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One Manchester Limited (202210052)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202210052

One Manchester Limited

22 May 2023

 

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 tiling repairs to the kitchen at the property.
  2. The landlord’s complaints handling has also been investigated.

Background

  1. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord at the property, 4 bedroomed house. She resides in the property with her 4 children and her husband. The resident has mental health vulnerabilities that the landlord is aware of.
  2. The resident initially reported the loose tiling in her kitchen in June 2019 to the landlord, she also advised that the surveyor had told her that all the kitchen required retiling. The resident refused to let the landlord’s operative refix loose tiles in September 2019 and alleged that these operatives were being ‘lazy’ to the landlord. The resident repeated that she had been informed that the whole kitchen would be retiled and not just loose tiles. The resident continued to chase the landlord regarding the tiling and  also alleged that landlord staff were being dishonest. The landlord’s staff attempted to raise retiling repairs for loose tiles again on 17 March 2020, but the works order was cancelled by the resident.
  3. The resident chased the landlord again on 14 October 2020 and was visited by the landlord’s operative on 3 June 2021, who confirmed that all the tiles needed to be retiled as they would not be able to do an exact colour match otherwise. The resident then called the landlord’s repair team to check that the whole kitchen was going to be tiled in July 2021, as she has been waiting two years for this work to be completed. As the work had not been completed, due to a missed appointment, the resident then raised an official stage one complaint on the 1 September 2021.
  4. An operative again went out to the resident’s property on 9 September 2021. The operative confirmed that only loose tiles needed to be replaced and the resident asked him to leave after the discussion became confrontational. The resident further complained to the landlord about the landlord’s operatives; she said that she felt discriminated against due to her mental health issues and her ethnicity.
  5. The landlord’s stage one complaint response was issued on 15 December 2021. It acknowledged that there had been a delay in resolving the retiling issue and that there had been an error in raising the previous works order of 3 June 2021 when it had advised that all the kitchen would need to be retiled. The landlord apologised and offered £50 for the delay and the error. The landlord also confirmed that it would only be retiling the loose tiles and offered three options to the resident regarding the retiling. The offer of compensation was increased to £100: £50 for the delay and £50 for the confusion the error caused.
  6. The resident requested escalation of the complaint and the landlord issued its stage two (final) response on 21 February 2022. The landlord confirmed its position in regards the tiling, though it offered increased compensation of £350 so that the resident would be able to cover the cost of any additional tiling works should she decide that this was required once it had completed the loose tiling replacement works. The resident remained dissatisfied with the landlord’s final response. She brought her complaint to the Ombudsman in October 2022, stating her desired outcome was that additional compensation be paid to her and her whole kitchen be retiled as she had initially been promised. In November 2022, the landlord and the resident confirmed that the whole kitchen would be retiled.

Assessment and findings

Scope of the investigation

  1. The resident raised concerns about possible discrimination in her original complaint. The Ombudsman does not have the authority or expertise to assess whether a member landlord has acted in a discriminatory way. Should the resident wish to pursue this element of her complaint then she may wish to progress her concerns through legal action or to take them up with the Equality Advisory Support Service.
  2. This investigation will not draw conclusions about whether the landlord has acted in a discriminatory manner. However, it remains within this Service’s remit to consider whether, in all the circumstances of the case, the landlord has provided a reasonable response to the issues raised through the complaints process. As such, having raised concerns about her mental health and ethnicity, the Ombudsman would expect the landlord to at least demonstrate that it has noted these concerns and provided a response. The complaints handling section below will consider this issue further.
  3.  There is a historic element to this complaint as there is evidence of the resident having raised reports about the kitchen retiling back in 2019. The Ombudsman requires complaints to be raised with a member landlord within a reasonable timeframe so that a landlord has the opportunity to investigate issues whilst they remain live. Investigating historical issues also presents difficulties from a records keeping perspective. In this case, there is no evidence of the resident having raised her concerns back in 2019 as a formal complaint.
  4. This investigation will focus on the complaint that the resident raised with the landlord in September 2021 and events relating to that complaint. Any reference to historic issues, such as those dating back to 2019, are included here for contextual purposes only.

The landlord’s handling of the tiling repair in the kitchen

  1. The resident reported to the landlord on 1 September 2021, that she was not satisfied with the landlord’s handling of the tiling work in her kitchen. The landlord’s stage one response on 15 December 2021 acknowledged an error had been made in raising the 6 June 2021 works order in relation to the tiling at the property. The landlord apologised for the confusion caused. It also referred to a visit in November 2021, when it was able to confirm that the area behind the cooker and the small boiler areas would need to be retiled but not the whole kitchen. The landlord offered £50 for the confusion caused by this error and offered three options regarding the tiling that the tenant would be able to choose from.
  2. The Councillor (Cllr) on behalf of the resident requested escalation of the complaint on 23 December 2021 as she did not believe the resolution offered at stage one was satisfactory. The Cllr confirmed that the resident wanted all her kitchen retiled as she had been offered that before by the landlord; she also confirmed that she wanted additional compensation.
  3. At the final stage of the landlord’s complaints process, the landlord confirmed that its original (stage one) response was reasonable and repeated the options offered at stage one. The compensation was increased at stage two by £250 and the landlord has in its response stated that they have increased the compensation so that the resident would be in a position to have the whole kitchen retiled should she wish to do so at a later stage. A total of £300 has been offered as compensation for the landlord’s response to the retiling complaint.
  4. It is evident from the landlord’s work orders and by the landlord’s own admission that the resident has been provided conflicting information and advice by different staff and different landlord appointed operatives. The initial advice was that the whole kitchen was to be retiled due to the difficulty in matching the colour exactly and then she was informed by an operative on the day, that the work order to fully re-tile the kitchen would not be carried out and it would only be a ‘patch up’ job as full retiling was not required. It is clear that this left the resident confused and distressed. The landlord acknowledge that this did not represent a suitable standard of service delivery in that it had failed to manage the resident’s expectations and demonstrated poor levels of communication.
  5. The landlord’s final response acknowledged the impact of these failures by offering a significant level of compensation for the delays, its initial failure to correctly assess the issue and to reflect the distress and inconvenience experienced by the resident. Taking the full amount of compensation offered (£300), the Ombudsman considers that the landlord’s offer of remedy amounted to reasonable redress for the failures identified.
  6. It is also noted that, following the completion of the complaints process, the landlord agreed to complete a full re-tiling of the kitchen. There is no evidence that this full re-tiling was required and the landlord’s surveyor’s clearly did not think that such extensive works were necessary. It demonstrates a resolution focussed service nonetheless that these works were agreed by the landlord. It is not known however if these works have now progressed. If not, the landlord is advised to take prompt action to complete the works as landlord’s are expected to follow through on agreements made through its service delivery operations.

The landlord’s complaint handling

  1. The landlord’s complaint policy allows for 10 working days for a stage one response and 20 working days at stage two, in accordance with the Ombudsman’s complaints handling code. The original complaint was submitted on 1 September 2021, and the stage one response was dated 15 December 2021, which was a total of 75 working days. At stage two, the escalation request was on the 23 December 2021 and the landlord’s response was issued on the 21 February 2022 – a total of 39 working days. Both responses were outside the landlord’s timescales and there were significant delays. The landlord has apologised for the delays and this Service acknowledges that Covid restrictions might have delayed response times.
  2. The resident also raised a complaint about possible discrimination and the conduct of the landlord’s staff / operatives when visiting the property. While this Service is unable to make findings about the extent of potential discrimination that a resident alleges, it is expected that the landlord will demonstrate that it has taken such issues seriously and provided a reasonable response to any such issues raised through its complaints process.
  3. Investigating concerns about individual staff members, signposting residents to suitable advice/support agencies and ensuring that household vulnerabilities are accounted for in how a tenancy is managed all demonstrate ways in which a landlord can show that it acknowledges a resident’s individual circumstances. It is also important that a landlord operates a fair complaints process so that the imbalance of power between a resident and a member landlord can be acknowledged. This helps improve a tenant landlord relationship and, in some cases, can identify tangible concerns about an issue or ways to improve a resident’s daily living experience in their home.
  4. In this case, there is no evidence that the landlord investigated the resident’s allegations or offered any responses relating to these aspects of the resident’s complaint. The landlord’s silence on these matters is unfair and unreasonable and demonstrates a missed opportunity to improve the relationship between it and the resident.
  5. It would not be appropriate to now require the landlord to investigate the resident’s concerns as it is unlikely that a full and thorough investigation could take place so long after the events in question. As such, a finding of maladministration has been identified here, together with an order for the landlord to pay the resident additional compensation. This is to reflect the delays through the complaints process and the failure to address issues raised by the resident. A recommendation has also been included for the landlord to contact the resident and discuss with her any ongoing concerns she might have from a discrimination perspective. If given this opportunity, it is hoped that the resident will also use this as a platform to improving relations between the parties.

Determination (decision)

  1. In accordance with paragraph 53(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was reasonable redress in relation to the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports about the tiling repairs to the kitchen at the property.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration in relation to the landlord’s complaints handling.

Orders and recommendations

Order

  1. The landlord to pay the resident £600 in compensation, the £300 it previously offered during the complaints process (if not already paid), plus a further £300 to reflect the failures identified with its complaints handling.
  2. The landlord to evidence compliance with this order to this Service within four weeks of the date of this report.

Recommendation

  1. The landlord to contact the resident to discuss any ongoing concerns she has from a discrimination perspective and to then progress any such concerns appropriately.