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GreenSquareAccord Limited (202306233)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202306233

GreenSquareAccord Limited

30 January 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 repairs to the wall plaster.
  2. The investigation has also considered the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background and summary of events

Scope of investigation

  1. In September 2022 the resident complained to the landlord about the time taken for it to complete plaster repairs after it inspected the property in June 2021. The landlord responded to the complaint at stage 2 (it’s first formal complaint stage) on 1 November 2022 and agreed to contact the resident by 4 November 2022 to arrange an appointment to complete the repair, which was patch plastering to the walls in a bedroom.
  2. On 8 December 2022 the landlord’s Planning Team called the resident to arrange the appointment. The resident did not agree with the works proposed and said that the landlord had also agreed to replaster the entire hallway. Given the discrepancy between the repair raised and the resident’s understanding of the repair to be completed, the Planning Team agreed to look into the matter and call the resident back.
  3. The resident complained to the landlord again on 19 December 2022 and said that she was still waiting for the plaster repair to be scheduled. The landlord provided another stage 2 response on 20 January 2023. It acknowledged that the repair had not progressed, recognised the resident’s opposition to the repair it proposed to do and agreed to arrange another inspection.
  4. The landlord inspected the property on 1 March 2023. The surveyor confirmed that in addition to the patch plaster repair in the bedroom, patch repairs were also required to the walls in the hallway. After the survey the resident approached her MP and expressed being unhappy with the extent of the work the landlord had agreed to carry out. The MP raised this with the landlord. It responded with confirmation that it would only do patch repairs. It said that it believed that the method the resident used to remove the wallpaper had caused the issue with the plaster and it was not responsible for a full replaster of the affected areas. The landlord agreed to contact the resident by 15 May 2023 to schedule an appointment for the repairs.
  5. The resident submitted a third complaint on 12 June 2023 as she was not contacted by the landlord with an appointment. In a telephone call with the landlord about the complaint on 20 July 2023 the resident also disagreed with the landlord’s opinion regarding what had caused the issue with the plaster on the wall. The landlord issued a third stage 2 response on 9 August 2023. It reiterated its position that it would only do patch repairs and said this was in line with its repair responsibility. It partially upheld the complaint due to the delay in arranging the repair.
  6. The Ombudsman may not consider complaints which have been brought to us prior to having exhausted a landlord’s complaints procedure unless there is evidence of a complaint handling failure and we are satisfied that a member has not taken action within a reasonable timescale.
  7. In the case of the resident’s complaint we acknowledge that the landlord has considered and responded to the resident’s 3 complaints separately. As a result it has issued 3 separate stage 2 responses to complaints that in accordance with 5.8 of the Complaint Handling Code (the Code), would be considered as escalation requests as opposed to new complaints.
  8. The reason being that throughout the complaints the resident raised it is evident that her motivation for complaining further was due to the ongoing delays in the landlord arranging the repair– something it agreed to do in its initial response in November 2022. We note that during the course of the complaints process she also complained about the extent of the work the landlord had agreed to do.
  9. Within all of the stage 2 responses the landlord issued to the resident it recognised the delays in it arranging the repair from 2021. Therefore, we consider that the complaint concerning the way the landlord has handled the repair has exhausted the complaints procedure and have taken its response dated 9 August 2023 as its final response, despite it not being a stage 3 response.
  10. We will assess the landlord’s handling of the complaints within the report separately to the substantive complaint concerning the repair.

Summary of events

  1. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord and lives in a semi-detached house.
  2. On 14 May 2021 the resident called the landlord and reported that the walls were “crumbling away”. In response the landlord arranged for a surveyor to attend on 4 June 2021 to inspect the property. 
  3. The surveyor reported after the inspection that they found hollow areas of plaster and took photographs. The surveyor also said in the report that the resident told them that the landlord had previously replastered entire rooms in the property. The surveyor said that they stated to the resident that it was unlikely for a landlord to do such work but said that they agreed to check the property history.
  4. On 10 June 2021 the landlord raised the plaster repairs that the surveyor had identified were required. The following repairs were raised for one of the bedrooms:
    1. Hack off and renewal of hollow areas of plaster (1 x area equivalent to 2 square meters and 1x area equivalent to 1 square meter.)
    2. Hack off the defective plaster to the window reveal.
    3. Remove a board above a cupboard door, plasterboard and skim the area equivalent to 1 square meter.
  5. On 15 February 2022 the resident contacted the landlord for an update on the repair. She said that she was able to get the wallpaper off the wall and was ready for the plaster work to be done. The landlord responded to the resident sometime in February 2022 and advised her that the repairs were on hold. The resident chased the landlord about the matter approximately 5 times between March and September 2022. When chasing the landlord she advised that it had not returned her calls and said that she could not finalise the decorations in the property until the plaster repairs were done.
  6. The landlord recorded a formal complaint from the resident at stage 2 of is procedure on or around 20 September 2022. It responded on 1 November 2022. It confirmed that the repairs that were raised after the inspection in June 2021 had been placed on hold due a backlog as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. It acknowledged that the resident had contacted it for updates on multiple occasions between February and September 2022.
  7. The landlord said that its Planning Team would contact the resident by 4 November 2022 to arrange an appointment for it to complete the repair. It apologised for the time taken for it to complete the repair and for the lack of communication it had with the resident. It also apologised for the delay in providing its response to the complaint. It offered the resident £100 compensation in recognition of the inconvenience.
  8. The resident chased the landlord on 3 occasions between 7 and 17 November 2022 as she was not contacted with an appointment. The landlord informed her on 22 November 2022 that the repairs were still on hold and needed to be approved before the work could go ahead. The resident chased the landlord again on 1 December 2022 to ask why the work was still on hold and when she could expect the repair to be completed.
  9. On 8 December 2022 the landlord’s Planning Team called the resident to book an appointment for the repair. The resident mentioned during the conversation that the landlord had also agreed to plaster the entire hallway in addition to the work already raised. The Planning Team agreed to query this internally and said it would get back to the resident. 
  10. The resident chased the landlord on 19 December 2022 as she did not hear back from it. The landlord recorded a complaint and sent the resident an acknowledgment the following day. It advised that it aimed to respond by 13 January 2023. It called the resident on 13 January 2023 to advise that there would be a delay in its response.
  11. The landlord provided a stage 2 response to the resident on 20 January 2023. It acknowledged that it did not arrange the appointment for the repair as it agreed to in November 2022. It acknowledged that as a result the repair had not progressed and the resident had to chase it on several occasions between 7 November and 19 December 2022. The landlord said that it recognised that the resident had said that she did not believe that a patch repair of the walls was possible. It also acknowledged that she reported that there were plaster issues in the stairway area in the hallway and not just the bedroom as its repair record indicated.
  12. The landlord said that in order to ascertain the repairs required it would arrange for its Principal Surveyor to attend a further inspection. It said that once this was done it could provide a definitive answer about what repairs it would do and schedule to complete them. It upheld the complaint due to the delay in progressing the repair after the resident’s previous complaint and apologised. It offered the resident £50 compensation. 
  13. The landlord’s Principal Surveyor inspected the property on 1 March 2023 and raised the following repairs:
    1. Hack off plaster and reskim to an area at the bottom of the second flight of stairs to the left hand side.
    2. Hollow plaster to another area of the stairs to be hacked off rubbed out and reskimmed.
    3. Hack off blown plaster to an area on the left hand side above the first flight of stair. Dub out and reskim the area.
  14. In addition to the plastering work the surveyor also identified the need for an inspection of the external brickwork and arranged for a contractor to do this separate from the plastering repair.
  15. After the inspection the resident approached her MP with concerns about the outcome. She noted that she had requested that the landlord plaster her bedroom and stairwell in 2021 and since then it had not completed this work. She also reported that the landlord had said during the inspection that it would not plaster all of the walls and would only patch plaster areas.
  16. The MP raised a query with the landlord. It responded on 27 April 2023 with confirmation that it would do patch repairs to the bedroom and the stairway area. It noted that as a result of the method the resident used to remove the wallpaper, blown plaster was exposed. It said that on this basis it was not responsible for a full replaster to the bedroom and hallway (including the stairway) in line with its repair policy. The landlord confirmed that it would call the resident by 15 May 2023 to arrange an appointment date to complete the repair.
  17. On 12 and 16 June 2023 the resident followed up with the landlord because she did not hear from it with an appointment. The landlord raised and acknowledged a complaint from the resident on 19 June 2023. It spoke with the resident about her complaint on 20 July 2023. During the conversation the resident disagreed with the landlord’s feedback about the cause of the issue found with the plastering and said that the surveyor had also said during the visit that it was not her fault.
  18. The landlord provided a stage 2 response to the complaint on 9 August 2023. It apologised for the delay in responding to the complaint. It confirmed that after the conversation with the resident on 20 July 2023 it spoke with the surveyor. It said that the surveyor maintained that it was made clear during the inspection that patch repairs would be carried out. It confirmed that it reviewed the decision regarding the repair again with a senior member of staff and it was agreed that the repair it proposed was in line with its repair responsibilities. It said that it would contact the resident within 7 working days of its response to book the repair.
  19. The landlord partially upheld the complaint because the resident had to chase it for the repairs to be booked in. It offered the resident £50 compensation in recognition of this. It said that it did not however, uphold the complaint concerning the repair it agreed to do because this was in line with its policy.
  20. The landlord attended and completed the patch repairs to the plaster on 15 August 2023. On the same day the resident contacted us and expressed her dissatisfaction with the landlord’s decision not to plaster the entire walls that were affected. She advised that she did not understand why the landlord did not agree to replaster the entire walls and did not believe she should pay for the entire walls to be replastered herself. The resident also reported a new issue with a damp smell in one of the kitchen cupboards.

Assessment and findings

The landlord’s repair responsibility.

  1. Under Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act (1985), the landlord is obliged to keep the structure and exterior of the property in repair. It is also obliged to complete repairs within a reasonable timeframe. The tenancy agreement also notes the obligation for the landlord to keep in good repair the structure and exterior of the property including the plasterwork.
  2. The landlord’s repair policy states that its response time for standard responsive repairs is 28 days.

The landlord’s handling of the repairs to the wall plaster.

  1. The landlord did not complete the repair within the timeframes set out in its repair policy. The plaster repairs to the bedroom were identified first in June 2021. It took the landlord more than 2 years before it completed the repair.
  2. There was therefore a significant delay in the landlord arranging the repairs which it recognised in all of the complaint responses it issued to the resident between November 2022 and August 2023.
  3. In the initial response the landlord recognised that there was a shortfall in its service as it took over a year to progress the repair. It explained the reasons for the delay to the resident, apologised to the resident and offered her compensation to recognise the impact of the delay.
  4. The landlord also promised to contact the resident by 4 November 2022 to arrange the appointment and did not do so until 8 December 2022. On finding that the resident was not satisfied with the repairs it proposed to do, the Planning Team agreed to make enquires and the evidence shows that it did.
  5. It is understandable that the disagreement about what repairs would be done contributed to part of the delays because the landlord needed to decide how it was going to proceed. The landlord made the decision to arrange another survey by a Principal Surveyor and this was a reasonable approach to take in the circumstances as the resident was concerned about the work not fully addressing the issues with the plaster. Completing another survey allowed the landlord to verify the findings from the initial survey in June 2021 and also gave it the opportunity to identify further repairs that were required to other areas in the property.
  6. However as the landlord recognised in its complaint responses in January and August 2023 there were further delays in it taking the necessary action to progress the repairs. It took 3 months from the conversation it had with the resident in December 2022 for it to attend to survey the property again. There was also another delay in the repairs being raised after the survey. As a result the resident was not contacted until August 2023 and the repair was eventually completed on 15 August 2023.
  7. Given the landlord’s recognition of the delay in arranging the repair from within its first complaint response in November 2022 it is unreasonable that it did not take steps to ensure that the repair was completed within a reasonable time as it had agreed.
  8. In its 3 complaint responses the landlord has appropriately recognised its ongoing failure to arrange the repairs within a reasonable time. It offered the resident an explanation where it was necessary. It also offered an appropriate resolution to address the resident’s dispute about the repairs it offered to complete. It offered the resident a total of £200 compensation which we consider is proportionate to recognise the delays, the inconvenience and the resident’s time and trouble chasing it for updates during the period of the delay.
  9. The repair itself was not significant in that it did not affect the resident’s ability to live in the property. However the compensation takes into consideration that the resident incurred frustration including time and trouble pursuing the landlord as a result of the delays which were avoidable in some part.
  10. In relation to the resident’s dispute about the scale of the works, the landlord’s arrangement of the second survey was reasonable. The second surveyor did not identify the need for a full replaster of the affected walls, however, did recognise the need for plastering works in an additional area, the stairway, that was not identified during the inspection in June 2021.
  11. We recognise that the resident remains unhappy with the landlord’s decision to patch plaster as opposed to replastering the entire bedroom and hallway. She said that the landlord previously replastered rooms and the repair records the landlord has provided do indicate that it skimmed 2 rooms in the property sometime in 2018. It is understandable that the landlord doing such work in 2018 would set an expectation for the resident in the future.
  12. Nevertheless the landlord’s repair responsibility is to repair the plasterwork on the walls of the property and 2 of the landlord’s surveyors found that patch repairs were required to resolve the issues. It is reasonable for the landlord to rely on the reports from its surveyors to decide on the repairs required and in this case both surveyors reported that patch repairs were appropriate. The landlord’s decision to complete patch plaster repairs as opposed to replastering the entire wall is therefore in line with its repair responsibility.
  13. Overall the landlord has offered the resident appropriate redress in recognition of the failures in its handling of the repair. The landlord acted fairly by arranging a second inspection so that it could ascertain the repairs it proposed to do. It appropriately relied on the findings from the surveyors to decide on the repairs required. It also put things right by way of its acknowledgment of the service failures, its apology and its offer of £200 compensation to the resident.
  14. Though the resident was not happy with the extent of the plaster repairs that the landlord completed, it was reasonable for the landlord to rely on the evidence available to it in the form of the reports from its surveyors to decide on the repairs it would do.

Complaint handling

  1. The landlord’s complaints procedure has 3 stages. At stage 1 the landlord will try and resolve the complaint informally. At stage 2 it will investigate and respond within 10 working days. At stage 3 it will review the handling of the case and respond within 20 working days.
  2. Our Complaint Handling Code (the Code) states that a landlord should include in its complaint policy, its timescales for a resident to request the escalation of their complaint. The Code explains that if all or part of the complaint is not resolved to the resident’s satisfaction at stage 1, the complaint must be progressed to stage 2 of the landlord’s procedure.
  3. In this case the second stage of the landlord’s complaints procedure is equivalent to that of a first stage because it is the first stage of its formal process. 
  4. In all 3 of its complaint responses to the resident in November 2022, January and August 2023 the landlord made it clear the timeframe within which the resident had to escalate the complaint to its final stage. There is no evidence of the resident expressly requesting this. The Code states that a landlord should only escalate a complaint once it has completed its initial stage and at the request of the resident.
  5. We recognise that the landlord, having not received an escalation request from the resident, did not escalate the complaint. But given the circumstances it would have been appropriate for the landlord to escalate the complaint rather than recording and responding to the resident’s ongoing issue at stage 2 (its first formal stage) on 3 further occasions after its initial response in November 2022.
  6. From the landlord’s records it appears that the resident gave it indications that she wanted to escalate the complaint further. In a note taken from a call the resident made to the landlord on 17 November 2022, it is noted that the resident called to follow up because she was still waiting to be contacted with an appointment. The note goes on to say that the resident wanted to be contacted urgently or she would be “exploring taking this higher”.
  7. The resident’s second and third complaint were both prompted by the fact that the landlord had not arranged the repair as it originally agreed to do in its response in November 2022.  Based on its awareness that the original issue complained about remained outstanding when it received the second and third complaint from the resident, it would have been more appropriate for the landlord to escalate the complaint as opposed to offering 2 additional stage 2 responses.
  8. The landlord’s responses to the complaints were also provided beyond the maximum 20 working day timeframe stipulated in its policy and in the Code. It did not keep the resident informed about the delay before the response in November 2022, however it did inform her of the delays in its responses to the second and third complaint. The landlord was also apologetic about the delays in its responses to the complaints and its offer of £200 took into consideration the delays in its handling of the repair issue and the complaint.
  9. After assessing the landlord’s handling of the complaint overall, a service failure has been found. This finding has been found as opposed to maladministration because the landlord has recognised some of the issues, specifically, the delays, in its handling of the complaint. The level of compensation it offered is considered proportionate to reflect the delays in the response to the substantive issue and the complaints. In addition to this its responses were in accordance with the Code in that it made it clear in every response how the resident could request an escalation and the timeframe in which she could do so. While there is a record of an instance where the resident indicated that she wanted to take the matter further, there is no specific request from the resident for the complaint to be escalated.
  10. The finding of service failure has been found however, because the landlord missed the opportunity to undertake a review of the complaint at the final stage of the complaints procedure. Based on its awareness that the issue originally complained about remained outstanding when the resident continued to complain after its response in November 2022, it could have applied discretion and escalated the complaint.  Doing this would have enabled it the opportunity to review the complaint in its entirety to identify learnings about the way it dealt with the matter, to avoid a repeat of service failures that the landlord consistently identified in all 3 of its complaint responses. While the landlord recognised itself that there had been a continuation of service failures in its responses, this does not make up for the opportunity it missed to review the complaint at stage 3.

Determination (decision)

  1. In accordance with paragraph 53b of the Scheme the landlord has offered redress to the resident which resolves the complaint about its handling of the repairs satisfactorily.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme there has been a service failure in the landlord’s handling of the formal complaint.

Reasons

  1. The landlord recognised the overall delay in it arranging the repair and offered proportionate redress to recognise the impact of the delay on the resident and the time the resident incurred pursuing the matter. When the resident raised concerns about the repairs that the landlord had initially agreed, the landlord arranged another survey so that it could assess the repairs required. Its decision to complete patch plaster repairs was reasonable as it was made based on the reports it received from its surveyors.
  2. A service failure has been found in the landlord’s complaints handling because the landlord did not take the initiative to escalate the complaint. It is noted that the resident did not explicitly request an escalation but based on the landlord’s understanding that the outstanding issue was ongoing, it was not appropriate for it to have considered the further complaints as new complaints.

Orders

  1. In recognition of the finding of service failure in the handling of the complaint, the landlord is ordered to pay the resident £50 compensation within 4 weeks of this determination.
  2. Once the payment has been made to the resident the landlord is to provide confirmation to us.

Recommendations

  1. The finding of reasonable redress in relation to the handling of the repairs is dependent on the landlord making the payment of compensation. Therefore if the landlord has not already done so, it is to arrange for the payment of £200 compensation to be made.
  2. Once the payment has been made (or if it has already been paid) the landlord is to provide confirmation to us.