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Notting Hill Genesis (NHG) (202218255)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202218255

Notting Hill Genesis (NHG)

26 February 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 complaint is about the landlord’s handling of:
    1. Repairs within the resident’s property, including damp and mould.
    2. The resident’s complaint.

Background

  1. The resident holds an assured tenancy with the landlord. She lives with her husband and two young children. The property is a 1-bedroom flat with a balcony.
  2. The resident reported several repairs to the landlord from March 2022 up until her complaint on 29 August. The issues included leaks in the bathroom which had caused damage to the walls, fixtures and flooring. She reported that her hallway and bedroom flooring needed replacing due to a previous leak. She also said that her balcony door needed replacing and her intercom was faulty. She complained about the time it was taking the landlord to fix the issues.
  3. The landlord responded to her complaint on 23 September 2022. It explained what works it had done, such as containing the leaks and renewing some of the bathroom fixtures. It also outlined its plans for carrying out the outstanding works, which included further remedial works. It offered the resident £130 in compensation which it said was for the delays and a missed appointment.  
  4. The resident was dissatisfied with the landlord’s response. She said it had not carried out the repairs and had mishandled her complaint. She contacted the local mayor’s office for help in February 2023, and asked the landlord to escalate her complaint in March 2023. She did not get a direct response from the landlord and asked the Service to help. We wrote to the landlord on 13 April asking it to provide its stage 2 response to her complaint.  
  5. The landlord gave its final response to the resident’s complaint on 16 August 2023. It explained the repairs it had completed. They included further works in the bathroom and a mould wash in the hallway and bedroom. It gave a commitment to finishing the outstanding jobs, which included replacing the balcony door. It apologised for the handling of the repairs and made an additional offer of compensation of £1,000.
  6. The resident remained dissatisfied with the landlord’s response and asked the Service to investigate. She confirmed that most of the repairs she raised in her complaint had been completed, however her intercom is still not working. She also raised new issues.

Assessment and findings

Scope of the investigation

  1. The resident has raised concerns about the impact the issues may have had on hers and her family’s health. The Ombudsman is unable to assess the cause of, or liability for, impacts on health and wellbeing. The resident may be able to make a personal injury claim if she considers that her health has been affected by the landlord’s actions or inaction. This is a legal process, and the resident may wish to seek legal advice if she wants to pursue this option. In accordance with paragraph 42.f. of the Scheme, this issue is more effectively resolved and remedied through the courts. It will therefore not be considered in this report.
  2. The resident said some of the repairs had been ongoing since 2019. The Ombudsman encourages residents to raise and escalate complaints with their landlords at the time the events happened. 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. Because of this, in accordance with paragraph 42.c. of the Scheme, this report centres on the events leading up to the landlord’s complaint response of 16 August 2023.  
  3. The resident has raised new issues, including damp and mould in her living room area. In the interest of fairness, the scope of this investigation is limited to the issues raised during the resident’s formal complaint. This is because the landlord needs to be given an opportunity to investigate and respond to any reported dissatisfaction with its actions prior to the involvement of this Service. The resident has advised us that she has raised these matters as a new complaint. If she remains dissatisfied following the landlord’s responses to her complaint, she has the option of asking the Ombudsman to investigate these concerns.

The landlord’s handling of repairs within the property, including damp and mould

  1. When considered against the landlord’s repair timescales it is clear there were delays in the landlord’s handling. One example of this was the issues within the bathroom. The resident notified the landlord of a leak on 14 March 2022. It did not attend to this until 19 April. It carried out remedial works on 31 May, however this resulted in a further leak. The records show the landlord did not attend to this and resolve it until 12 July.
  2. Given the evidence of its delayed resolution of the resident’s repair reports it was appropriate that the landlord acknowledged and apologised in its complaint responses for its poor service. It recognised the frustration caused to the resident and the inconvenience she experienced while having to chase the repairs. It explained there had been a breakdown in communication with its contractors and promised to keep the resident regularly updated on the outstanding repairs. It offered her a total £1,130 compensation, and also offered to pay £500 towards the insurance excess costs.
  3. The compensation offered was significant, and in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance. The level of redress the landlord offered demonstrated its appreciation of the scale and impact of its poor service. Along with its apologies and explanations, this was a reasonable response. However one of the issues remains unresolved.
  4. The one unremedied issue relates to the resident’s intercom system. The evidence shows the resident had experienced problems with her intercom since mid-2020. She said she could hear it ring but could not hear the person speaking at the other end. She had made several reports to the landlord about the problem and it had attempted to fix the problem by replacing the handset twice before its final complaint response.
  5. The landlord committed to inspecting the intercom again in its final complaint response on 16 August 2023. The evidence shows it attended the resident’s property the following day. She said it had checked the wiring but could not find a fault. It agreed to replace the handset again for the third time, and did so on 8 September 2023, but the problem persisted. The resident expressed her frustration about this to the landlord.
  6. The evidence shows the landlord raised a new job to fix the intercom on 27 September 2023. However the records show that the resident cancelled this job in November 2023 for personal reasons. There is no evidence of the resident contacting the landlord again to rebook in the works. Instead it contacted her in April 2024 (in relation to her complaint) and asked if she wanted to book in the repair. The resident said she was reluctant to allow the contractor access to repair the intercom, as it had recently failed to attend another repair appointment.
  7. Whilst the issue with the intercom has been left unremedied following the resident’s complaint, the landlord demonstrated that it had attempted to fix the problem. It replaced the handset again, and when this did not resolve the issue, it made reasonable attempts to book in the works again.  
  8. The resident’s experiences with the landlord’s handling of the repairs was clearly and understandably frustrating. Nonetheless, the landlord’s response to her complaint, including its apology, explanations, compensation, and actions with the remaining repair issues were appropriate and reasonable, and in line with the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code.

The landlord’s handling of the complaint

  1. The landlord operated a 2-stage complaint process during the time of the complaint. It committed to acknowledging complaints within 2 working days at both stages and issuing responses within 10 working days at stage 1 and 20 working days at stage 2. It said “in exceptional circumstances, the timescales for responding may need to be changed. In such cases we will agree a new timescale with you, which will not usually exceed a further 10 days.
  2. The resident remained dissatisfied following the landlord’s first complaint response on 23 September 2022. She made attempts to escalate her complaint, such as on 1 November when she told the landlord she was waiting for a stage 2 response. She sent a further email on 27 March 2023. However the landlord did not offer to escalate her complaint until April 2023, after involvement by the Service. 
  3. The landlord told us it had agreed with the resident on 18 May 2023 that it would put the stage 2 response “on hold” to allow it more time to complete the repairs. It subsequently required further involvement by us before the landlord issued its final complaint response on 16 August. The time taken significantly exceeded the landlord’s 20-day target. It was counter to the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (2022) requirement that “A complaint response must be sent to the resident when the answer to the complaint is known, not when the outstanding actions required to address the issue, are completed.
  4. The landlord failed to specifically acknowledge its poor handling of the complaint within its final response. Which meant it failed to appreciate the resident’s time and trouble she had spent in chasing and escalating the complaint. This was not in line with its policy which says where there has been a “serious failure in service delivery over a period of time which has caused a significant level of distress and inconvenience it can make a discretionary payment.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 53.b. of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord offered reasonable redress in relation to its handling of repairs within the resident’s property, including damp and mould.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint.

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks from the date of this report the landlord is ordered to pay the resident £250 compensation for its poor complaint handling.
  2. Evidence of compliance with this order must be provided to the Service within 4 weeks of the date of this report.

Recommendation

  1. If it has not done so already, the landlord should now pay the resident the £1,130 compensation it offered during the complaints process. This determination is partly based on it doing so.