Housing Associations

Summary
Ms C contacted the housing association to discuss the possibility of receiving compensation for the improvements carried out by her mother during her tenancy. The association inspected the property and decided that they could not award compensation. Ms C was unhappy with this and complained to us that the association had failed to deal with her claim appropriately.

Although we do not make rulings on compensation, we looked at the relevant legislation and regulations and concluded that the  association did deal with her claim in a reasonable manner, so we did not uphold the complaint.

Our investigation also found that the minutes of a meeting of the association's sub-committee contained a number of mistakes. We were particularly concerned that they recorded Ms C's mother's name incorrectly and inaccurate information about white goods at the property.

Recommendation
We recommended that the association:
• write to Ms C to apologise for the errors in the minutes of the meeting and, in particular, for using an incorrect name for her mother.

Summary
Ms C was unhappy that she was being charged for the cost of replacing missing radiators in her home when she did not feel that she should be held responsible for these. She complained that the housing association did not take all factors into account when investigating her complaint.

Our investigation found that the association had conducted the investigation properly according to their complaints process, and had taken into account Ms C's representations and relevant documents. However, we made a recommendation relating to the explanations they provide in future.

Recommendation
We recommended that the association:
• review the complaints process to consider making it a requirement that the decision letters give details of how the investigation was conducted and the documents which were taken into consideration in the decision-making.
 

Summary
Mr C complained that the association did not help in any way after his cold water mains froze in January 2010. Mr C said his pipe froze again in December 2010 and the association only then identified that sections of it had not been laid at the minimum regulatory depth required.

We established that in January 2010 the association had sent a plumber to Mr C's home address, who had taken action to help thaw the pipe. He also advised Mr C on how to prevent the pipe freezing by keeping the heating on and keeping cupboard doors open at the mains inlet. At the insistence of Mr C, who was concerned that the pipe would freeze again the following winter, the association also inspected a section of the pipe in August 2010. It was found to exceed the minimum depth required.

The association took no further action until the pipe froze again in December 2010, this time affecting many residents. The association carried out further inspections of the pipe work when this happened, and discovered that not all sections met the required depth. Remedial action was taken to lay the pipe at the correct depth but some sections had to be lagged instead due to rock in the ground (which could not be broken up with heavy machinery for health and safety reasons).

Taking all of this into account, we considered the actions that the association took in respect of Mr C's complaints to be reasonable, given the unprecedented weather conditions and the fact that the problem in January had not been as widespread throughout the nearby properties as was the case in December.
 

Summary
Mr C complained that the association failed to deal with his complaint in an appropriate way or within a reasonable timescale. He had previously raised a number of concerns about the noise disturbance to his home caused by the quality of sound proofing between his home and the communal bin areas.

When we obtained the evidence it was clear that the association had taken significant steps to try and resolve the noise problem, including carrying out sound surveys and substantial works to try and improve the sound proofing. However, it was clear from our examination of the case that it took them a considerable time to investigate and respond to Mr C's complaint. For this reason we upheld his complaint.

As, however, the association had already taken steps to apologise, resolve the noise problem, carry out training and review their complaints procedure, we did not make any recommendations.

Summary
Mr C was a tenant of a housing association for approximately 17 months. He complained that during his time as a tenant he had been subjected to racial abuse, intimidation and vandalism to his property perpetrated by other tenants and youths in the area. Mr C felt he had been targeted particularly due to his nationality. Mr C presented as homeless to Glasgow City Council having abandoned his tenancy.

He brought his complaints to us as he felt the housing association had failed to follow their anti-social behaviour policy, and had failed to take any effective action to prevent the abuse he had suffered as a tenant.

It was accepted that Mr C had experienced a serious degree of anti-social behaviour. Having reviewed the information provided by the housing association including complaint logs, minutes of meetings, letters to tenants and a contract between themselves and the GCSS (the Glasgow Community Safety Service), we found the association to have followed their policy in relation to Mr C's complaints, particularly in terms of responding timeously, and classifying his case as category A due to the racial nature of the behaviour. We, therefore, did not uphold the first complaint.

However, we did uphold the second complaint, which referred to the association's failure to take any effective action to prevent the abuse. Although the association had installed CCTV on three separate occasions, unfortunately no perpetrators were ever caught or identified as a result. The remedies within the association's policy could not be enforced due to a lack of evidence and identification of suspects. However, we found that the association had placed a clear burden upon Mr C to gather information himself, and that this burden was unreasonable. He had provided individual addresses on a number of occasions, but the association said because Mr C could not identify particular people for particular incidents, they could not act on this information. We felt further enquiries could have been made on the basis of the information provided by Mr C and we upheld this complaint.

Recommendation
We recommended that the association:
• apologise to Mr C for failing to follow up on the information he gave them in relation to incidents.

Summary
Mr C, a tenant of the housing association, complained that the association had not responded reasonably when he raised issues about excrement in the common areas of their close.

Mr C exhausted the association’s complaints procedure. The final response from the chair of the complaint panel to Mr C explained that it appeared that the excrement had been cleaned from the floor before the initial visit of a housing officer; that during a visit earlier in the year the offending marks had to be pointed out as they were very small and not immediately obvious; that a visit by panel members the previous week had seen nothing on the landing floor and that the panel was satisfied that staff took appropriate steps to address the matters raised. Mr C was dissatisfied with this response and raised his complaints with us.

Our investigation found that the association had reasonably investigated Mr C's complaints and we did not uphold the complaint.

Summary
Mr C took up a tenancy in October 2009. By January 2010 he became aware of problems, particularly an infestation of hide beetles and condensation. Mr C raised these matters with the housing association who inspected the property and took the action they considered to be appropriate. Meanwhile Mr C made other repairs complaints.

Mr C wrote many times to the housing association expressing his dissatisfaction with the way they were dealing with matters. He also, on occasion, refused access, stipulated conditions about access or changed his mind about wanting any works to be done.

We did not uphold Mr C's complaint as our investigation did not find that the housing association failed to carry out Mr C's repairs within a reasonable time, nor deal with them effectively.
 

Summary
Mr C lived in what he described as a 'rough, troubled and vandalised estate' and asked for a move to another area. He was moved to a new-build property but complained that a month after he moved there the housing association took the decision to demolish the block where he had lived and pay a home loss allowance to all tenants who were displaced. He believed he should have been entitled to the allowance.

We found that the housing association had acted correctly. Irrespective of Mr C's belief that they had already been considering demolishing the property when he was allocated the new property, it was clear that the decision to do so was taken a month after he moved house. In coming to our decision we took into consideration that Mr C had requested the move to another area and that, by his own account, he had been moved from an undesirable area to a new-build property.
 

Summary
Mrs C had been renting her property from a housing association for eight years when she was notified that her rent was reducing. She was told that this was because the association had decided to withdraw their Tenants Improvement Scheme (the scheme) which allowed tenants to ask for improvements to their properties and pay a supplementary rent. The previous tenant had asked that the bath be replaced with a shower. This had been done under the scheme, so Mrs C's rent included an additional charge for the shower. Mrs C said she was not aware of this, and did not think she should have to pay for an improvement requested by a previous tenant. We found that the association had complied with the Housing Scotland Act, their own Rent Setting Policy and the scheme. In addition, we found that the Tenancy Agreement that Mrs C had signed made clear that the rent she was asked to pay reflected the standard of housing she was being offered and the fixtures and fittings within the property.
 

Summary
Mrs C complained that the housing association had delayed in carrying out a repair to her property. During consideration of this complaint, Mrs C raised a number of additional issues that had not been considered under the association's complaints process. This meant that the complaint had come to us too early. As a result, we closed it, to allow Mrs C to raise the additional issues with the association.