Platform Housing Group Limited (202231124)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202231124

Platform Housing Group Limited

11 March 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 the resident’s:
   1. Reports of repairs required at the property.
   2. Request for rehousing.

Jurisdiction

2. What the Ombudsman can and cannot consider is called the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. This is governed by the Scheme. When a complaint is brought to this Service, the Ombudsman must consider all the circumstances of the case, as there are sometimes reasons why a complaint (or aspects of it) will not be investigated.
3. The Housing Ombudsman Scheme (the Scheme) provides at paragraph 42(e) that “The Ombudsman may not consider complaints which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, concern matters where a complainant has or had the opportunity to raise the subject matter of the complaint as part of legal proceedings”.
4. In this case, the resident has referred the issue of the landlord’s handling of repairs at his property (and the block it is situated in) to this Service for investigation. As set out above, he wants arrears of rent to be quashed in recognition of a state of disrepair. The resident has maintained to this Service that the arrears arose because of repairs not being carried out. The implication is that he refused to pay his rent due to the condition of the property.
5. However, the landlord’s records show that it has taken court proceedings for possession of the resident’s property due to the arrears. The resident then successfully applied to the court for a suspended order whilst he made regular rent payments and paid a monthly amount towards his outstanding debt.
6. The Ombudsman is satisfied that the resident would have had an opportunity to bring a counterclaim for housing disrepair as part of those court proceedings.  Accordingly, it is not appropriate for this Service to now consider whether the arrears should be erased (due to disrepair) when a court has already found them to be legitimately owed to the landlord and has ordered their payment.
7. After carefully considering all the evidence, in accordance with paragraph 42(e) of the Scheme, the complaint about the landlord’s handling of reports of repairs at the resident’s property is outside of the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. The resident had the opportunity to raise this matter as part of the legal proceedings issued by the landlord and to seek the remedy he has sought from this Service on this issue.
8. It follows that as this Service will not be assessing the landlord’s handling of the repairs, it will not be considering the compensation offer made in respect of them/the rodent issue at the property.

Background

9. The resident is the secure tenant of a 7th floor, 1 bedroom flat. He originally lived there alone but by the beginning of 2022 his partner and baby had moved in.
10. The resident asked to be rehoused to a larger property and, on 14 February 2022, the landlord agreed to look for a suitable home for the family by way of a management move. However, it subsequently identified that the resident was in arrears with his rent and that court proceedings had been issued with a suspended possession order (SPO) having been made on 4 January 2022. This was on the basis the resident should pay his rent plus a monthly amount towards the arrears. Whilst the landlord had offered an alternative property, when it realised the position, it withdrew the offer in June 2022.
11. The court application for possession was suspended further on 28 June 2022, again upon payment of the rent and arrears. The resident was initially maintaining payments under the SPO, and the landlord agreed to reinstate the move, offering the resident a further 3 properties, 1 of which the resident refused – the other 2 again being withdrawn. The move offer itself was then withdrawn when the anticipated monthly payments were not maintained.
12. On 15 November 2022, after the second property was withdrawn, the resident complained to the landlord about its handling of the move. He stated that there had been delayed/poor communication about why the first property was withdrawn and that the second had been promised and then taken away without explanation. He further set out that his current property and the block it is situated in was suffering from a lack of repair, making it unsuitable for his family to live in.
13. In its final complaint response of 30 January 2023, the landlord concentrated on its handling of the move, stating that the resident had indicated he did not wish to pursue the complaint of poor repairs management. It accepted there had been delayed communication regarding withdrawal of the first property and noted the second property should never have been offered in the first place. It offered compensation of £200 for each service failing, £400 in total (which it used to reduce the arrears).
14. On 26 April 2023, the resident emailed the landlord stating that he wanted to renew his complaint/make another one about the repairs and that he was distressed that a move had not taken place.
15. The landlord provided a further copy of its original response, on 26 June 2023, regarding the move which it stood by. On the question of repairs, it stated that where these had not been done it was because they had not been reported in the first place. Alternatively, it stated that the resident had failed to allow access when contractors had attended to carry out the jobs that had been reported. The landlord then scheduled some repairs given that it had now become aware of them. Finally, it accepted that a rodent problem had been caused by some recent works in the building the property is located in, and pest control had been necessary as a result. The landlord offered compensation of £300 in this regard.
16. The resident was dissatisfied with these responses and referred the matter to this Service. By way of resolution, he wants the landlord to reinstate his move.  He wants the landlord to cancel out his rent – backdated to September/October 2021 – having the effect of erasing his arrears and enabling him to make a fresh start.

Assessment and findings

Request for rehousing.

17. As set out above, the landlord agreed to move the resident to a larger property in February 2022 as his household had increased. The resident has not complained about the landlord’s handling of the decision-making process for whether a move should be agreed or not. Rather he is concerned that, ultimately, 3 properties were offered and then withdrawn again, and the move did not take place. He reports living in cramped conditions in a tower block unsuitable for a baby/young toddler. He reports that the withdrawal of each property caused him significant disappointment and upset.
18. The complaint was made before the third of these instances. In respect of the first, the landlord withdrew the offered property and there was a delay of 1 – 2 months in it telling the resident this or explaining why (because of the pre-existing rent arrears). The landlord has accepted this was a service failing on its part. The second property was withdrawn when it failed to become vacant at the time the landlord anticipated that this would happen. The landlord maintains that it told the resident in advance that there were no guarantees the tenancy would go through. However, it has since accepted that the property should not have been offered in the first place and this represented a failing in the service it offered to the resident. Above all, it raised his hopes only to then fall through.
19. In identifying whether there has been maladministration, the Ombudsman considers both the events that initially prompted a complaint and the landlord’s response to those events through the operation of its complaints procedure. The extent to which a landlord has recognised and addressed any shortcomings and the appropriateness of any steps taken to offer redress are therefore as relevant as the original mistake or service failure. The Ombudsman will not make a finding of maladministration where the landlord has fully acknowledged any failings and taken reasonable steps to offer redress.
20. In this case, the landlord might reasonably have identified the position with the pre-existing arrears when considering the move in the first place. Its Management Move Procedure provides for it to check the rent position during that decision making process. It might reasonably have discussed this with the resident and better managed his expectations. It was, however, entitled to take the rent arrears into account on the basis that a larger property would be more expensive and the resident was already finding the lower rent challenging to meet. 
21. The landlord’s failure to manage the resident’s expectations was not acknowledged in its complaint responses but it did accept that it had not handled the property offers as well as it should have. The landlord declined to explain what had happened with the second and third properties to cause them to be withdrawn, only to say that the pre-existing tenants’ circumstances had changed. It was reasonable that it protected the confidentiality of those residents by not discussing their individual situations with the resident.
22. Overall, the landlord has recognised that things went wrong and has offered a remedy by way of compensation. Its Compensation Policy and its Compensation Guidance Procedure both set out that it will compensate residents for their distress and inconvenience due to a service failing. They do not set out how that award will be calculated. The landlord offered the resident compensation of £400, and it was appropriate that this offer was made. This Service’s Remedies Guidance supports such a figure. It states that an award of between £100 – £600 is appropriate where there has been an acknowledged service failing which has some impact but is not permanent in nature. This case falls squarely within that bracket.
23. The landlord went on to offset this award against the outstanding arrears. Its Compensation Guidance Procedure states that it will do this in respect of awards for distress and inconvenience – but not where actual losses are claimed. This Service discourages landlords from offsetting awards in this way. However, it was reasonable in this case given the fact the landlord has had to issue court proceedings to recover the arrears.
24. In conclusion, the landlord has acknowledged that there were failings in its service, and it has offered reasonable redress. The resident reports being deeply unhappy that a move did not take place. It should be borne in mind that landlords have a finite stock of housing and an inability to find a suitable match for a resident does not, in itself, demonstrate that the landlord has acted unfairly or unreasonably. On occasions, a suitable property is simply not available from that landlord’s stock. This Service cannot compel the landlord to allocate a property to the resident as a result.

Determination

25. In accordance with paragraph 42(e) of the Scheme, the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of repairs required at the property is outside of the jurisdiction of this Service to consider.
26. In accordance with paragraph 53(b) of the Scheme, the landlord has made an offer of redress prior to investigation which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, resolves the complaint satisfactorily in respect of its handling of the resident’s request for rehousing.