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The Riverside Group Limited (202221136)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202221136

The Riverside Group Limited

18 November 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. This complaint is about the landlord’s response to the resident’s concerns about:
    1. The conduct of its surveyor who visited her property on 31 October 2022.
    2. Subsidence and cracks to both her kitchen and bathroom flooring.

Background

  1. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord. The tenancy commenced on 17 January 2011. The property is a 1-bedroom ground floor flat in an end of row Victorian house.
  2. On 31 October 2022, the landlord’s surveyor attended the resident’s building in response to a request from operatives that were carrying out works in the flat above. During their visit, the landlord’s surveyor also visited the resident’s flat where the resident’s concerns about subsidence, and that both her kitchen and bathroom flooring were cracked, were raised.
  3. On 1 November 2022, the resident logged a formal complaint with the landlord about the surveyor that had visited her property on 31 October 2022. The resident said that she had left her flat door open and the surveyor ‘walked through her flat’ with ‘no acknowledgement or explanation of who he was.’ The resident said that the surveyor was ‘very rude,’ told her he needed to go out into the garden and ‘pushed his ID into her face.’ The resident said that he only gave his name when she told him she had poor eyesight and could not see his ID. The resident advised the landlord that her housing officer was also present but was on her phone. The Stage 1 complaint handler discussed the resident’s complaint with her on 9 November 2022.
  4. The landlord issued its stage 1 response on 18 November 2022 in which it:
    1. Apologised on behalf of the surveyor about how the resident had felt when he spoke to her and showed her his ID badge.
    2. Said that the building, her home and other flats, had been inspected and there were no signs of any subsidence. Therefore, no further works needed to be undertaken.
    3. The landlord made no reference to the concerns the resident had raised with the surveyor about the cracks to her kitchen and bathroom floor.
  5. A copy of the resident’s escalation request has not been seen by this Service. However, it is evident that she was dissatisfied with the landlord’s stage 1 response and requested a review, as the landlord issued a stage 2 response on 1 December 2022. In its final response the landlord re-iterated the position it had set out in its stage 1 response.
  6. The resident referred her complaint to this Service on 8 December 2022.

Assessment and findings

Scope

  1. When the stage 1 complaint handler spoke to the resident on 9 November 2022 about her complaint of 1 November 2022, the resident also raised concerns about the living room floor having a hump near the back door, the patio doors dropping and the bedroom being on a slant.
  2. As there is no record of the resident having previously reported these issues to the landlord or having discussed them with the surveyor that attended on 31 October 2022,  it was reasonable and in accordance with this Service’s complaint handling code, for the landlord to respond to these as a service request and not part of the formal complaint. This it did by advising the resident that it would arrange a further visit to her property to assess any other outstanding repairs.
  3. As these were service requests, and not issues that formed part of the formal complaint made on 1 November 2022, no further reference will be made to these matters in this report.

Concerns about the conduct of the landlord’s surveyor who visited the resident’s property on 31 October 2022.

  1. The Ombudsman will not form a view on whether the actions of the landlord’s surveyor were appropriate. Instead, it is this Service’s role to decide whether the landlord adequately investigated and responded to the complaint, and took proportionate action based on the information available to it.
  2. For staff conduct complaints, including complaints about its surveyors, landlords would be expected to carry out an investigation. The landlord would also be expected to explain to the resident what its investigation entailed and what actions, if any, it intended to take as a result.
  3. In this case, whilst the landlord responded to the resident’s concerns about the conduct of the surveyor that attended her property on 31 October 2022 and apologised on his behalf, this did not go far enough.
  4. This is because there is no evidence that the landlord carried out any meaningful investigation into what happened. It would have been appropriate for the landlord to have contacted its surveyor to advise him of the resident’s concerns and to seek his perspective on what had happened. However, there is no evidence it did. Had the landlord done so, and had the apology come from the surveyor rather than ‘on his behalf’ it may have provided a more meaningful outcome for the resident.
  5. Further, the resident had made it clear that her housing officer was present at the time of the visit. Given that was the case, it would have been reasonable to have expected the landlord to have also discussed the resident’s concerns with them. This would have provided it with an independent view on what had happened and again would have allowed its response to be more informed and meaningful. However, again there is no evidence that it did so.
  6. The lack of evidence of the landlord conducting any meaningful investigation has resulted in a finding of maladministration in respect of this element of the resident’s complaint. To put this right, the landlord has been ordered to apologise to the resident for this failure and pay her £100 compensation. This amount is in line with upper end of the amounts suggested in this Service’s Remedies Guidance in situations where the failure caused distress and inconvenience to the resident but did not significantly affect the overall outcome.

Concerns about subsidence and cracks to both the resident’s kitchen and bathroom flooring.

  1. The report submitted by the landlord’s surveyor, following his visit of 31 October 2022, confirms that the resident’s and 2 other flats in the building were inspected. It is also evident that the resident’s concerns about potential subsidence and cracks to both her kitchen and bathroom flooring were discussed. In response to the resident’s concerns, the surveyor reported that he did not agree with the resident’s position regarding potential subsidence. He went on to say that based on what he had seen that day, he could see nothing externally that he would attribute to subsidence, ‘unless the entire footprint of the house was very slowly sinking into the ground’, which he said was an ‘unlikely scenario given the type of building and the area it’s located’.
  2. The surveyor noted that the resident was of the understanding that subsidence was flagged up in a previous surveyor’s report, carried out a number of years ago. However, the landlord had no record of this report having taken place.
  3. The surveyor reported that there were minor cracks to the flooring to both the resident’s kitchen and bathroom. The surveyor said that he had asked the resident if she knew what preparation the builders, that she had engaged, had undertaken prior to tiling the floors. The surveyor said that this was to try to establish, given that the floors were timber, whether the builders used a rubberised mat type product under the floor tiles or simply plywood or similar. The surveyor noted that if it were the latter, they would suggest the tile cracking was inevitable as wooden floors will move, shrink, and expand with temperature changes.
  4. The surveyor concluded that there were multiple reasons why floor tiles crack and in this case subsidence seemed the most unlikely one, ‘given the total absence of any evidence of it’.
  5. Prior to issuing their stage 1 response, the stage 1 complaint handler also confirmed, in an internal email, that they had looked for the previous report the resident said was completed. However, they had been unable to locate any previous request for an inspection or survey in relation to any movement of the building.
  6. Given that was the case, it was reasonable for the landlord to rely on the findings of its surveyor’s assessment. In the absence of any reliable expert report at that time contradicting the surveyor’s findings, there is no basis for this Service to conclude that the landlord’s position, that there was no evidence of subsidence, was inaccurate.
  7. Whilst the above information has been made available to this Service there is no evidence that this was provided to the resident. The landlord’s complaint response to this matter referred to it having ‘reviewed the feedback’ from its surveyor’s visit carried out on 31st October 2022. However, the only information it gave the resident about this was to say that ‘no signs of movement/subsidence have been reported’. It provided her with no explanation of why its surveyor had come to that conclusion, nor did it make any reference to the surveyor’s findings with regards to the cracks to her flooring.
  8. Whilst there is no basis for this Service to conclude that the landlord’s position, at that time, that there was no evidence of subsidence, was inaccurate, as a result of the landlord’s failure to provide the resident with a meaningful response to this element of her complaint a finding of maladministration has been made. To make this right, the landlord has been ordered to again apologise to the resident and pay her a further £100 compensation.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in its response to the resident’s concerns about the conduct of its surveyor who visited the resident’s property on 31 October 2022.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in its response to the resident’s concerns about subsidence and cracks to both her kitchen and bathroom flooring.

Orders

  1. That within 28 calendar days of this report the landlord is to:
    1. Apologise to the resident for the failures identified in this report.
    2. Pay her a total of £200 compensation made up of:
      1. £100 for the lack of evidence of it carrying out any meaningful investigation into her concerns about the conduct of its surveyor who visited her property on 31 October 2022.
      2. £100 for its failure to provide the resident with a meaningful response to her concerns about subsidence and cracks to both her kitchen and bathroom flooring.
    3. Review of the lack of meaningful responses identified in the case. The landlord is then to provide this Service with an explanation as to what steps it intends to take to address this and to prevent this issue from happening again going forward.
  2. The landlord is to confirm compliance with the above order to this Service within the timescale set out above.