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Sanctuary Housing Association (202311457)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202311457

Sanctuary Housing Association

29 September 2023

 

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 response to a report of a broken fence. The Ombudsman has also considered the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

  1. The resident has an assured tenancy dated 24 March 2003. The tenancy was assigned to her on 23 May 2003.
  2. On 14 September 2021, the resident reported that the fence at the rear of her property was broken. The landlord accepted it was responsible for the repair or replacement of the fence.
  3. On 16 November 2021, the landlord attended the property and decided it would need to employ a contractor to remove the tree stumps. This was needed before it could erect a new fence.
  4. The broken fence meant that dogs and members of the public had access to the resident’s garden which adjoined a recreational open space.
  5. The resident complained about the delay in the landlord repairing or replacing the fence on 6 February 2023. The landlord obtained a quote for this work on 23 February 2023.
  6. The landlord responded at stage 1 on 28 February 2023 and stated:
    1. It initially responded to the resident’s report of disrepair on 16 November 2021 and a contractor inspected her property on 27 September 2022.
    2. It had been unable to progress the work because it was waiting for a quote which it chased in February 2023.
    3. As this quote was still outstanding it raised the issue with its internal escalations team to continue to liaise with the contractor and the resident.
    4. It accepted the service it offered was below standard and offered the resident £75 compensation, £50 for the poor service, and £25 for complaint handling.
  7. The resident escalated her complaint on 28 February 2023. The landlord responded at stage 2 on 20 April 2023 stating:
    1. It had apologised to the resident and chased for a quotation.
    2. It responded to the resident’s repair request and attended her property on 8 October 2021 and 16 November 2021.
    3. It requested a quote after the resident contacted it on 8 March 2022 which it received on 23 February 2023.
    4. It was monitoring the situation as the work had not been done.
    5. It upheld the complaint as the delay in arranging the repair was longer than it should have been because of the communication.
    6. It accepted its response at stage 1 was longer than it should have been. It would offer redress once it had an appointment to do the work.
  8. There were further delays in the landlord arranging the work due to issues with its supplier. The landlord re-requested the order for the works in May 2023 and it raised a new order on 1 June 2023.
  9. On 4 June 2023, the landlord told the resident that the works to replace her fence had a target date for completion of 29 June 2023. It apologised for the delay and offered the resident compensation of £500.
  10. The order to replace the broken fence was subsequently cancelled on 29 June 2023. This was because the supplier was no longer accepting jobs in the resident’s area. The landlord agreed to find a new contractor. After an internal discussion, the landlord agreed it would complete the work in-house.
  11. The landlord’s property services team attended the resident’s property on 31 August 2023 to scope the work needed. It apologised for repeating this and said it would clear the tree stumps and erect the new fence. The fence replacement remains outstanding.

Assessment and findings

  1. Repairing obligations are found in tenancy agreements as express terms or can be implied into agreements by legislation. There was no express term in the resident’s tenancy requiring the landlord to repair or replace the resident’s fence. Both the landlord’s repair and resident’s handbook state that residents are responsible for maintaining fences. There is an implied term that the landlord is responsible for the structure and exterior of a property. This does not include fencing.
  2. This service notes that the landlord accepted responsibility for the fence from the outset. It reiterated this through the complaint process. The resident relied on the landlord’s promise and suffered the detriment of not having a fence in place whilst she awaited its replacement. It is therefore, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, unfair not to expect the landlord to fulfil this promise.
  3. The landlord’s repair policy is silent on fence repairs. The landlord’s repairs and maintenance procedures refer to repairs to boundary walls as an “appointed repair.” The landlord aims to complete these types of repairs within 28 calendar days. As the fence is a boundary structure it would be reasonable to expect completion of a fence repair in a similar timescale. The resident requested a repair of her broken fence on 14 September 2021, but the repair is still outstanding.
  4. There were significant delays in the landlord progressing the repair from the outset. It took the landlord 24 days after notification of the disrepair to visit the resident. The landlord also took 63 days from the first report to do the second visit. These visits were to determine the work needed and were beyond the 28-calendar day target for completing “appointed repairs”.
  5. There is no evidence that the landlord proactively chased its supplier during the period March 2022 to November 2022, when the resident was in touch. It was unreasonable of the landlord not to have acted upon the resident’s contact during this period to chase its supplier. The landlord only began to chase its contractor for a quote in February 2023.
  6. This service expects landlords to have systems in place to identify and regularly chase outstanding repairs. There is no evidence the landlord employed any system for monitoring the job. The failure of the landlord to have oversight and proactively chase its supplier was a service failure.
  7. When the landlord decided to actively chase its contractor in February 2023, it failed to raise another job until 1 June 2023 despite the supplier telling it on 4 May 2023 that it could not complete the work.
  8. There was a further delay caused by another contractor no longer taking work in the resident’s area. The landlord ought to have reasonably been aware of this sooner when it attempted to place other work with that contractor. This left the landlord having to source a new contractor and eventually agreeing, on 8 August 2023, to do the work in-house. The landlord failed to consider this option in November 2021 and when it raised the option again on 23 March 2023 the work did not advance. There is no explanation of why the option to do the work internally was never reconsidered before August 2023. It was unreasonable of the landlord not to reconsider its options and consider alternatives to instructing a contractor before then.
  9. The landlord also failed to respond to the resident’s complaint within the timescales set by its complaint policy. This requires a response at stage 1 to be issued within 10 working days. The landlord should respond to a stage 2 complaint within 20 working days. It took the landlord 16 working days to respond at stage 1. It also took the landlord 37 working days to respond at stage 2. These were significant delays that amounted to a service failure.
  10. The landlord accepted its failings in both its stage 1 and stage 2 complaint’s responses and apologised. The landlord initially offered the resident £75 during the complaint process. This was increased to £500 after it completed the complaint process.
  11. The resident told the landlord that there was unauthorised access to her garden by dogs and children. The resident said that she was afraid to go into her garden as she would receive abuse from these children. The Ombudsman accepts that the lack of fence together with the resident’s reported experiences was likely to have made the resident feel vulnerable.
  12. The Ombudsman acknowledges that this situation has been distressing for the resident. Although the landlord was not legally responsible for the resident’s fence, it undertook to replace it. The resident relied on this promise and suffered the detriment of not having a fence. The landlord offered to redress this by chasing up the work and offering compensation. However, the fence repair is outstanding. The Ombudsman has identified the following failures of the landlord:
    1. Failing to complete the fence replacement within 28 days and leaving the resident without a fence.
    2. Not having oversight of the job to replace the fence.
    3. Significant delays in responding to the resident’s complaint at stage 1 and stage 2.
    4. Not making an adequate offer of compensation to reflect the distress and inconvenience caused to the resident within the complaint process.

 

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there has been maladministration by the landlord. Whilst it has offered some redress, the repairs to the fence remain outstanding.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there has been service failure in the landlord’s handling of the complaint. This is because the landlord delayed the complaint responses and delayed offering fair redress. The complaint procedure has not resolved the outstanding complaint issue for the resident.

Orders

  1. The Ombudsman orders that the landlord must, within 28 days of the date of this determination:
    1. Pay the resident the sum of £500 if it has not done so already. This is to cover the distress and inconvenience it caused to the resident by its delays in the handling of the fence.
    2. Use all best endeavours to ensure the work is completed within 28 days of this determination. Using best endeavours means doing everything that it can to ensure the work is completed within 28 days. It must ensure it creates and maintains evidence to demonstrate to the Ombudsman what action it has taken to ensure the work is completed.
    3. Pay the resident a further £75 compensation to recognise the delays in the complaint handling and offering redress.