Decision Report 201201479

Summary

When Ms C moved to a new house she experienced problems of noise, harassment and intimidation and reported to the association matters that she considered contravened the secure tenancy agreement. She reported matters to the police as well and over a two-year period instructed solicitors, contacted elected representatives and the council, and latterly had help from an advocate in making a formal complaint to the housing association. She complained that the association failed to take appropriate action in response to her complaints of antisocial behaviour; took an unreasonably long time to deal with her formal complaints and did not provide an adequate response; and failed to respond appropriately to correspondence from her GP and to advise on the medical assessment reached.

Our investigation found that there was a lot of documentation, but only two specific antisocial incident files that were opened as a result of contact from Ms C. It was clear that the housing association had not met Ms C's expectations that they would strictly enforce tenancy conditions, but we did not find evidence to uphold her complaint that they had failed to take appropriate action, although we did make a recommendation about letting Ms C know what they would do in future. Our investigation also found that the responses to the complaint were timely and adequate. We did uphold her third complaint, as we found that they had not taken appropriate action in respect of a particular GP letter, and again made a recommendation.

Recommendations

We recommended that the association:

• confirm to Ms C that they will continue to investigate her complaints of antisocial behaviour on their merits, and provide her with written reasons of action taken or why they do not intend to act further; and
• apologise to Ms C for not seeking earlier a copy of a letter from a GP, and for inaccuracies in their stage two complaint response to her advocate.