Platform Housing Group Limited (202012058)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202012058

Platform Housing Group Limited

23 July 2021

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 decision to dispose of the resident’s belongings, stored in a communal cupboard at her property.

Background and summary of events

Background

The resident occupies a flat let to her by the landlord on an assured tenancy. The flat is located in a building which contains communal areas. When the resident entered into her tenancy agreement, she was given a key to a communal cupboard. She was in the habit of storing belongings in there. On 21 October 2020, the cupboard was emptied by the landlord on the grounds of fire safety, her items being permanently disposed of.

Summary of Events

On 4 November 2020, the resident raised a formal complaint with the landlord. She stated that on 29 October 2020 she had opened the storage cupboard to which she had access only to find it was completely empty. A neighbour had informed her it had been emptied by “an unknown company”. The resident had reviewed CCTV footage and noted a removal company had taken the contents of the cupboard and put them in a waste disposal truck. She stated “I am aware attempts were made to inform tenants due to fire regulations personal items needed to be removed from the cupboards due to fire risk. However, I was informed by a member of staff who was visiting the estate that notice would be given prior to items being removed”.

On 6 November 2020, the resident telephoned the landlord and discussed the complaint further. According to the landlord’s record, the resident denied that any warning had been given of this intended action to give her the opportunity to move her belongings. The complaint was discussed by telephone again on 11 November 2020.

On 27 November 2020, the landlord wrote to the resident with its stage one complaint response. It stated as follows:

It had placed a “Disposal of Goods in Communal Areas” notice in the area in question in May 2020 and taken a photograph of its placement. The notice stated the area needed to be cleared by 22 May 2020. Photographic evidence had also been taken of items in this area which were creating a fire risk.

The landlord asserted that its ‘compliance inspector’ had spoken to the resident on 20 July 2020 and confirmed “again” that her items needed to be moved or they would be disposed of. It alleged the resident had agreed to remove her belongings.

The area was cleared by contractors on 21 October 2020.

The landlord was satisfied it had followed the proper process for disposal of the items and that no service failing had taken place. It therefore denied the resident’s claim for compensation.

On 1 December 2020, the resident responded, requesting her complaint be escalated to the next level of the landlord’s complaints process. Her reasons were stated as follows:

She wanted sight of the landlord’s policy/procedure for disposing of her belongings.

Whilst she had spoken to a staff member of the landlord on 20 July 2020 it was regarding shoes being left outside her front door. The operative had taken photographs. There was no discussion regarding the communal cupboard.

She pointed out that the date for clearance of 22 May 2020 had been exceeded by five months and no updated information had been given in the following five months: she questioned whether this represented “reasonable notice”.

The resident was at home at the time of the clearance and confirms no-one from the landlord’s staff contacted her to warn her that the removal was taking place.

The resident requested sight of the photographic evidence referred to.

Finally, she questioned whether the landlord should have held off taking any action at all to safeguard residents during the pandemic.

The landlord acknowledged this request on 4 December 2020.

On 14 December 2020 the landlord emailed the resident in response to her escalation request. It wanted to confirm the grounds for review. It understood her reasons to be:

That the resident had been unable to find the landlord’s policies and procedures on disposal of goods in communal areas and wanted copies.

That a conversation did take place on 20 July 2020 with the landlord’s staff member but it was about shoes being left outside the door and not the emptying of cupboards.

That she considered a notice stating items would be removed by 22 May 2020 was not acceptable to then remove items on 21 October 2020 with no update inbetween.

That the resident wanted photographic evidence of the notice which was put up in the communal area and of the items which were considered a fire risk, along with the photo of her front door and her shoes.

On 21 December 2020 the resident responded to the landlord, confirming she wished to raise those issues and also the following:

She had been given a key to the cupboard in question when she signed her tenancy agreement and she had not been requested to return it. The landlord had now changed the locks and she could no longer access the cupboard.

The items removed were valuable and she had suffered loss, anxiety and stress as a result.

The removal company/accompanying staff member had not attempted to alert tenants that removal was imminent at the time of clearance.

No written correspondence had been received from the landlord confirming removal was going to take place.

She questioned whether the landlord had a Covid 19 policy safeguarding tenants from stress at this time.

On 23 December 2020, the landlord wrote to the resident with its stage two complaint response which was as follows:

It sent to the resident a copy of its Fire Safety Management Policy.

The landlord’s staff member maintained he had spoken to the resident through her door on 20 July 2020. The conversation was not about shoes but about the cupboard. This staff member had made enquiries to find out whose belongings were in the cupboard and been referred to the resident. When telling the resident they did not want her to lose her belongs, she had confirmed this would not happen because she would remove them.

The landlord confirmed it had reviewed the photographic evidence of the warning notice and the items that represented a fire risk. It sent to the resident a copy of the photos it was relying upon. It denied its staff member had taken a photograph of shoes on 20 July 2020 and could not provide one as a result.

Given notice of the removal had been given, the landlord did not consider further notice was required even though there had been a gap between the initial intended clearance day in May 2020 and the actual clearance in October 2020.

The landlord maintained there had been no service failures as it had followed a correct process. Written notice had been displayed in the area in question and a verbal warning given and further written notice was not required.

The landlord asserted it was acting in its tenants’ best interests by removing items that posed a risk in the event of fire.

The landlord also pointed out that signage was posted in its communal areas generally warning unattended items might be removed anyway.

Taking all of the above into account, the landlord refused to uphold the resident’s complaint or consider any offer of compensation.

Agreements, policies and procedures

The landlord operates a Fire Safety Management Policy. It contains the following provisions:

“To reduce the “fire loading” in common areas and to ensure emergency exits and routes for access and egress are kept clear and free of hazards at all times, the Group will also operate a “sterile” policy in all its common areas. The “sterile” policy prohibits the location or storage of any tenant belongings, furniture and fixtures or fittings in common areas any at time. If any such items or items that may present that are deemed a hazard in common areas are discovered they will be removed by the Group to ensure continued safety in these areas”.

“The Group operate a “sterile” communal corridor policy to ensure items that increase fire load or impede fire escape routes must not be placed in communal areas. Tenants must adhere to the policy and not place or store any items in communal areas.”

Assessment

The landlord gave the resident a key to a communal cupboard. In the Ombudsman’s view it is implicit in this action that the landlord foresaw the resident storing items in that cupboard, and indeed, that is what she did. The landlord had signage confirming unattended items in the communal areas might be removed. This ties in with the landlord’s fire management policy which reasonably refers to keeping communal areas free of hazards. However, the resident might reasonably take the view that items stored in a locked cupboard were not to be categorised as ‘unattended’.

Irrespective of the view to be taken regarding the resident’s access to the cupboard however, in or around May 2020, the landlord concluded that what was being stored there was a fire hazard and needed to be removed. It was entitled to determine what might constitute a hazard. Whilst it would be reasonable to expect the landlord to have records of all of the key holders to the cupboard, it is accepted that the landlord might not necessarily know precisely whose belongings were stored there. It needed to clear the cupboard and it needed to communicate that to the owner of the goods.

The landlord has produced photographic evidence which shows a notice sellotaped to a door. There is then a picture of the open door of a cupboard with items inside and which can reasonably be anticipated to be flammable in nature. It is reasonable to conclude the door the notice was sellotaped to, was the door of the cupboard in question. The notice stated that the contents were a fire risk and would be removed by the landlord if the owner did not clear them by 22 May 2020.

Given the landlord would not necessarily have known whose items these were, it was reasonable for it to put the notice on the door so that whoever was using the cupboard would see it there. The resident reports the cupboard contained, amongst other things, a pushchair and a baby seat. Whilst there is no evidence to confirm exactly when the notice was put on the door, and how much advance warning was given, it is reasonable to conclude the resident might visit the cupboard regularly to use these things, given their nature, and that the notice might reasonably have come to her attention fairly early on.

Notwithstanding this, the cupboard was not emptied until much later anyway. The resident effectively questions whether this delay reduced or cancelled out the effectiveness of the notice because the clearance did not happen – in such a situation a false sense of security might prevail that the event was not going to take place after all.

However, whilst the landlord acknowledges that there was a delay in ultimately arranging the clearance, it states it did make further enquiries to find out whose belongings were in the cupboard and that a conversation took place between its staff member and the resident on 20 July 2020 confirming the clearance was still to proceed.

The resident agrees a conversation took place that day but asserts it was about shoes being left outside her flat. The landlord’s staff member is adamant they spoke to the resident through the door and an agreement was reached that the items belonged to the resident and she would clear them straight away.

No person from this Service was present when that conversation took place. Therefore, it cannot simply prefer one version of events over another. In situations such as this, however, it is possible to look at what occurred contemporaneously to the conversation and to draw reasonable conclusions from that evidence.

In this case the landlord has produced an internal email timed at 10.33 am on 20 July 2020 sent by the member of the landlord’s staff in question to colleagues confirming “I’ve been informed the items belong to the tenant at (the property) and told them they have till the end of the day to remove and any items left will be removed from tomorrow”.

Given this email was sent at the time of the conversation in question and it has not been generated in response to this complaint, it is reasonable to conclude that this conversation took place as set out in this email. The staff member has since provided further detail once the complaint came to light. In an internal email dated 3 November 2020 they reported that they had spoken to the resident that day through a closed door and she had confirmed she would remove the items by the end of the day. The report remained consistent.

Further, the resident’s comment in her complaint demonstrates knowledge on her behalf that attempts were being made to clear the cupboard due to fire risk and she confirms that the landlord had had direct contact with her over it – thus giving her the opportunity to proactively protect her belongings. She stated:

“I am aware attempts were made to inform tenants due to fire regulations personal items needed to be removed from the cupboards due to fire risk. However, I was informed by a member of staff who was visiting the estate that notice would be given prior to items being removed.”

For the sake of completeness, it is noted that the landlord accepts it has had conversations with the resident about discarded shoes but there is no evidence that this took place on 20 July 2020 in the same way that there is evidence (as set out above) of the conversation being about clearance of the cupboard.

There is no evidence the landlord took other steps to warn the resident of the impending clearance. The landlord might reasonably have been expected to write an open letter to all residents in the building, at the outset, setting out the position. This is because the landlord did not know whether the cupboard was being visited regularly or not – and therefore it did not know whether the notice would come to the relevant resident’s attention. There is no evidence this was done. However, it had made direct personal contact with the resident, and secured her agreement to remove her belongings, and it therefore acted reasonably in going ahead without trying to engage her further in the process.

A recommendation will be made at the end of this report that the landlord consider sending a letter to all residents in the event it meets a similar situation to this again.

Finally, the resident has questioned whether the landlord acted fairly given the current covid pandemic. Her point is that the pandemic has caused stress and upset and created financial pressures and the landlord should not have taken this action whilst that was ongoing.

This Service’s view is that the pandemic has not prevented landlords and their contractors from operating altogether – only that it has required them to operate in a ‘covid safe’ manner. There is no evidence the landlord’s actions or those of its contractor placed the resident’s health, or that of her family, at risk. On the question of financial pressures, the landlord was acting to protect its residents’ best interests from a fire safety point of view. Such considerations remain valid, pandemic or not. Had the landlord failed to clear a potential fire hazard and there been a problem, it would not be reasonable for it to argue its failure had come about to protect its residents’ finances. There is no evidence that the landlord’s service failed on this point.

The resident did not clear the cupboard. She lost her items and suffered financial loss, anxiety and stress and that is regrettable. However, the landlord’s actions in dealing with the matter were reasonable and no failing in the service it offered has been identified. Accordingly, it cannot be expected to compensate the resident for her loss.

Determination (decision)

In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was no maladministration by the landlord in respect of its decision to dispose of the resident’s belongings, stored in a communal cupboard at her property.

Reasons

The landlord took reasonable steps to bring the intended clearance to the attention of the owner of the goods in the cupboard by attaching a notice to its door. The time to do so expired, but the landlord made further enquiries, identified the resident as the owner, and spoke to her personally to warn her to move her belongings. By doing so it notified her that it intended to proceed, despite the lapsed timescale, and was entitled to proceed despite that fact. The resident had knowledge that clearance of the cupboards, as a fire risk, was planned/imminent. The landlord acted from the best of intentions – that is to protect the residents from a fire risk perspective and it needed to do so irrespective of the covid pandemic and any tensions that placed on the persons involved.

Recommendations

The landlord to consider writing an open letter to all residents in the building in the event of an intended disposal of belongings from an unidentified resident in future.