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Phoenix Community Housing Association (Bellingham and Downham) Limited (202321234)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202321234

Phoenix Community Housing Association (Bellingham and Downham) Limited

6 May 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 the resident’s request for repairs to the front and rear fences, and side gate.

Background

  1. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord. The tenancy began on 7 July 2008. The property is a 3 bedroom house.
  2. The resident contacted the landlord on 22 June 2022 to report her side gate was loose and in need of repair. The landlord inspected the gate and rear fencing on 26 August 2022. The resident said the landlord only completed a temporary repair.
  3. The landlord introduced an interim fencing policy on 3 April 2023. This meant it was no longer responsible for repairing/renewing fencing unless an exception applied. The new policy said it would only repair or renew fencing and gates where:
    1. The fencing bordered public land.
    2. The condition of the fencing was a health and safety hazard.
    3. The residents were aged over 65 or had disabilities which would prevent them carrying out fence repairs.
    4. The fencing was needed to resolve a serious antisocial behaviour issue.
  4. The resident reported the need for a repair to her front garden fence on 26 April 2023. The fence bordered a public footpath.
  5. The resident contacted the landlord on 10 July 2023 to chase works to her front and rear fence and side gate. The landlord responded and informed the resident on 31 July 2023 it was no longer doing fencing repairs.
  6. The resident raised a formal complaint with the landlord on 6 September 2023. She said she had reported repairs to her side gate and rear fence in June 2022. She said the landlord agreed to do the work. She said she had since chased the work to her fences but the landlord had told her it would no longer do the repairs due to the new fencing policy.
  7. The landlord sent the resident a stage 1 complaint response on 14 September 2023. It said it had not upheld the complaint. It said, as it had changed its policy on fencing, the resident no longer met the criteria for fencing repairs.
  8. Following escalation to stage 2, the landlord sent the resident a stage 2 complaint response. It said it had reviewed the stage 1 response and it partially upheld her complaint. It said it was responsible for repairs to boundary fences under its new policy. It said it would send an operative within 28 days to either repair or renew the front fence. However, it said it would not repair or renew the resident’s side gate/rear fence as, under the new policy, it could not repair dividing fences or gates. It also said the resident did not meet any of the exceptions criteria.
  9. The landlord reviewed its stage 2 decision on 18 June 2024. It said its review had found that it should have repaired the resident’s side gate as she had reported the repair before the implementation of the new fencing policy. It said it had agreed to remove the gate and replace 3 of the rear fence panels. It also offered the resident £250 compensation for the delay in carrying out the repairs and the delay in resolving the issue through the complaints process.

Assessment and findings

The resident’s request for repairs to the front and rear fences and rear gate

  1. The landlord does not dispute that there were failures in the way it handled the repairs to the resident’s fencing and gate. However, the landlord did not fully acknowledge its failures or resolve the issue for the resident until after it had completed its internal complaints process.
  2. In its stage 1 response, sent to the resident on 18 September 2023, the landlord said it had not upheld the resident’s complaint. It said it had no record of an agreement to carry out fencing renewal works before it changed its fencing policy. It also refused to carry out any work to the resident’s front fence due to the implementation of the fencing policy. However, its decision was not in line with exceptions detailed within the new fencing policy. This was because the policy said the landlord would repair or renew fencing that bordered public land, and the resident’s front fence bordered a public footpath.
  3. The resident escalated her complaint to stage 2 on 26 September 2023 as she was unhappy with the landlord’s response. The landlord sent the resident a stage 2 response on 14 November 2023. It said it partially upheld her complaint as its fencing policy said it would repair or renew fencing to boundaries bordering public land. It said its decision not to repair the rear garden fence and side gate was in line with its policy, however, it recognised it should have repaired or replaced the front fence. It said it would attend the resident’s property within 28 days to repair or replace the front fence. The records show the landlord completed the work on 2 May 2024, which was outside of the agreed 28 days.
  4. The landlord inspected the resident’s rear fence and side gate on 10 June 2024. It sent the resident a letter dated 18 June 2024 informing her it had reviewed its stage 2 decision and found it to be incorrect. It said it should have upheld the resident’s complaint in full. The landlord explained this was because the resident had requested the repair to the side gate/rear fence before the implementation of the fencing policy.
  5. It said, as a result, it would remove the side gate and replace 3 of the rear fence panels and it had asked its contractor to complete the work within 28 days. The landlord also offered the resident compensation of £250. This was made up of £150 for its delay in carrying out the repairs to the rear fencing and side gate, and £100 as it had not resolved the issue correctly at stage 2.
  6. In summary, the evidence shows the landlord did not fully recognise its failure to complete the fencing work as part of its stage 2 response. It was only following a review, after the completion of the complaints process, that it found the resident was entitled to have additional work completed. As a result, it agreed to complete the work and offered the resident compensation of £250. This offer came 7 months after the stage 2 response.
  7. When a failure is identified, as in this case, our role is to consider whether the redress offered by the landlord put things right and resolved the resident’s complaint satisfactorily in the circumstances. In considering this, we take into account whether the landlord’s offer of redress was in line with the Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles: Be Fair, Put Things Right and Learn from Outcomes as well as our own guidance on remedies.
  8. We encourage landlords to take resolution focussed action, irrespective of the stage a case is at. However, the main focus for a landlord should always be to ensure that a case in dispute progresses to a fair resolution during its internal complaints process.
  9. It was not until the resident referred her complaint to us, that the landlord conducted a further review of the case and offered compensation. Although this did show a willingness to learn, in line with the Dispute Resolution Principles, appropriate redress is something which should have been considered as part of the internal complaints procedure. A referral to the Ombudsman is not meant as another opportunity for the landlord to consider its handling of the complaint. The Ombudsman’s guidance on remedies is clear that increased offers of compensation following a landlord’s complaint process is unlikely to amount to a determination of reasonable redress.
  10. Had the landlord made the current offer at the time of the stage 2 response, we would have likely found that its offer of £250 and its agreement to complete the outstanding repairs was satisfactory to resolve the complaint. Because the landlord failed to provide this resolution as part of its process, and the subsequent inconvenience caused by this delay, this leads to a determination of service failure by the landlord in this case.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in its handling of the resident’s request for repairs to the front and rear fences, and rear gate.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

  1. Within four weeks from the date of the report, the landlord must:
    1. Apologise to the resident in writing for the failings identified in this report.
    2. Pay the resident total compensation of £300 (the landlord can deduct from the total any amount of compensation it has already paid) in recognition of the distress and inconvenience caused to the resident by the delays in the resolution of the complaint.
  2. The landlord should reply to this Service with evidence of compliance with these orders within the timescales set out above.