Harrogate Borough Council (202004558)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202004558

Harrogate Borough Council

8 March 2021

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 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 response to the resident’s reports of noise nuisance coming from the floorboards of the property above his own.
The landlord’s response to the resident’s reports that unauthorised vehicles were parked in the car park of his property.
The landlord’s handling of the complaint.

Background

The resident moved into the property on 31 December 2018 and is a tenant of the landlord.
The property is a ground–floor, one bedroom flat.

Summary of Events

The first noise nuisance record in the landlord’s repairs system was dated 16 April 2019, when the resident raised concerns over the noisy floorboards coming from the flat above his own property. Its records confirmed that a property inspection was completed for this on 14 June 2019. There is no evidence to suggest that a work order was raised by the landlord following this inspection.
On 7 June 2019, the resident’s MP wrote to the landlord to highlight matters including the resident’s above concerns over the noisy floorboards.
The MP also reported that the resident had medical issues meaning that he could not tolerate banging or loud noises, so that he had to go out all of the time to escape the noise from the upstairs floorboards that was spoiling his enjoyment of his property.
On 8 August 2019, the landlord responded to the resident’s MP to confirm that all of the repairs raised by the resident at his property had been completed and that he did not say that the above noise was intolerable during its most recent new tenant visit to him. Although it explained that it had asked his housing officer to discuss this with him at the next visit, which was due shortly.
The resident’s MP then wrote to the landlord again on 9 September 2019 and raised further concerns over the noisy floorboards having a negative effect on the resident’s mental health, with his medical conditions making him prone to continual noises. The MP requested that the landlord consider replacing the floorboards.
The landlord recorded that it visited the resident’s property on 13 September 2019 to discuss the above issues with him, acknowledging excessive movement and noise transference from the fully carpeted floorboards in the flat above him following a visit to his upstairs neighbours’ property. It noted that the neighbours agreed and accepted that it should try to resolve this by appropriate works to the floorboards.
According to the landlord’s records, a work order was raised by it on 23 September 2019 to address the noise nuisance from the floorboards above the resident’s property with work to his upstairs neighbours’ flat’s floor. However, this was cancelled on 12 November 2019 with the reason given by the landlord as “work not required”.
On 31 December 2019, the landlord’s records confirmed that it had a discussion with the resident, which was escalated straight to a formal stage one complaint by the landlord. The complaint was summarised as follows:

The noisy floorboards from the property above meant that the resident was unable to enjoy his property or live in peace and quiet. He reported that the landlord’s surveyor had looked at the floorboards and had said that no work would be done, so that he considered that his property needed soundproofing.

Vehicles were parked in the resident’s property’s car park in breach of the tenancy agreement, as he considered that this contained a clause that stated that certain vehicles could not be parked there without prior agreement. However, he reported that four such car-carrying vehicles were parked in the car park without the landlord’s agreement.

According to the landlord’s records, a further order for work to address the noise nuisance from the floorboards above the resident’s property was raised by it on 6 January 2020. However, this was cancelled on 3 February 2020, due to the reason “requested by surveyor”.
On 7 January 2020, a meeting was held between the resident and landlord. This was the landlord’s formal stage one complaint response, as it noted that there was previously no formal complaint logged by it from him for it to review and respond to.
During this meeting the landlord sought to clarify the resident’s issues, and they were summarised as including the following:

Noise from floorboards in the flat above

The landlord apologised for the delay in resolving this. It highlighted that this was because it needed time to assess the best solution which caused the least disruption. The landlord acknowledged that it should have informed the resident of this and explained that it had no plans as to what his upstairs neighbours’ floor structure was like and so it had investigated the flooring at a similar property.
To address this issue, the landlord agreed to liaise with the neighbours upstairs, to agree a suitable date to carry out the works to address their flooring, and that it would communicate this to the resident.

Vehicles in the car park without authorisation

The landlord confirmed that it had conducted a review of this, which found that someone was parking in the resident’s property’s car park in breach of the tenancy agreement. However, under the advice from its parking enforcement team, warning signs were required before it could look to enforce this. Suitable parking signs were on order to be erected, which would allow the landlord to follow up on any future breaches of tenancy in relation to this.
On 11 March 2020, the resident requested the escalation of the complaint to a final stage two complaint by the landlord as he was not satisfied with the landlord’s response.
A final works order was recorded as being raised by the landlord on 17 March 2020 to address the issue of the noise nuisance from the floorboards above the resident’s property. The work was noted by it as being completed on both 17 March and 2 April 2020 and it suggested that this was not straightforward to arrange with his upstairs neighbours and was “very disruptive”.
On 7 August 2020, the landlord issued its final stage two response to the resident. This letter referred to a holding response having been sent to the resident on 15 April 2020, to advise of and apologise for a delay due to the impact of COVID-19.
Within the response of 7 August 2020, the landlord confirmed the following:

Noise from floorboards in the flat above

Work was completed on 2 April 2020 to address the movement and noise transference from the floorboards in the above property by reducing this. It was acknowledged by the landlord that further works would be required in the coming years as the floorboards would again work themselves loose. However, the work undertaken should provide a comfortable living environment in the meantime up until either the property became empty or planned improvement or upgrade works to floorboards were agreed upon and organised. The landlord also invited the resident to contact it again to arrange a further surveyor’s investigation if he was still dissatisfied with the noise from the floorboards.

Vehicles in the car park without authorisation

An order had been placed with a sign manufacturer. However, there had been a delay due to the manufacturer closing during the COVID-19 national lockdown. Installation of the sign was subsequently completed on 4 August 2020 and the landlord did not consider that there was any fault by it or the manufacturer in relation to this in light of the lockdown.
On 17 September 2020, following a Freedom of Information request from the resident to the landlord, the advice was given by it to him that the above parking sign was not ordered by it until 28 July 2020. The sign subsequently stated that parking in his property’s car park was for the landlord’s residents and visitors only.
The resident’s complaint was then referred to this Service to consider by a local councillor for his district acting in the capacity of his designated person. He complained to us that the landlord had only added “a few screws” to his upstairs neighbours’ floorboards that had no effect on the noise nuisance that he had experienced, so that he considered that the floorboards had not been taken up and had been screwed in the wrong place. The resident also reported that the landlord told him on 7 January 2020 that there was a worn away wooden void and no insulation between his and the neighbours’ properties, which it would only address when they became vacant.
The resident advised that his upstairs neighbours’ floorboard noise was worsened by their late-night return from work and the national lockdown as he could not go out to escape this, causing friction with the neighbours who were now reluctant to allow more works to address this and worsening his physical ill-health. He described this as additionally being due to him being woken up and unable to sleep because of the noise, which echoed through the void above him and affected his hearing aids.
The resident also complained that the landlord had taken no action for his reports about unauthorised vehicles parking in his property’s car park for two years and that two such vans had continued to remain there despite the sign that it had installed, which had meant that the car park was always full and inaccessible. He considered that the sign should have said that it only permitted its tenants rather than its residents to park there to avoid confusion as it was the local authority and reiterated from its response to his above Freedom of Information reuest that the vans lacked the necessary written agreement from it to use the car park as commercial vehicles under the tenancy agreement.
The resident additionally complained about the landlord’s complaints handling in the form of it delaying responding to his original complaint about the noisy floorboards above him in January 2019 until he contacted the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government in December 2019, as well as failing to respond to his MP’s above letter of 9 September 2019.
The resident added that the landlord’s final stage two complaint response to him was many months later than its complaints procedure’s 30-working-day response timescale. He also reported that the final stage investigation required to be carried out by a senior officer employed in a different service area to the one about which he had complained under the procedure had instead been dealt with by the acting director of the same department.

Assessment and findings

Resident’s concerns regarding the noisy floorboards in the property above

It is not disputed that repairs were required to address the noisy floorboards above the resident’s property. As per the landlord’s published housing repairs timescales, the minimum time to wait for a repair can be up to 30 working days.
The landlord’s repairs system details that the following actions were taken in respect of the proposed repair following the resident’s noise nuisance reports recorded by it from 16 April 2019 onwards:

Inspection completed 14 June 2019, with an order for work raised 23 September 2019. Cancelled 12 November 2019, reason “Work not required”. No commentary was provided on who determined the work to no longer be required.

A further order for work was raised on 6 January 2020, cancelled 3 February 2020, reason “Requested by surveyor”.
A final order for work was raised on 17 March 2020, with the work completed on 17 March and 2 April 2020.

It is recognised that there were varying reasons for these works being cancelled; however, the landlord has failed to evidence its attempts to follow up on these cancellations. As a result, action was only taken by the landlord to follow up on these works on receipt of the resident’s complaints. Following two separate cancelled works as detailed above, the landlord arranged for the completion of the work required.
During the meeting of 6 January 2020, the landlord apologised for the delay in completing this work, which was due to it needing time “to assess the best solution which causes the least disruption”. No offer of redress was made to the resident.
The resident waited a total of approximately 11 months for suitable repairs to be carried out. This was not in line with the stipulated timeframes of up to 30 working days, as stated above, and this was not an adequate response. Furthermore, no evidence has been provided to suggest that the resident was kept informed of the progress of these works. Under the circumstances, the landlord should have clearly communicated to the resident the reason for the delay in completing the required work, and confirmed a suitable timescale for the work to be completed. It should also have considered offering him compensation in recognition of any distress and inconvenience caused to him by its extremely excessive repair delay, which it has been ordered to do below.
Although the resident reports that he experienced an even longer repair delay from the landlord as he began reporting the above noise nuisance to it from January 2019 onwards, this has not been evidenced. Nevertheless, it is of concern that he reports that its repairs had no effect on this, that his ill-health was affected and that further repairs might have to await properties becoming vacant, which it has therefore been recommended to contact him to re-investigate below.

Vehicles were parked in the car park in breach of the tenancy agreement

As per the resident’s tenancy agreement, commercial vehicles must not park on any communal parking areas without the landlord’s agreement in writing.
Following the resident’s reported concerns on this matter on 31 December 2019, the landlord investigated and found a vehicle in breach of the tenancy agreement. Under the advice of its parking enforcement team, warning signs were required before any action could be taken. The action taken by the landlord in relying upon the advice of its specialist parking enforcement was reasonable, and its advice allowed for more effective management of the car park in the future. This work was completed on 4 August 2020.
The total time to carry out the necessary signage works to begin to address the presence of unauthorised vehicles in the resident’s property’s car park was therefore approximately eight months. However, in view of the understandable impact of COVID-19 on the manufacturer in delaying the works for much of this period, the landlord did not respond to this within an inappropriate timescale.
While the resident reports that subsequent parking violations occurred after the sign was installed, these are outside the scope of this investigation to consider having taken place after the present complaint exhausted the landlord’s complaints procedure and it is open to him to pursue these with it further. Although the fact that it confirmed to this Service that it did not have a parking allocation policy has meant that it has been recommended below to consider implementing a procedure to monitor and manage parking at its properties.

Complaint handling

While the resident states that he began formally complaining to the landlord about its response to his reports regarding the noisy floorboards above him from January 2019 onwards, there is no record of this. However, it is of concern that there is also no evidence that it responded to his MP’s letter to it about this on his behalf on 9 September 2019, which was inappropriate. Although the landlord did then visit the resident to discuss the noise shortly afterwards on 13 September 2019.
The landlord went on to accept a stage one complaint from the resident on 31 December 2019 that it responded to within its complaints procedure’s ten-working-day response timescale on 7 January 2020. It subsequently escalated a final stage two complaint from him on 11 March 2020, which it replied to 73 working days later than the procedure’s 30-working-day response timescale on 7 August 2020.
In addition to the understandable delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown, the landlord’s complaints procedure also permitted it to extend the timescales for it to respond to very complex complaints if it told residents as soon as it knew that there would be delays in replying to them. It was therefore not necessarily unreasonable for it to have delayed responding to the resident’s final stage two complaint by approximately three-and-a-half months, particularly as it sent him a holding response on 15 April 2020 to advise of and apologise for a delay in its reply due to the impact of COVID-19.
With regard to the resident’s complaint that the landlord’s final stage two complaint investigation was dealt with by the acting director of the same department that he had complained about contrary to its complaints procedure’s requirement that they be employed in a different service area, its records showed the following. It noted that the above complaints related to its housing and property department and so its final stage investigation was allocated to and investigated by its head of safer communities, whose title included housing and property services according to the resident.
However, the landlord’s records only showed that its head of safer communities was the head of that department and that its head of housing and property was a different individual who had responded to the resident’s stage one complaint. It appears that his above confusion was caused by both individuals’ signatures specifying that they were both heads of service areas within its housing and property services directorate. Nevertheless, this did not contradict the landlord’s complaints procedure’s requirement that they be employed in different service areas rather than different directorates, although it has been recommended below to clarify this in its future final stage complaint correspondence.

Determination (decision)

In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration in respect of the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of noise nuisance coming from the floorboards of the property above his own.
In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was no maladministration by the landlord in respect of its response to the resident’s reports that unauthorised vehicles were parked in the car park of his property.
In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was no maladministration in the way that the landlord handled the resident’s complaint.

Reasons

The landlord’s floorboard repair timescale of 11 months was unreasonable. It is recognised that the reasons for cancellation may be outside of the landlord’s control. However, the landlord should have followed up on the cancelled work to reschedule the required repair, communicated to the resident accordingly and monitored the completion of the work, as well as having considered offering him compensation for its lengthy delay.
The landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of unauthorised parking in his property’s car park appropriately followed expert advice from its parking enforcement team to obtain signage that it was not responsible for its manufacturer delaying due to COVID-19.
The landlord’s response to the resident’s stage one complaint and its investigation of his final stage two complaint accorded with its complaints procedure, and its delay in replying to the final stage complaint was permitted by the procedure as well as being not unreasonably delayed by COVID-19.

Order and recommendations

Order

The Ombudsman orders the landlord to pay the resident £300 compensation within four weeks in recognition of any distress and inconvenience caused to him by its delay in repairing his upstairs neighbours’ floorboards.

Recommendations

It is recommended that the landlord:

Review its repair procedures with reference to cancelled works, particularly when subjected to a relevant complaint, in order to ensure that the works are subsequently rescheduled, communicated to the resident and monitored to completion within a reasonable timescale.
Contact the resident to offer to arrange a further surveyor’s investigation of his reports of ongoing noise nuisance from his upstairs neighbours’ floorboards.
Consider implementing a procedure to monitor and manage parking at its properties, with consideration to the future enforcement of breaches of tenancy.
Ensure that its final stage complaint correspondence clarifies that its final stage complaint investigations are being carried out by a senior officer employed in a different service area to the one being complained about.

The landlord shall contact this Service within four weeks of this determination to confirm that it has complied with the above order and to confirm whether it will follow the above recommendations.
The Ombudsman accepts that, because of the present restrictions due to the corona virus pandemic, the timing of the above actions will depend on what is reasonable in the light of Government guidance regarding the health of the resident and of the landlord’s staff.