Directly pay the resident the £100 compensation offered in its letter of 16 July 2024.
  2. The landlord is to reply to this Service to provide evidence of compliance with these orders within the timescales set out above.

Recommendation

  1. If the landlord has not already done so, it should directly pay the resident the £75 compensation offered in its stage 2 response. The Ombudsman’s reasonable redress determination is made on the basis that this amount is paid.
  2. The landlord should write to this Service within 4 weeks of the date of this report to set out its intentions regarding the above recommendation.