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Abri Group Limited (202314966)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202314966

Abri Group Limited

31 January 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 antisocial behaviour (ASB).
  2. The landlord’s handling of the complaint has also been considered.

Background

  1. The resident was an assured tenant of the landlord, living in a flat. He moved out of the property in January 2025. The resident has several health issues.
  2. On 18 October 2022, the resident reported noise disturbance from his neighbour, which was impacting his health. He said he had sent a letter to his neighbour, but the issues had since gotten worse. The landlord told the resident on 19 October 2022 that it was trialling a new way of managing noise nuisance reports and it would not investigate one-off incidents. It asked the resident to complete 2 weeks of diary sheets, and it would assess whether the noise was persistent. The resident sent the landlord an excel document of the noise reports on 3 February 2023 and said that the landlord had not sent the noise pack. 
  3. The resident raised a complaint on 20 February 2023 as he said the noise was getting worse. He said his neighbour deliberately made noise including slamming doors and windows and stamping. He said the issue was impacting his health.
  4. The landlord issued its stage 1 response on 13 June 2023. It recognised that it had not referred the resident’s reports to the community safety team within a reasonable timeframe once the resident had sent diary logs. It also apologised for the delay in providing diary sheets. It had visited the resident’s neighbour on 12 April 2023 and found that all the doors had soft closures so could not be slammed, and the floors were solid so noise would not transfer. It needed to install noise recording equipment, which had a 3–4-week waitlist. It had closed the ASB case, but it could reopen it if the resident accepted noise recording equipment. It offered £50 compensation for the time taken to raise the ASB case and £50 for the delay in processing the complaint.
  5. On 25 July 2023 the resident asked to escalate the complaint as he said the ASB was getting worse as the noise was increasing and he was being intimidated and racially abused by his neighbour’s partner.
  6. In the landlord’s stage 2 response on 21 September 2023, it acknowledged that it closed the ASB case without an agreed satisfactory outcome. It was not proactive at stage 1 as it put the responsibility on the resident to contact it to install noise recording equipment. The resident was next on the list for noise recording equipment, but it could not confirm the date it would be installed. It would review its handling of complaints and ASB cases. It offered £250 compensation as it did not handle the original complaint effectively to deliver an agreed conclusion.
  7. The resident referred the complaint to the Service as he remained dissatisfied with the landlord’s handling of his noise nuisance reports and that he had to move as a result of the issues.  He also said he lived in his car for a prolonged period to avoid the noise and the issues impacted his health.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. It is noted that the resident has continued to report ASB following the completion of the complaint. However, there is no evidence that the more recent issues have been referred to the landlord as part of the complaints process.
  2. In the interest of fairness, the scope of this investigation is limited to the issues that the landlord had an opportunity to consider as part of its internal complaint procedure. This is because the landlord needs to be given a fair opportunity to investigate and respond to any reported dissatisfaction with its actions prior to the involvement of the Service. Any new issues that have not been subject to a formal complaint can be addressed directly with the landlord and progressed as a new formal complaint if required. This is in line with paragraph 42a of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme which states we may not consider complaints which are made prior to having exhausted a member’s complaints procedure.
  3. The resident also said the landlord’s handling of the ASB impacted his health.  While the Ombudsman is sorry to hear this, it is beyond the expertise of the Service to determine a causal link between the landlord’s actions (or lack thereof) and the impact on health. Often, when there is a dispute over whether someone has been injured or a health condition has been made worse, the courts are better equipped to access and assess all the relevant evidence that can provide an expert opinion of the cause of any injury or deterioration of a condition. This would be a more appropriate and effective means of considering such an allegation and so should the resident wish to pursue this matter, he should do so via this route. This investigation will only consider whether the landlord acted in accordance with its policy / its legal obligations, and fairly in the circumstances.

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

  1. It is acknowledged that this situation has been distressing to the resident. The role of the Ombudsman is to consider whether the landlord responded to the resident’s reports of ASB in accordance with its relevant policies and procedures. This will include assessment of whether its actions were fair and reasonable in all the circumstances of the case. The landlord’s ASB policy considers noise, including shouting and banging doors, as ASB. The policy states that it can take actions including discussing allegations with the alleged perpetrator, warning letters, and mediation. It will obtain evidence of noise nuisance using diary sheets, a noise app, and installing noise recording equipment.
  2. The resident initially reported noise nuisance from the flat above on 18 November 2022, noting excessive TV volume. He said he had contacted his neighbour, but the noise had since increased. The landlord initially acted appropriately as it promptly responded the following day. It said that it would not accept one-off reports of noise nuisance, so the resident needed to complete diary sheets for 2 weeks. This was reasonable as the landlord would need to have evidence to assess whether the noise nuisance was persistent in order to determine whether it would constitute ASB. However, the landlord failed to provide the diary sheets or provide the resident with clear guidance on the next steps. As such, there was a delay in the landlord acting in line with its ASB policy.
  3. The resident emailed the landlord on 3 February 2023 as it had not sent the noise pack. He sent an excel document which recorded instances of the noise nuisance. As a result, there was a 3-month period of inactivity in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports. However, it is noted that there is no evidence that the resident chased the issue in the interim, so the landlord did not necessarily have the opportunity to identify its mistake at an earlier time. 
  4. Once the landlord received the diary sheets from the resident, it should have assessed whether the reported noise was ASB and then set out an action plan to the resident. The landlord told the resident on 15 February 2023 that it passed the case to its community safety team who would advise when he could start noise recordings. However, in its stage 1 response it said it did not refer the correspondence to the correct team until 27 February 2023. As such, there was a 16 working day delay. The landlord acknowledged this failing and said that it would provide further training to prevent a recurrence of the issue. This was appropriate as it demonstrated it learned from the outcome of the complaint.
  5. The resident visited the landlord’s office on 2 March 2023. If the landlord had promptly provided an action plan to manage the resident’s expectations, it may have prevented the resident incurring an unreasonable level of involvement to progress the issue. Furthermore, given the resident’s vulnerabilities, failing to provide an action plan was a missed opportunity to build trust and reassure the resident that his concerns were being taken seriously and to manage his expectations from the outset.
  6. The following day, the landlord provided the resident with instructions on how to use the noise app and provided diary sheets. It explained that the resident needed to record for 2 consecutive weeks and if he did not provide recordings, or they were insufficient, by 20 March 2023 then it would close the case. This would typically be a reasonable action to take as landlords require evidence of reported noise to assess whether it would constitute as statutory noise nuisance or general household noise. However, there is no evidence that the landlord had assessed the excel sheets he had already provided documenting the noise or that it explained why further evidence was needed. As a result, there may have been a missed opportunity to take action at the earliest possibility. It is unclear whether the resident subsequently provided the recordings within the designated timeframe.
  7. The landlord contacted the resident’s neighbour on 14 March 2023 to notify her that it had received noise reports and advised of the possible consequences for her tenancy. It then visited her on 12 April 2023. It inspected the doors and floors to assess whether they would transfer noise. It said that the doors could not slam as they had soft closing and were unable to shut due to the thickness of the carpet. Although this confirmed the neighbour would be unable to slam the doors and cupboards, it is not conclusive evidence to confirm that the resident was not experiencing noise nuisance from another source.
  8. It is of concern that the landlord did not visit the resident’s property to assess the level of noise. A member of the landlord’s staff said “I slammed my foot on the floor multiple times to see if any vibrations or noise could echo down to your property”. While it was somewhat appropriate that the landlord took such steps, it is unclear how it could determine with certainty that the noise did not transfer without witnessing it from the resident’s property, and there is no evidence that it did. Furthermore, by only visiting the neighbour, the landlord did not fairly take the resident’s lived experienced into account or consider his perception of the noise.
  9. The landlord contacted environmental health (EH) on 21 March 2023 and subsequently chased them to try and arrange a joint site visit. This was reasonable action to take in attempt to obtain further evidence. The landlord sent a letter to the resident on 18 May 2023. It apologised for the delay in contacting him and explained it had been waiting for an update from EH, but they had not responded. It shared the findings of the visit on 12 April 2023 and concluded that the neighbour was not causing noise nuisance due to the features of the property. It was closing the case and not taking any further action.
  10. When it became clear that the landlord was unable to progress the matter with EH within a suitable timeframe, it was reasonable that the landlord provided the resident with an update on the case and to manage his expectations about the likely outcome. However, it does not seem that the landlord considered all available options to investigate and resolve the resident’s reports before closing the case. EH subsequently told the landlord on 31 May 2023 that it did not think the noise reported by the resident was statutory noise and it found several discrepancies in the log sheets he provided.
  11. The landlord completed a joint visit with the police on 11 August 2023, which largely reiterated the findings from the 12 April 2023 visit. It concluded that the noise was the typical expected level from a flat. It noted that the resident was unable to use the noise app due to his disabilities.
  12. The landlord added the resident to the list for noise recording equipment on 23 May 2023, which was reasonable to obtain further evidence of the resident’s ongoing reports. It advised the resident in its stage 1 response on 13 June 2023 that there was a 3-4 week waiting list. The landlord was not accountable for the delays in installing the noise recording equipment as it was arranged by the council. With that said, while the landlord may not have been in a position to take any further action against the neighbour due to the lack of evidence prior to noise monitoring equipment, it should have kept the case open until it satisfied it had used all appropriate tools to investigate the noise reports.
  13. The noise monitoring equipment was installed on 2 November 2023. The landlord told this Service it closed the case on 24 January 2024 as it did not identify any noise nuisance in the recordings. It noted that the noise was reasonable for day-to-day living, sporadic, and did not meet the threshold to be considered a nuisance.
  14. If the noise is not deemed a statutory nuisance, the landlord is limited in the actions it can take as it cannot take enforcement action. However, it should consider whether any alternative steps are appropriate. The Ombudsman’s Spotlight Report on Noise Complaints ‘Time to be heard’ published in October 2022 sets out that landlords should establish whether or not there is noise nuisance and, if so, whether the cause is noise transference on account of the structure of the building or antisocial behaviour. The Service considers that a landlord needs to have two distinct policies – one for good neighbourhood management and one for issues that meet the ASB threshold.  It should then follow the appropriate policy and associated procedures to deal with the matter.
  15. A good neighbourhood management policy should have clear processes including mediation, which should be offered to residents at the earliest opportunity in an attempt to establish a mutual understanding of each other’s lifestyles. In this case, the landlord determined the noise was general living noise, but it could have considered options to improve the relationship between the resident and his neighbour. The landlord missed an opportunity by not offering mediation until November 2023, a year after his initial report. By this time, the relationship between the parties had largely deteriorated, and the resident declined mediation. It would have been reasonable for the landlord to have considered such action at an earlier date. Similarly, the landlord referred the resident to victim support on 11 December 2023, which again should have been considered at an earlier date.
  16. In view of the evidence, the landlord has completed a thorough investigation into the noise and determined it to be general living noise and no further action to be required. However, as identified in this report there were several missed opportunities to investigate the matter at an earlier time, it closed the case before taking all appropriate action to investigate the resident’s reports, and there was a delay in taking action to improve the relationship between the resident and his neighbour. As a result of the landlord’s failings, the resident incurred additional time and effort in chasing the issue and he likely felt the landlord was not taking his concerns seriously.
  17. The landlord offered £50 compensation in its stage 1 response for the time taken to raise the ASB case and it offered £250 compensation in its stage 2 response as it recognised it had not handled the complaint effectively or delivered an agreed conclusion. Where the landlord admits failings, 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 assesses 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.
  18. The landlord largely appropriately acknowledged and redressed its failings. The landlord’s compensation policy states that it will award £100-£199 compensation in cases where the customer has suffered unreasonable inconvenience or been the subject of repeat service failures. It provides upholding a complaint about handling of noise nuisance as an example of a failure that falls within this bracket. It therefore exceeded the requirements of its compensation policy. The compensation was also in line with the Service’s remedies guidance as it states that such amounts are appropriate in cases where the landlord’s failure adversely impacted the resident. It therefore reasonably redressed the failings which it identified.
  19. However, the resident also raised concerns about racial abuse, which the landlord has not appropriately addressed. In his complaint escalation on 25 July 2023 the resident reported that the ASB was getting worse, and he had been racially abused. This is a serious allegation which the landlord should have promptly investigated. There is no evidence to suggest that the landlord took appropriate steps such as talking to the resident’s neighbour about the report. The landlord also did not address the issue in its complaint response or explain if it deemed no further action was necessary. Its response to this report was wholly unreasonable and it has not acknowledged its failings in its handling of the ASB case. It appears that it was a one-off incident, rather than ongoing harassment, which somewhat mitigates the impact of the landlord’s failure on the resident. As the landlord failed to address this element of the resident’s complaint, it is ordered to pay the resident a further £100 compensation as it did not acknowledge the failing or put things right.

Complaint handling

  1. In accordance with the landlord’s complaints policy, it should respond to stage 1 complaints within 10 working days and stage 2 complaints within 20 working days.
  2. The resident raised a complaint on 20 February 2023 and the landlord did not issue its stage 1 response until 13 June 2023. This exceeded the landlord’s response timeframe by 67 working days, which was an unreasonable delay. The resident then requested to escalate the complaint on 25 July 2023. The landlord did not log the stage 2 request until 16 August 2023. It issued its stage 2 response on 21 September 2023, which was 22 working days outside of its response timeframe. The delays prevented the resident from getting a resolution to the substantive issue at an earlier date and delayed his referral rights to the Service for independent review.
  3. The landlord offered £50 compensation at stage 1 for the delay in responding to the complaint. It did not recognise the delays at stage 2. The compensation offered was not proportionate to the length of the delays. In accordance with the Service’s remedies guidance, the landlord should pay the resident an additional £100 compensation for the delays as the offer of compensation made did not reflect the detriment to the resident.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of ASB.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the complaint.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

  1. In addition to the £350 compensation already offered, the landlord must pay the resident:
    1. £100 compensation for failing to address the resident’s report of racial abuse.
    2. £100 compensation for the delays in its complaint handling.
  2. Within 4 weeks of this report, the landlord must provide evidence to the Service that it has paid £550 compensation to the resident.

Recommendations

  1. It is recommended that the landlord reviews the Ombudsman’s spotlight report on noise nuisance and considers whether it would be appropriate to revisit some of the recommendations. This should include consideration on whether it should implement a good neighbourhood management policy.
  2. The landlord should review its handling of noise nuisance complaints to ensure it actions reports within a reasonable timeframe, and it utilises all reasonable investigation tools before closing the case.