LiveWest is a member of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme.
The Housing Ombudsman is a free and impartial service set up to investigate complaints made by customers about their housing provider. This means that you can ask the Housing Ombudsman for advice and support at any time including accessing their website which has lots of useful information. You can also ask the Housing Ombudsman to carry out a formal review of how we have handled your complaint once we have concluded our investigations.
The Housing Ombudsman publishes the outcome of their formal complaint reviews on their website. The reviews are published three months after the decision date.
The Housing Ombudsman may issue one of the following outcomes to a landlord:
- Maladministration – where the landlord has failed to comply with its legal obligations or its policies and procedures, or where the landlord has unreasonably delayed in dealing with the matter. This could be a finding of service failure, partial maladministration, maladministration, or severe maladministration, depending on the seriousness of the failure and the impact on the customer.
- No maladministration – where the landlord is found to have acted appropriately.
- Redress – where the landlord made redress to the customer which resolved the complaint satisfactorily in the Ombudsman’s opinion.
- Resolved with intervention/early resolution – where the complaint was resolved with the Ombudsman’s intervention
- Outside jurisdiction (OSJ) – where the Ombudsman did not have the authority to investigate. This could be for a variety of reasons including: the complaint had not been made within a reasonable timescale; the complaint did not meet the conditions of the scheme; or the matter was more appropriately dealt with by the courts, a tribunal, another complaint handling body or regulator.
Please find below a summary of recent investigations carried out by the Housing Ombudsman.
Determination 1
The complaint relates to a customer’s concern regarding the handling of reports of damp, asbestos and property insulation works in their home. The customer moved in on 11 March 2019. Shortly after moving in, the customer reported damp and mould growth. In April, we arranged for an inspection to take place. The inspection found that there was minimal mould growth or damp but recommended the completion of dry-lining works. This work was completed the following month.
The customer remained dissatisfied and, in May 2019, arranged for an independent damp inspection. This inspection was forwarded to us and as a result, we completed further works in the home including the installation of a new flooring frame. Additional inspections were carried out in November 2019, January 2020, February 2020, and March 2020. None of these inspections diagnosed penetrative or rising damp.
The customer raised concerns regarding damaged asbestos floor tiles upon moving into the property. In April 2019, we arranged an inspection to assess the condition of the tiles. We removed one loose floor tile and assessed the remaining tiles to be in excellent condition. No health and safety risks were presented from the asbestos in the floor tiles and this finding was supported by the customer’s own surveyor who concluded in April 2019 that the risk from the floor tiles was ‘negligible’. We arranged for a full property asbestos inspection to be carried out in July 2019 which confirmed that there were no asbestos containing materials in the home that represented either a medium or high risk.
When the customer moved into their home, we were aware that we needed to renew the cavity wall insultation and replace a layer of insulation in the loft. We completed the extraction of the old insulation in May 2019 and installed the new insulation in September 2019. There were a few delays due to the scope of works changing. In October 2019, the customer contacted us to advise that some of the insulation material and fibres had been left on possessions in a shed and airing cupboard. We arranged for the contractors to return to the property in November 2019 to block points of entry into the shed and airing cupboard and to conduct a clean of the property.
The customer asked the Housing Ombudsman to investigate. The Ombudsman determined that we had acted appropriately in responding to the customers reports of damp and queries regarding asbestos. The Ombudsman found service failure in the way we carried out the property insulation works and the overall handling of the complaint. We have complied with the recommendations made by the Ombudsman.
Determination 2
The complaint concerns the handling of antisocial behaviour (ASB) and the effect of the ASB on the customer’s health. The Ombudsman confirmed that they would not assess the cause, or liability for, the impact on health and wellbeing. These matters would usually be considered as a personal injury claim through the courts. The Ombudsman did confirm that they would consider any general distress and inconvenience which the situation may have caused the customer.
The customer is a leaseholder of a flat and raised concerns regarding the conduct and behaviour of a neighbour (referred to as Neighbour A). On 23 March 2020, the customer told us that she had been disturbed by noise at night from neighbour A’s property. In our response on 24 March 2020, we asked if the customer had spoken to neighbour A about the incident and asked the customer to diarise any further occurrences and to log any noise disturbance using the noise app. We advised that we would contact neighbour A and the neighbourhood policing team. We advised that any future action will be dependent on the evidence we are able to obtain. We advised the customer to contact the police if they felt unsafe or suspected criminal activity.
We completed a door knocking exercise with the police on 28 August 2020. A sound-proof test was completed with the local authority on 16 October 2020 and in December 2020 we corresponded with the police regarding the case, resulting in the police advising it would issue a revised community protection warning letter.
The customer remained unhappy with the level of communication from us and was unhappy that we did not share specific neighbours’ reports of noise with the local authority. We explained the instances when we can legitimately share information with partners or agencies. In responding to the customers complaint, we recognised that we should have communicated more effectively and frequently, and we should have created an action plan to confirm the actions we would take to resolve the customer’s concerns.
The customer asked the Ombudsman to investigate. The Ombudsman found service failure in our handling of the reports of antisocial behaviour. The Ombudsman found that we took reasonable steps to investigate the reports of antisocial behaviour and worked with other agencies such as the police and local authority. The Ombudsman noted the lack of an action plan and consistent updates provided to the customer which we had already identified. We have complied with the recommendations made by the Ombudsman.
Following the investigations carried out by the Ombudsman, we have taken the following actions to address the learning points:
- We are introducing a new process for dealing with customer concerns regarding the warmth of their home. This will include carrying out energy surveys when customers tell us that their home is too cold.
- We have updated our lettings process to ensure that asbestos information is always shared with new residents.
- We have distributed additional guidance to complaint handlers to improve complaint handling including signposting for any claims about personal injury and damaged possessions.
- We carried out an internal review of our handling of the antisocial behaviour case and have shared the learning points with the relevant teams.