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Derby City Council (202222467)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202222467

Derby City Council

6 May 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 report that a member of staff had a key and could access his property, and his request for the locks to be changed.

Background

  1. The resident has occupied the property, a 2–bedroom flat, since 1989. The landlord is a council.
  2. In January 2022 the resident reported that a member of landlord staff had entered the property using a key. The landlord met with him on 17 February 2022 and said it would look in to the matter and update him with the outcome of its investigation.
  3. Following our intervention in December 2022, the landlord issued a stage 1 complaint response on 18 January 2023. It apologised for the delay in addressing the issue, noting that it had been raised in February 2022 but the investigating staff member had since moved. It said nobody had a key to the property. It noted he had reported the matter to the police, but no action was taken as there was no evidence of anyone accessing the property. It appreciated the resident was distressed so it said it would change the lock. It also offered to refer him to the Crime Prevention Team to see if there were any additional security measures it could provide to ensure he felt safe in his home.
  4. The resident escalated the complaint, via us, on 17 May 2023 and, following a visit to the property on 12 June 2023, the landlord issued its stage 2 response on 13 June 2023. It said the front door had been renewed in 2015 and it was still in good condition. It had changed the lock as agreed but the resident had rejected the offer of additional help regarding security. It would not be renewing the door or replacing the lock again. It reminded him to contact the police if he had evidence of someone accessing the property.

Assessment and findings

  1. It is clear the resident feels strongly that someone entered the property, but it is important to explain that it is not our role to determine whether that actually happened. We look only at whether the landlord complied with its obligations and responded fairly to the resident’s concerns. The landlord was correct to advise the resident that, if he ever has a concern that someone has entered the property without his permission, this should be reported to the police.
  2. The landlord was first told the resident had a concern on 25 January 2022. It acted promptly by immediately arranging for someone to speak with him about his concerns. This shows it took the report seriously at the time. However, it then failed to contact the resident again after it had investigated, despite saying it would. This evidently left the resident feeling that nothing had been done, as he then contacted us.
  3. The landlord did acknowledge there had been an oversight when it responded to the complaint. This apology was appropriate as the resident had clearly been given the impression an investigation would take place and he would be told the outcome. While it is good to see the landlord accepted a shortfall in its service at stage 1, and explained its position at that time, this was 11 months after the issue was first reported.
  4. The landlord’s compensation policy says it may pay compensation when it has not acted reasonably, as was the case here, due to the delay. Bearing in mind such a long time had passed without the resident hearing anything, the landlord should have considered offering compensation in response to the complaint. While it did apologise for what happened and went on to address the issue, it could have gone further at both stages 1 and 2, and this meant it missed an opportunity to put things right.
  5. It is clear the landlord did take the resident’s concerns seriously and replaced the lock on the door as a precaution. There is no reference to the door being damaged so the landlord had no obligation to replace it. The steps taken by the landlord were fair and proportionate and it explained its position clearly to the resident. However, there was extensive delay in it taking this action, which amount to maladministration and which the resident should be compensated for.
  6. The landlord’s compensation policy says where a problem is not resolved within a reasonable timeframe compensation can be considered up to £500. This is in line with our remedies guidance. The landlord acknowledged an 11 month delay and apologised for that failing. However, it did not consider the detriment to the resident, including how he had to escalate his complaint to us in order for action to be taken. It did though, go on to take fair and reasonable action to address the resident’s concerns, so taking that in to account, compensation of £200 is adequate to resolve the complaint.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s report that a member of staff had a key and could access his property, and his request for the locks to be changed.

Order

  1. Within 4 weeks of the date of this report the landlord is ordered to provide evidence that it has paid the resident £200 compensation for its delay in addressing his concerns.