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The Guinness Partnership Limited (202316759)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202316759

The Guinness Partnership Limited

29 January 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 reports that the estate communal lighting is coming on during the day and the impact this may have had on his service charges.

Background

  1. The resident is a joint assured tenant of the landlord. His property is a one bedroom second floor flat.
  2. The resident has advised this Service that he has been reporting issues with the communal lighting to the landlord since at least 2016 without resolution. The resident has said the communal lights are on during the day which is impacting his service charges. The resident’s most recent report of this issue was on 5 December 2022 and in response to which the landlord raised a work order for the timers to be looked at and updated accordingly. The job was subsequently cancelled without action being taken.
  3. On 21 December 2022 the resident contacted the landlord by email to submit a formal complaint. The resident said that external estate lights were still coming on during the day time and one block was on 24 hours a day. He said this had been reported many times and was frustrated that the Customer Liaison Officer did not seem to care. The landlord responded on 11 January 2023. In its response it said the issue had previously been considered and responded to under its complaints process on 25 May 2022. However, a further inspection had been booked for 17 January 2023 and if faults were found these would be remedied.
  4. The resident escalated his complaint to the second stage of the landlord’s complaints process on 17 January 2023. The resident said that the repair had not been attended and the lights continued to come on during the day. The landlord provided its final response on 15 February 2023.
  5. In referring the matter to this Service the resident said that the issue has been ongoing for 7 years and nothing is being done about it. However, during a telephone call with the Service on 16 January 2024 the resident confirmed that the lights have now been repaired.

Assessment and findings

Scope

  1. In making his complaint to this Service the resident has said that as a result of the communal lighting being on during the day, he has been charged increased service charges. The resident has said this is unreasonable and as a outcome of the complaint he would like these to be refunded. However, the Ombudsman is unable to consider complaints which concern the level of rent or service charge or the amount of the rent or service charge increase. Therefore, this Service has not investigated the amount charged by the landlord and if this was reasonable. The resident has the opportunity to apply to the First Tier Tribunal, which has the expertise and authority to consider the reasonableness of the service charges. The Ombudsman has, however, investigated the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of issues with the communal lighting.
  2. The investigation has also been limited to events that occurred after 25 May 2022. This is because the Ombudsman previously investigated a complaint about the communal lighting and the associated service charges under reference 202203209. The case covered events prior to 25 May 2022 and this service will not investigate matters which it has already decided upon. Therefore any references to events prior to 25 May 2022 have been included in this report for context and background only.

Communal lighting

  1. In response to the resident’s previous complaint, our reference 202203209, the Ombudsman concluded that, at the time of its final response, the landlord had taken “appropriate action to address this aspect of the resident’s complaint as it raised a repair order and a contractor attended to check and repair/reset the lights in the blocks over several visits.”
  2. In early December 2022 the resident contacted the landlord, via his Customer Liaison Officer, to report that the communal lights continued to come on during the day. In response to this, on 5 December 2022, the landlord raised a job for its contractors to look at, update and adjust the light’s timers. This job was subsequently cancelled without explanation. This was unreasonable and resulted in delays investigating the issue.
  3. On 21 December 2022 the resident contacted the landlord to submit a formal complaint. He said that he had been reporting the lighting to the landlord for a year without resolution. The landlord responded on 11 January 2023 confirming a further repair had been raised and would be attended on 17 January 2023.
  4. The landlord’s repair policy states ‘Routine repairs are those which are not emergencies. If the reported issue does not require an emergency repair we aim to get it fixed within 28 calendar days.’ Given the issue was raised again by the resident on 5 December 2022 this represents a failure of the landlord to undertake an initial inspection within its target timescales.
  5. The resident was informed that the operative attending on 17 January 2023 had been told to contact him when on–site. Whilst, there is clear evidence the operative did attend and undertake some repairs, they did not contact the resident when on-site. This was unreasonable and resulted in unnecessary inconvenience to the resident.
  6. Later that day the resident contacted the landlord via email to escalate his complaint. He said that an electrician had not attended on 17 January 2023 as agreed and that the lights were still coming on during the day.
  7. The landlord provided its final response to the complaint on 15 February 2023. The landlord acknowledged it had ‘failed to take the appropriate action to remedy this complaint’ and offered an apology. It confirmed the Complaints and Resolution Specialist was awaiting confirmation of a plan to resolve the issue from the Regional Head of Service and it would keep the resident updated.
  8. On 21 February 2023 works were raised for the landlord’s contractors and repairs undertaken on 3 April 2023. Following this the resident reported that the lights were still coming on early and requested they were adjusted to British Summer Time. The landlord’s contractors attended again on 11 and 21 April with the repairs being completed on 27 April 2023.
  9. In comments to this Service the landlord has said ‘Several engineers made several visits, on some of these visits no faults were found and on some occasions the lights were repaired and left in working order. However, it became clear that the clock needed to be replaced and this resolved the issue. Prior to this we completed other repairs that we felt were the reason for the lights not working correctly, on occasions we have to explore various repair options to find the correct solution.’
  10. While the Ombudsman does appreciate that on occasion more than one visit will be required to find the solution to a repair issue. It is noted that the landlord failed to undertake an initial inspection within its 28 calendar day target timescale and failed to inform the resident when it was on-site for an appointment. The resident’s emails show he was frustrated that he had to report the problem on various occasions and it had not been rectified. The landlord’s delays in dealing with the problem resulted in the resident spending time and effort reporting it again. Given the number of times the resident had reported the issue it was incumbent on the landlord to check whether its repairs had been effective, rather than relying on the resident to report the ongoing problem.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in respect of its response to resident’s reports about the communal lighting.

Orders and recommendations

  1. The landlord should take the following action within 4 weeks and provide evidence of compliance with these orders to the Ombudsman:
    1. Pay the resident the sum of £100 compensation for the inconvenience caused by the delays in undertaking works to the lighting.
    2. Apologise to the resident for the failings identified in this report.