Ombudsman finds ‘severe maladministration’ at 8,000-home landlord

Housing ombudsman Richard Blakeway said: “It is wholly unsatisfactory that the resident was reporting the same issues in 2019 as she had raised in 2012, a period of approximately seven years.

“Our Complaint Handling Code sets out how a landlord should respond to a complaint effectively and fairly. It should seek early resolution and deliver improvement to the services a landlord provides. In this case, the landlord’s failure to provide a formal response to the resident’s complaint meant it missed opportunities to put things right and caused the resident further distress and inconvenience.

“This inaction also limited our ability to thoroughly investigate all aspects of the complaint. Without knowledge of the landlord’s decisions, we are unable to assess the quality of its decision-making based upon the known circumstances at the time, and therefore whether its course of action was reasonable or not. It is crucial that all landlords have robust record-keeping.

“An essential part of complaint-handling is demonstrating learning to deliver improvement. I welcome the positive response from Golding Homes on this case and the actions it has taken following our decision for wider service improvement. I would encourage other landlords to consider the learning this case offers for their own services and to listen to our latest podcast which explores cases of severe maladministration in more detail.”

According to the ombudsman’s report, Golding Homes had told the resident that it may choose to sell the property rather than complete the works as they were deemed to be too expensive, and therefore stopped reporting repairs as she did not want to move.

The majority of the repairs were marked as complete by the landlord, suggesting that they were not lasting or permanent solutions and that more extensive intervention was needed. However, the association had not kept any details in the records, so the ombudsman was unable to draw any conclusion on the success or quality of the repairs.

When the ombudsman asked the landlord to respond following contact from the resident, it did not engage its complaint procedure and therefore provide the resident with a formal response. The ombudsman considered that the resident was adversely affected by the inaction of the landlord. This included uncertainty, raised expectations, distress and inconvenience, and lost opportunity.

Golding Homes commented: “We are very sorry about the service provided to our customer on this occasion. This historical case has given Golding the opportunity to learn and improve. We take the finding from the ombudsman extremely seriously. We have worked hard over the past year to improve our focus on customers and the services we deliver.”

Golding Homes noted that it had reviewed and renewed its complaints policy and procedure, trained its frontline staff and managed on dealing with complaints, improved record keeping of complaints and set up regular contact with the ombudsman to improve communications.
It added: “We take full responsibility for our failing and are determined to learn and ensure that it cannot happen to another Golding customer.”

Article changed 30/11/2021 14:57: This article was amended to state that Golding Homes owned and managed 8,000 homes, rather than the 21,000 homes first stated. Golding Homes houses around 21,000 tenants.