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Clarion Housing Association Limited (202312853)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202312853

Clarion Housing Association Limited

29 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:
    1. Reports of poor cleaning, caretaking and maintenance of the property and its surrounds.
    2. Associated formal complaint.

Background

  1. The resident is the secure tenant of the property, which is a flat in a block of flats (the block) owned and maintained by the landlord, a housing association. The resident had reported concerns about ground maintenance, caretaking and cleaning in the common parts of the block and its surroundings for some time.
  2. On 19 May 2022, the resident made a complaint to the landlord that it was not maintaining the raised flowerbeds outside the block or cleaning the block and removing rubbish often enough. She also alleged that it had not told her when the caretaker went on holiday and failed to arrange cover while they were away.
  3. In the landlord’s stage 1 response of 26 May 2022 it said the block was cleaned weekly and checked monthly, which it found to be appropriate. It said the greenery was not overgrown and it had no duty to inform the resident when the caretaker went on holiday. However, it had arranged for someone to provide cover while they were away.
  4. The resident escalated her complaint to stage 2 on 31 May 2022 and chased for a response on 16 June 2022
  5. In the landlord’s stage 2 response of 12 April 2023, it advised that the caretaking and cleaning were completed to a good standard. It accepted there were weeds around the block and that fly tipping was a problem but said it was taking action to deal with these issues. It had arranged for new plants in the raised beds outside the block to discourage fly tipping. It apologised for the delayed response and offered to pay £300 into the resident’s rent account for this delay.
  6. The resident was not satisfied with this response and asked us to investigate. She said she wanted increased compensation and for it to be paid to her directly rather than into her rent account.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. The resident first raised similar concerns, and associated complaints, some years before the events set out above. While we understand her frustration, we will normally only investigate complaints brought to a landlord within a reasonable time of the issues arising. The evidence shows the resident did not raise the matter with the landlord for some time before February 2022, so this investigation focuses on events from early 2022 onwards.

Cleaning, caretaking and maintenance of the property and its surrounds

  1. The landlord has provided its caretaking job specification for the block and its surrounds. This says the caretaker will carry out tasks such as mopping, sweeping, cleaning front entrances, removing cobwebs, sweeping external paths and litter picking on a weekly basis. It has also provided cleaning and caretaking job records covering the period between February 2022 and February 2024 which show that cleaning activities did take place in line with the job specification over the relevant period.
  2. The landlord has also sent an incomplete set of inspection reports for the block which show that it was inspected in most months over the relevant period and found to be at an acceptable standard. We understand the resident did not agree with this judgment, but that is a difference of opinion which we cannot resolve.
  3. The landlord has also provided a ground maintenance job specification which sets out its ground maintenance duties. These included pruning and weeding the raised beds and sweeping and maintaining the paths and hard standings. Maintenance includes the application of weed killer to “paths, footways, drying area, bin stores, mowing strips, car parks, roadways, etc.” The landlord has also provided ground maintenance records to show that it made numerous visits to the block over the relevant period on a 2-weekly basis. However, as a manager stated in an internal email of 3 October 2023, while weed spraying was the responsibility of the ground maintenance team, weed removal was the job of the estate maintenance team. They accepted that “weeds and litter are a constant presence [there] in my experience”.
  4. The presence of weeds and litter are not, in themselves, evidence of service failure. The block is in an urban setting and it is clear from the evidence that litter is an issue in the wider area as well as at the block. Further, there are areas of grass and hard standing nearby that are the responsibility of the local council and not the landlord. However, it is also clear that the landlord did not have a clear system for weeding at the time of the complaint. It had to instruct the caretaker to clear weeds from hard standings in May 2023, which indicates he had not had to do it before then.
  5. The landlord’s stage 2 response of April 2023 also accepted that weeds growing out of hard standings were a problem, but simply said this was caused by climate change and did not acknowledge any failure to control them. While climate change may have contributed to the problem, this does not excuse the landlord’s failure to remove them. The landlord failed to recognise its responsibility for the matter in its complaint responses, to provide assurance that it had the matter in hand, or to offer compensation, which would all have been appropriate.
  6. The landlord’s ground maintenance specification also says the landlord should have weeded and maintained the raised beds around the block on a regular basis. The resident complained that it had failed to maintain them in May 2022. The landlord accepted in various emails over 2022 and 2023 that the beds were a fly tipping hotspot and they needed replanting.
  7. The maintenance of the beds was a job for which the landlord recovered payment from residents through the service charge, so it decided to consult before replanting. The records show the landlord began internal discussions about replanting the beds in September 2022. The ground maintenance team said, in an email of 3 October 2022, this was a matter which had already been discussed the previous year with no decision having been made. The landlord put the matter to a vote in December 2022, the residents approved the replanting, and this was done in the spring of 2023.
  8. The resident, on learning of the replanting, told the landlord she had not been informed before it happened. While we cannot say if she was personally consulted, we are satisfied that appropriate consultation with residents in general was undertaken. However, it is clear this was a long-standing issue which the landlord failed to address promptly and the resident’s complaint was justified. There was a failure in service which the landlord should have recognised, and remedied, through the operation of its complaints process.
  9. The landlord says it relies on the Ombudsman’s guidance on remedies when calculating offers of monetary compensation. Our guidance says we would normally make offers in the region of £100 for findings of service failure. In this case, given the time scales involved, we have ordered £150 compensation to reflect the prolonged nature of the issues raised by the resident.

Complaint handling

  1. The landlord provided its stage 1 response within 5 working days of receipt, in line with its interim complaint handling policy (the policy) which was in use at the time. The policy required it to acknowledge complaints within 10 working days and reply at stage 1 within 20 working days of acknowledgment.
  2. The policy required the landlord to acknowledge a request to escalate a complaint to stage 2 within 10 working days and to provide a response within 40 working days. The landlord failed to meet these requirements. By its own admission, it failed to respond until chased in April 2023, almost a year after the escalation request. This was a clear failure in service which was understandably frustrating for the resident.
  3. In identifying whether there has been maladministration the Ombudsman considers both the events which initially prompted a complaint and the landlord’s response to those events. The extent to which a landlord has recognised and addressed any shortcomings and the appropriateness of any steps taken to offer redress are therefore as relevant as the original mistake or service failure. The Ombudsman will not make a finding of maladministration where the landlord has fully acknowledged any failings and taken reasonable steps to resolve them.
  4. In its stage 2 response the landlord acknowledged its failure in complaint handling and offered the resident £300 compensation. This sum is in line with the Ombudsman’s published remedies guidance for failings which adversely affect a resident, but which have no permanent impact. As such, the Ombudsman considers that the landlord has made an offer of redress which resolves its poor complaints handling satisfactorily.
  5. The Ombudsman notes that the time limits for acknowledgment and response to complaints at stages 1 and 2 set out in the policy are not in line with the requirements of our Complaint Handling Code (the Code). The Code says that acknowledgments at stage 1 and 2 must take place within 5 working days. Landlords should provide their stage 1 responses within 10 working days and their stage 2 responses within 20 working days. If this is not possible, they should inform residents and arrange a short extension.
  6. The policy does not, therefore, comply with the Code. However, these complaint responses were issued some time ago and orders have been made to the landlord in the interim to resolve this discrepancy. Therefore, no further orders are made in that regard.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was service failure in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of poor cleaning, caretaking and maintenance of the property and its surrounds.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 53.b of the Scheme, the landlord made an offer of reasonable redress in relation to its complaint handling.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks of the date of this decision, the landlord is ordered to provide evidence to this Service that it has:
    1. Sent a letter of apology for its ground maintenance failures to the resident.
    2. Paid the resident £150 compensation for those failings, to her personal account and not her rent account.

Recommendation

  1. Within 4 weeks of the date of this decision, the landlord is recommended to pay directly to the resident (and not to her rent account) the £300 compensation it offered in its stage 2 response, if it has not already done so. This offer recognised genuine elements of service failure, and the reasonable redress finding is made on that basis.