Decision Report 202404672

Summary

C complained that the association did not respond reasonably to their requests for repairs. After an initial acknowledgement of C’s concerns there were periods over the following months where the association did not respond or follow up on the matters that C had raised.

We found that in some cases the association exceeded their stated timescale for repairs and did not advise C of the delays or respond to their enquiries. We upheld this part of C's complaint.

C also complained that a response from the association incorrectly stated that a contractor's report regarding leaks at C's property noted that "any leaks were likely caused by installations made by C".

We found that there was no firm, supportable evidence of what the contractor reported to the association. The association acknowledged that this information was received during undocumented, informal discussions. We found that it was unreasonable to describe information given in undocumented, informal discussions with a contractor as being information that ‘the contractor’s report notes’. This form of words suggests a contemporary written report, either directly from the contractor or a record of a discussion verified as accurate by the contractor. We upheld this part of C's complaint.

Recommendations

What we asked the organisation to do in this case:

• Apologise to C that they did not respond reasonably to C’s requests for repairs and that they made an inaccurate statement about a contractor’s report in their response to C’s complaint. The apology should meet the standards set out in the SPSO guidelines on apology available at www.spso.org.uk/meaningful-apologies.

What we said should change to put things right in future:

• The association should respond to requests for repairs, and importantly record information regarding these, in line with their Repairs and Maintenance Policy.

In relation to complaints handling, we recommended:

• The association’s complaint responses should be accurate. We offer SPSO accredited Complaints Handling training. Details and registration forms for our online self-guided Good Complaints Handling course (Stage 1) and our online trainer-led Complaints Investigation Skills course (Stage 2) are available at https://www.spso.org.uk/training-courses.

We have asked the organisation to provide us with evidence that they have implemented the recommendations we have made on this case by the deadline we set.