Northumberland Council (202324329)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202324329

Northumberland Council

3 December 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 reports of a damp bedroom floor.
2. The Ombudsman has also considered the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background and summary of events

3. The resident is a secure tenant of the landlord. The tenancy began in 2010. The property is a 2-bedroom house.
4. The resident says that she first contacted the landlord about the damp bedroom floor in December 2022. The landlord did not provide a copy of the initial contact from the resident to the Ombudsman.
5. The resident was unhappy with the outcome of the landlord’s damp inspections. The landlord had told the resident that there was no sign of damp and that the issue was urine from the resident’s dogs. The resident raised a stage 1 complaint on 29 August 2023 because she disagreed with the outcome of its inspection. She said since its inspections 2 of the landlord’s operatives had visited her property and agreed with her that there was no smell of urine.
6. The landlord did not uphold the stage 1 complaint because it could not find details of any further visits to the property. It closed the complaint without notifying the resident on 27 September 2023. It did not communicate its stage 1 decision to the resident until 1 November 2023. The resident disagreed with the outcome and asked to escalate her complaint to stage 2.
7. The landlord provided its stage 2 response on 9 November 2023. It told the resident it found the inspections to have been appropriate and it did not find any causes of underlying damp. It said it was unable to find any reports from other operatives who she said had attended the property. It could understand the element of doubt raised by those visits and apologised for that. It added that, to avoid any avoidance of doubt, it would book an independent survey.
8. The resident remained unhappy with the landlord’s position and brought her complaint to this Service for investigation on 16 November 2023.

Assessment and findings

Reports of a damp bedroom floor

9. The landlord completed a damp inspection in the bedroom on 11 January 2023. It found evidence of water staining to floorboards and arranged for a further inspection where a joiner would lift the floorboards. The landlord completed its second inspection on 27 April 2023. It found no evidence of water from below. It noted in its report that the staining was the result of wetness of damp to the carpet underlay, likely caused by pet urine. The landlord has not provided evidence that it told the resident of the outcome of that investigation.
10. The landlord replaced the affected floorboards on 30 June 2023. Given its inspection did not identify an on-going issue of damp it was reasonable that the landlord completed this repair
11. A councillor e-mailed the landlord on behalf of the resident on 25 July 2023. It replied and told the councillor the outcome of its inspection. It agreed to speak with the resident to explain the outcome to her.
12. The landlord provided us with internal emails showing that its estates team had visited to explain the outcome of its earlier inspections but not on which date. During that visit it could see wet patches around the bed but when it moved the bed the area was dry. It referred to pet activity causing a smell of urine in the property. It was not appropriate that the landlord took over 3 months to tell the resident about the outcome of its investigation.
13. After the visit from its estates team the resident told the landlord that 2 of its operatives had visited her property to check the damp patch. She said that the first operative was working on a neighbouring property and popped in to check her bedroom. She also said a plasterer had visited her property on 11 September 2023. She told it that both operatives agreed that there was no smell of urine.
14. During the landlord’s complaints investigation, it could not find evidence of the 2 visits the resident had mentioned. In its stage 2 response it did not dispute that those visits happened and it accepted that they would have caused doubt with its previous inspections for the resident. This approach was reasonable of the landlord and its decision to arrange for an independent survey to alleviate her concerns was appropriate.
15. After its stage 2 response an external surveyor completed 2 further inspections of the property on 30 November 2023 and 15 January 2024. It found no evidence of damp and concluded that the staining was likely caused by pet activity. It sent the resident a copy of the findings on 17 January 2024. The landlord is entitled to rely on the outcome of any inspections it commissions.
16. The landlord took the first report of a damp bedroom floor seriously and completed 2 inspections. During its complaint investigation it accepted the resident’s claims of additional visits from its operatives and it arranged for an independent survey. The independent surveyor completed 2 inspections and did not find evidence of damp. These actions were reasonable. However, as it did not tell the resident about the outcome of its April 2023 inspection until around August 2023 there was service failure in how the landlord handled the residents reports of a damp bedroom floor. Although the resident continues to disagree with the findings of the landlord’s and surveyor’s inspections it would have been appropriate to communicated those findings to her at the earliest opportunity.

Complaint handling

17. At the time of the resident’s complaint the landlord’s complaint policy was in draft format. In assessing the landlord’s complaint handling this Service has assessed it against the requirements of the Complaint Handling Code (the Code) applicable at the time.
18. The resident raised a stage 1 complaint on 29 August 2023 after the landlord’s visit. She was unhappy it had told her there was no damp and that the issue was pet activity. She called back on 22 September 2023 and told it that another one of its operatives had since inspected the damp patches and agreed there was no smell of urine. The landlord did not acknowledge the stage 1 complaint as it should have done within 5 working days.
19. During its stage 1 investigation the landlord found no record of further visits to the property. After 2 failed attempts to call the resident on 27 September 2023, it closed the complaint without notifying the resident. In not confirming the outcome of the complaint in writing, within 10 working days the landlord did not comply with the Code during its stage 1 response.
20. Unaware that it had closed the complaint the landlord’s estates team telephoned the resident on 2 October 2023 to discuss her complaint.
21. The landlord telephoned the resident on 1 November 2023 after she had called 3 times that week to chase up a response. It told her that it did not need to take further action following the last inspection. The resident said it had told her it would raise follow up works. She asked to escalate her complaint.
22. The landlord did not formally acknowledge the stage 2 complaint as it should have but it provided its response within 6 working days. That meant the impact of not acknowledging the complaint to the resident was minimal
23. There was a service failure in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint. It did not inform the resident of the outcome of her stage 1 complaint when it closed that complaint without writing to her. That failure meant that it took longer than the 10 working days expected of it to communicate the decision to her. This caused the resident inconvenience as she had to call it to chase up the response when it had already made the decision. The landlord’s own estates team were unaware of the stage 1 closure with its telephone call. This would likely have caused confusion to the resident.

Determination (decision)

24. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was service failure in the landlord’s handling of reports of a damp bedroom floor.
25. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was service failure service failure in the landlord’s complaint handling.

Orders and recommendations

26. With 4 weeks of this decision the landlord should:
    1. Provide an apology to the resident for its failings in line with the Ombudsman’s guidance for making apologies.
    2. Pay the resident the compensation amount of £200, broken down as:
       1. £100 for its delay in telling her the outcome of its first inspection of the damp bedroom floor.
       2. £100 for its poor complaint handling.
27. It should provide proof of compliance to this Service within 4 weeks of this decision.