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Rochdale Boroughwide Housing Limited (202321903)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202321903

Rochdale Boroughwide Housing Limited

29 April 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 concerns about the standard of cleaning in communal areas.

Background

  1. The resident has a secure tenancy with the landlord for a first-floor 2-bedroom flat in a low-rise building. The building has a communal corridor and stairwell.
  2. The resident complained on 23 August 2023. He said the landlord had not cleaned the communal corridor in the past two weeks. He said it repaired his bathroom that day, and its operative had not sufficiently cleaned the work area in the corridor. He invoiced the landlord £13.07 for the cleaning he had done himself.
  3. The landlord provided its stage 1 complaint response on 24 August 2023. It said as it had evidence it had completed cleaning of the communal area on 5 occasions between 25 July and 22 August 2023 there was no cause for him to clean. It said it would not pay the invoice he provided.
  4. The resident escalated his complaint on 29 August 2023, as he wanted to exhaust the complaints procedure. He attached photos of the stairwell and said he would charge late fees if the landlord did not pay his invoice.
  5. The landlord provided its stage 2 complaint response on 20 September 2023. It agreed to complete a deep clean of the stair treads on 25 September and would follow this up the next week. It advised it was responsible for cleaning the communal areas and that he must report any issues to it. It confirmed it could not pay his invoice as he was not a service provider but offered a gesture of goodwill for £30.
  6. The resident told the Service he wanted the landlord to remove charges for cleaning services and reimburse all residents for the lack of cleaning service.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. The resident told the Ombudsman issues with cleaning had been ongoing since 2017, and he initially raised a complaint on 7 June 2021. The Ombudsman previously determined a case on 4 February 2022 under case reference 202107363. In that report, we found no maladministration in the landlord’s response to the resident’s concerns about communal cleaning.
  2. Furthermore, the resident’s complaint of 23 August 2023 talked about issues “a while back”, but there is no further evidence he raised further complaints with the landlord or escalated these to the Ombudsman. As such, this report will focus only on events from August 2023.

The standard of cleaning in communal areas

  1. In his complaint the resident said he had cleaned up the communal corridor that day. He said the landlord had repaired his bathroom and used the corridor as a workstation. He also said the landlord had not cleaned the communal corridor that week or the week before. He provided an invoice for the cleaning he had completed.
  2. In response the landlord explained the weekly dates it had attended and cleaned the communal areas, which included the two weeks the resident believed had been omitted. The evidence confirms the landlord’s explanations, and shows it was meeting its cleaning obligations.
  3. The landlord acknowledged its operatives had not cleaned the communal area after doing work in it, and the resident had been put to the trouble of cleaning it himself. It offered him £30 compensation in light of his inconvenience. There is no evidence suggesting this issue would not have been resolved at the landlord’s next weekly clean, and so the impact was limited. The landlord explained this, telling the resident he did not need to clean the area himself and that he should report any ad hoc cleaning issues which it would then address.
  4. Nonetheless, the compensation the landlord offered demonstrated its appreciation of the resident’s concern, and in the circumstances was good customer service. There was no requirement for the resident to formally invoice the landlord for his efforts, nor any obligation for the landlord to pay an invoice for services it had not agreed to or requested.
  5. As evidence of his concern about the cleaning the resident gave the landlord pictures of the communal areas. The landlord agreed that one of them showed a build up of dirt on parts of the stairs. It explained why this was a gradual process and not something which would be addressed in every clean, but acknowledged the area would benefit from a deep clean (as opposed to the standard weekly clean), and made arrangements to do so.
  6. That was a reasonable response which managed the resident’s understanding of the cleaning service being provided, and agreed an appropriate action to address a concern which the landlord agreed would benefit from attention.
  7. Overall, the landlord did not dispute that its operatives had not cleaned up after themselves. Its subsequent responses to the resident’s complaint about the issue and his concerns about the overall cleaning were in line with the Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles of being fair and putting things right.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 53.b of the Scheme, the landlord has offered redress to the resident prior to investigation, which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, satisfactorily resolves the concerns about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s concerns about the standard of cleaning in communal areas.