Great Places Housing Association (202306364)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202306364

Great Places Housing Association

5 December 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 the resident’s reports that the window cleaning was not being performed.
2. The Ombudsman has also considered the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

3. The resident was the assured tenant of the property, a first floor, 1-bedroom flat, from 2018. The landlord is a housing association.
4. On 14 April 2023 the resident raised a complaint that, since his tenancy started, the windows had never been cleaned, but he was paying a service charge for window cleaning. In the landlord’s stage 1 response of 2 May 2023, it said the window cleaners were contracted to attend every 2 months and it had seen evidence that they had followed this schedule between August 2022 and February 2023. It said that, as this evidence showed that the window cleaning had been carried out, it could not uphold the complaint.
5. The resident escalated his complaint on 9 May 2023, stating why he disagreed with the stage 1 response and why he did not believe the window cleaners had attended on the dates provided by the landlord. In the landlord’s response of 15 May 2023, it said it would not escalate the complaint as its evidence showed the window cleaning had happened. It said that the information provided in its stage 1 response referred to all window cleaning and not just to windows in the communal area.
6. On 5 June 2023 the resident referred his complaint to the Ombudsman. He said he was dissatisfied with the landlord’s response as he was being charged for a window cleaning service that he believed was not being carried out.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

7. While the resident has said that no window cleaning had been done since the start of his tenancy, in 2018, he did not raise a complaint about the landlord’s handling of the matter until April 2023. The Ombudsman encourages residents to bring complaints to the attention of the landlord within a reasonable time of the problem occurring, usually within 12 months. This is so that the landlord has a reasonable opportunity to resolve the issues whilst they are still ‘live’ and whilst the evidence is available to properly investigate them (reflected at paragraph 42.c of the Scheme). Therefore, the scope of this investigation includes events dating back to April 2022 (12 months before the complaint was made). Anything that happened before this is considered for context but not formally assessed or determined as part of this investigation.

Window cleaning

8. The landlord’s maintenance schedule with the window cleaners shows that they should deliver the service every 2 months, totalling 6 visits a year. In the resident’s complaint he said that no window cleaning service had been provided for more than 4 years.
9. In its stage 1 response the landlord explained that the window cleaners use a shared portal to log all visits and these logs had been completed electronically by the operatives at every site visit. It said the logs showed the date and time of attendance, the name of the operative, and a photo of the contractor’s vehicle at the property. The landlord confirmed that, as part of its investigation, it had accessed this portal, and the records showed the windows had been cleaned 4 times between 22 August 2022 and 22 February 2023.
10. It was reasonable for the landlord to seek further information from the shared portal, as it contained details of when visits took place and what was done. It was also appropriate for the landlord to rely on the information provided by the window cleaners in this portal in the first instance. This is because a landlord is entitled to rely on information provided by its contractors in the absence of evidence to the contrary.
11. The Ombudsman appreciates that the resident maintains that he has never seen the windows being cleaned and believes they never have been. However, the Ombudsman has seen copies of the 4 logs dated 22 August 2022 to 22 February 2023. These contain the information specified by the landlord on each occasion and some of the pictures also show the reaching tool used to clean windows above the ground floor. Such records are maintained for precisely this purpose, to evidence attendance and the works carried out, and it was right for the landlord to consult, and rely on, these records in responding to the complaint.
12. The resident has not challenged the cleanliness of the windows in his initial complaint or the escalation request. Instead, he only reported that he had never seen any window cleaning taking place and believed this service had not been provided. As a result, there was nothing to prompt a more comprehensive on-site investigation by the landlord, and the administrative exercise was sufficient to respond to the complaint. Therefore, there was no maladministration in respect of the landlord’s handling of reports that the windows were not being cleaned.

Complaint handling

13. The landlord’s complaints policy says it will respond to stage 1 complaints within 10 working days of acknowledgement. In this instance, the resident raised his complaint on 14 April 2023. The landlord acknowledged the complaint on 20 April 2023 and issued its response on 2 May 2023. This was within the timescale set out in the landlord’s complaints policy.
14. The landlord’s complaints policy in force at the time of this complaint said that it could exercise discretion in how to respond to a complaint. This included not escalating complaints where a customer provided no clear reason for disagreeing with its stage 1 response.
15. However, paragraph 4.14 of the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code) in force at the time said that a landlord must not unreasonably refuse to escalate a complaint through all stages of the complaints procedure and must have clear and valid reasons for doing so. The reasons for declining to escalate a complaint must be clearly set out in a landlord’s complaints policy and must be the same as the reasons for not accepting a complaint. Paragraph 5.9 of the Code in force at the time also said the landlord had to communicate the reasons for declining the escalation request to the resident and provide referral rights to this Service.
16. When the resident escalated his complaint he explained why he disagreed with the stage 1 response. He said it was because he felt the landlord had misunderstood his complaint. He said he had been referring to the lack of window cleaning on the outside of his windows, not the inside of the communal windows. He also said he did not believe the outside windows had been cleaned on the dates provided as he had never seen any window cleaning on the outside.
17. In its response the landlord confirmed that the information in the stage 1 response referred to all window cleaning and provided evidence that the external window cleaning had taken place. It explained that it would not escalate his complaint because the evidence showed the window cleaning had gone ahead and provided referral rights to this Service.
18. The landlord correctly wrote to the resident to explain why it would not escalate his complaint and provided his referral rights. However, the reason it gave for refusal was not one it could have used to not accept a complaint. As such, its refusal was not in line with the Code.
19. The Ombudsman has also noted that the resident did provide clear reasons why he disagreed with the stage 1 response. Therefore, while the landlord may have disagreed with his reasons, it also did not follow its complaints policy by declining to escalate the complaint.
20. Overall the landlord’s failures, as set out above, amount to a service failure and can be summarised as a failure to adhere to the Code and its complaints policy at the time. In view of this, the Ombudsman orders the landlord to apologise for the failings identified in this report. As the resident did not have to chase the landlord for its response and was given the correct referral rights to the Ombudsman, an apology offers proportionate redress in the circumstances. As the landlord has since updated its complaints policy, the Ombudsman has not made any orders for a policy review.

Determination

21. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was:
    1. No maladministration by the landlord in relation to its handling of reports that the window cleaning was not being performed.
    2. Service failure by the landlord in relation to its handling of the associated complaint.

Orders

22. Within 6 weeks the landlord is ordered to apologise to the resident for its failures. This written apology must be from a member of the landlord’s senior management team and should follow the Ombudsman’s apologies guidance on our website.