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Home Group Limited (202327189)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202327189

Home Group Limited

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. This complaint is about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint about heating outages in her home.

Background

  1. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord, a housing association. Her tenancy at the property started on 25 September 2023.
  2. The landlord installed a new boiler when the resident’s property was empty. It activated the boiler on 26 September 2023. The next day the resident reported to the landlord she had no heating. It completed a boiler repair the same day. The resident reported further faults In October 2023. On 13 October 2023, the landlord identified an issue that the boiler installer needed to resolve.
  3. The resident complained to the landlord on 17 October 2023. She said she had been unable to move into the property due to there being no heating or hot water. She explained that she was having to stay with family and friends. The resident asked the landlord to compensate her for the inconvenience she had experienced. The boiler installer attended on 18 October 2023 and completed a repair. The landlord provided its stage 1 complaint response on 27 October 2023. It acknowledged that it had attended on several occasions. It apologised for the issues the resident had experienced with her heating and offered compensation of £160.
  4. The resident escalated her complaint on 27 October 2023. She said she was unhappy with the response and compensation. She asked it to refund 1 month’s rent. The landlord provided its stage 2 complaint response on 8 November 2023. It acknowledged and apologised for the problems the resident had experienced with her heating and its handling of the stage 1 complaint. It offered compensation totalling, £315, which included £90 for failures in complaint handling.
  5. The resident remained dissatisfied with the landlord’s response. She asked us to investigate her complaint in November 2023. The landlord advised us in May 2024 that it had increased its compensation to £1,000.09. The increase was equivalent to approximately 6 weeks rent.

Assessment and findings

Policy and procedure

  1. The landlord’s repairs and maintenance guide states that for emergency repairs, it aims to attend within 6 hours and make safe, but it may take longer to fully repair the problem. For routine repairs, it aims to attend within 2 weeks.

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of no heating.

  1. The evidence shows that the landlord was responsive to the resident’s reports of issues with her heating system between September and October 2023. It attended within the timescales set out in its policy. It considered that it had resolved the fault, only for another fault to occur.
  2. The landlord identified the root cause of this on 13 October 2023, which was an installation issue with the boiler’s condensate pipe. It subsequently arranged for the original installer to fix this issue on 18 October 2023. While the resident reported several faults with her boiler, the evidence does not indicate any clear failings in the steps the landlord took. Nonetheless, the landlord believed it could have done better. It recognised the impact on the resident from her loss of heating and hot water. It was therefore appropriate for it to apologise and offer compensation.
  3. The total compensation it offered was £1,000.09 in May 2024. This amount more than reasonably reflected the time the repairs took and demonstrated the landlord’s appreciation of their effect on the resident. In addition, the landlord apologised for complaint handling failures. It acknowledged that it did not inform the resident it had logged a stage 1 complaint. Its total compensation amount included £90 for complaint handling failures. This was a fair resolution for the landlord’s complaint handling failures.
  4. Overall, the landlord has taken appropriate steps to acknowledge, apologise and put things right. The landlord’s recognition of the impact its failings had on the resident, along with its apology and financial redress, reasonably put things right and resolved the complaint.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 53.b. of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord made an offer of redress which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion satisfactorily resolves the resident’s complaint about its handling of heating outages in her home.

Recommendations

  1. If it has not done so already the landlord should now pay the resident the £1,000.09 it previously offered.