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Clarion Housing Association Limited (202013071)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202013071

Clarion Housing Association Limited

4 May 2021


Our approach

What we can and cannot consider is called the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction and is governed by the Housing Ombudsman Scheme. The Ombudsman must determine whether a complaint comes within their jurisdiction. The Ombudsman seeks to resolve disputes wherever possible but cannot investigate complaints that fall outside of this. 

In deciding whether a complaint falls within their jurisdiction, the Ombudsman will carefully consider all the evidence provided by the parties and the circumstances of the case.

The complaint

  1. The complaint is about the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of her neighbours keeping dogs.

Determination (jurisdictional decision)

  1. When a complaint is brought to the Ombudsman, we must consider all the circumstances of the case as there are sometimes reasons why a complaint will not be investigated.
  2. After carefully considering all the evidence, I have determined that the complaint, as set out above, is not within the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.

Summary of events

  1. The property is a leasehold property. The lease is between the leaseholder and the landlord. A tenant of the leaseholder is the resident of the property.
  2. The resident first raised the issue of her neighbour keeping a dog at his property to the landlord on 6 June 2020.  Shortly after, on 1 July 2020, she reported that another resident was also keeping dogs, and this was a concern for her as she had a fear of dogs and she had seen dogs roaming the communal garden off the leash.
  3. Due to the resident’s dissatisfaction with the landlord’s handling of the matter, she raised a complaint with it on 15 September 2020.  It responded on 28 September 2020 when it declined to discuss individual tenant’s permissions to keep pets under their tenancy agreements and asked her to report individual instances of breaches of tenancy to it.
  4. The resident wrote again to the landlord about the situation on 6 October 2020 and her landlord emailed it on 7 October 2020. It issued a final stage complaint response to her on 27 November 2020 in which it acknowledged that it had not adequately investigated the matter nor provided a thorough enough explanation in its stage one complaint response. The landlord upheld the resident’s complaint and awarded compensation of £150 for its failure to follow its process in investigating her reports as potential tenancy breaches and its delay in responding to them. It informed her that it had since visited the dog owners and asked them to rehome their dogs.
  5. The resident called the landlord on 14 January 2020 informing it that she was considering moving as dogs were “still running around off their leads”. She advised that she was escalating her complaint to this Service.
  6. The landlord issued a final response to the resident on 12 February 2021 in which it acknowledged receiving an insurance claim from her for the distress she had experienced due to the presence of the dogs. It confirmed to her that such a claim could not made through its insurance policy but noted her continued dissatisfaction with its actions. The landlord explained the steps it had taken to address the ownership of dogs in its properties, which included a consultation exercise with residents to assess if it should allow dogs to be kept, and it acknowledged that the delay in its actions had impacted her. Therefore, it offered her compensation of £500.
  7. The resident subsequently brought her complaint to this Service as she continued to be dissatisfied with the actions the landlord had taken to address dog ownership in her neighbouring properties.

Reasons

  1. Paragraph 25(a) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme states that the Ombudsman can only consider a complaint from ‘a person who is, or has been, in a landlord/tenant relationship’ with the landlord complained about. The resident rents the property from a leaseholder of the landlord and therefore she does not have a landlord/tenant relationship with the landlord. Accordingly, this complaint is outside the jurisdiction of this Service to consider, as the resident does not fall within the criteria of who can access the Housing Ombudsman’s services.