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Hyde Housing Association Limited (202337994)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202337994

Hyde Housing Association Limited

15 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 landlord’s response to the resident’s report of a fire alarm setting off.

Background

  1. The resident occupies a flat in a block on an assured tenancy.
  2. From the landlord’s internal records it is evident that the resident raised a stage 1 complaint on 4 December 2023. She said that the fire alarm had gone off on 2 December 2023. She was unhappy with the volume of the alarm and the length of time it had taken for the landlord’s engineer to attend.
  3. The landlord records show the landlord contacted the resident on 5 December 2023 to acknowledge the complaint and to confirm it was investigating the incident.
  4. The landlord’s internal records show the landlords engineer attended the site on 6 December 2023 and conducted a decibel sound check of the alarm, which were in permitted decibel standards for the type of property.
  5. The landlord issued its stage 1 complaint response on 8 December 2023. It apologised for any distress or inconvenience it may have caused the resident with the communal fire alarm and with the delays she had experienced with the emergency phone line. It explained it had longer waiting times depending on the time of the day the calls were made. However, it stated it had attended within a 4 hour emergency time frame. It also said it had investigated and checked the decibel levels of the fire alarm and it was correct for that type of property and met fire safety guidance standards. It did not uphold her complaint.
  6. The resident sought a review of its decision. The landlord told the resident on  24 January 2024 it had reviewed the facts and would not change its decision.
  7. The resident contacted the Service on 26 January 2024. In referring the complaint to the Ombudsman the resident complaint about the level of the noise from the communal alarm and the landlord’s emergency response times.

Assessment and findings

  1. We have seen evidence from the landlord records, it investigated the reported incident on which this complaint was made. The landlord’s internal records and work logs provided to the Ombudsman show, the landlord had received 2 telephone calls from other residents of the same block of flats, reporting the fire alarm sounding on the 2 December 2023. One call was received at 18.31hrs and the second at 18.39 hrs. The landlord’s internal work records show that the landlord attended the incident at 21.25 hrs on the 2 December 2023, which was within its emergency response time policy of 4 hours.
  2. The landlord’s records also show following the resident’s complaint, it  conducted a decibel measurement of the fire alarm on 6 December 2023 to ensure the alarm was functioning within the permitted standard for the building. This was recorded within permitted decibel range of 71 to 80.
  3. These were all appropriate steps to make and the landlord could demonstrate in its records that it had followed them. Additionally, it provided a reasonable explanation as to the phone calls waiting times raised in the resident’s complaint. As such there was no failure in the landlord’s response to the resident’s complaint.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme there was no maladministration in the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of the landlord’s response of the fire alarm setting off.