First Choice Homes Oldham Limited (202329065)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202329065

First Choice Homes Oldham Limited

17 June 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 a shower repair.

Background

2. The resident and her husband are joint tenants of the landlord. At the time of complaint, they held an assured shorthold fixed term tenancy which began in 2016. The property is a 1 bedroom bungalow. It has a wet room shower which is the only means of bathing. The resident is disabled, has conditions which affect her mobility and has a stoma which requires regular cleaning.
3. On 8 October 2023, the resident called the landlord’s ‘out of hours’ repairs line. The repairs line recorded that she was “reporting the shower not working and leaking from the rear of the shower unit”. She informed it that “she has a open wound that needs cleaning often and is listed as vulnerable.” The repairs line deemed the repair to be ‘non-urgent’ and told the resident it would be dealt with by the repairs team the following day.
4. The resident made a complaint later that day. She expressed dissatisfaction that the landlord had not classed the repair as an emergency. She asked it to attend first thing the next day and complete the repair.
5. On 9 October 2023, the landlord logged an emergency repair for the resident’s shower. It completed this the same day.
6. The landlord provided its stage 1 complaint response on 17 October 2023. It apologised for the distress caused and said the case had “highlighted a gap in the service” it provided out of hours to residents with medical needs. The landlord said it would review its out of hours guidance and look to include a section on reasonable adjustments for residents with medical needs.
7. The resident responded the same day asking to escalate her complaint to stage 2. We have not been provided with a copy of this communication. The landlord said that in its stage 2 response that: “You [the resident] escalated to stage 2 as you do not feel that your vulnerabilities are being taken into consideration even though you had raised them the week before with our Neighbourhoods team.”
8. The landlord provided its stage 2 complaint response on 17 November 2023. It:
   1. Offered the resident £50 compensation for her distress and £50 for its delay in escalating her complaint to stage 2.
   2. Said it had updated its out of hours guidance to include medical conditions and vulnerabilities.
   3. Said it had passed on feedback to provide additional training to out of hours duty managers “to ensure they asses each call on a case-by-case basis and show a better understanding of customer vulnerabilities”.
   4. Advised it was in the process of launching a ‘reasonable adjustments policy’. It said it hoped this would ensure a consistent approach to residents with vulnerabilities going forwards.
9. The resident referred her complaint to us on 20 November 2023. She expressed dissatisfaction the landlord had not evidenced any of the changes to its policies and procedures to her. She expressed concern that, should her shower fail again, she may face similar issues.

Assessment and findings

10. The landlord’s repairs and maintenance policy defines an emergency repair as “any defect that puts the health, safety or security of the home, the customer or visitors at immediate risk”. It says it will attend these within 3 hours.
11. The policy says that residents can report emergency repairs outside of working hours to its out of hours service. It says, “If the reported repair is deemed not to be an emergency, then the customer will be asked to call back during office hours to make an appointment.”
12. The policy contains a list of repairs which the landlord would class as an emergency. This includes “dangerous electrics and/or water on electrics”. In her complaint the resident said that the shower “was pouring water out of the back of it into the electrics of the shower”.
13. This detail was not recorded in the landlord’s out of hours call log. Had the out of hours service appropriately enquired about the leak, it would have established the repair met its criteria for an emergency regardless of the resident’s vulnerabilities.
14. In its complaint responses, the landlord acknowledged that its out of hours line should have treated the repair as an emergency due to the resident’s medical needs. Whilst it did not acknowledge that the repair itself met the criteria for an emergency, we do not feel this caused any detriment to the resident beyond that which it had acknowledged.
15. In its stage 2 response, the landlord appropriately apologised to the resident for the distress caused by being without the shower. It offered her £50 compensation for this. This amount is in keeping with our remedies guidance for instances of service failure of short duration. As the landlord attended and repaired the shower within approximately 24 hours of the resident reporting the repair, we consider its offer reasonable.
16. The landlord also identified a ‘gap’ in its out of hours service provision, which did not account for vulnerabilities such as medical need. In its stage 2 complaint response, it told the resident it would be updating its out of hours guidance to address this. The landlord has provided us with evidence that it amended said guidance in November 2023.
17. The updated guidance states “A number of our customers may have vulnerabilities and/or medical needs which may need to be taken into account when diagnosing an emergency repair and these may or may not be flagged on the system. Each one of these requests for a repair must be dealt with on an individual basis.”
18. The landlord has also sent us with a copy of its new ‘reasonable adjustments policy’ which it referenced in the stage 2 response. It has not provided us with any information as to whether it has undertaken the further training for duty managers that it recommended. We have made a recommendation about this below.
19. Our dispute resolution principles expect landlords to demonstrate improvements in service delivery as a result of lessons learned from complaints. The landlord has evidenced this in this case.
20. Whilst we understand the resident’s concern about a repeat of this incident, we are satisfied that the landlord has taken appropriate steps to avoid this. We have not seen any evidence that the resident asked the landlord to provide her with details of its updated policies/guidance. Nor did it commit to doing so in its complaint responses. Therefore, we cannot consider it not doing so to be a failure.
21. In summary, the landlord acknowledged that it failed to appropriately consider the resident’s vulnerabilities when deciding not to treat the shower repair as an emergency. It apologised for this, made a reasonable offer of compensation and took steps to address this ‘gap’ in its service provision. Due to this we find that the landlord has offered reasonable redress for its failings.

Determination

22. In accordance with paragraph 53.b. of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord has made a reasonable offer of redress to the resident for its handling of a shower repair.

Recommendations

23. We recommend that, if it has not done so already, the landlord pays the resident:
    1. The £50 compensation for distress offered in its stage 2 complaint response. The finding of reasonable redress is contingent upon this.
    2. The £50 compensation offered in its stage 2 complaint response for the delay in it escalating her complaint.
24. We further recommend that, if it has not done so already, the landlord arranges additional training on vulnerabilities for its out of hours duty managers.