Did you know that LiveWest is a member of the Housing Ombudsman Service?
The Housing Ombudsman is a free and impartial service set up to investigate complaints made by customers about their housing provider. With LiveWest being a member, as a customer 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, with reviews being published three months after the decision date. The Housing Ombudsman may issue one of the following outcomes to a landlord:
• Maladministration – where the landlord, for example, has failed to comply with its legal obligations, its policies and procedures or 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.
• OSJ = Outside Jurisdiction – 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.
Below are the determinations ending November 2021. You can read the full investigation reports on the Housing Ombudsman Service website.
Determination 1
The complaint relates to the property condition and staff conduct during a sign up of an empty home. The customer accepted an offer of tenancy with us on 13 November 2019. After numerous attempts to arrange a viewing of the property, a viewing was scheduled for 30 January 2020 as a simultaneous viewing and sign up. Several repairs had been identified when the home was empty which included some repairs and make good to damage caused by a roof leak. The viewing took place on 30 January 2020 and the customer signed both the tenancy agreement and the sign-up checklist / property acceptance form. The customer contacted us on 31 March 2020 to let us know of concerns regarding the property condition and the sign-up process. The customer explained that they felt pressured into accepting the tenancy and that the property was not at an acceptable standard. Following our investigation, we identified that the property did not meet our service standards. We apologised to the customer and offered compensation. We investigated the conduct of the colleague who carried out the sign-up and did not find any evidence to support the statements made by the customer. We did identify learning points from the complaint and agreed to review our procedures around responsibilities for final checks of empty homes. The customer asked the Housing Ombudsman to investigate. The Ombudsman determined that there was appropriate redress offered for the service failure identified relating to the property condition. The Housing Ombudsman confirmed that there was no maladministration regarding our investigation and response regarding staff conduct. We have complied with the recommendation to pay compensation to the customer.
Determination 2
The customer is a shared owner and contacted us to request permission to install a hosepipe and security lighting to their garden, concerns about the validity of the property warranty and requests to pave their front lawn. The customer was unhappy with our response and requested a formal complaint to be raised. After investigation, we upheld the customers complaint, offered compensation and offered to purchase a solar panel garden light. The customer remained dissatisfied and contacted the Housing Ombudsman to investigate. Under their early resolution process, the Ombudsman works with the customer and the landlord to explore the issues in dispute, identify the outstanding matters and to assist in reaching an agreed settlement. The Housing Ombudsman called the customer to discuss the complaint during which the customer confirmed their desired outcome to resolve the complaint. The Housing Ombudsman contacted us to discuss the customers desired outcome. We confirmed our acceptance of the proposed outcome and this satisfactorily resolved the complaint.
Determination 3
The customer contacted us in August 2020 to report the presence of rats and squirrels in the loft. On 13 August 2020, we asked a contractor to visit the property to carry out a complete pest control inspection. The contractor was unable to carry out the inspection due to personal items being stored in the loft. The customer was asked to tidy the loft for the contractor to carry out another inspection. In the meantime, bait was laid, and the contractor confirmed that they would monitor the situation for the next 7 days. The customer was not satisfied with the actions taken and asked for a stage 1 complaint to be raised. We confirmed that the pest control contractor was due to visit on the following day and it was advisable to wait for their observations and recommendations. We also confirmed that any discussions relating to health concerns were to be referred to our insurance company. On 20 August, the pest control contractor inspected the loft and confirmed that the bait had been taken. Further actions were completed to track the entry and exit points. The contractor recommended a drain survey to be completed along with additional work to install a lining to the rest-bend and gully. All work was completed to the drain on 23 September. The following day, 24 September 2020, we provided our complaint response confirming actions taken, offered compensation and agreed to continue exploring ways to resolve the ongoing issues. The complaint was escalated to stage 2 of the complaints policy and on 13 October, we provided our final complaint response. We accepted that we could have communicated more effectively with our contractor to resolve issues quicker. We identified several learning points and confirmed that we had commenced monthly meetings with the contractor to improve service and responsiveness and are actively monitoring open cases every week to track progress of investigations and remedial work. The customer asked the Housing Ombudsman to investigate. The Housing Ombudsman found that we had offered redress to the resident prior to investigation which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, resolves the complaint about its response to the resident’s reports of rats and squirrels in her loft satisfactorily. The Housing Ombudsman agreed that we had arranged for specialist contractors to carry out investigative surveys and work. They noted that we should have communicated more effectively to speed up the resolution of the issue. We did not carry out an inspection of the neighbouring property prior to issuing the stage 1 complaint response. We have now reviewed our working practices to ensure that a thorough investigation of the property and neighbouring properties are carried out. The Housing Ombudsman noted the customers comments regarding the impact on health and wellbeing. The Housing Ombudsman confirmed that it is not able to draw conclusions on the cause of, or liability for, impacts on health and wellbeing as they do not have the authority or expertise to do so in the way that a court or insurer might.
Determination 4
The customer contacted us in March 2020 to discuss concerns about the management of the car park at their property. Resident-only parking spaces are available within a private car park on the site. The car park is monitored by a parking management service on our behalf. The customer explained that there have been ongoing issues since the parking management service was contracted. After some initial discussion, a stage one complaint was raised. The stage 1 complaint response was issued on 27 April advising that complaints relating to the parking management company were outside the scope of the complaints policy and correspondence had been issued in a timely manner. The complaint was escalated to stage 2 and the response was provided on 10 June 2020. We confirmed that we would not be able to address parking related issues through the complaints process, although we acknowledged that the complaint was in relation to how we had managed the contract with the parking management company. We had carried out a number of actions including liaising with customers who had access to the car park to confirm access, spoken to the parking management company to monitor the number of visits and asked for a monthly report to be collated, apologised for the delay in replying and requested that parking lines are repainted once covid-19 restrictions had lifted. The customer asked the Housing Ombudsman to investigate. The Housing Ombudsman confirmed that while the customer had stated that the parking issues had been ongoing since 2018, this was not pursued as a formal complaint until March 2020. The Housing Ombudsman confirmed that while historical incidents provide contextual background, the investigation of events will focus from March 2020 onwards. The Housing Ombudsman found no maladministration with our handling of parking concerns but did find service failure in the way we handled the complaint. The Housing Ombudsman concluded that while businesses were operating outside of usual service delivery due to Covid-19, we did not satisfactorily manage the customers’ expectations in relation to the time it would take to receive a response or agree a timeframe in line with our complaints policy. We have complied with the orders and recommendations as instructed by the Housing Ombudsman.
The full investigation reports are available to view on the Housing Ombudsman website. We will publish the next summary of LiveWest complaint determinations in March 2022.