Sovereign Housing Association Limited (202115437)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202115437

Sovereign Housing Association Limited

10 February 2022

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 of a broken window within the property during its defect period.

Background and summary of events

2. The resident is a shared ownership leaseholder of the property. The property is a newbuild. The lease start date is not clear from the evidence provided.
3. The landlord’s records show that on 22 February 2021 there was a repair raised regarding a broken window at the property. The notes said “there is a stress fracture on the pane of glass in the front room near the stairs. pane not installed correctly. please repair.” However, the notes then stated that the landlord needed to see photographs of the window and not to approve the work until then.
4. On 3 June 2021 a surveyor emailed the property developer with a full list of reported defects at the property for it to review as part of the end of defects (EOD) report. The landlord was copied into the email.
5. On 15 June 2021, the landlord’s records show that the developer emailed to say it had visited the property that day to assess the EOD report and that a number of items were classed as “no defect”. That included the broken window. The developer said they had inspected the window previously and had found the damage to be internal. and that they had advised they would not cover it (the email does not make clear who they had advised).  
6. The landlord’s records show that on 6 October 2021 the resident raised a complaint about defects he said he had reported in February 2021 (whilst he was still within the property’s defects period), which still had not been repaired.
7. On 7 October 2021 the landlord emailed the resident to acknowledge the complaint and to ask for more information about the repairs. The resident replied with a full list of issues, which included the broken window.
8. On 8 October 2021 the landlord’s records show that it rang the resident and apologised for the delay in completing the repairs and reassured him it wouldn’t happen again. It also gave a name as point of contact should he have any further queries. It stated that the resident requested that one of the landlord’s employees also attend the appointment when the appointment for the developers was arranged.
9. The landlord’s records from 14 October 2021 confirm that the developers would visit the property on 2 November 2021 and that the resident had confirmed the appointment. It also confirmed that one of the landlord’s employees would attend as well.
10. An email on 4 November 2021 from the landlord to the developer confirms that appointment on 2 November had gone ahead and that the resident was happy that the majority of the work had now been completed but advised that the repairs to the window were still outstanding.
11. The developer replied to the landlord on 5 November 2021 to confirm that the window was not “covered”. It stated “there was impact damage to the glass internally. This is not a stress fracture. We have advised the homeowner that this was refused a number of times.”
12. The landlord replied that “As for the window, I will let the resident know & hopefully he remembers the previous conversations as he still is under the impression that the window will be replaced & mentioned that he was notified that a replacement window has been received/ordered, although not sure who by.”
13. On 9 November 2021, immediately after discussing the complaint outcome with the resident via telephone, the landlord issued its stage one response via email. It confirmed that it would close the original complaint and that as discussed, the part of the complaint that concerned the window could be escalated to stage two. It included a photograph of the window and noted that the reason the developer had given for not repairing the window was that “The window is not covered. As you will note there is impact damage to the glass internally. This is not a stress fracture. We have advised the homeowner that this was refused several times.”
14. An email from the landlord to the resident on 10 November 2021 confirmed that his complaint about the window had been escalated.
15. On 18 November 2021 the landlord issued its stage two response. It apologised for the delay in repairing the defects he had reported and advised that this was down to “a number of internal miscommunications. Regarding the window it explained that it had “…no evidence that when this property was built, or that when you moved in, this crack in the glass was present. Therefore, [it was] unable to evidence that it is ours, or [the developers] responsibility to repair. Therefore, [it would] be taking no further action on this point.” It also advised the resident that if he remained unhappy with the decision he could make a claim to the National Home Building Council, who provided the warranty for his home. It gave details of how to refer the complaint to this Service if the resident remained dissatisfied.

Assessment and findings

16. The copy of the resident’s lease provided by the landlord does not include information about either the resident’s or landlord’s repair responsibilities. The landlord’s website states that leaseholders are responsible for “looking after everything that is inside your home.” This responsibility is defined to include window glass.
17. The resident reported a cracked window to the landlord as a defect in February 2021, during the defects period. A repair job was raised on 22 February 2021 but not actioned as the landlord wanted to see photographs of the window.
18. There are no further mentions of the window in the landlord’s records until the developer visited the property on 15 June 2021 to review the EOD report which had been sent by the surveyor on 7 June 2021. It was reasonable for the landlord to wait until the EOD to inspect the window, as it’s websites states “Most routine defects will be attended to within 20 working days. …Sometimes, if there are things that don’t impact on your ability to live in your house, we will ask that you wait until the end of the defects period for these to be fixed.”
19. The developer emailed its review to the landlord on 15 June 2021. The review contained photographs of all the reported defects including the window, and the note that referred to the window said that “after reading notes the damage to this is internal and is not covered by the warranty”.
20. Given that the window was concluded to not be a defect, and only if it was a defect would it be repaired by the developers as part of the EOD process, the damage would fall to the resident to resolve, in line with the repair responsibilities set out for leaseholders by the landlord. There is no evidence of the resident providing to the landlord any clear information which might lead it to doubt the decisions reached by the developers, and therefore its decisions about responsibility for the window repair were reasonable.

Determination (decision)

21. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was no maladministration by the landlord in respect of the complaint.