North Tyneside Council (202204931)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202204931

North Tyneside Council

12 June 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

The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s:
1. Concerns that his neighbour was using parking behaviours to harass him.
2. Complaint.
The Ombudsman has also considered the landlord’s record keeping.

Background

The resident is a secure tenant of a 2 bedroom house owned by the landlord. The resident is in his 70s, has autism, and lives alone in the property. The landlord has informed the Ombudsman that it does not have any vulnerabilities recorded on the resident’s tenancy file.
The resident lives next door to another tenant of the landlord’s. For clarity, this tenant will be referred to throughout this report as the resident’s neighbour.
In May 2022, the resident knocked on his neighbour’s door to ask that she moved her partner’s car, to enable him to access the boot of his own. On 28 May 2022, there was a confrontation between the resident and his neighbour concerning parking behaviours outside their homes. On 10 June 2022, the resident formally complained to the landlord about his neighbour.
On 28 June 2022, the landlord issued its stage 1 complaint response to the resident. It stated it had investigated the resident’s complaint by liaising with the neighbourhood housing team leader. It stated that it was not authorised to enforce parking restrictions or advise residents to move their “legal and road-worthy” vehicles. It stated that such restrictions did not form part of the tenancy agreement. The landlord accepted the resident was likely to be dissatisfied with the outcome of his complaint, but reiterated it could not take enforcement action as there had been no identified tenancy breaches.
The resident asked the landlord to escalate his complaint to stage 2 on 1 July 2022. He said this was because the landlord was “still barking up the wrong tree”. The resident stated he felt his neighbour was deliberately parking in a “discourteous” way in order to cause him annoyance. Therefore, his complaint was more to do with harassment from his neighbour rather than specific parking behaviours. The resident explained that while the situation had improved in recent weeks, he felt it was because they wanted him to stop reporting them. He stated he did not know whether the landlord had sent a letter to his neighbour despite its suggestion that it would do so.
The resident further requested the landlord to escalate his complaint on 5 July 2022. On 27 July 2022, the Ombudsman contacted the landlord and asked it to provide the resident with a stage 2 response.
The landlord issued its stage 2 complaint response on 18 August 2022. It set out the following:
1. It thanked the resident for his courtesy on the telephone earlier that afternoon. While the landlord had asked the resident if he would agree to meeting in person, it respected the resident’s right to decline this invitation.
2. The complaint handler refuted the resident’s statement on the phone that he had had “plenty of time” to respond to the resident’s complaint. They stated that, as senior manager, they had been asked to respond to the complaint at stage 2 upon the resident’s request to escalate.
3. Since the stage 1 complaint response had been issued, the landlord had spoken to the community protection team about the resident’s concerns. It had also visited the resident’s property “a couple of times” and had not identified any concerns with parking.
4. It reiterated that it did not have the authority to challenge the resident’s neighbour about their parking.
5. It had noted that there were hardstandings and gates on the resident’s street, so was “a bit puzzled” why cars would not be parked on the driveways. The landlord had noted the resident mentioned his singular car and would have asked the resident about this had he agreed to be visited. It accepted that the resident may have “a genuine reason” why his car was not parked on the driveway that it had provided some years ago as part of refurbishment works.
6. The landlord had noted the resident had referred to his neighbour’s conduct as “harassment” in emails dated 1 and 5 July 2022, although this had not been mentioned as part of his original complaint. It stated it found the resident’s statement that his complaint was not about parking, but about harassment, to be “somewhat conflicting”.
7. It advised the resident to report any obstructions or hazards caused by his neighbours’ parking to the police, as it did not have any jurisdiction over such matters.
8. If the resident was willing to provide more information about the alleged harassment from his neighbour to the community protection team, it would be “happy to consider this further”.
9. It reiterated that any intervention it took would be in response to reports of harassment and not parking, which was not in its jurisdiction.
10. It apologised if the resident had found the landlord’s complaints process “unacceptable” and “taking too long”. It stated that it suspected this may be linked to the content of the resident’s original complaint, which appeared to be outside its jurisdiction.
An internal note made by the landlord on the same day as the stage 2 response stated that the resident had declined to be visited in person because of his autism.
On 5 September 2022, the landlord issued a stage 3 response to the resident. It confirmed it had fully investigated his complaint and it was satisfied that it had responded to all issues raised in full. It accepted that the resident may not have agreed with the landlord’s responses; however it stated that “to disagree is not grounds for a valid complaint, there must be an element of fault or injustice to you”. It assured the resident it took “all complaints very seriously” but that it had been unable to identify any fault.
The resident referred his complaint to the Ombudsman to investigate. He remains unhappy with how the landlord handled his reports and his complaint. He has also stated that he feels the landlord is ignoring his complaints and making it difficult to access its complaint department and he would like this to stop. He would also like to be compensated for the distress and inconvenience he has experienced.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

The landlord is also a local council and provides various services to all local residents, in addition to its own tenants. In some circumstances, the landlord’s powers to handle certain situations may vary depending on whether it is acting as a council or a social housing provider. The Services further notes that the resident occasionally referred to the landlord as ‘the council’. For clarity, the Ombudsman’s remit in these circumstances is limited to assessing the landlord’s functions as a social landlord only, through which it provides services exclusively for its tenants. Complaints about the landlord’s service provision for all local citizens regardless of their tenure can be referred to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) once they have completed the internal complaints procedure.
The evidence suggests that in the weeks following the landlord’s stage 3 complaint response, issues with the resident’s neighbour reoccurred. The Ombudsman’s remit is to assess concerns that the landlord has had sufficient opportunity to formally respond to via its internal complaints procedure. The landlord’s handling of events that occurred after the landlord’s final complaint response will therefore be outside of the remit of this investigation. If the resident continues to experience issues with his neighbour and feels the landlord has failed to act in accordance with its policies, he could consider making a new formal complaint.

Concerns that his neighbour was using parking behaviours to harass him

The landlord has provided a template copy of the tenancy agreement it has with the resident as it stated the original copy of the agreement has been archived. The landlord has also informed us that it is the landlord of the resident’s neighbour so this agreement would be likely to apply to them. The agreement states that tenants “must not park a vehicle so that it blocks any other vehicle or access, or causes nuisance or danger to anyone living in or visiting the area”.
The landlord has an antisocial behaviour (ASB) policy in place that sets out its approach to its residents reporting behaviour that causes disruption, annoyance, intimidation, or harassment. The policy includes a procedure that the landlord’s staff will follow upon receiving such reports, and includes details of steps it will take to manage ASB. It sets out the following:
1. It will respond to category 1 (urgent) reports within 1 working day. Examples of these reports include violence or serious threat of violence confirmed by the police.
2. It will respond to category 2 (serious) reports within 5 working days. Examples of these reports include untidy gardens and noise nuisance.
3. It will respond to category 3 (environmental) reports within 10 working days, examples of which include illegal parking and fly tipping.
4. The landlord may require the reporting resident to complete diary sheets in order to record incidents for no more than 5 days, at which point the landlord will review them. It will also keep the resident up to date with steps it is taking to deal with the complaint.
The landlord has not provided the resident’s original complaint, which it logged on 10 June 2022 and this will be considered in the assessment of the landlord’s record keeping later in this report. Other records provided from around that time suggested the resident knocked on his neighbour’s door in May 2022 to ask her to move her car back as he could not access the boot to his car. There was further mention of a confrontation between the resident and neighbour concerning parking behaviours that had taken place on 27 May 2022.
The landlord’s stage 1 response on 28 June 2022 explained that its neighbourhood housing team did not have the authority to enforce parking restrictions. While this may have been the case, the landlord further stated that parking restrictions are not governed by the tenancy agreement. It followed that as there was no breach of the tenancy agreement, the landlord would be unable to intervene. While the tenancy agreement does not specifically set out that the resident has allocated parking or must abide by certain restrictions, it does clearly refer to parking that causes a “nuisance”. There is no evidence that the landlord referred to this clause or considered it, which was inappropriate. If it did not believe the reported behaviours reasonably constituted a “nuisance”, it would have been appropriate for it to have explained that.
The landlord attended the resident’s property on 2 or 3 occasions in the weeks prior to 8 July 2022 in order to try and witness the problem as reported. While it did not see any evidence that corroborated the resident’s reports, it is positive to note that it took this action.
The resident sent emails to the landlord on 1 and 5 July 2022 in which he said he perceived the neighbour’s parking behaviours to constitute “harassment” of him. He stated that he felt the landlord had been “barking up the wrong tree” and that his issue was “nothing to do with parking as such but is to do with harassment”. He felt his neighbour was deliberately parking in a way that caused him annoyance and inconvenience and that it was therefore inappropriate of the landlord to imply it was not its responsibility to intervene. He asked the landlord in both emails to escalate his complaint to stage 2. The landlord responded on 5 July 2022 with a link to report ASB to the community protection team. While this was appropriate, there is no indication that the landlord referred any of the recent history of the case to the team to facilitate any investigation that may later have been necessary.
The Service notes that the resident stated in an email dated 8 July 2022 that his neighbour had been “behaving properly” in recent weeks and that he had previously informed the landlord of this. He challenged the landlord on why it had not taken action such as sending his neighbour a letter, email, or making a phone call. The Service understands the resident’s position. However, as he had pointed out in an email less than 1 month after his complaint, he had been telling the landlord that the neighbour’s behaviour had recently improved. The landlord’s visits to witness the problem had not found any evidence of one. It would be inappropriate for the landlord to take action against the neighbour if the issue appeared to have improved. Such action may also have been disproportionate under the circumstances. It would have been reasonable for the landlord to continue to monitor the issue and take action when the resident was reporting an active problem, rather than when the situation had improved. The Services further notes it seems possible the landlord had misunderstood the resident’s complaint at stage 1, and had therefore not taken action against the neighbour as it had not identified the resident felt harassed at that stage.
The resident made repeated reference to the fact he felt the landlord had “ignored” his emails. He stated he had sent 16 emails over 16 days at one point, which the landlord had eventually responded to with a telephone call. The landlord’s records demonstrate that its communication with the resident was poor. The Service would not expect the landlord to reasonably be able to respond promptly to daily emails from the resident for weeks. However, there is no evidence that it managed the resident’s expectations on its timescales for responses. The evidence also supports the resident’s comments that he went for weeks without meaningful communication from the landlord despite him chasing it. This was inappropriate and poor service. Considering the resident’s known vulnerability and the clear distress he displayed in some of his emails, the landlord failed to act reasonably in its approach to communication with him.
The landlord’s stage 2 complaint response explained why its stage 1 response did not respond to concerns about harassment. It gave information on how the resident could report any further parking concerns, whether these were related to obstructions, hazards, or harassment. This was reasonable, although other concerns have been identified with this response, which will be raised in the complaint handling assessment later in this report.
The Service notes that the resident provided the landlord with photos that he said demonstrated that his neighbour was being unreasonable when choosing how to park her car. He pointed out that the photos showed the neighbour’s car parked bumper to bumper with his car, on an otherwise empty street. The resident felt the landlord had ignored this photographic evidence. It is understandable why the resident would want to provide the landlord with evidence to support his reports.
However, the Service accepts it would be difficult for the landlord to accept these specific photos as evidence that the resident’s neighbour was harassing him. The landlord could not reasonably have used a photograph to determine whether the neighbour had parked in such a way to harass the resident. This is because the photograph could not provide any evidence of intention. However, the landlord could have gone further to provide a clear explanation as to why a photograph could not be considered evidence in the circumstances. It does not appear that the landlord sufficiently explained the reasoning for this to the resident; that it did not was a failing.
It is unclear whether the issue with the neighbour’s parking had reoccurred in the weeks since the resident stated the behaviour had improved. An email sent by the resident on 19 August 2022 suggested that his grievance with the landlord had become more to do with its treatment of him and potential misunderstanding of his original complaint. The email further stated that an individual member of the landlord’s staff had had understood that harassment was its responsibility to respond to and that they “did something about it”. It is unclear from the landlord’s records what actions this member of staff took and the stage 2 response dated the previous day did not refer to anything. However, the Service further notes that records from after the stage 3 response issued on 5 September 2022 (which did not add anything further to the landlord’s position at stage 2) indicated that the problem had reoccurred.
The Ombudsman has identified some failings in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of nuisance parking. There is evidence it did not always communicate appropriately with the resident or consider his vulnerabilities. It is also unclear how reasonable it was that it originally considered the complaint to be about parking issues rather than harassment. The landlord has provided insufficient evidence that it took reasonable steps to handle the resident’s reports sympathetically and reassure him that it would be able to support him with evidenced harassment, or how it might do this. The impact of these failures on the resident was clearly evidenced by the distress and frustration he communicated in his emails. We have therefore found service failure in the landlord’s response to the resident’s concerns.
The Ombudsman’s Guidance on Remedies (published online) sets out the Ombudsman’s approach to putting things right. In consideration of the specific impact on the resident of the landlord’s poor communication and sometimes apathetic approach to his reports, an order will be made for the landlord to pay £300 compensation to the resident.

Complaint handling

The version of the landlord’s complaints procedure that was in use at the time of the resident’s complaint sets out that it had a 3 stage procedure for dealing with formal complaints. It set out the following approach:
1. At stage 1, the landlord should respond to the complaint within 15 working days, or provide an explanation and a revised target date to the resident if it is likely to take longer.
2. At stage 2, a senior manager reviews the complaint and “attempts to resolve and respond to the complainant within 15 working days”.
3. Escalation of a complaint to stage 3 is at the discretion of the senior complaints officer. While a timescale for a response is not given, the policy says that a final decision will be reached by an appeals and complaints committee.
4. At stages 1 and 2, the landlord states it will provide an explanation and a revised target date for a response to the resident if it needs additional time to provide a response.
The Service has noted that the landlord has recently updated its complaints policy and a new 2 stage procedure came into effect in 2024, in line with the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code).
The landlord logged a formal complaint from the resident on 10 June 2022. In line with its policy at the time, it should have issued a response within 15 working days, which would have given a deadline of 1 July 2022. The landlord issued its stage 1 response on 28 June 2022, which was within its policy timescale.
The resident asked the landlord to escalate his complaint to stage 2 of its procedure on 1 July 2022. He then repeated this request on 5 July 2022. The landlord should have provided its stage 2 response by 22 July 2022, which was 15 working days after his original request to escalate. On 27 July 2022, the Service contacted the landlord and asked the landlord to escalate the resident’s complaint. It is unclear from the landlord’s records when it actioned the escalation, however it is apparent there was a delay to it doing so. The landlord must ensure it does not unreasonably refuse to escalate complaints to stage 2.
The landlord provided an undated email that suggests it emailed the resident requesting an extension of the deadline for its stage 2 response to 26 August 2022. While this was appropriate, it is unclear when the email was sent; and as such, how much notice the resident was given. The landlord must ensure it provides dated records to the Ombudsman to support investigations. It is difficult to consider such undated records to be contemporaneous evidence of actions it took or communications it made. Considering other emails had reasonably been provided in their dated format, it is unclear why this email was not.
The landlord provided the resident with a stage 2 response on 18 August 2022. While this was before the amended deadline of 26 August 2022, it was nearly a month after the resident should have received it, had his escalation request been actioned appropriately. While the delay was short-lived, this was a failing in the landlord’s complaint handling.
The stage 2 response referred to the landlord having offered the resident a visit to his home in order to see the issues first hand and to discuss the complaint. In its response, the landlord noted the resident had declined this invitation. The complaint handler further said “I fully respect your right to decline this invitation”, which was reasonable.
However, later in the response, the landlord again referred to the declined offer of a visit. The complaint handler said that the resident had referred to his car in the singular and “it was one of the questions I wanted to discuss with you had you agreed to my visit”. The landlord could have phrased this more appropriately. It gave the impression that the resident’s preference to not receive a visit from the landlord had prevented it from fully investigating his complaint. The landlord had already referred to having spoken on the telephone with the resident about his complaint earlier that day. It is unclear why the landlord could not have asked its question to the resident over the telephone. That it chose to refer again to the declined visit in this manner gave the impression that it perhaps had not fully respected the resident’s right to decline the invitation.
In an email dated 19 August 2022, the complaint handler responded to contact from the resident and apologised if he had found the offer of a visit to be “suspicious”. They stated they considered offering a visit to be “good practice in complaint handling”. The Service agrees that offering an in-person visit is good practice in complaint handling. However, it would also be good practice to genuinely respect the resident’s right to refuse this, rather than suggest such a refusal had frustrated its complaint investigation and inconvenienced the landlord. The landlord’s records from the days prior to the stage 2 response demonstrate it had been aware that the resident has autism and that he had declined the visit due to this. That the landlord then made the comment it did was especially inappropriate.
There is further evidence of inappropriate commentary in the stage 2 response. The landlord noted that in the resident’s email dated 1 July 2022, he had stated that his complaint was “nothing to do with parking as such but is to do with harassment”. The landlord responded by saying “[w]ith all due respect your original complaint was clearly about parking and your omission to mention harassment is somewhat conflicting I find”. It is apparent that the landlord had failed to consider that the resident was providing clarity to the nature and intent of his complaint, rather than that he had been wilfully misleading. The purpose of a complaints procedure with multiple stages is to ensure misunderstandings or miscommunications are identified and resolved before the procedure has been completed. If the resident felt his original complaint had not communicated his feelings as clearly as he would have liked, or that the landlord’s stage 1 response had missed the point, he had possibly taken the opportunity to clarify. It was also possible that between 10 June 2022 (the date of the complaint) and 1 July 2022, further incidents had occurred and/or the resident’s characterisation of the issue had evolved. The landlord should have been receptive to this and used the stage 2 response to respond constructively to the resident’s points. Adopting such an approach would reasonably have demonstrated that it was engaging with the complaint in a meaningful way. It was not appropriate to use the stage 2 response to offer an assessment on the effectiveness of the resident’s communication.
The complaint handler at stage 2 further used the response to apologise to the resident “if you found our process of dealing with your complaint unacceptable and taking too long”. By way of explanation, they stated they “suspect this may be linked to the content of your original complaint which appeared to be not within the jurisdiction of [the landlord]”. This was again inappropriate. The landlord’s failure to escalate the resident’s complaint in a timely manner was due to its own failure to act in accordance with its policy. It was not the fault of the resident, which the landlord seemed to have been implying. The landlord had sufficient time to identify whether it considered the resident’s complaint to be outside of its jurisdiction and communicate that to him appropriately. Choosing not to take responsibility for the failure to act in accordance with its policy was unreasonable. The landlord’s complaint responses should not be unnecessarily unsympathetic or heavy-handed. An order will be made that the landlord reminds its complaint handling staff of how to respond in an appropriate manner to complaints.
It is unclear from the records when or if the resident asked for his complaint to be escalated to stage 3 of the procedure. However, the landlord issued a final stage 3 response on 5 September 2022, which was within appropriate timescales. The stage 3 response assessed its handling of the resident’s complaint. It failed to acknowledge any of the issues identified in this report. It failed to acknowledge any shortcomings in its handling of the resident’s concerns, including with its communication. It failed to critically assess the clear inappropriateness of some aspects of its stage 2 response. It failed to identify that the landlord had not meaningfully engaged with the substance of the resident’s complaint. The resident had repeatedly told the landlord he felt ignored and the landlord failed to address this at all. This was poor and a failure of the third stage of the process.
The landlord will be ordered to apologise to the resident for the failures identified in its complaint handling. It will also be necessary for it to pay him compensation to recognise the distress and inconvenience caused. The Remedies Guidance suggests that awards of £250 may adequately redress maladministration that the landlord failed to appropriately acknowledge and put right.

Record keeping

This investigation has been frustrated by the landlord’s failure to provide the resident’s original complaint to the Service. This has particularly been the case due to the landlord’s references to “conflicting” information between the resident’s complaint at stages 1 and 2 of the process. This has resulted in the Service being limited in how effectively we can assess the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint.
There are also concerns that the evidence submitted by the landlord does not include full correspondence records from the resident. The resident referred to having sent a high volume of emails to the landlord, sending “at least 30 emails”, with 16 sent over 16 days at one point. The landlord has not provided this volume of correspondence from the resident, nor has it provided evidence that it disputes what the resident said. The resident also referred to emails with an individual member of staff who had “sorted out” the problem, yet these have not been provided. This has reasonably impacted the Service’s ability to potentially make a more favourable assessment of the landlord’s handling of the resident’s concerns. The Scheme requires the landlord to “provide copies (without charge) of any information requested by the Ombudsman that is, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, relevant to the complaint”.
The Service further notes that the landlord informed us while making its evidence submission that it does not have any record that the resident had any vulnerabilities. This is despite the records it submitted referring to the resident’s autism; knowledge it did not then handle appropriately. An order will be made that the landlord self-assesses with reference to the recommendations made in the Ombudsman’s Spotlight report on knowledge and information management (published online in May 2023).
As a result, a finding of maladministration will be made with respect to the landlord’s record keeping. We have been unable to establish whether the landlord reasonably believed the resident significantly changed or contradicted his complaint between stage 1 and 2 (despite its irrelevance). We have been unable to establish therefore if the stage 1 complaint response adequately responded to the issues raised. We have also been unable to establish the extent of any communication failures by the landlord as a result of suspected incomplete correspondence records. An order will therefore be made that the landlord pays the resident £150 compensation to recognise the impact of the Service’s frustrated ability to fully assess the landlord’s handling of his complaint. This amount is also intended to recognise the fact that the landlord appeared to criticise the resident based on what his original complaint did or did not say, causing him additional distress.

Determination

In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s concerns that his neighbour was using parking behaviours to harass him.
In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint.
In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s record keeping.

Orders

Within 28 days of the date of this determination, the landlord is ordered to:
1. Apologise to the resident for the failures identified in this report. The landlord must consult the Guidance on Apologies section within the Remedies Guidance prior to writing and issuing the apology. A copy of the compliant apology must be provided to the Ombudsman.
2. Make a payment of £700 financial compensation directly to the resident, comprised of:
  1. £300 to recognise the distress and inconvenience caused by its handling of his reports of harassment.
  2. £250 to recognise the distress and inconvenience caused by its complaint handling failures.
  3. £150 to recognise the impact on its record keeping failures.
3. The landlord must remind its complaint handling staff that they must provide appropriate complaint responses that are not unnecessarily unsympathetic or heavy-handed. The landlord must refer to the complaint handling failures identified in this report and set out its expectations. The landlord will not be required to identify any individual complaint handling staff in its communication. A copy of this communication must be provided to the Ombudsman.
4. The landlord must provide the Ombudsman with an explanation for why it has been unable to provide a copy of the resident’s original complaint. It must also provide details on steps it has taken, or will take, to reduce the likelihood of this happening in future.
The landlord is ordered to carry out a self-assessment of its knowledge and information practices, with reference to the recommendations made in the Ombudsman’s Spotlight report on knowledge and information management. The landlord must provide the Ombudsman with a copy of the assessment within 8 weeks of the date of this determination.

Recommendations

The landlord should ensure the resident has appropriate access to its complaints department and that any decision not to accept a complaint is made in accordance with its policy and the Code. Any decision not to accept a complaint must be explained to the resident in writing.