London Borough of Havering Council (202317745)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202317745

Havering Council

10 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

The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of anti-social behaviour (ASB).
The Ombudsman has also considered the landlord’s handling of the associated complaint.

Background

The resident was a secured tenant of the property, which was a 1 bedroom flat. The landlord is a local authority. The tenancy began on 19 August 2019 through a mutual exchange. The landlord had no vulnerabilities recorded for the resident.
According to the landlord’s records, the resident first started to report ASB from her neighbour in 2020. In May 2020, the resident made reports to the landlord of her neighbour’s son pressing the buzzers of multiple residents in the block late at night. The resident reported the same issue again in June 2020 along with excessive dog barking. The resident said the ASB stopped temporarily after this, but the dog barking recurred in December 2020. The resident did not want to make an official complaint at the time.
The resident started to keep diary sheets to record the ASB in June 2021 on the advice of the landlord. She recorded multiple instances of the dog barking, shouting, loud arguing, and doors slamming. The landlord carried out various measures to resolve the ASB during this time, including arranging third party patrols of the area, issuing a final warning letter to the resident’s neighbour, and taking part in multi-agency meetings to discuss support for the resident’s neighbour.
The resident made several reports of frequent shouting, arguing and drug use from her neighbour’s property between February and July 2022. On 8 February 2022, the landlord arranged for noise monitoring equipment to be fitted at the resident’s property. On 24 February 2022, the resident contacted the landlord and said that the equipment was only in for a week and had been a “waste of time” as her neighbour was aware it had been fitted so had not made any noise. The landlord explained that it needed evidence to progress the case.
The resident raised a formal complaint to the landlord on 10 June 2022. She said that:
1. she had previously made complaints about her housing officer “not doing their job” and about her anti-social neighbour, but nobody had contacted her despite her being told someone would.
2. she felt that her neighbour had been left to get away with their behaviour and that other agencies such as the police had given up.
3. other neighbours in the block had also complained.
The landlord provided its stage 1 response on 24 November 2022. It said:
1. it was sorry for the delay in responding to the complaint.
2. it had spoken to staff members involved in managing the ASB case, who had confirmed that the ASB issue was ongoing and that so far there was not enough evidence to pursue the matter.
3. it could not uphold that the staff handling the ASB case had not been doing their job effectively but would send out further impact statements to residents at the block.
4. it could see that not all of the resident’s callback requests had been returned throughout the duration of the ASB case, and it was sorry for this.
5. it was partially upholding the complaint as calls should have been returned when requested and the complaint response was delayed.
The resident escalated her complaint on 12 December 2022. She said she felt that the ongoing ASB issues had not been actioned appropriately when raised to her housing officer. She contacted the landlord twice more throughout December 2022 to report damage to the block by visitors to her neighbour, and continued shouting and arguing.
On 6 March 2023, the resident reported that the ASB had worsened and that there was frequent drug use in the communal areas. She said that she had a baby and was concerned for his wellbeing. The resident also expressed dissatisfaction with the delayed response to her stage 2 complaint. The resident reported multiple further instances of ASB between March 2023 and October 2023.
On 21 March 2023, the landlord served a Notice Seeking Possession (NOSP) at the ASB perpetrator’s property. It then served a closure order on 7 June 2023 and a further NOSP on 14 June 2023.
The landlord provided its stage 2 response on 3 August 2023. It said:
1. it was sorry for the delays experienced throughout the complaints process and upheld this element of the complaint.
2. the resident’s housing officer at the time of the initial complaint did not send out impact statements and diary sheets to residents at the block when requested. It was sorry and upheld this element of the complaint. It confirmed that the staff member in question no longer works for the landlord.
3. it was satisfied that the staff members dealing with the ASB case at the time of the response were taking the appropriate action.
4. it would compensate the resident £100 as a goodwill gesture for the delays experienced throughout the complaints process.
The resident escalated her complaint to the Ombudsman on 15 September 2023. She said the ASB had caused her significant distress and she did not feel that the landlord had dealt with the matter correctly throughout the duration of the case. At the time of her complaint, the resident said she would like her neighbour to be evicted and for the landlord to help the resident move properties. The Ombudsman understands that since the complaint was escalated to us, the resident’s neighbour has been evicted and the resident has moved properties.

Assessment and findings

Scope of the investigation

The resident has said the incidents she reported caused her significant distress and anxiety. It is important to note it is not the Ombudsman’s role to determine whether ASB occurred or, if it did, who was responsible for it. What the Ombudsman can assess is how a landlord has dealt with the reports it has received and whether it has followed proper procedure and good practice, taking account of all circumstances of the case.
The evidence available shows that the ASB case in question was a historic issue dating back to 2019. In the interest of fairness, the Ombudsman has limited the backward scope of this investigation to the issues that gave rise to the initial complaint raised in June 2022. This is because with the passage of time, evidence may be unavailable and personnel involved may have left an organisation, which makes it difficult for a thorough investigation to be carried out and for informed decisions to be made. Reference to events that occurred prior to 2021 is made in this report to provide context.

The resident’s reports of anti-social behaviour (ASB)

The Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 defines ASB as:
1. conduct that has caused, or is likely to cause, harassment, alarm or distress to any person;
2. conduct capable of causing nuisance or annoyance to a person in relation to that person’s occupation or residential premises, or;
3. conduct capable of causing housing-related nuisance or annoyance to any person.
The landlord’s ASB policy highlights methods it uses to manage cases of ASB. These include informal interventions such as written warnings, acceptable behaviour contracts, and injunctions. The policy also outlines the landlord’s ASB service standards, which say:
1. it will visit victims of ASB within 5 working days of receiving a report, unless the incident is “Priority One” (racial harassment, hate crime, or domestic violence).
2. it will work with the victim to agree an action plan during the first visit and will write to them with a copy of the action plan within 5 working days afterwards.
3. it will keep ASB victims informed of the progress of their complaint at least every 10 working days, but in some cases weekly.
On 7 May 2021, the resident contacted the landlord to request an update on her ASB complaints. It is unclear whether the resident was referring to her complaints from 2020 or reports made earlier in 2021 that were not recorded. The landlord told the resident that she would receive a callback within 48 hours, but this did not happen. The landlord escalated the matter internally following a complaint from the resident. There is no evidence to show that the landlord did call the resident back to discuss her concerns. Having to contact the landlord here caused time and effort to the resident. This was not appropriate.
The resident started keeping diary sheets to record the ASB in June 2021. It is unclear how long the resident kept these for, however the landlord encouraged her to carry on keeping them in February 2022. In internal correspondence dated 18 November 2022, the landlord said that nothing came of the diary sheets. It is unclear how the landlord used the diary sheets and why nothing came of them. This is a record keeping failure.
The landlord undertook several reasonable preventative measures in line with its ASB policy between June 2021 and September 2021, including:
1. a final warning letter issued to the alleged perpetrator on 10 June 2021
2. a multi-agency meeting with the alleged perpetrator’s support worker on 1 July 2021, during which it agreed to work with the alleged perpetrator for a month before taking potential legal action.
3. a follow-up multi-agency meeting on 6 September 2021, in which it agreed to monitor the issues and consult with its legal team if further issues arose.
The landlord arranged for noise monitoring equipment to be installed at the resident’s home on 9 February 2022. The equipment was present in the resident’s home for 1 week but did not pick up any issues. In her contact to the Ombudsman, the resident said her neighbour saw the environmental health team installing the noise equipment so deliberately stayed quiet, which made the equipment redundant. As there is no evidence to confirm this, the Ombudsman is unable to determine whether this was a mitigating factor. The landlord acted reasonably in having the noise equipment installed.
On 20 May 2022, the landlord contacted the police to request details of reports they’d received from residents of the block and offered a joint visit. The landlord began to liaise with the police on a regular basis following this initial contact, which was reasonable and showed that the landlord was taking the matter seriously.
On 4 August 2022, the landlord held an internal meeting to discuss the ASB case. It said it had issued a Community Protection Warning (CPW), a Community Protection Notice (CPN), and a NOSP but none of these actions had made a difference. It concluded that the best option was to send a final warning to the alleged perpetrator before going for possession and / or an injunction. This was reasonable as the landlord had exhausted the preventative measures outlined in its policy.
The landlord contacted the resident on 1 September 2022 and explained the action it intended to take following the meeting on 4 August 2022. It said it needed direct evidence for the case to go to court. While it was appropriate for the landlord to contact the resident with an update, it is unclear why the landlord did not update the resident sooner in line with the communication timeframes outlined in its ASB policy.
In its stage 1 response on 24 November 2023, the landlord said it would issue further impact statements to residents in the block. The evidence shows that the landlord did not do this until 6 January 2023. It is unclear why it took the landlord over 1 month to send the impact statements out to residents. This was an unreasonable delay given the historic nature of the ASB and the distress the resident said the ASB was causing her.
On 13 February 2023, the resident contacted the landlord to report drug use in the communal corridors of the block, and said the police had visited. The landlord called the resident on 15 February 2023 and arranged to visit her on 22 February 2023. It is unclear what the purpose of this visit was and whether it took place. There is no evidence to show that the landlord visited the resident until this date despite earlier reports of ASB, which was not in line with its ASB policy and was therefore not appropriate.
On 2 March 2023, the ASB case was assigned to a new officer. The landlord requested the officer visit the resident and complete an ASB action plan. There is no evidence to show that the landlord completed an action plan with the resident prior to this. It is unclear why it took 2 years of reports from the resident for the landlord to complete an action plan in line with its policy. The resident was inconvenienced by the matter not being resolved sooner which caused distress and impacted the resident’s enjoyment of her home. This was not appropriate.
The resident contacted the landlord on 9 May 2023 to report dog barking and banging noises that had continued throughout the early hours of the morning. The resident expressed distress and anxiety about the ongoing ASB and said she felt that she shouldn’t have to move. She said having to bid on another property would cause her stress and moving would unsettle her infant son. There is no evidence that the landlord acknowledged the resident’s concerns and showed empathy to her distress, which was unreasonable.
In an internal email dated 15 May 2023, the landlord confirmed that it was waiting for a witness statement before it could send the case to its legal team. It said the statement was sent to the witness on 24 April 2023 but it had not received a response despite sending chaser emails. This service recognises the situation’s complexity and can see that some delays in resolving the issue were beyond the landlord’s control.
On 17 May 2023, the landlord spoke to the resident who said she no longer felt comfortable in her property. The landlord offered the resident a victim support referral but the resident declined. It was appropriate for the landlord to offer this referral to the resident, however it is unclear why the landlord did not offer support to the resident or take account of her wellbeing earlier on in the case. It would have been reasonable for the landlord to do so.
The landlord obtained and served a Closure Order to the alleged perpetrator on 7 June 2023 and served a NOSP under mandatory grounds on 14 June 2023. It submitted an application for a possession order to court on 24 July 2023. The landlord contacted the residents of the block following each stage of the legal process to update them on the actions it had taken, which was proactive and appropriate.
On 29 September 2023, the landlord contacted the residents of the block to provide an estimated timeframe for the eviction process. It issued a further update to the residents once it had obtained a warrant on 11 January 2024. This was appropriate and showed that the landlord had made improvements to its communication with the resident and other victims of ASB.
While the landlord’s communication with the resident showed improvement during the later stages of the ASB case, it is clear from the evidence shown to the Ombudsman that the landlord did not provide updates to the resident at least every 10 days as it set out in its ASB policy. This was not reasonable.
Throughout her correspondence with the landlord, the resident explained the impact that the noise had on her and in one email dated 9 May 2023 expressed that the ASB had “ruined her life”. Although the landlord’s ASB policy sets out a victim-centred approach to managing ASB cases, there is no evidence that a risk assessment was conducted at any point throughout the duration of the ASB. The landlord failed to recognise the impact on the resident and missed the opportunity to provide support.
It is essential that landlords keep accurate and clear contemporaneous records of any action taken during an ASB case so that they can monitor the situation effectively and ensure they fulfil their responsibilities. As a member of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, it also has an obligation to provide this Service with sufficient information to enable a thorough investigation. In this case, the records provided by the landlord were limited and its poor record keeping has made it difficult to determine whether its actions were fair and reasonable in the circumstances.
Overall, there were several failings in the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of ASB, as outlined above. While the landlord acknowledged that it had not always responded promptly to the resident’s reports of ASB, it did not appropriately acknowledge the distress and inconvenience caused to the resident. In summary, we have found maladministration because the landlord:
1. failed to undertake a risk assessment for the resident at the start of the reported ASB and at significant milestones.
2. failed to recognise the distress and inconvenience caused to the resident.
3. failed to provide updates to the resident at least every 10 days as set out in its ASB policy.
4. failed to complete an action plan with the resident until 2023, 2 years after her first official complaints in 2021.
5. did not identify any of the failures in its processes.
Having carefully considered our remedies guidance, a fair amount of compensation for the above failures would be £400. This appropriately recognises the distress, inconvenience, time and effort caused to the resident by the failures in this case.

The associated complaint

In accordance with the Complaint Handling Code (“the Code”), landlords must ensure they:
1. acknowledge a complaint within 5 working days.
2. respond to the complaint within 10 working days of the days of the acknowledgment at stage 1.
3. provide a final response within 20 working days of the date of acknowledging the escalation request.
The landlord’s policy is compliant with the provisions of the code.
The resident made her initial complaint to the landlord on 10 June 2022. The landlord provided its stage 1 response on 24 November 2022, 118 working days after it first received the complaint. This was significantly outside of the landlord’s complaints policy. Beyond an acknowledgement sent on 16 November 2022, there is no evidence to show that the landlord contacted the resident during this time to explain or apologise for the delays. This was not appropriate.
The landlord partially upheld the complaint at stage 1 in recognition of the delayed response and the failures identified in responding to the resident’s callback requests. It apologised to the resident, which was appropriate. However, the landlord offered no form of redress beyond these apologies nor did it set out any learning from the complaint. It would have been appropriate for the landlord to offer the resident financial compensation at stage 1 in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance and its own goodwill gesture policy.
The resident requested an escalation to stage 2 of the landlord’s internal complaints process on 12 December 2022. The landlord provided its stage 2 response on 3 August 2023, 161 working days after the complaint was escalated. This was not appropriate.
Section 6.15 of the Code sets out that landlords must decide whether an extension is needed to resolve a complaint and inform the resident of the expected timescale if so. It says that at stage 2, any extension should be no more than 20 days. Moreover, section 6.16 of the Code says that in informing a resident of an extension, the landlord must provide the resident with the contact details of the Ombudsman.
In an acknowledgement email dated 4 January 2023, the landlord informed the resident that it was “unlikely that the complaint will be dealt with within published timescales” due to a backlog of complaints. It did not provide the Ombudsman’s contact details to the resident in this email nor establish an expected timeframe in which it would resolve the complaint. While the landlord did then provide regular updates to the resident regarding the delays, it would have been reasonable for the landlord to have ensured that it kept in sight its obligations to the resident in line with the Code and sought to find a resolution swiftly.
In its stage 2 response, the landlord offered the resident £100 as a goodwill gesture in acknowledgement of the delays at both stage 1 and 2 of the complaints process. Given the significance of the delays at both stages of the complaint and the distress that the substantive issue was causing the resident during this time, the level of compensation offered by the landlord at stage 2 was not reasonable.
Overall, the Ombudsman considers that the above failures did amount to maladministration. This is due to:
1. the significance of the delays in resolving the resident’s complaint at both stage 1 and 2 of the landlord’s internal complaints process, given the distress caused to the resident by the substantive issue.
2. the landlord’s failure to agree an extension with the resident, establish an expected timeframe for resolution, or provide the resident with the Ombudsman’s contact details when informing her of the delays.
Having carefully considered our remedies guidance and the lack of clarity around the compensation already paid by the landlord, a fair amount of compensation for the above failures would be £250. The total compensation payable is therefore £350, in replacement of the £100 offered by the landlord at stage 2.

Determination

In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of anti-social behaviour (ASB).
In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the associated complaint.

Orders and recommendations

Within 28 days of the date of this determination, the landlord is ordered to:
1. Write to the resident to apologise for the failures identified in the report.
2. Pay the resident a total of £750 compensation comprised of:
  1. £100 the landlord has already offered in its stage 2 response. The landlord may deduct this from the total compensation amount if it has already been paid.
  2. £400 for distress, inconvenience, time and trouble caused by the failures in its ASB handling.
  3. £250 for distress, time and trouble caused by its complaint handling failures.
The landlord must provide evidence of compliance with the above orders to this Service within 28 days of this determination.