Clarion Housing Association Limited (202314235)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202314235

Clarion Housing Association 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 response to the resident concerning its handling of repairs to the front door.

Background

2. The resident is a tenant of the landlord. The property is a 3-bedroom house. The resident says his wife is disabled and uses a wheelchair, while the landlord’s records show no vulnerabilities recorded for the resident and his wife.
3. In August 2022, a new adapted front door was installed, which it is understood can be controlled remotely by the resident’s disabled wife.
4. In January 2023, a new handle was fitted, after 3 attendances and an incorrect handle being ordered, after a December 2022 report that the handle had come off and affected the resident’s ability to secure the door.
5. In February 2023, the resident reported that the door was not opening using the remote door entry system and that anyone could open the door without using a key. The contractor subsequently attended on 4 occasions, and they changed a lock motor, and identified that a new lock was required to resolve issues with opening the door from outside.
6. The resident complained on 15 May 2023. He was unhappy with the delays since raising the repair in February 2023, the contractor’s handling, and the amount of chasing he was having to do.
7. After a further attendance on 23 May 2023, the contractor changed the lock on 1 June 2023, however they noted that the door could still be opened from outside and a different handle was needed.
8. The landlord provided a stage 1 response on 6 June 2023. It acknowledged that the front door was not fully repaired after being reported in February 2023 and multiple visits. It said that parts were currently awaited to complete the repair, and the repair would be monitored and an appointment would be booked as soon as the parts arrived. It apologised for the delays and awarded £200 for inconvenience, household vulnerability, failure to follow process, repeat visits and the resident having to repeatedly chase.
9. On 6 and 10 June 2023, the resident raised dissatisfaction with the response.  He was unhappy with the compensation. He also said that this was not the first time that issues had been experienced with the contractor, and he had made the complaint in the hope that lessons would be learned from the complaint.
10. On 29 June 2023, a further repair was raised and the contractor attended in early July 2023. They made adjustments so that the door could not be opened from the outside, and noted that a pull handle was required rather than a lever handle.
11. The landlord provided a stage 2 response on 19 July 2023. It noted that the resident was unhappy as he did not feel it reflected all the problems experienced with its contractor since the door was installed. It explained that the door was installed by a separate door specialist, after which it was agreed that its contractor would be responsible for future repairs. It said that in recognition of the intermittent issues and service failures since the door was installed in August 2022, it had agreed to increase the period of time it was compensating for, and had awarded an additional £50 (£250 total).
12. The contractor attended on an unspecified date to replace the door handles, but they were unable to fit the ones brought as the fixing locations were not compatible with the door. The contractor attended again, where they did not gain access, and then completed the repair on 18 September 2023, after the resident reported that a previous appointment was missed and not communicated about in early September 2023.
13. The resident has raised dissatisfaction to the Ombudsman about how long the landlord took to resolve the problem reported in February 2023. He does not feel that the amount of compensation the landlord offered reflected the inconvenience and time and trouble caused by the amount of chasing he had to do.

Assessment and findings

14. The evidence shows that there were delays for a previous December 2022 report due to a wrong handle being ordered, before the February 2023 report. It is evident that after the February 2023 report, there were at least 4 attendances before a lock motor was changed. It was then identified on 1 June 2023 that a different handle was needed. However, a further repair was raised on 29 June 2023, after which it is understood an operative attended in early July 2023 and again noted a different handle was required. An operative then attended to replace handles, but the fixing locations in the handles ordered were not compatible for the door, and the repair was not fully completed until 18 September 2023.
15. The evidence shows that while the landlord was responsive and took action in response to the resident’s reports, there were a high number of operative attendances and chasers from the resident, a month delay following up a report that a different handle was required, and delays with ordering a handle to the correct specification for the resident’s door. This led to the overall repair taking almost 7 and a half months. It is not clear this compromised the security of the property, as the resident has indicated he was able to lock the door, but the delays and the lack of the full functionality of the door will have been frustrating to the resident and his disabled wife.
16. The landlord does not provide its mechanical repairs policy, but its repairs policy seems to class door entry repairs as “other repairs” for which no clear timeframe is given. However, the timeframe for standard responsive repairs to communal areas is 28 days, which seems a reasonable timeframe to expect issues such as a door to be resolved, given the nature of the issue. The almost 7 and a half months it took to fully complete the repair well exceeded this.
17. The landlord shows in its responses that it acknowledged delays and service issues, and the impact on the resident and his wife, which was appropriate given the four to five month delays at the time of the complaint responses. The total compensation of £250 reflects the landlord’s compensation policy for amounts considered applicable for failure to meet service standards, and the distress and inconvenience and time and trouble caused in relation to this, such as a complainant having to have unreasonable level of involvement. This shows it was appropriately seeking to put things right.
18. However, this does not address all the delays and issues. The repair took a further 2 months after the stage 2 response. The repair involved at least one further appointment that the resident reported was missed and he was not communicated effectively about. The landlord also does not demonstrate that it satisfactorily considered potential learning and if the repairs could have been handled better than they were.
19. The delays themselves could have involved some further scrutiny to review if there are any points at which the process involved could be faster. The errors evident suggest the issue could have been managed better, and more effective checks done to try to order the right parts first-time and in a timely manner. The contractor was also potentially in a position to locate information about the specification of the newly installed door, which may have been helpful towards trying to order the right parts first-time, given the door was only fitted around 5 months before the reports, by a subcontractor of the contractor.
20. Overall, while it is not evident that the delays had a wider significant impact, and the landlord went a long way to put things right, in the Ombudsman’s view this did not go far enough to acknowledge the further delays and all the frustration that will have been caused to the resident, by the handling of the repair and limited reassurances that similar issues will not happen again. This leads the Ombudsman to find a service failure in the landlord’s response about its handling of repairs to the front door.

Determination

21. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure in the landlord’s response to the resident concerning its handling of repairs to the front door.

Orders and recommendations

22. The landlord is ordered to, within 4 weeks, pay the resident £100 for the issues identified. This is in addition to the £250 it offered, which it should take steps to pay if it has not been paid already.
23. The landlord is recommended to review the case and consider any potential lessons learned with its contractor to try to avoid similar delays in future. As part of this, it could consider if a detailed version of the door specification can be located and recorded centrally, so this can be referred to if parts are required in future.
24. The landlord is recommended to liaise with the resident in respect to recording details of his household vulnerability on its files for reference, such as when repairs reports are raised, where the household vulnerability may be relevant to the priority allocated to the repair.