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Midland Heart Limited (202226563)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202226563

Midland Heart Limited

17 May 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 resident’s reports of repairs to CCTV covering the carpark of the block and the related service charges.

Background and summary of events

  1. The resident holds an assured tenancy for a flat in a block owned by the landlord, a housing association. The resident has made the landlord aware of mental health concerns.
  2. The resident requested CCTV footage of the car park at the block following incidents of vandalism in early 2022. She was told this could only be given to the police, who were told the footage was not available. The landlord declined to grant her permission to install her own CCTV to monitor the car park. It stated that a tenant was not permitted to conduct surveillance on a public place.
  3. The resident contacted the landlord in November 2022 stating that her main concern was that she paid a service charge for CCTV which had never worked since she lived there. The landlord said that there was no indication of defective CCTV at the location. It issued a complaint response on 14 February 2023 following contact from this Service on 31 January 2023.
  4. The landlord said that there was no evidence that the CCTV was not working, but footage was only held for 8 days. This meant it was no longer available when the CCTV was checked following vandalism to the resident’s car in May 2022. It refunded the £128.96 paid by the resident for CCTV since the related service charges began. It also offered her £170 for poor communication and £170 for inconvenience. The landlord said it was upgrading the CCTV to enable 12 months footage to be stored.
  5. The resident escalated the complaint the same day, stating that she had been informed that the CCTV did not work, and she wanted the landlord to reconsider the compensation. In its response of 14 March 2023, the landlord said that it recognised that improvements were needed, and a new system was being sought. It said that there were no repairs logged for the cameras and that it felt the compensation offered in the stage 1 response was fair. On 16 March 2023, the retention of CCTV footage at the address was increased to 28 days.
  6. The resident wants the CCTV to be fixed and maintained accordingly, a refund for the charges for the time it has not worked and compensation for stress and inconvenience caused.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation if relevant

  1. The resident had a separate complaint with the landlord regarding antisocial behaviour which she has referred to this Service, under reference 202403828. The final response on that case was dated 2 May 2024 and the issues raised there are not included in this investigation.
  2. The resident has advised the Ombudsman that the landlord declined her request to install a ‘Ring doorbell.’ This issue was not raised as part of the formal complaint giving rise to this investigation (202226563). The landlord declined the request on 14 June 2022 on the grounds that the placement of the doorbell would breach other residents’ privacy.
  3. As no complaint about the Ring doorbell was made by the resident prior to the final response related to this case on 14 March 2023, it is not included in this investigation. Given the time that has passed since the issue occurred, it would now likely be outside of the landlord’s timescales for a formal complaint. The resident may wish to approach the landlord for further clarification and provide details of a complaint on this matter if one was submitted.

Assessment

  1. The landlord’s online information regarding repairs says that routine repairs should be addressed within 28 days. The Rent and Service Charge policy says the service charge includes services which are ‘desirable because they improve customers quality of life or their security including window cleaning, door entry systems or CCTV.’
  2. In this case, the landlord has maintained throughout that the CCTV has always been working, but it acknowledged that the footage was not retained for long enough. Following a general upgrade of CCTV across its properties around the time of the resident’s complaint, this was increased to 28 days (albeit the stage 1 response said the landlord was looking to be able to retain footage for 12 months).
  3. The new retention time of 28 days is a reasonable length of time to make a request for footage following an incident. The landlord has responded to the concerns of the resident and others in this respect.
  4. The landlord is not obliged to provide a minimum retention of CCTV footage. It provided working CCTV, which it said had no reports of any faults. It is noted that an engineer’s report dated 13 February 2023 confirms that 2 cameras on the bin room and 1 on the car park were found to be working, but one on the stairs was not, although it was then reset and left working. This fault was reported on 19 January 2023, so the repair was dealt with in the 28 days’ timescale in the landlord’s repair guidance.
  5. The Ombudsman will not find the landlord to be at fault if it responds to repairs within the stated times, and it is not reasonable to expect there will be no faults. The action taken by the landlord was appropriate and there is no further evidence of faults which were not repaired within the timescales.
  6. The issue for the resident is that when she, and the police, requested footage following her car being vandalised in May 2022, it was not available. The CCTV did not hold footage beyond 8 days and there is no evidence to show that this was requested within the 8-day period. There was a request on 6 June 2022 for footage from 28 May 2022, but that was 9 days after the event. There is no evidence that the car park CCTV was not working.
  7. The landlord has refunded the full sum paid by the resident towards the costs of CCTV, as well as a sum for poor communication and inconvenience, making a total of £468.96. There is nothing to suggest that the resident raised a formal complaint prior to her approach to the Ombudsman. There was an acknowledgment of an enquiry on 17 June 2022 when the resident said she believed a neighbour may have Ring doorbell footage overlooking the car park. The landlord said it would investigate, but no response has been seen.
  8. The resident raised the issue again in November 2022, when she said if the CCTV was working the landlord would have known who was responsible for fly tipping on the estate. The landlord said the fly tipping was cleared the same day. Whilst the landlord did not at that time have access itself to monitor CCTV, it is appropriate that it responded to the reports of fly tipping in a timely manner.
  9. It is clear that the resident experienced distress from the issues in the car park, involving her own car and others. It was frustrating for her that the police were unable to obtain the footage, albeit there is no guarantee this would have produced a different outcome.
  10. Overall, there is no evidence that the landlord was obliged to provide more than 8 days CCTV retention capability. The resident had the service charge element refunded; thus the landlord demonstrated its willingness to ensure that she did not pay for a service she had not received. She was given a sum for poor communication and inconvenience, and the landlord upgraded the system in March 2023, which may have provided some reassurance for the resident.
  11. The £340 awarded in respect of poor communication and inconvenience is in the range of awards made by the Service for instances of maladministration where there has been a failure which adversely affected the resident. There are no grounds for further compensation to be awarded.
  12. The resident had paid a service charge which has been refunded, although the evidence would suggest that the CCTV was not faulty in this instance. The compensation awarded by the landlord in is stage 1 response is reasonable redress for the resident’s complaint regarding the CCTV.

Determination (decision)

  1. In accordance with paragraph 53 (b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme the member has offered redress to the complainant prior to investigation which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, adequately resolves the complaint about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of repairs to CCTV covering the carpark of the block and the related service charges.