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Residents complain of housing management issues continuing despite ombudsman ruling
Residents in blocks of flats managed by A2Dominion in east London have told Inside Housing that they continue to experience serious issues with housing management years after they successfully complained to the Housing Ombudsman.
The watchdog made a finding of maladministration for the 39,000-home landlord over its complaint-handling in Essex Wharf in December 2019, but residents told Inside Housing that they continue to struggle to raise issues relating to the building.
They have reported a failure to maintain communal areas and access doors, which creates problems with anti-social behaviour, and broken communal doors and lifts.
The reports come at a time when the Housing Ombudsman’s role in improving housing standards is increasingly in the spotlight.
The body – which considers and resolves disputes between social landlords and their tenants and leaseholders – can adjudicate individual cases and award compensation, but it does not have powers to follow up and ensure standards improve.
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Housing secretary Michael Gove recently told housing lawyers they should send tenants to the ombudsman in the first instance, rather than seeking legal action for disrepair.
A2Dominion recently took action relating to some of the issues at the block, including creating a new team to “fast-track solutions for all the issues raised”.
The landlord added that it had struggled to obtain some parts for the repair of access doors, and added that it was working closely with the police to address anti-social behaviour issues. A full statement is included below.
Mari-Anne Chiromo is a shared owner who lives with her child in one of the blocks in the Essex Wharf development.
One of the main reasons she bought the flat was that A2Dominion promised there would be secure access to the top floor, where she lives.
In March, after a repair to the lift, the secure access was removed. The communal door had also been broken for months, meaning anyone could get into the block and up to her floor.
Ms Chiromo, who said she often finds people who do not live in the block lying in the stairwell, described the situation as “terrifying”.
A2Dominion repaired the communal door and the secure access in the lift in May, two months after it was reported by Ms Chiromo and shortly after it was contacted by Inside Housing. A2Dominion said it was mistakenly removed during the repair.
Ms Chiromo has complained to the ombudsman several times about A2Dominion and has a current complaint ongoing over the removal of the secure access.
Along with a service failure finding in 2021 over contractors failing to wear PPE, the ombudsman found maladministration in December 2019 for A2Dominion over its handling of Ms Chiromo’s reports of repairs needed at her home – including the building’s lift.
Following an investigation, the ombudsman concluded that pursuing the complaint “required an unnecessarily high level of involvement by the complainant and that the landlord… delayed unnecessarily in providing a final response to the complainant”.
It determined that there was maladministration by the landlord in respect of its handling of the complainant’s reports of repairs required to the property and its handling of the subsequent formal complaint.
The ombudsman ordered the landlord to pay Ms Chiromo £800 in compensation.
It also recommended that A2Dominion “consider reviewing its formal complaint policy so that it includes timescales or measures for ensuring that the process could be concluded with the view that outstanding works with unclear completion schedules are taken into account”.
One tenant in the same block told Inside Housing she got stuck in the faulty lift with her daughter last month for more than an hour.
Margaret Prince said that the experience was “traumatic” and that she previously raised concerns about the lift in February without success.
“I was expecting them to show a bit more care and concern,” she said.
Leaseholder Louisa Mullan lives in one of the blocks with her partner, who is a wheelchair user and has a brain injury. She described A2Dominion’s management as “abysmal”.
Their apartment flooded twice in March, the second time with human waste.
“This was a deluge of really filthy water – human waste, toilet paper. A2Dominion’s out-of-hours emergency service failed to send help for eight hours because at some point a call handler had downgraded our call to ‘standard’. If I hadn’t kept phoning, no help would have arrived,” Ms Mullen said.
She said they have had one leasehold manager after the other and they “would never respond” to emails.
Another tenant said the housing association was slow to respond after her front door was damaged (pictured above).
She said: “I was left with no way to secure my door for six months at least as the lock had been broken off. I had to resort to pushing suitcases up against the door to try and stop access.
“As you can imagine, sleeping was not possible for those six months as I was terrified someone would walk in at any time and having a main entry door in the lobby that wasn’t always secure heightened my fear.
“My mental health has declined living here. It does not feel like home at all.”
Richard Blakeway, the housing ombudsman, told Inside Housing: “We’re clear that landlords must adopt a positive complaints culture. It is there to help them put things right when things have gone wrong.
“Complaints procedures must be responsive and adequately resourced, as we have set out in our Complaint Handling Code. Landlords also need to interrogate their complaints to identify areas for service improvement.
“This work will mean that issues are not dealt with in isolation and therefore help to prevent failings from reoccurring.
“It is vital that the landlord ensures that the changes we ordered are embedded so that there is redress for the resident and learning from the case.”
A2Dominion’s response
Jo Evans, director of specialist housing at A2Dominion, said: “Firstly, we would like to apologise again to our customers for the delays they have experienced.
“We take repairs extremely seriously, and that is why we have now assigned an enhanced management team to look after Essex Wharf.
“The new team are working to fast-track solutions for all the issues raised and have been on site to make sure all the doors have been secured.
“There is currently a programme of lift improvements and modernisations taking place, and all our residents are being kept informed on progress.
“Access to the 6th floor lift has now been reinstated, after it was removed in error during modernisation works. As soon as any issues with lifts are reported our staff are on site to fix the problem as soon as possible, and are sympathetic to the frustrations of our customers when things aren’t right.
“Issues with building access are being treated as a matter of urgency by our maintenance team, but we regret that on some occasions it has taken time to source the parts needed for the repairs. We’ve urged residents to contact us immediately if there are any problems with their door fobs.
“We’re aware of problems with anti-social behaviour and we are working closely with the police, including sharing CCTV footage when requested. Our property and safety managers are also regularly on site speaking to residents and carrying out patrols of the building.
“We’d like to reassure our customers that we’re doing everything we can as a landlord to improve security at Essex Wharf, and would encourage people to report any crimes or serious ASB immediately to the police alongside notifying ourselves. This will help to ensure the police are aware quickly and can attend when they are needed.”
She said A2Dominion also arranged a resident webinar for 30 May to “address ongoing issues and have open discussion with residents”.
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