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Ombudsman names five landlords with high maladministration rates
The Housing Ombudsman has named five landlords with “excessively high” maladministration failures, including one case where it upheld 90% of complaints made against a housing association.
The ombudsman said the findings from its annual complaints performance review were “deeply concerning”, and that it had written to a total of 32 landlords where it found maladministration in at least 50% of its decisions.
It is the first time the ombudsman has named and written to landlords with high maladministration rates.
The five worst-performing landlords are: Golding Homes, where maladministration was found in 90% of complaints, East Devon District Council (89%); Lambeth & Southwark Housing Association (86%), Bolton at Home (80%) and Hexagon Housing Association (78%).
The number of complaints upheld against these providers was well above the overall rate of 48%, the ombudsman said.
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The annual complaints review, which covers the period between April 2021 and March 2022, draws on surveys of landlords and residents.
It also includes data from the individual performance reports produced for 115 landlords where the ombudsman investigated five or more complaints.
The review found that property condition remains the biggest area of complaint, and that in 59% of this type of complaint, the ombudsman found there had been service area failures by the landlord.
Of these, 20% were resolved through the landlord’s own complaints procedure. However, the ombudsman upheld 39% of all property condition complaints.
Landlords’ handling of complaints also needs significant improvement, with 66% of these complaints that were investigated by the ombudsman upheld.
Resident feedback through the annual survey shows there has been a 17% decline in the number of residents who think making a complaint would make a difference, compared with the previous year.
Only 36% of residents agreed that their landlord shares learning from complaints, compared with the feedback from landlords, where 60% agreed that they share learning with residents.
Richard Blakeway, the housing ombudsman, said: “We recognise that social landlords and residents are facing unprecedented challenges, with a cost-of-living crisis and ageing homes, but a positive complaints-handling culture remains vital.
“Our review highlights the challenges with embedding this and also shows poor performance in some service areas still at unacceptably high levels.
“It is deeply concerning that a small proportion of landlords have excessively high maladministration rates. These landlords, in particular, should identify the areas where service failure occurs most and address any common causes. Demonstrating change and service improvement will be essential for ensuring trust with residents.”
In response, Lambeth & Southwark Housing Association (LSHA) said: “In 2021/22, the Housing Ombudsman considered one complaint by an LSHA tenant in which it found elements of maladministration and service failure. We take the findings very seriously and complied with the Housing Ombudsman’s recommendations. We don’t always get things right first time, but we learn from our complaints to improve the service we deliver to our tenants.”
Golding Homes said it had asked the ombudsman for clarity on its methodology, but has yet to receive a response.
Stephanie Goad, chief executive of Golding Homes, added: “In the past year, we’ve had three determinations by the Housing Ombudsman. Two of these have been for maladministration, which we fully accept. We’ve worked hard to learn from these cases and improve both our services and approach to complaint-handling.
“We had a meeting with the Housing Ombudsman as recently as last week and they expressed no concerns to us. To date, we’ve not received a letter on this matter and would question the value of a statistic based on such low case numbers.”
Jon Lord, Bolton at Home’s group chief executive, said: “We take all complaints seriously and investigate them thoroughly. It is important to give some context to this review, which relates to two cases.
“We recognise there are always things we could do better and have already implemented positive changes in response to these cases to prevent such issues occurring again.”
East Devon District Council and Hexagon Housing Association were also contacted for comment.
