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Halton Housing (202433670)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202433670

Halton Housing

14 April 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. The resident’s reports of antisocial behaviour (ASB).
    2. The resident’s requests that it move her.

Background

  1. The resident has lived in a two-bedroom flat in a block of similar flats under an assured tenancy since 20 November 2017. The landlord is a housing association.
  2. The resident had been reporting ASB issues from several neighbours in her block to the landlord. Issues included threats of physical violence, noise at unreasonable hours and drug use. The resident said she did not feel her home was safe for her and her young daughter and asked the landlord to move her in July 2024.
  3. The resident raised a stage 1 complaint with her landlord on 22 August 2024. She felt it was not dealing with the ASB issues and they were escalating. She said it had not responded to a recent community trigger for the ASB (A community trigger allows a victim of ongoing ASB to ask their local council for a review of their case). She also said it had not responded to her request to be moved and complained about its staff’s annual leave and general workloads affecting its response times.
  4. The landlord issued its stage 1 response on 11 September 2024. It said it was dealing with the ASB and was not aware the issues were escalating. It said it was the local council’s responsibility to respond to community trigger requests. It also said the resident did not meet the criteria in its management transfer policy for it to move her and said it had already discussed this with her.
  5. The resident escalated her complaint to stage 2 on 30 September 2024. She maintained that the landlord was not doing enough to tackle the ASB, despite having plenty of evidence. She said it was not putting in interim staff to cover officers dealing with her case when on leave, which was causing delays. She felt it was not engaging with relevant agencies on the community trigger. She also felt the landlord had offered her no help in finding alternative accommodation. Due to the ASB she mentioned she was no longer living at her flat full time.
  6. The landlord provided its final response on 1 November 2024. It maintained it was dealing with the ASB, but acknowledged there had been delays in its responses to the resident and apologised. It said it would not move her but gave advice on seeking accommodation from other services and appointed a Tenancy Support Officer to help with her housing applications.
  7. The resident remained unhappy and escalated her complaint to the Service on 2 December 2024. She said the landlord was not dealing with the ASB or her request for a management move. She wanted it to move her and to pay compensation for the distress caused by the ASB. She also wanted the landlord to offset her rent and service charges due to not having lived in the flat fully since July 2024.
  8. Following the end of the complaints process the resident’s Tenancy Support Officer referred her case to the landlord’s high priority panel on 27 January 2025.
  9. The panel approved a management transfer. The resident has since been offered an alternative property by the landlord, which she has accepted. At the time of this report the resident was still awaiting a moving date, pending repairs to the new property.

Assessment and findings

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of ASB

  1. The landlord’s ASB policy says it will take an “active role” in dealing with ASB. It says the landlord should interview a complainant within 5 working days of their report and will assess the vulnerability of those involved as well as agreeing an action plan with the complainant.
  2. The ASB policy says if the interview with the complainant identifies a threat of violence a Neighbourhood Safety Officer will then lead on the case. The policy says this officer should then invite any alleged perpetrators to an interview to discuss any allegations within 5 working days of speaking with the complainant and then monitor the case for the following 28 working days to see if the ASB continues or not. The policy says the officer should keep in close contact with the complainant at least once a week and not rely on the complainant to continually contact them.
  3. In both its complaint responses the landlord admitted there had been service failure in the level of communication it had with the resident about the ASB. It agreed that staff absence had affected its response times and meant it had not regularly updated the resident on her ASB case. It apologised for this and said it had changed its processes to ensure this did not happen again. This was reasonable because the evidence shows it failed to respond to some of the residents reports or keep in regular contact with her, despite promising this in its ASB policy. The actions it said it intended to take were designed to address the cause it and the resident had identified which was staff availability.
  1. The resident’s escalated complaint referred to some of the actions the landlord had taken to resolve the ASB, such as interviewing the alleged perpetrators, and sending letters to all tenants about the ASB. It is clear therefore that it had taken some steps. However, the landlord has not provided any evidence to show what other actions it took, particularly those its policy states it should take. This includes completing regular risk assessments or issuing tenancy breaches to any alleged perpetrators who failed to engage with its investigation.
  1. The landlord acknowledged its communication with the resident was poor and took reasonable steps to put that right. However, without evidence showing it did what its policies say it should have done it is not possible for this investigation to conclude it handled the resident’s ASB reports reasonably.
  2. When the resident referred her complaint to the Service she said she wanted the landlord to offset some of her rent. She said this was to acknowledge that she had not been living at the property full time since July 2024 because of the ASB. This request was not made as part of her original complaint to the landlord and therefore it has not had the opportunity to respond to her request. However, her tenancy agreement says she is liable for full payment of her rent throughout her tenancy, and there is no apparent exception to that. While the landlord acknowledged failings in its handling of the ASB, nothing in the evidence states it should have consider refunding or reducing the rent.

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s request that it move her

  1. The landlord has not provided its managed move policy. However, its ASB policy says if issues pose a serious risk to the complainant, then rehousing should be considered and these cases should be presented to its “high priority panel”.
  2. The evidence shows the resident first requested a move in July 2024. In her stage 1 complaint she said the landlord did not respond to this request. However, in her stage 2 escalation she explained that the landlord had called her to advise she did not meet their criteria threshold and provided advice on alternatives.
  3. In the landlord’s final response, it said it would appoint a Tenancy Support Officer to help support the resident in completing applications for other services. It subsequently did so, which showed good practice in supporting the resident in finding alternative accommodation.
  4. The landlord followed its own ASB policy by referring the resident’s case to its high priority panel in January 2025. This referral was accepted and the landlord has since offered the resident a managed move in March 2025.
  5. The evidence shows that the landlord responded to and provided appropriate advice to the resident following her requests for rehousing. The landlord followed its ASB policy in referring the resident to its own internal panel, and this resulted in an offer of rehousing as the resident requested.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was service failure in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of ASB.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was no maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s requests that it move her.

Orders

  1. In light of the failings found in this investigation the landlord is ordered to do the following within 4 weeks of this determination:
    1. Pay the resident £250 in compensation for the uncertainties in its handling of the resident’s ASB reports.
    2. Provide evidence of the above to the Service.