Cornwall Council (202225892)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202225892

Cornwall Council

13 September 2024

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:
   1. The resident’s reports that neighbours were repairing cars on the street.
   2. The associated formal complaint.

Background

2. The resident is the secure tenant of the property owned by the landlord. It is a house on a cul de sac (the street) in which the landlord owns most of the houses. There is a communal parking area at the end.
3. The resident first reported neighbours repairing cars on the street some years before the events set out in this report. On 20 August 2021, he wrote to the landlord reporting that someone was working on their vehicle outside the property. The landlord replied 4 days later saying it would look into it. From late September onwards, he made frequent reports of neighbours repairing vehicles. He said this blocked parking spaces and pavements. He named several neighbours as the main culprits. A housing officer visited the street on 18 January 2021 and wrote to him to say they had not seen any evidence of “persistent repairs” but would continue to visit.
4. On 25 October 2021, the resident wrote to the landlord to complain formally that he had received no response about these reports. He continued to report further instances regularly.
5. The landlord provided its stage 1 complaint response on 18 March 2022. It said it had not replied sooner as it had treated his original complaint as a service request and had investigated his concerns. It said that tenants could not run car repair businesses in the road near their homes, but they could carry out works on their vehicles from time to time. Its officers had paid visits to the street and had seen no evidence to support his claims.
6. It is not clear when the resident asked to escalate his complaint to stage 2 of the landlord’s internal complaints procedure. However, the landlord provided its stage 2 complaint response on 26 October 2022. The review panel said it found no evidence to change its findings at stage 1. However, it said that there had been delays in its complaint process and so it offered him £25 and an apology.
7. The resident has continued to report to the landlord that his neighbours have been repairing vehicles on the street. He says he wants more compensation and for the landlord to prevent his neighbours from carrying out works on vehicles in the street.

Assessment and findings

The scope of the investigation

8. In cases relating to antisocial behaviour (ASB), it is not the Ombudsman’s role to determine whether ASB occurred. However, we can assess how a landlord has dealt with reports and complaints about ASB. We can also assess whether the landlord followed proper procedure and good practice and whether it behaved reasonably in the circumstances.

The resident’s reports that neighbours were repairing cars on the street

9. The landlord’s antisocial behaviour policy (the policy) mentions 2 categories of antisocial behaviour, harassment, and nuisance. Nuisance is less serious and includes actions such as major or persistent car repairs or running businesses which disturb neighbours.
10. The policy says that the landlord will respond to reports of nuisance within 5 working days. It aims to avoid conflict and will take responsive action where necessary. It will consider what action is appropriate and use appropriate means to resolve matters.
11. The landlord’s standard tenancy condition paragraph 4.15 says “you or any other person living in or visiting your home must not do major or persistent car repairs or park an illegal or unroadworthy vehicle in your garden, communal areas or on the road”.
12. The resident began to complain about car repairs on the street in August 2021. On 28 September 2021, he wrote to the landlord saying that “persistent car repairs” were a tenancy breach and asked it to take action. On 14 October 2021, he said that the repairs had been taking place for 30 continuous days and 2 neighbours were involved.
13. After a visit by a housing officer on 18 October 2021, the landlord wrote to the resident saying they had “found no evidence of persistent repairs”. The dictionary definition of “persistent” is “continuing to occur over a long period of time.” Therefore, the landlord could not say after 1 visit whether any repairs was persistent or not. This Service has seen no evidence of other visits by the landlord. Therefore, on the evidence seen, the landlord did not take sufficient steps to investigate.
14. In addition to the above, the Ombudsman has seen no evidence that the landlord took other steps to investigate the resident’s reports. It did not, for instance, interview alleged perpetrators. In its response to this Service’s request for information, the landlord said that it did not believe the reports amounted to ASB. As stated above, this Service will not decide whether persistent car repairs took place on the street. However, on the evidence, its initial investigation into the matter was inadequate.
15. Coincidentally, in October 2021, another neighbour reported to the landlord that someone had tampered with their vehicle on the street. It then sent out a letter to residents on 21 October 2021 saying that they must not tamper with vehicles. It added a warning against carrying out persistent car repairs. Therefore, despite not having investigated, it did take steps to address the resident’s concerns at this time.
16. However, after this date, the resident sent many emails to the landlord explaining that residents had ignored this warning letter and continued to carry out persistent repairs. This Service has seen no evidence that the landlord took any further steps to investigate his concerns.
17. An internal email written before the stage 1 response set out the landlord’s view. It said that it did not believe the resident and felt he had exaggerated his claims. As there is no evidence that it investigated, this was not a reasonable position to take.
18. The landlord said in the same email that the resident’s photographs “did not show anything particularly onerous”. By this, the landlord seems to have meant that they did not show “persistent” repairs. Again, a photograph, could not do so. The only way to check whether persistent repairs were occurring was to pay regular visits to the street. There is no evidence that it did so.
19. In its stage 1 response, the landlord stated that the purpose of tenancy condition 4.15 was to prevent people running a business on the street. It said residents could carry out some minor repairs on their cars without breaching their tenancy. However, it had no basis on which to say whether works on the street were minor and private or persistent or part of a business.
20. The landlord’s stage 2 response repeated that there was no evidence to support the resident’s claims. As it had carried out no further investigations this was to be expected.
21. The key to the investigation of ASB is gathering and preserving evidence in support of reports of ASB. The fact that the landlord does not seem, on the evidence, to have made efforts to gather evidence indicates that, overall, it did not take the matter seriously.
22. In order to gather the evidence required to either support or disprove the resident’s allegations, the landlord should have considered asking him to fill diary sheets setting out the times and duration of repairs. It could have asked officers to make regular visits to the street to see if car repairs taking place and provided him with a number to call if there was a particularly serious event taking place. It could have interviewed the resident to see what impact the ASB had upon him and interviewed neighbours to see if they admitted or denied his claims.
23. If the landlord had taken these actions, it would have been in a position either to take action against the neighbours or to explain to the resident why it would not do so. Its failure to provide evidence that it did so indicates that it did not act in line with best practice and was a failing on its part. And, for this reason, the resident continues to report similar events taking place in the street and believes that the landlord has failed to take appropriate actions.
24. This Service has therefore ordered the landlord to pay the resident a sum in recognition of its failures in line with our and the landlord’s guidance on remedies. We have also ordered it to carry out appropriate investigations to settle the matter.

The associated formal complaint

25. The landlord’s complaints policy in place at the time of these events said it would contact complainants within 3 days of receiving a complaint to check the details. It aimed to provide a complaint response within 10 working days. If the complainant was unhappy with this response, they could request a review by the tenant panel. It gave no timeframe for a stage 2 response.
26. This policy was not in line with paragraph 5.13 of the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code) which said landlords must respond at stage 2 within 20 working days. The landlord has since altered its policy to comply with the Code. For that reason, this Service has not ordered a service improvement.
27. The landlord says it initially failed to respond to the resident’s formal complaint because it treated it as a report of ASB. He often used the word “complain” when reporting his neighbours for working on vehicles so this could have led to some confusion. However, the complaint email said, “I wish to formally complain regarding a number of previous complaints made”. This was clearly a complaint, and the landlord should have treated it as such.
28. Further, on the evidence, within 2 weeks, the landlord understood that this was, in fact, a complaint. Even so, it did not provide its stage 1 complaint response until 18 March 2022, nearly 5 months later. When it provided this response, it offered no recognition of this delay in the form of compensation or an apology. This was not, therefore, an adequate complaint response.
29. The landlord did not provide the stage 2 complaint response until October 2022. This was a significant additional delay in complaint handling. It apologised for this delay and offered the resident £25 compensation, but the stage 2 response came a year after the original complaint, this did not remedy him for the landlord’s failure to respond sooner. This Service has ordered it to pay him a sum in compensation for this failure.

Determination

30. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in relation to its handling of:
    1. The resident’s reports that neighbours were repairing cars on the street.
    2. The associated formal complaint.

Orders and recommendations

31. Within 4 weeks of the date of this decision, the landlord must:
    1. Write and send the resident a letter of apology for the failures identified in this decision.
    2. Pay the resident a total of £300 inclusive of the £25 already offered consisting of:
       1. £150 for its handling of the resident’s reports that neighbours were repairing cars on the street.
       2. £150 for its handling of the associated formal complaint.
    3. Create an action plan in line with the suggestions set out above to investigate the resident’s reports of ASB and report back to this Service with its findings.