Great Places Housing Association (202318060)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202318060

Great Places Housing Association

31 March 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:
   1. Defect repairs.
   2. The resident’s complaint.

Background

2. The resident is a shared ownership leaseholder of the property. His lease began on 20 June 2022. The landlord is the freeholder of the property. The property is a new build 2 bedroom semi detached house. The resident lives there with his partner.
3. During the first 12 months after it handed over the property to the landlord, the developer was responsible for resolving any defect repair issues that arose. On or around 23 March 2023, the landlord and the developer attended the property for an ‘end of defects inspection’. This was to identify any outstanding defect repairs that the developer needed to address. On 1 June 2023, the developer indicated to the landlord that it had completed all defect repairs for the property.
4. The resident made a complaint to the landlord on 11 July 2023. He complained that there were still outstanding defect issues which he felt were now being ‘ignored’. He asked the landlord to resolve the defect repairs and compensate him for him “time and stress”.
5. The landlord provided its stage 1 complaint response on 27 July 2023. It:
   1. Apologised for the developer’s “poor performance” in addressing the defects and the delays this had caused.
   2. Said it would now be taking over the remaining defect repairs and was seeking quotes from contractors to complete these.
   3. Offered to keep the resident’s complaint open until it had completed the repairs to ensure there were no further delays.
   4. Offered the resident £600 compensation for the inconvenience caused.
6. The resident’s partner responded on 28 July 2023. She described the landlord’s offer of compensation as “an insult” and said the “pressure” of the situation had affected her health. On 4 August 2023, she confirmed that they wished to escalate the complaint to stage 2 of the landlord’s process.
7. The landlord provided its stage 2 complaint response on 19 September 2023. It said that the £600 compensation was “the maximum that can be offered and is in line with our policy”. The landlord said it was working urgently to address the defect repairs and was confident it would “be in a position to move forward with the new contractor in the coming weeks”. It noted that when escalating her complaint, the resident had raised additional defects and said it would address these as well.

Events since landlord’s stage 2 complaint response

8. On 22 September 2023, the landlord’s appointed contractor attended the property to carry out the defect repairs. However, it was unable to address some of the issues.
9. On 6 October 2023, the landlord asked its ‘in-house construction company’ if it could assist with the remaining defects. The company visited the property on 13 October 2023 and compiled a schedule of works.
10. On 9 November 2023, the resident told us she was dissatisfied that defect repair issues were outstanding. We accepted the complaint for investigation.
11. The landlord has said that its in-house construction company completed the majority of the remaining defect repairs on 18 November 2024. The final repairs were completed on 21 March 2025.

Assessment and findings

Defect repairs

12. The landlord attended the end of defect inspection with the developer on or around 23 May 2023. We have not been provided with a copy of this inspection. However, on 23 May 2023 the landlord emailed the developer with a list of 13 outstanding defect repair issues the resident had reported to it. These appeared as listed below:

13. On 1 June 2023, the developer sent the landlord an update which advised that it had completed all 13 defect repairs for the property. The landlord appropriately contacted the resident to confirm this. The resident advised that none of the defects had been completed to his satisfaction. The landlord raised this with the developer on 19 June 2023. It chased for an update on 23 June 2023.
14. After the resident made his complaint on 11 July 2023, the landlord chased the developer for an update again – on 25 July 2023. 2 days later, it contacted a contractor asking it to provide a quote to complete the works. The landlord acted promptly and decisively in choosing to arrange for a contractor to complete the defects less than a month after becoming aware that the developer had failed to fulfil its obligation to do so.
15. The landlord has advised that its contract with the developer “provides no mechanism for withholding retention monies for failure to comply with their obligations”. This meant that it was unable to recover the costs of carrying out the defect repairs which the developer had failed to complete. This evidenced that the landlord prioritised resolving the defects for the resident, rather than trying to save money by continuing to pursue the developer.
16. The landlord’s records indicate that it had earlier obtained a quote from another contractor but had considered this too expensive. As a provider of social housing, it was reasonable for the landlord to obtain more than one quote, and to consider value for money in this manner.
17. The landlord visited the property with its contractor on 14 August 2023 to assess the defect repairs and compile a schedule of works. The landlord chased the contractor to provide a quote on 23 August 2023 and received this on 31 August 2023. The quote covered all 13 of the defect repairs listed above, as well as additional works which were listed in the landlord’s stage 1 complaint response. The landlord reasonably agreed to complete the additional works despite them not featuring on the original end of defect inspection list.
18. The landlord’s contractor attended on 22 September 2023 to carry out works. However, it was unable to complete the full list of defect repairs. It is unclear from the information provided why this was the case. On 6 October 2023, the contractor clarified to the landlord what works it had completed and revised its original quote to reflect this.
19. The landlord contacted its in-house construction company the same day to ask if it could complete the outstanding defects. The company inspected the property on 13 October 2023. It produced a report which identified 39 defect issues in the property which required remedial works.
20. The landlord’s records show that it repeatedly chased the company to provide a quote for the works between October 2023 and May 2024 – at which point the landlord provided the information for this investigation. The company did not complete the works in full until March 2025.
21. In its stage 1 and 2 complaint responses, the landlord offered the resident compensation of £600 for the inconvenience caused by the delays to the defect repairs. This was a reasonable offer considering the delays up to that point had been largely due to the developer and the landlord had not taken over responsibility for the repairs until July 2023. The landlord engaged a contractor promptly and it attended to carry out works just under 2 months later. This was in keeping with its stage 2 complaint response, where it had said that it hoped to “move forward” with the works “in the coming weeks”.
22. It is unfortunate that the contractor was unable to complete all the defect repairs, and this was not something the landlord could reasonably have foreseen. However, following this there were unreasonable delays in the landlord’s in-house construction company providing a quote for the works and carrying them out. Whilst the landlord appropriately pursued the company to try and progress the works, it did not fully complete them until almost 18 months after its stage 2 complaint response. Due to the length of this delay, and the landlord’s failure to offer further compensation to the resident for it, we make a finding of maladministration.
23. When considering what further compensation is necessary, we must assess the detriment caused to the resident by the repairs being outstanding as well as the time and trouble he would have incurred in chasing them over an extended period. The issues identified by the landlord’s in-house construction company were mostly aesthetic in nature, such as gaps between internal doors and their frames and tiles not being flush to the wall. There is no evidence that they significantly affected the functionality of the property.
24. Due to this, we order the landlord to pay a further £350 compensation to the resident for the delay in resolving them. This amount falls within our remedies guidance for instances of maladministration, where failures have adversely affected a resident with no permanent impact.

Complaint handling

25. The Ombudsman’s complaint handling code (the Code) says that landlords must respond to a stage 2 complaint “within 20 working days of the complaint being escalated”. It says that “Exceptionally, landlords may provide an explanation to the resident containing a clear timeframe for when the response will be received. This should not be more than an extra 10 days without good reason.”
26. The resident’s partner confirmed to the landlord that they wished to escalate the complaint on 4 August 2023. The landlord emailed her on 11 August 2023. It said that it was “in the process of escalating your complaint …I am just awaiting confirmation on the senior manager who will be investigating your complaint. As soon as I have this I will send your formal acknowledgment.”
27. The landlord then wrote to the resident on 22 August 2023, acknowledging the stage 2 complaint. It said it would provide its response within the next 20 working days. It was inappropriate for the landlord to unreasonably delay acknowledging the stage 2 complaint due to its own internal processes. By this point, 18 working days had already passed since the resident’s partner escalated the complaint.
28. The landlord provided its stage 2 complaint response on 19 September 2023. Whilst this was within 20 working days of its acknowledgement letter, it was 46 working days from the point the resident’s partner had escalated the complaint. There is no evidence that the landlord discussed or agreed an extension with the resident or his partner. This represents a failure to comply with the requirements of the Code.
29. Due to this, we make a finding of service failure and order the landlord to pay the resident £50 compensation for the unreasonable delay in providing its stage 2 complaint response.

Determination

30. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of defect repairs.
31. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure in the landlord’s complaint handling.

Orders

32. Within 4 weeks of the date of this determination, we order the landlord to:
    1. Pay the resident a total of £1,000 compensation composed of:
       1. The £600 offered in its stage 1 and 2 complaint responses, if not already paid.
       2. A further £350 for the distress and inconvenience caused by its delays in completing the defect repairs following its stage 2 complaint response.
       3. A further £50 for the service failure in its complaint handling.
    2. Write to the resident apologising for the delays in it completing the defect repairs following its stage 2 complaint response.
33. The landlord should provide us with evidence of its compliance with these orders.