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Westminster City Council (202233439)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202233439

Westminster City Council

27 January 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

  1. The complaint is about the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports about noise issues from a neighbouring property.
  2. The Ombudsman has also taken the decision to investigate the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

  1. The resident lived in the property, a 3-bedroom ground floor maisonette, with her 2 children. It is owned by the landlord, a local authority. She had a secure tenancy that began on 1 June 2020 and ended in September 2023. The landlord’s records show she told it that she had anxiety and depression.
  2. The resident reported problematic household noise from the upstairs property (property 2) to the landlord since 2020. The landlord frequently told her to contact its noise team. However, the noise team told her on several occasions that they did not deal with this kind of noise. She also asked it to install soundproofing at the property.
  3. On 29 September 2022, the resident complained to the landlord about its failure to respond adequately to her reports of noise. The following day the landlord told her that her complaint had been “de-escalated”, meaning it had treated it as an enquiry rather than a complaint. The resident was unhappy to learn of this and complained to the Ombudsman on the same day. We contacted the landlord on 26 April 2023, and the landlord wrote to the resident saying it would consider her complaint.
  4. The landlord provided its stage 1 complaint response on 24 May 2023. It upheld the resident’s complaint, apologising for its failure to investigate her concerns earlier. It said it should have explored her requests for soundproofing, and that staff had been reminded to fully investigate all reports of noise transmission, in line with the Ombudsman’s guidance. It offered her £330 compensation in recognition of various failures, including complaint handling.
  5. The resident was not satisfied with this response and asked to escalate her complaint that evening, setting out how she did not consider the landlord’s response fully acknowledged her concerns. She also said she found the landlord’s repeated advice to contact its noise team to be frustrating, as the noise team told her they did not deal with neighbour noise.
  6. The landlord responded at stage 2 of its complaints process on 23 June 2023. It said it accepted the impact of the noise on the resident’s health and noted that she had been granted priority for a transfer application. It explained its noise report referral procedure. It said that, in November 2022, it had understood the noise from property 2 to be ‘day to day’ noise but, following a recent visit from an officer, it had taken the decision to serve the neighbouring leaseholder with a legal warning related to noise. It had also assigned an antisocial behaviour (ASB) officer to her case. It apologised and offered increased compensation, totalling £680.
  7. The resident asked the Ombudsman to investigate. She left the property in September 2023 but says she still suffers from severe insomnia and seeks compensation to acknowledge what she describes as the long-term damage to her mental health.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. The resident has expressed concerns regarding the impact the situation has caused to her health. The Ombudsman is unable to draw conclusions on the causation of, or liability for, impacts on health and wellbeing, as claims of personal injury must, ultimately, be decided by courts of law, which can consider medical evidence and make legally binding findings. This is in accordance with paragraph 42.f. of the Scheme, which states that the Ombudsman may not consider complaints where it is quicker, fairer, more reasonable, or more effective to seek a remedy through the courts or other tribunal or procedure. Nonetheless, consideration has been given to the general distress and inconvenience which the situation may have caused the resident and her household.
  2. The resident says that she has been reporting noise issues since 2020. The landlord issued a previous stage 2 complaint response on 26 March 2021. However, the resident did not complain about this to the Ombudsman until 29 September 2022, which was over 16 months after the previous complaint was concluded. In line with paragraph 42.b. of the Scheme, we are therefore only investigating events which occurred in the 12 months prior to this complaint, which exhausted the landlord’s complaints procedure in late June 2023. We may refer to earlier events for context, but we will not make findings on how the landlord responded to the previous complaint. This is because paragraph 42.b. of the Scheme states that the Ombudsman may not consider complaints brought to our attention normally more than 12 months after exhausting the landlord’s complaints procedure.
  3. The records show that, after the landlord provided its stage 2 response on 23 June 23, the resident reported further issues with noise from her neighbour. It is appreciated that, if the situation remained unresolved, it would have been distressing for the resident. However, the Ombudsman’s role is to investigate complaints brought to us that have exhausted a landlord’s internal complaints process. In accordance with paragraph 42.a. of the Scheme, we will therefore not be looking at events after the final response in June 2023. This is because paragraph 42.a. of the Scheme states that we may not investigate complaints made prior to exhausting the landlord’s complaints procedure.

Noise from neighbouring property

  1. The landlord has not provided the Ombudsman with a copy of any ASB or noise policy that was relevant at the time of the resident’s complaint. However, the Ombudsman published a spotlight report on noise complaints in October 2022, shortly after the resident made her complaint. It stressed that landlords should develop strategies for handling complaints about noise that does not constitute a statutory nuisance under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 seriously, sensitively, and proportionately.
  2. This report, “Spotlight on: Noise complaints”, said landlords should consider how they triage reports of noise so that the correct approach is applied. They should develop a good neighbourhood management strategy, distinct from their ASB policy. This should include a mediation function. It said that landlords’ failures in this area commonly arise when landlords fail to produce action plans, undertake risk assessments, or fully investigate reports of noise, often failing to listen to noise recordings.
  3. In this case, the landlord fell into a number of these errors. There is no evidence that it reviewed the noise app recordings the resident provided in September, October, and November 2022 until June 2023. When it did so, it found they did not show sufficient evidence to justify taking action against the resident’s neighbour. However, it was unreasonable for the landlord to take so long to review the noise recordings. The resident repeatedly asked the landlord whether it had listened to the recordings during this period. Its failure to respond to those requests was unsupportive and inappropriate. It failed to show that it was taking the resident’s concerns seriously, which would naturally have increased her distress.
  4. Further, while the landlord did not consider the noise app recordings to provide evidence of a noise issue at the property, it was clear, and the landlord accepted this was the case, that the noise at the property was causing the resident distress. It awarded her medical priority on 3 October 2022 on that basis. Tellingly, in an internal email in June 2023, the landlord said, “From what I can see we have not investigated this case properly.”
  5. The landlord did not appear to have a coherent policy for the type of noise issues the resident complained of. The records show it repeatedly directed her to its noise team. However, she explained that, when she contacted this team, she was told they did not deal with ‘household noise’. The section on the landlord’s website that deals with noise problems states that it investigates ‘statutory noise’. It specifically says it cannot investigate the sound of footsteps, slamming doors or cupboards, dropping objects, moving furniture, and so on. These were the kinds of noises she complained of.
  6. In its stage 1 response in May 2023, the landlord again directed the resident to the noise team. Unhelpfully, in its stage 2 response, it explained that all residents reporting noise nuisance are referred to the landlord’s noise team. It said that this was the process, even though it confirmed that the noise team’s powers related to statutory noise nuisance and not the day-to-day noise that the landlord considered the resident’s reports to be.
  7. When the resident complained, the landlord “de-escalated” her complaint and referred it, as an enquiry, to its housing team. The landlord told the resident, in an email on 4 October 2022, that its housing team would be able to contact her neighbour or inspect the flooring at property 2.
  8. On 5 October 2022, the resident emailed the housing team, stressing that she had repeatedly reported noise through the noise app provided. She was then directed again, in a 7 October 2022 email, to the noise team. She responded the same day, saying she could not contact the noise team as they had told her they did not investigate the type of noise she was reporting. She expressed her frustration, saying it seemed like “no one is reading my messages properly and taking some sort of action.”
  9. On 10 October 2022, the landlord asked for the resident’s address to check her report had been sent to the housing department. This further added to the resident’s confusion. However, the landlord then acted appropriately by sending a housing officer to visit her on 2 November 2022. In the resident’s later complaint escalation, she said that, as the officer was only at the property for 30 minutes, they would not have heard the same level of noise that she did, especially as the noise got worse at night.
  10. However, in the view of the Ombudsman, this visit was an appropriate response. Even so, a visit alone, without evidence that it also listened to the resident’s noise recordings, or formed an action plan, shows that it did not take a coordinated approach to the resident’s reports, contrary to our spotlight report’s recommendations. This was inappropriate.
  11. On 14 November 2022, the resident emailed the landlord to ask if anyone had listened to her noise app recordings. She said she was “going insane”. On 16 November 2022, the resident took her complaint to her local MP. The landlord told the MP that it was considering soundproofing. This was confusing for the resident, as she said the landlord told her that it could not provide soundproofing. Further, in its May 2023 complaint response, it apologised for having failed to explore soundproofing options. Its response to the MP was inconsistent with its other actions and statements. This was inappropriate. It should not have told the MP that it was considering soundproofing if it was not. This inconsistency was a further indication that it did not take her reports about how the noise was affecting the resident sufficiently seriously.
  12. On 14 February 2023, the resident contacted the landlord asking for an update. She wanted to know if the landlord had contacted the occupier of property 2 about the problem. She repeated this request on 21 February 2023, saying that she was now on medication, as the problem was affecting her mental health.
  13. On 22 February 2023, the landlord told the resident that it had discussed the issues with the occupier of property 2. It said it had previously arranged a visit with a surveyor, but that this had been cancelled.
  14. The resident continued to ask for an update about what action the landlord was taking. On 15 March 2023, the landlord informed the resident that it had arranged an inspection of property 2 on 28 February 2023 but the occupier had gone away. It also said it had escalated her complaint to the noise team. Again, this was not a helpful escalation, as she had repeatedly explained the noise team did not deal with the type of noise reports she had made.
  15. In an email on 18 April 2023, the resident expressed her frustration that the landlord had not updated her on any action taken. She asked how the inspection of property 2 had gone. When she did not receive a response, she again contacted her MP.
  16. After the Ombudsman intervened, prompting the landlord to respond to the resident’s September 2022 complaint on 24 May 2023, it upheld the resident’s complaint.
  17. On 22 June 2023, a surveyor visited the property and witnessed noise that prompted the landlord to send a letter of warning to the leaseholder at property 2. It stated that the noise app may not have picked up on the severity of the issues. In particular, it said that some of the noise was caused by the sound of the entrance door leading to the upstairs flat.
  18. In its stage 2 complaint response, the landlord said that it had now given the resident priority for moving and said a housing officer would visit to carry out an assessment of her needs.  It confirmed that it would write to the leaseholder of property 2 and ask them to fit a soft closing mechanism on the entrance door. It assigned an ASB officer to the case and, soon afterwards, conducted a risk assessment. It increased the offer of compensation to £680, adding an extra £50 for the time and trouble the resident had taken to pursue the matter, and a further £300 for the inconvenience caused by its failure to fully address her concerns when they were first reported.
  19. When there are acknowledged failings by a landlord, as there are here, the Ombudsman will consider whether any redress offered by the landlord put things right and resolved the resident’s complaint satisfactorily in all the circumstances. In considering this, the Ombudsman takes into account whether its offer of redress (in this case an apology and compensation), was in line with the Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles: be fair, put things right, and learn from outcomes.
  20. The landlord’s apology at stage 1 for not investigating the resident’s noise concerns and requests for soundproofing earlier was appropriate. However, later records demonstrate the landlord had not learnt from the issues the resident had reported about being repeatedly referred to a noise team that informed her they did not deal with the type of noise she was reporting.
  21. For instance, a record of 27 July 2023, which was after the events investigated here, shows that the landlord again referred the resident to the noise team. It again said the noise team could log the matter with housing team services. This sent the resident on the same pattern of referrals between these teams as before. In August 2023, an internal email said the noise team “…will not help with neighbour noise.” This shows that the landlord knew, or should have known, that that the noise team would not help her. We have, therefore, made an order that, if it has not done so already, the landlord should assess its policies relating to noise disturbance against the Ombudsman’s spotlight October 2022 report on noise. We consider the landlord’s failures in its approach in this case to amount to a finding of maladministration.
  22. The landlord’s compensation policy says that discretionary compensation payments should be made to recognise the impact caused to a resident. These fall into low to high impact payments. A payment of £250 to £700 is recommended for a case where the landlord considers its failures have had a medium impact. The policy says this amount would be applied in situations including where a resident was repeatedly passed between staff members and/or teams, with no one officer or department taking overall responsibility. Another example is where there has been a failure over a considerable period of time to act in accordance with policy, for example to respond to ASB or to make adequate adjustments. The Ombudsman considers the resident’s situation, excluding the effect on her health that we cannot consider as outlined above, was correctly assessed as having medium impact.
  23. Therefore, the landlord’s offer of £500 for the inconvenience caused by its failure to address the resident’s concerns when first reported, is within the correct range of the landlord’s compensation policy and the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance for failures that adversely affected the resident. However, we consider the landlord’s repeated referrals to a team that could not help her and failure to listen to her noise recordings while she was continually reporting her concerns, requires an acknowledgement of the impact that is at the highest end of that scale. We have therefore ordered the landlord to pay £700 to recognise that element of her complaint. This sum is also at the higher end of the Ombudsman’s guidance on remedies for cases where we have found maladministration, and where there was a failure that had a significant impact on the resident.

Complaint handling

  1. The Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code) says that landlords must respond at stage 1 of their complaints process within 10 working days. The resident made her complaint on 29 September 2022 and the landlord did not respond until 24 May 2023. This was a period of 163 working days and is inappropriate. The landlord also responded to the resident’s 24 May 2023 stage 2 complaint after 22 working days on 23 June 2023 instead of within 20 working days under the Code.
  2. The landlord has already offered a payment of £50 for de-escalating the resident’s stage 1 complaint, which was the reason behind the delay. It offered a further £30 for that delay.
  3. We consider the delay was so significant as to warrant a finding of maladministration and have therefore ordered the landlord to pay a sum of £200 for the de-escalation and delay that is in line with the Ombudsman’s guidance on remedies. The delay was a failure that adversely affected the resident and the offer made was not proportionate to the failings identified by our investigation, which our remedies guidance recommends recognising with awards of over £100.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52. of the Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of:
    1. The resident’s reports about noise issues from a neighbouring property.
    2. The resident’s formal complaint.

Orders

  1. The landlord is ordered to:
    1. Provide an apology to the resident from a senior officer within 4 weeks. The apology should acknowledge the maladministration, accept responsibility for it, explain clearly why it happened, and express sincere regret.
    2. Pay the resident a total of £900 in compensation. (This sum replaces the landlord’s previous offer of £680 already offered at stage 1 of the complaints process. If that sum has already been paid, it should be deducted from the total due.) The payment should be made within 4 weeks, comprising:
      1. £700 to acknowledge the landlord’s failure to address the resident’s noise reports appropriately when first reported.
      2. £200 to acknowledge the complaint handling failures identified above.
    3. Within 8 weeks, reflect on and consider revising its ASB policy and approach to reports of noise to ensure they are in line with the Ombudsman’s spotlight report on noise complaints.