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Walterton and Elgin Community Homes Limited (202219128)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202219128

Walterton and Elgin Community Homes Limited

18 June 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 concerns about an operative’s behaviour.
  2. The Ombudsman has also considered the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

  1. The resident is an assured tenant of the property, a first floor 1–bedroom flat. The landlord is a housing association.
  2. On 28 April 2022, the landlord’s contractor attended the property to complete repairs to the kitchen and bathroom. The resident submits one of the 2 operatives used his toilet on 2 occasions without permission. After the operative used the toilet the first time, the resident asked him not to use it again (which the resident said the operative agreed to). However, the operative used the toilet later in the day which led to an altercation. After the altercation both operatives left the property without completing the repairs. The resident said this left him without cooking facilities or running water in the kitchen.
  3. The resident raised a formal complaint on 3 May 2022. He said he had asked the operatives not to use the toilet due to hygiene concerns and the pandemic. He wanted compensation as he was not able to use his kitchen from 26 to 30 April 2022, and for trauma caused to him after the operative used the toilet without permission.
  4. The landlord acknowledged the complaint by email on 6 May 2022. It emailed its contractor on 10, 18 and 25 May 2022 for its account of events before it issued its stage 1 response later on 25 May 2022. The landlord said the operative had apologised to the resident after he used the toilet on the first occasion, but the operative said the resident had given permission to use the toilet on the second occasion. It apologised for inconvenience and acknowledged the distress it had caused the resident. It said it would take measures to ensure it did not happen again, and he could escalate the complaint within 10 working days if he remained unhappy.
  5. The resident emailed the landlord on 20 June 2022, 16 working days later, to escalate the complaint. He said: the operative had lied as he had not been given permission to use the toilet; he felt his personal space had been violated; and he still felt the psychological effects of the event. The landlord emailed the resident the same day and said it had limited options on how it could resolve the situation, but offered to professionally clean the bathroom and replace the toilet seat.
  6. In the resident’s email of 29 June 2022 he reiterated his requests for compensation and to escalate the complaint. The landlord responded on 15 September 2022 saying that it had apologised and offered to professionally clean the bathroom and replace the toilet seat, so it was unclear what more he wanted.
  7. The resident replied by email on 26 September 2022 and said he had not received an apology from the contractor directly and the offer of the professional clean was months after the incident. To put things right, and due to a number of health conditions he disclosed, he requested to be moved to a different property.
  8. The landlord issued its stage 2 response on 7 October 2022. It said its stage 1 response and subsequent offer to clean the bathroom and replace the toilet seat were reasonable, and provided details of how the resident could move. It also provided details on how to escalate the complaint to this Service.

Events after the end of the landlord’s complaints process

  1. Following notification the resident had contacted this Service, the landlord invited him to a meeting to find a mutually satisfactory solution on 29 January 2023. However, no evidence has been provided as to whether the meeting took place. The landlord subsequently offered the resident an alternative property, which the resident accepted.

Assessment and findings

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s concerns about an operative’s behaviour

  1. The landlord’s procedures say when visiting a resident’s home, staff must act in a professional and courteous manner.
  2. Where there are conflicting accounts of what happened during an incident and a lack of independent evidence to support either account, the Ombudsman, as an impartial arbiter, cannot definitively determine what happened during the incident. This Service will, however, consider the landlord’s response to the accounts and assess whether its actions were reasonable and appropriate in all the circumstances of the case.
  3. While this Service does not doubt the resident’s submissions, it is important to note that we can only base our decisions on the documentary evidence provided. After the altercation, the evidence suggests the landlord acted promptly to arrange for its contractors to return 2 days later and complete the necessary repair work.
  4. It was evident that the resident was distressed by the actions of the operative on 28 April 2022. As such, it was reasonable for the landlord to take appropriate steps to investigate his concerns as it sought information from its contractor. The Ombudsman acknowledges the upset caused to the resident by the operative using his toilet a second time, but it is reasonable to expect that an operative may need to use the toilet whilst completing repairs.
  5. In this case, the landlord took the opportunity of the formal complaint to fully investigate the situation and apologise to the resident, which was reasonable. It then went above and beyond and offered to replace the toilet seat and complete a professional clean of the bathroom. This demonstrated that the landlord initially took the complaint seriously and sought to ‘put things right’ in line with the Ombudsman’s dispute resolution principles. There was, therefore, no maladministration by the landlord in its handling of the resident’s concerns raised in relation to the operative’s behaviour.

Complaint Handling

  1. The landlord has a 3 stage complaint process. Its complaints policy says:
    1. It will issue a stage 1 response within 10 working days.
    2. If a resident is not satisfied with a stage 1 response, they have 10 working days to escalate the complaint to stage 2.
    3. A complaint will be closed when a response has been sent, at any stage, and there is no further communication from the resident within 10 working days.
    4. It will either respond to stage 2 complaints within 20 working days of the request to escalate (in line with the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code), or in exceptional circumstances will write to the resident to explain why additional time is needed.
    5. If a resident remains unhappy following a stage 2 response, they have the option of a board appeal, involving a designated person, or escalating the complaint straight to this Service.
  2. The stage 1 response was not issued until 16 working days after the complaint was made, 6 working days over its policy timeframe. However, the Ombudsman acknowledges that the minor delay was due to a slow reply from its contractor, rather than the landlord itself, and this delay did not have any significant impact on the resident.
  3. There is no evidence to suggest the resident contacted the landlord within 10 working days after the stage 1 response was issued, which suggests the landlord closed the complaint in line with its policy. However, the resident requested to escalate the complaint on 20 June 2022. The landlord acted reasonably in offering further remedy at this point, but it should have done so as part of a formal stage 2 response.
  4. Further, the landlord emailed the resident on 15 September 2022 and said it was unclear what he wanted, despite the resident having specifically said he wanted compensation in an email sent 29 June 2022. The landlord therefore missed 2 opportunities to issue a stage 2 response to clarify its final position on the complaint. It did not issue its stage 2 response until 78 working days after the resident’s request to escalate, which represents a failing.
  5. The evidence also suggests a long delay in contact after the resident reiterated he wanted to escalate the complaint on 29 June 2022, and the landlord’s email of 15 September 2022. There is no evidence to suggest the resident chased the issue during this time, but he had already confirmed he wanted to escalate the complaint twice. The stage 2 response did not acknowledge or apologise for the delays, which was a further failing.
  6. The delays issuing the stage 2 response meant the landlord did not use its complaints process to resolve the complaint at the earliest opportunity, and delayed the resident escalating the complaint to this Service, which caused the resident inconvenience. The landlord does not have a compensation policy, but its handling of the complaint amounts to service failure. Therefore, in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance, an order has been made that the landlord pay £50 compensation to reflect the inconvenience, time and trouble caused to the resident in its handling of his complaint.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was:
    1. No maladministration by the landlord in its handling of the resident’s concerns about an operative’s behaviour.
    2. Service failure in the landlord’s complaint handling.

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks of the date of this report, the landlord is ordered to pay the resident £50 compensation for the inconvenience, distress, time and trouble caused by its complaint handling failings.