Southern Housing (202407786)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202407786

Southern Housing

15 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

The complaint is about the landlord’s:
1. handling of a new property sale.
2. response to the resident’s concerns about the valuation of his property.
3. response to the resident’s concerns about staff conduct.

Background

The resident is a shared owner of his property. His lease began in June 2000. The property is a first floor flat.
The resident has severe sight impairment. He also has rheumatoid arthritis and osteopenia (low bone density).
On 12 September 2023 the resident viewed a new build property owned by the landlord. He told the landlord he was interested in buying it. He asked it to arrange for a company, which was on the landlord’s panel of surveyors, to value his property for a lease extension and resale. The resident also provided it with a list of improvements that he had carried out to his property.
The landlord instructed the company and provided it with the resident’s list of improvements and a copy of the lease. The company arranged for one of its surveyors to value the resident’s property in early November 2023. The landlord received the valuation report on 13 November 2023. It sent a copy of the report to the resident on 29 November 2023.
Upon receiving the valuation report, the resident emailed the landlord the same day. He said he intended to seek legal and financial advice before deciding if he wished to proceed with the sale. He asked it to provide him with an estimate of the cost of selling his property and financial information about the new property.
The landlord did not respond to the resident’s email. He sent it a further email on 11 December 2023 and asked it to reply to his queries. The landlord responded on the same day. It advised the resident that the new property was “no longer available” as his property was “still not under offer”. It clarified in a further email sent on 14 December 2023 that the new property had been “sold to someone else”. It said that it had previously explained to him that it could not reserve the new property for him until his property was under offer.
The resident was unhappy that the new property was no longer available to buy and he was also dissatisfied with the valuation of his property. He complained to the landlord about both these issues in emails sent on 12 December 2023, 18 December 2023 and 2 January 2024. He said:
1. his property was no longer suitable for him due to his disabilities. He had to climb 3 flights of stairs to access it. Given his medical conditions he would be “likely to suffer a life changing injury or death” if he fell on the stairs. The limited space in the kitchen was also a health and safety hazard due to his disabilities.
2. the new property was a ground floor flat that was purpose built for a disabled person. It would have been “ideal” for him.
3. he was in the “process of purchasing” the new property when the landlord withdrew it from sale.
4. he believed the new property was sold to a private buyer who was not disabled.
5. he believed the landlord did not sell it to him as he had raised questions about the valuation. The landlord failed to respond to these questions and when he chased it for a response, it advised him the property was no longer available.
6. the landlord’s decision not to sell the new property to him was “disability discrimination” under the Equality Act.
7. the staff member who told him the property was no longer available was responsible for “gross misconduct” and “disability discrimination”. He asked the landlord to ensure the staff member, who was a resales manager, did not contact him again.
8. the landlord had advised him it would have more properties suitable for disabled people available for sale in March 2024. However, he did not want to buy from it ever again due to the way it had treated him.
9. the valuation report “grossly undervalued” his property and was “not fit for purpose”. He said:
  1. the report incorrectly stated his property did not have an allocated parking space.
  2. the 3 comparable properties cited in the report were not in fact comparable due to size and condition.
  3. the surveyor appeared to have used an average valuation for properties in the area rather than individually assessing his flat.
  4. the surveyor did not appear to have considered the improvements he had made to the property.
  5. he wanted a refund of the £360 valuation fee he paid.
The landlord acknowledged receipt of all 3 complaint emails. It confirmed it would address all the issues the resident had raised in its stage 1 response.
The landlord issued its stage 1 response on 16 January 2024. It said:
1. following the resident’s viewing of the new property, it had advised him he would not be able to submit an offer on it as his property was not under offer.
2. it provided no guarantee that the new property would still be available once his property was under offer.
3. it had managed the process for the sale of his property correctly and provided him with any information he requested. It set out a timeline of its communications with the resident in relation to this.
4. it had not shown any discriminatory behaviour towards him.
5. in relation to the valuation:
  1. a parking space was not allocated to the resident within the lease, which is why it was not considered within the valuation report.
  2. the improvements made by the resident to his property would have been considered by the surveyor and included within his valuation.
  3. the resident’s property was considered to be equivalent to a good sized 1 bedroom or small 2 bedroom flat. It set out the specification and agreed sale price for 5 other flats recently sold in the area.
  4. the surveyor confirmed to it that the valuation had been correctly assessed.
6. its property management team were assessing the communal areas of his property to see if there were any adaptions it could make to support him.
The resident asked the landlord on 14 February 2024 to escalate his complaint to stage 2. Within the escalation request he:
1. outlined his belief that the landlord withdrew the property from sale because he queried the valuation. He stated this was “victimisation”.
2. asked the landlord to provide him with unredacted documentary evidence:
  1. relating to the sale of the new property.
  2. to show that it sent the improvement list to the surveyor before he carried out the valuation.
3. expressed concern about the independence of the valuation.
4. provided his own statistical analysis of sales in the area to support his position that the surveyor had undervalued his flat.
5. disagreed with the landlord’s comments in the stage 1 response that the parking space was not granted to him by his lease.
6. said if the landlord did not accept his valuation, he would have to sublet his flat so that he could use the rental income to pay for an accessible flat that met his needs as a disabled person.
The landlord acknowledged receipt of the escalation request on 16 February 2024. It issued its stage 2 response on 12 April 2024. It said:
1. it was sorry for the delay in issuing the stage 2 response. It wished to offer £50 compensation for the inconvenience caused by this.
2. its new homes sales team had told the resident he would not be able to reserve the new property because he had not sold his property. That team told him to let it know when his property was under offer. It took no reservation payment from him and did not progress his application.
3. it did not accept it had discriminated against the resident. It explained that it took fair housing regulations seriously and its reservation process adhered to government guidance. It provided a weblink to the government rules for buying through shared ownership. It said this helped it “achieve a fair and transparent reservation process for everyone”.
4. its new home sales were managed by a different team to its resales team. That the resident raised queries with the resales team about the valuation, was not connected to the new home sales team finding another buyer for the new property.
5. the companies on its panel of surveyors were independent.
6. it provided the company with the resident’s list of improvements prior to the valuation being carried out.
7. the lease conferred the resident with a right to park. It was sorry it was wrong about this issue in its stage 1 response. It offered the resident £15 compensation for “sharing inaccurate information”.
8. given the valuation report stated there was no parking, it had asked the surveyor to revisit the valuation. This would be free of charge.
9. it was unable to provide the resident with unredacted documents relating to the sale of the new property for data protection reasons. It would process his request for documents relating to him as a Subject Access Request.
10. it was sorry the resident was unable to buy the new property and understood he was disappointed.
11. it would be happy to try and help him find an alternative home more suitable to his needs.
12. given the comments he had made about the resales manager, it had appointed a different manager on that team to be his point of contact. It provided the new manager’s contact details. It also provided contact details for another staff member who could discuss subletting with him.
The resident remained unhappy with the landlord’s response to his complaint. He therefore referred it to the Ombudsman and asked us to investigate. He told us that the outcome he sought was for the landlord to help him find alternative accessible housing, but with a different landlord. He also wanted it to reconsider the amount of compensation it had offered to him.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

The Ombudsman is unable to investigate complaints about the standard of work or conduct of the surveyor who valued the resident’s property. The surveyor is not an employee of the landlord and the company he works for is not a member of our Scheme. It would fall to the surveyor’s governing body, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), to investigate any complaints of this nature. We are aware the resident has already submitted a complaint to the RICS about the surveyor.
The focus of our investigation is therefore not to assess the valuation itself, but to consider how the landlord responded when the resident raised concerns about the valuation process.
When making his complaint about staff conduct, the resident suggested that the landlord had discriminated against him on the grounds of his disability. The Ombudsman does not investigate allegations of discrimination. Section 114 (1) of the Equality Act 2010 (the Equality Act), states the County Court has the jurisdiction to decide if there has been discrimination or other prohibited conduct. As such, this Service cannot make a binding decision that discrimination has occurred. We have advised the resident that he should seek independent advice if he wishes to pursue a discrimination claim.
While the Ombudsman is unable to determine whether there was any discrimination, we can consider whether the landlord gave the resident’s complaint about staff conduct due consideration and provided a fair response.
An outcome the resident sought was for the landlord to assist him with finding alternative accessible housing with a different landlord. We are unable to direct the landlord to do this. We note that in its complaint responses it offered to continue to assist the resident with selling his property. The resident may wish to contact his local authority to discuss his options for moving to accommodation better suited to his needs.

Handling of a new property sale

The resident complained that he was in the “process of purchasing” the new property when the landlord withdrew it from sale. He believed that it did this because he queried the valuation. The landlord did not accept this in its complaint responses. It said that the resident never reserved the new property and that it had told him after the viewing that he could not do so until his property was under offer.
There are no written records of the discussion that took place between the landlord and resident following the viewing. However, the resident confirmed to us that the landlord told him he would not be able to proceed with the purchase until his own property was sale agreed. He said that he felt under pressure to get his property valued and on the market as a result. This supports the landlord’s account that it explained to the resident after the viewing that he was unable to reserve the new property until his property was under offer.
The resident told the Ombudsman that he could have paid the deposit required to reserve the new property, even without his property having been sold. He was unhappy that the landlord did not give him an opportunity to do this. However, the landlord told us that all new builds work towards a 30 day exchange deadline from the point of reservation. It said it would not accept a reservation and collect a deposit from any buyer until a financial assessment had been completed to evidence the buyer had the funds to complete the purchase. In the resident’s case, he needed to sell his property to fund the full purchase. That the landlord told him he could not reserve the new property, which would involve paying a deposit, until his property was under offer, was an appropriate and financially responsible position for it to take.
There is no evidence that the landlord gave the resident any assurance or indication that it would stop marketing the new property to other people to allow him time to sell his. It said in its complaint responses that it had told him there was no guarantee the new property would still be available once his property was under offer. It said that it would ensure its new homes team provided information in writing following viewings in the future. It hoped this would make “the offer process clearer so there is no confusion”. This was a reasonable suggestion and demonstrated that the landlord had taken learning from the resident’s complaint.
Under the Equality Act, the landlord was to ensure residents with disabilities were not placed at a disadvantage in applying for the new property. However, it did not obligate the landlord to give the resident an exclusive right, ahead of all other interested parties, to buy the property. Instead, the landlord used a fair process whereby it would only sell the new property to interested parties who:
1. met the government’s shared ownership eligibility criteria; and
2. were in a position to reserve the property and pay the deposit.
The resident was not in a position to reserve the new property until his property was under offer. It was therefore reasonable that the landlord agreed to sell it to another party that was ready to proceed. There is no evidence to support the resident’s view that the landlord agreed the new property to the other buyer because he queried the valuation. The landlord addressed this concern in its complaint responses and assured the resident this was not the case.
The landlord provided prompt responses to most of the resident’s communications. However, it failed to respond to his request on 29 November 2023 for an estimate of the cost of selling his property and financial information about the new property. It responded 12 days later on 11 December 2023, after the resident followed it up, and advised him the new property was no longer available.
While this delay in responding represented poor communication, it does not in our view amount to service failure in relation to the landlord’s handling of the new property sale. We are satisfied that it was an isolated incident that, given the other evidence available, was unlikely to have had a bearing on the outcome of this case. This resident had indicated in his email of 29 November 2023 that he intended to seek legal and financial advice before deciding if he wished to proceed with the sale. He also later challenged the accuracy of the valuation, particularly with regard to parking. Therefore, even if the landlord had responded to the financial queries immediately, it was unlikely the resident would have accepted the valuation, marketed and agreed his property for sale within the next 12 days.
Overall, the Ombudsman is satisfied that there was no maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the new property sale.

Response to the resident’s concerns about the valuation of his property

The resident was concerned that:
1. the surveyor had undervalued his property by £50,000 to £100,000.
2. the landlord had instructed the surveyor to do this in order to “secure a quick sale”.
3. the valuation was not independent.
The valuation was carried out by a RICS registered surveyor. As we have explained above, we are unable to assess the valuation itself. However, we can consider how the landlord responded to the resident’s concerns.
We have seen evidence that the landlord appropriately provided the surveyor’s company with a copy of the lease and the list of improvements prior to the valuation. It was the surveyor’s responsibility to ensure he took factors such as parking, the balcony, the size of the property and improvements into account when assessing the value.
The valuation report stated that in relation to parking, there was “none”. The landlord said in its stage 1 response that it had raised the resident’s concerns about the valuation with the surveyor who “confirmed it was correctly assessed”. The landlord then recognised in its stage 2 complaint response that it had provided incorrect information in its stage 1 response about the parking space. It said that:
1. it had sought legal advice which confirmed the resident did have a right to park under the lease.
2. it had asked the surveyor to revisit its valuation in light of this. The resident would not be charged for this.
3. it offered £15 compensation.
The landlord was not at fault if the surveyor did not take the parking space into account when carrying out his valuation. However, the resident told the landlord in his complaint email of 2 January 2024 that the valuation report referred to there being no parking. It took the landlord over 3 months, until its stage 2 response on 12 April 2024, to acknowledge this was not accurate and to raise it with the surveyor. This delay in acknowledging the error and raising it with the surveyor was a failing by the landlord.
It is not clear how the landlord determined it would offer £15 compensation as its policy does not specify guideline amounts. However, in line with our remedies guidance, we believe £100 would have been a more reasonable level of compensation for service failure of this nature. It evidently caused the resident distress. He spent time and trouble in pursuing the issue after the landlord initially dismissed it in its stage 1 response.
We are satisfied the landlord reasonably addressed the resident’s other concerns about the valuation through its complaint responses. It said in its stage 2 response:
1. it was unable to comment on the valuation statistics provided by the resident as it had no influence on the valuations made and it was not its area of expertise.
2. it provided the surveyor with the resident’s list of improvements prior to the valuation being carried out. It understood the surveyor also asked the resident during the valuation appointment about what improvements he had made.
3. the surveyors on its panel were independent. It had no influence on them nor would it seek to influence their work. It had no financial or other incentive to have the resident’s property undervalued.
We have seen no evidence to support the resident’s concern that the valuation was not independent or that the landlord tried to influence it. The “request to sell” form completed by the resident asked him to indicate which company of surveyors he wished to use for the valuation. It stated he could choose from the list of companies on the landlord’s panel, or that he could select his own. He chose from the panel list. That the company was on the panel should not have affected its independence. The surveyor was required to adhere to the same RICS standards regardless of whether or not the company he worked for was on the landlord’s panel.
As outlined above, the landlord said in its stage 2 response that it had asked the surveyor to revisit his valuation, free of charge, given the legal advice about the parking space. It said the surveyor would also be able to consider any additional information the resident wished to give them.
The landlord also explained in the stage 2 response that the resident could pay for a different company to carry out a valuation. It said the alternative company could be chosen from its panel list or the resident could select his own company not on the list. It explained how the lease provided him with a mechanism for doing this. This was a reasonable proposal that gave the resident options for pursuing alternative valuations if he remained dissatisfied.
Overall, the Ombudsman finds that there was service failure by the landlord in its response to the resident’s concerns about the valuation of his property. This was due to its delay in thoroughly investigating and responding to his concern that the valuation report did not reflect he had use of a parking space.
In line with our remedies guidance, we order the landlord to pay the resident £100 for the distress and inconvenience caused by the service failure. We have not ordered an apology alongside this as we are satisfied the landlord has already reasonably acknowledged the mistake in its stage 2 response.

Response to the resident’s concerns about staff conduct

In his first complaint email, dated 12 December 2023, the resident said the staff member who told him the new property was no longer available was responsible for “gross misconduct” and “disability discrimination”. He said he had “failed to manage the purchase of the property in an appropriate manner”. In later correspondence the resident suggested that the staff member had intentionally mishandled the sale of the new property to him and had tried to influence the valuation.
As we have outlined in the previous sections above, we have seen no evidence to support the resident’s view that the landlord mishandled the sale of the new property or that any staff member attempted to influence the valuation. Given this was the basis of the resident’s staff conduct complaint, it was reasonable that the landlord did not uphold it.
The landlord explained in its stage 2 response:
1. that the staff member complained of was a resales manager. He was dealing with the valuation and potential sale of the resident’s property. He worked in a different service area from the new–sales team.
2. the resales and new–sales teams operated “independently of each other”.
3. the resident querying the valuation with the resales manager was in no way connected to the new–sales team finding a different buyer for the new property.
4. the resales manager passed on the information that the new property had been sold as he was “trying to be helpful”.
5. it did not accept the resident’s suggestion it had discriminated against him.
6. given the comments the resident had made about the resales manager, it had appointed a different manager on that team to be his point of contact.
We are satisfied that this was a reasonable response to the staff conduct aspect of the resident’s complaint. The landlord could have said the same resales manager would remain the resident’s point of contact given it had not upheld the complaint. Instead, it appointed a different manager which, in our view, demonstrated a genuine desire by it to continue to assist the resident with moving.
Overall, the Ombudsman is satisfied that there was no maladministration in the landlord’s response to the resident’s concerns about staff conduct.

Determination

In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was:
1. no maladministration by the landlord in its handling of a new property sale.
2. service failure by the landlord in its response to the resident’s concerns about the valuation of his property.
3. no maladministration by the landlord in its response to the resident’s concerns about staff conduct.

Orders

Within 4 weeks of the date of this report, the landlord should pay the resident £100 compensation for the service failure in its response to his concerns about the valuation of his property. If it has already paid the £15 offered in its stage 2 response, this may be deducted from the £100 ordered.