Ombudsman’s special investigation finds ‘repeated’ failings at London landlord

Between April 2023 and June 2024, the ombudsman made 137 determinations, with 353 findings related to Hyde. These included 23 findings of severe maladministration – 10 relating to property condition and nine relating to complaint handling.

There was an overall maladministration rate of 82%. The ombudsman made 548 orders to put things right for residents. 

The ombudsman concluded that Hyde used blaming language towards the resident suffering cancer who was out of his home when a leak occurred. The association wrote: “You were not in your home when the leak was alerted to the fire brigade and did not call until five days after the event. 

“The absence of anyone living in your flat has allowed the leak to cause more damage.”

Hyde also disputed that their home was uninhabitable and whether a bed had been damaged by water. The landlord then failed to offer appropriate compensation, “despite the resident dealing with the additional stress of having cancer”. 

In another case, Hyde failed to make a repair for nearly a year, leaving a vulnerable resident with peeling wallpaper, mouldy walls and damaged furniture. The resident was afraid to use the heating due to the issues. Hyde also failed to offer appropriate compensation in this case.

The ombudsman also found that Hyde has a “significant issue” with its tone of communication. In one maladministration case, it found that while the landlord had explained the resident’s responsibilities and obligations, its communication was “difficult to understand, and some of the tone was dismissive and combative”. 

In November 2023, the landlord trained its complaints team on communication. The training asks staff to “put the person before process and policy”, take ownership through using active rather than passive voice, and to avoid jargon or ‘corporate speak’. It has a clear focus on empathy and seeing things from the resident’s perspective. 

However, the ombudsman received a complaint from a Hyde resident in April 2024. “While we have not yet fully investigated, we can see that the landlord’s communication lacks details and is dismissive,” it said. 

The ombudsman also found that Hyde had failed to follow through on commitments it made to residents.

“Of the 44 cases in our initial set, 12 included the landlord telling the resident it would take particular action as part of resolving the complaint, but not then doing so,” it said. 

According to the report, Hyde has already noted the failure to follow through on its promises. It recruited a new complaints commitment officer in November 2023.  

“While it is too soon to see the impact of the commitment officer role, it is a welcome initiative and should improve the situation so that remedies promised then happen, without residents having to spend extra time and trouble pursuing it,” the report said.

The report set three areas for Hyde to improve on: complaint-handling, repairs and service charges. It also provided a series of recommendations. 

On complaint-handling, it said barriers to the process still exist in policy and practice. The watchdog found that the intention of its complaint-handling code had been “skewed in the landlord’s policy towards its choice and control, not resident choice”. 

According to the report: “There was a failure to escalate complaints with the ombudsman intervening in 25 out of 44 cases to ask the landlord to accept or progress the complaint. 

“The evidence suggested that many of the issues resulted from historical under-resourcing of its complaints team and complaints being held whilst delayed repairs were taking place. 

“Poor systems and knowledge and information management also contributed. 

“Where there was service failure, at times the landlord provided inadequate redress, including poorly handled apologies.”

The ombudsman said it was “encouraging” that Hyde has invested in knowledge systems, training and has recruited a complaint quality and improvement officer.

However, the report recommended that Hyde ensures its complaints policy is in line with the code and learns from its determinations to identify the root cause of complaints.

The ombudsman found a “significant” number of repair cases with unreasonable delays, mainly caused by poor communication with repairs contractors, missed or otherwise ineffective appointments, and failure to effectively manage or oversee contractors’ work on individual repair jobs. 

“This was further exacerbated during the coronavirus pandemic when the landlord struggled to keep up as delivering compliant repair became harder,” the report said.

There were also issues with Hyde’s response to reports of leaks, damp and mould, with repairs not being completed. 

“The landlord identified its need to reduce repairs times and has worked on this. The report recommends that the landlord reviews the causes of its wasted appointments and create an action plan seeking to minimise these, as well as update its damp and mould policies and procedures,” the watchdog said. 

Hyde experienced peaks in service charge enquiries twice per year, in response to it sending out information at set times.

The investigation found that enquiries were placed in a queue for response and answered in turn “without any triage for common queries or process or criteria for prioritising responses”. This had historically resulted in residents typically waiting five or six months for a response, but sometimes up to a year.

According to the report: “When residents did receive a response, these were not specific enough or did not cover all the points they needed to.”

It said Hyde has made a number of improvements in this area. 

The report recommended it makes its policies “clear and consistent” about when a service charge enquiry becomes a complaint, including appropriate signposting to the complaints procedure, as well as making sure its systems and processes are effective so that residents receive “timely and sufficiently detailed” answers to their enquiries. 

Housing ombudsman Richard Blakeway said: “The timing of this investigation provides a valuable opportunity for the landlord to further establish an open, positive complaint-handling culture throughout what is a growing organisation.

“Our investigation shows that residents have experienced the same problems repeatedly over several years, but the landlord was initially slow to recognise and respond to these.

“Problems within repairs and maintenance, in particular the management and monitoring of contractors, had consequences across other teams which meant residents received poor service from more than one part of the landlord. The landlord was complacent about delays in numerous areas of its service.”

He said Hyde has taken “encouraging steps” more recently, which is “welcome”.

“Action has been taken on delays in three service areas, there has been a focus on better communication with residents, and recognition of the need to improve the adequacy of redress offered. These actions are welcome,” he said. 

However, he said “as the landlord has noted, and our more recent investigations highlight, there is still some way to go, and we will work with the landlord to help reach the ambitious goals it has set itself”.

Andy Hulme, group chief executive of Hyde, said: “We recognise that historically we haven’t always met some of our customer’s expectations, and we apologise to those customers where we could have done things better. 

“We know the impact this can have and are committed to learning from these experiences to ensure we do better in the future.

“While challenges remain for charities like Hyde, this report recognises our ambition to continue evolving and improving our services. We will continue to deliver homes and communities that meet the highest standards.

“Providing homes and communities that people are proud of is central to everything we do. Over the past two years, we’ve taken significant steps to improve our services and strengthen relationships with our customers to achieve better outcomes.

“This includes increasing investment in customers’ homes and adopting a more localised approach. We’re also supporting customers online to help them manage their homes more conveniently, alongside the launch of our new customer service centre and digital offering, which is enabling our colleagues to resolve around nine in 10 customer enquiries at the first point of contact.

“To ensure timely resolutions, we’ve also doubled the number of colleagues handling complaints and brought our repair service in-house. 

“As a result, most customers now receive their repairs in around three days and customer satisfaction with our repairs teams is sector leading at over 95%.

“We’ve engaged with the Housing Ombudsman Service throughout this process, sharing extensive information about the changes we’ve made. We value timely actionable insights and remain committed to engaging with the thriving communities that we serve.”