South Yorkshire Housing Association Limited (SYHA) (202325860)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202325860

South Yorkshire Housing Association Limited (SYHA)

25 March 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

The complaint is about the landlord’s:
1. Response to the resident’s reports of fence repairs.
2. Complaint handling.

Background

The resident has an assured tenancy at the property, which is a 3–bedroom, semi-detached house. The landlord was not aware of any vulnerabilities at the time of the complaint. Since the complaint it has updated its records to reflect the resident’s report of having had an operation.
Between January and August 2023 the resident raised a number of repair issues with the fence. The landlord took some action to carry out repairs during this time.
She made a complaint on 7 August 2023 about how the landlord had handled the repairs. This included its poor communication with her and its contactors. She said there were still repairs outstanding. The landlord responded and said there had been a “constant flow of information” between the landlord and contractors.
The resident was not satisfied with the response and requested a review. She said the landlord had not adequately addressed the issues. She added it had not apologised and works were still needed.
The landlord responded at stage 2 and said the repairs had been completed to a satisfactory standard. It had given feedback on communication and complaint handling to one of its staff members.
The resident referred the matter to us on 9 November 2023. She said a fence panel should be replaced and for wood appropriate for outdoor use to be used.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

The resident made a separate complaint to the landlord about a number of other issues. The landlord addressed this complaint separately. These issues had not been considered through the landlord internal complaints procedure at the time the resident referred her case to us. Following the landlord considering these matters, the resident did not refer these concerns to us. As such, these issues do not form part of this assessment:
1. Bathroom adaptations.
2. Discrimination.
3. Bathroom repairs.
4. Leaking radiator.
5. Contractor’s behaviour.
6. The temperature of hot water.

Fence repairs

It has not been disputed that the landlord is responsible for fence repairs at the property. The landlord’s repairs policy categorised repair response times as follows:
1. Emergency – within 24 Hours.
2. Urgent – within 7 days.
3. Routine – within 21 days.
It is not clear when the resident first reported an issue with the fence. However, the landlord inspected it on 16 January 2023. It noted that the top rail had broken. Such a repair would reasonably be considered to be a routine repair.
While this repair was pending, the resident reported (1 February 2023) that the fence was unsafe and “coming down”. The landlord appropriately spoke to the resident that day. The resident said she was not available for it to carry out the repair that day.
Despite knowing the resident’s concerns over the condition of the fence, the landlord did not inspect it until 17 February 2023, over 2 weeks later. This was not appropriate, as the resident had raised concerns about it being a hazard.
Following its inspection, the landlord replaced the broken top rail and a fence support on 2 March 2023. This was 45 days after the landlord first inspected the fence and saw the issue. This was outside of its repair response timeframe for routine repairs. There is no evidence that it acknowledged this delay or apologised.
The date is not clear, but between March and April 2023 the landlord inspected the neighbour’s property. Following this, on 21 April 2023 it raised a job to replace one of the resident’s fence panels. It did so on 19 May 2023. This was 28 days after it had raised the job, a week longer than its routine repair response timeframe.
On 2 June 2023, the resident reported that this new panel was loose and not straight. The landlord carried out works to adjust it on 7 June 2023. Following this work, the resident said that the fence posts were rotten. As such, it was still leaning and not straight. The landlord raised further work on 12 June 2023 to replace the broken top rail and renew 2 fence posts. It is not clear if the broken top rail was related to the previous repair it had completed to a top rail on 2 March 2023.
Work to the top rail was completed on 6 July 2023. This was 24 days from when the landlord had raised the work. The landlord replaced the posts on 10 July 2023. This was 33 days after the resident’s report. As such, the landlord failed to complete either repair in line with its repair timeframe.
The resident reported another loose fence panel on 10 July 2023. The landlord requested this be added to works booked for the following week. There is no evidence that any work to the fence took place the following week. It subsequently completed work to make the fence safe on 2 August 2023. It then renewed fence posts on 7 August 2023. This was 28 days after the resident’s report.
The resident made a complaint on 7 August 2023 and said:
1. The fence repairs and the landlord’s communication had been poor. The landlord had not clearly communicated the work needed to its contractors. This led to poor work and repairs that did not solve the issue. Pictures had been taken but not passed on to contractors.
2. She had reported an issue with her fencing in February 2023. Nothing had been done until May 2023. Since then 13 contractors had attended. Multiple appointments had been cancelled in July 2023.
3. The contractor had agreed to use concrete posts. This had not been done. On one occasion the contractor incorrectly repaired a fence post in her neighbour’s property rather than hers.
4. She felt she was having to chase the repairs up.
5. She had a major operation in March 2023 but was spending her recovery time trying to get the work done.
6. Her fencing had been “flapping around” for 2 months and was still outstanding. She asked the complaint investigator to attend to see the fence.
The landlord spoke to the resident on 21 August 2023 about her complaint. It said as follows:
1. There had been a “constant flow of information” between the landlord and contractors.
2. It was sorry that the resident did not see the point in discussing the issues in person.
3. It provided a letter about the process to take the matter further. (The landlord did not provide this to us).
The landlord’s complaint handing has been considered separately below. However, this response did not address her concerns. She requested a review on 5 September 2023 as follows:
1. The issues had not been adequately addressed. The response did not say if it was a stage 1 complaint response.
2. The landlord had not apologised for the fencing issues having gone on for 6 months.
3. The repair was not satisfactory as indoor wood had been used and there were gaps.
The landlord responded at stage 2 on 18 September 2023 and said as follows:
1. It had visited the property. The fence repairs had been completed to a satisfactory standard.
2. It had given feedback on the communication and how the complaint had been handled. It would address this with the member of staff.
It is clear that the resident reported a number of issues with the fence since January 2023. Although the landlord has carried out repairs between January and Augst 2023, only one was completed in the timeframe outlined in its repairs policy.
Repeated repairs had to be carried out over a period of at least 7 months from January 2023. Some of these were for the same issue. This indicated that the issue was not fixed properly the first time. This caused frustration to the resident. The landlord did not acknowledge any of its failures in carrying out the repairs. It did not consider the effect of this on the resident, her health situation at the time or the time taken for her to raise multiple repairs issues.
Given the repeated failures of the landlord to carry out repairs in line with its policy and its failure to acknowledge the impact on the resident, there was maladministration.
Where the landlord has accepted it has made errors, it is our role to consider whether the redress it offered 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 our Dispute Resolution Principles: Be Fair, Put Things Right and Learn from Outcomes as well as our own guidance on remedies.
To acknowledge the effect of this on the resident, we have ordered the landlord to pay her compensation of £250. This is in line with our remedies guidance which says that such an amount would be appropriate where there was a failing that impacted the resident but there was no permanent impact.

Complaint handling

The landlord’s complaints policy at the time of the resident’s complaint said that it would acknowledge complaints and escalation requests within 2 working days. It aimed to respond at both stage 1 and 2 within 10 working days. If additional time was needed it would keep the resident informed.
The landlord amended its policy in March 2024 to reflect the timeframes outlined in our Complaint Handling Code (the Code). The Code also says that landlords should respond to all complaint points raised by a resident.
It was not clear if the landlord’s written response of 21 August 2023 was a stage 1 response. This is something that the landlord should have made clear. The response provided was brief, dismissive and failed to address the resident’s specific concerns. By the time the resident made her complaint earlier that month, she had been experiencing issues with the fence for around 7 months. The landlord failed to address this or consider how it had handled the repairs, which as stated above, had not been in line with its policy. There is no evidence that it had considered how the frequent repair issues had impacted her in light of her disclosed health issue.
The landlord’s stage 2 complaint response was brief and again failed to address the specific concerns the resident had raised about the wood that had been used. Although the landlord said the complaint handling would be addressed with the staff member, it was not clear what complaint handling this referred to. It should have acknowledged the shortcomings of the stage 1 response and been open with the resident about the failures it had identified.
At no time during the internal complaints procedure did the landlord acknowledge that it had repeatedly failed to respond to repairs issues in line with its repairs policy. It also failed to consider the effect of this on the resident.
Given the number of failures in the landlord’s complaint handing and its lack of acknowledgement of these, there was maladministration. To acknowledge the effect of these failures on the resident £250 has been ordered.

Determination (decision)

In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s response to fence repairs.
In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

The landlord is ordered to take the following action within 4 weeks of this report and provide evidence of compliance to the Ombudsman:
1. Apologise to the resident for the failures identified in this case.
2. Pay a total of £500 compensation to the resident. The compensation is made up of:
  1. £250 to acknowledge the effect on the resident of the landlord’s failures in its response to fence repairs.
  2. £250 to acknowledge the effect on the resident of the landlord’s complaint handling failures.
3. Confirm to the resident in writing whether the wood used for the fence was appropriate for outdoor use. If the wood is found to not be appropriate, it should set out the action it will take in respect of this with timescales.

Recommendations

Although a landlord does not have to follow recommendations made by this Service, we do make these with the intention of trying to help prevent similar failings happening again in the future. We recommend the landlord takes the following action:
1. Review why the fence repairs considered in this case were not actioned in line with its repairs policy. What steps it will take to prevent such delays from happening again in the future.
2. Provide staff training on complaint handing, with an emphasis on complaint responses being thorough and ensuring aspects of complaint are responded to.