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London council criticised after falsely accusing tenant of vandalising his home
The Housing Ombudsman has made two severe maladministration findings for Southwark Council after it falsely accused a tenant of vandalising his home and denied him a mutual exchange.
Southwark Council’s contractors removed the resident’s kitchen cabinets to do works but did not replace them, and when the council inspected the home a month later, it concluded that the resident had vandalised his own kitchen, despite the authority’s own repairs log showing the removal by the contractors.
The ombudsman said the impact on the resident was “serious” as he was accused of a criminal act, asked to pay for repairs that were not his obligation and denied a mutual exchange of his home.
In another case, the watchdog found severe maladministration after the council provided details of service charges to a leaseholder three years after it should have.
Housing ombudsman Richard Blakeway said in both cases that Southwark Council “failed to act within its own policies, with life-impacting effects on two separate households”.
In the first case, the ombudsman found severe maladministration after the landlord declined the resident’s mutual exchange application on the basis that he was responsible for vandalising his kitchen.
The council’s policy stated that a resident’s home swap cannot be unreasonably withheld, but any outstanding repairs that are the resident’s responsibility must be completed before any move can take place.
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The watchdog said that when suggesting a resident has acted anti-socially or unlawfully, the council must provide evidence to support that allegation.
“It did not provide clear reasoning or evidence to show that the resident ever removed his kitchen units.
“Therefore, when the landlord dismissed the resident’s mutual exchange request, it was not based on tangible evidence that he had vandalised his kitchen,” it said.
The ombudsman also said it was “concerning” that the council made serious accusations without the necessary records to support its allegations.
It ordered the landlord to apologise to the resident, pay £1,000 in compensation, and both make repairs to the kitchen and reconsider the mutual exchange request.
The other case involved Southwark Council’s handling of a request from a leaseholder for a copy of a service charge final bill after major works.
The authority’s policy said the resident has a right to request a written summary of any charges and the council should provide this within a month or six months of the end of the period to which the summary relates.
When the resident first requested a summary, the defect liability period had not ended and therefore an invoice would not have been ready.
The council informed the resident about this, but “could have been clearer” about when the information would be ready, the watchdog said.
In the coming months, the resident asked for an update on two occasions. They received a response 18 months later when Southwark said the information was not ready.
The ombudsman said the delay was “unreasonable and response inadequate”, particularly as the defect liability period had passed by over a year.
It said the final invoice should have been sent straight after the defect liability period ended, but the council sent it three years later.
Southwark argued that the delay was down to waiting for information from other internal teams, but the watchdog said this was “not an adequate explanation”.
It said the council should have efficient processes in place so it can meet its legal obligations to provide information on service charges to leaseholders upon request.
There was further maladministration for the council’s complaint-handling due to delays in responding to complaints, including a seven-month delay in its stage two response.
The ombudsman ordered Southwark Council to apologise to the resident, pay £900 in compensation and provide a clear detailed list of the works carried out.
Mr Blakeway said: “The landlord missed several opportunities in both cases to resolve the issue, and in the case of the mutual exchange complaint, made matters worse by making accusations without evidence. At the heart of both cases is effective information management.
“Our Spotlight report on knowledge and information management detailed the importance of having good records. These cases show the importance of not only having records, but using them effectively to make evidence-based decisions.”
Stephanie Cryan, cabinet member for homes, communities and finance at Southwark Council, told Inside Housing: “What these residents experienced was clearly unacceptable, and I am sorry that we did not respond appropriately, thoroughly or quickly enough to the concerns they raised.
“We agree with the ombudsman that we could have dealt with this matter better and have put in place a number of actions in order to address this going forward.”
The council said it is undertaking a full review of its complaints procedures and has increased senior management oversight on schemes where final bills are over 12 months old or over one month beyond the defects liability period.
In a statement, it said: “We are working actively to improve our customer services and complaints processes, and in these cases, as soon as the ombudsman raised them with us, we made immediate changes to prevent such failures happening again.”
Other changes include teams now reviewing all works and repairs history when considering mutual exchange applications, an in-depth end-to-end review of the complaints process, and a renewed focus on customer communication, quality and timeliness during investigation.
“As a result of these findings, a full and thorough training programme is being implemented to ensure our officers are aware of the high standards our customers deserve when making a complaint through our complaints process.
“This training will also cover the investigation process ensuring that all the facts are established prior to any response being provided,” the council explained.
Southwark added that it takes all complaints “very seriously” and thanked the ombudsman for highlighting the cases “in which we have failed our residents”.
“We are working hard to improve our housing repairs, customer services and complaints processes, and hope that our residents are already starting to see a difference,” it said.
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