Ombudsman calls on top 10 social landlord to pay £5k to vulnerable resident after severe maladministration finding

The Housing Ombudsman has recommended Sovereign Housing Association pay £5,000 in compensation after its inability to act on a leaking roof for 21 months left a vulnerable resident’s home uninhabitable.

The Ombudsman has also highlighted the importance of the landlord having “a strong grip” on its complaints handling ahead of a forthcoming merger.

The Hampshire resident contacted the landlord at least 37 times by phone during the 21 months and made regular references to the fact the ceiling had collapsed, the house was cold and that every time it rained he was having to empty multiple buckets of water.

While there were some contractor visits, the evidence did not indicate that there were any reasonable reasons for the delay in the repair, the Ombudsman said.

On top of this, the investigation found, evidence indicated that the landlord did not make any substantive effort to consider the resident’s physical and mental health challenges, in responding to the resident’s service requests.

The landlord failed to treat the matter with the urgency it required when it became apparent how bad the condition of the property was and how much distress it was causing the resident and his family, the Ombudsman said.

The resident felt that the landlord had not been held “accountable” and that necessary systemic changes have not been made.

The Ombudsman also raised concerns around the landlord’s compensation policy, where it mostly relied on “goodwill gestures” rather than compensation.

The Ombudsman said it is clear that the landlord’s corporate structure as a charity “is not a reason for it not to pay compensation where its failings have caused significant distress and inconvenience to a resident”.

In addition to payment of the £5,000 compensation, the Ombudsman recommended the landlord review its treatment of repairs for vulnerable residents, its compensation where there is distress caused and its complaint handling.

Richard Blakeway, Housing Ombudsman, said: “The landlord’s failure to successfully undertake the repair in a timely manner led to the property becoming uninhabitable and caused significant distress and inconvenience for a vulnerable resident.

“When the landlord was made aware of the impact the situation was having on the resident, it failed to act with appropriate urgency.

“Whilst the landlord took some steps to address the impact of its failings – most notably rehousing the resident – these were not sufficient redress for the seriousness of the impact which the matter had on the resident.”

Blakeway added: “The landlord is about to experience significant organisational change and the pressures of mergers can often be reflected in complaints. It is vital for the landlord to have a strong grip on complaints handling and the issues leading to service failure.”

The Ombudsman also found maladministration for the landlord’s complaint handling after it failed to properly engage with the complaint at stage one and not escalating the matter to stage two until the Ombudsman intervened.

Sovereign said that in response to the investigation it had introduced named caseworkers for vulnerable residents and introduced new processes to look at prioritisation of cases.

The landlord apologised that it had failed to resolve the customer’s roof as quickly as possible and did not handle his complaint properly. The compensation had been paid to the customer, it added.

Sovereign highlighted that it had since made several improvements including:

• In complex or high-risk cases, vulnerable customers will have a named case owner so that customers know who to contact.
• Having increased oversight and scrutiny of high-risk and/or complex cases.
• Introducing new processes to prioritise complex repairs in a way that takes a vulnerable customer’s needs into account.
• Adding vulnerability flags to tradespeople’s handheld devices so that approaches are tailored to individual customers (e.g. for hard-of-hearing customers, reminding representatives to wait longer after knocking at a customer’s door).

Harry Rodd