We’ve launched a call for evidence to support our next systemic investigation which will look at noise complaints. The investigation will explore how social landlords manage reports of noise nuisance and what drives complaints about how those are handled. It will enable us to make recommendations and share best practice across the sector – helping landlords to develop their services and improve the experience of residents.   

Over the last three years, we have determined a significant number of complaints relating to noise – 848 in total – and identified maladministration in 41 per cent of cases.  

We are calling for survey submissions from both member landlords and their residents who feel they can contribute from their experience of reporting noise nuisance. We will also draw insight from our casebook and our Resident Panel members, together with fieldwork in five landlords of varying size, type and location and their residents.  

The surveys are open until Friday 13 May 2022.

Our latest Spotlight report into systemic issues called for stronger regulation of managing agents. The report found that a culture clash between a regulated and largely unregulated sector created challenges for the social housing sector’s engagement with managing agents. Residents then experienced the unfairness of being stuck in the middle when they try to get issues resolved. 

The report examined learning from cases involving a relationship between social landlords and managing agents appointed by private freeholders. Overall, it found that the increased complexity of these arrangements seemed to correlate with an increase in confusion, delay and unfairness. This contrasted with our efforts to simplify complaints processes and improve outcomes. 

We examined 62 cases investigated over one year where the landlord had to engage managing agents and private freeholders to resolve issues and found a high level of maladministration at 64.5% in those cases, about a third higher than the average for casework in the same period. Cases included in the report highlight the real-life experiences of residents, including the repeated loss of hot water during winter, leaking roofs and unexplained service charges, and demonstrate the immense frustration felt by residents. The report recognises that these are challenging issues for landlords and provides important practical lessons.  

We made two severe maladministration findings for L&Q’s failure to minimise the disruption of a temporary move for a resident with physical and mental health vulnerabilities. L&Q then failed to manage the complaint effectively, resulting in a confused and protracted process for the resident who had to reiterate his complaint multiple times over a two-year period and seek assistance from third parties.  

The resident lived in a flat owned by the landlord and under the tenancy agreement, care and support was provided on behalf of the landlord by a managing agent which provides tenancy support to people with complex needs. The managing agent’s actions in this case were ultimately the responsibility of the landlord which was accountable to the resident. 

Our investigation found evident confusion between the agent and landlord over responsibility for the suitability of the accommodation and a general failure in communication between the two. The landlord failed to manage the complaints process and take overall responsibility for its response to the resident’s complaints. 

We found severe maladministration for Tendring District Council’s avoidable delays in dealing with a resident’s repairs. The repairs, including a leaking roof, rotten window frame, blown plaster and damaged artex, had initially been reported in 2019 and were still not fully resolved in late 2021. When the resident complained about the lack of repair work, the landlord did not acknowledge or properly address her concerns over the length of time that had already been taken to deal with the repairs she had reported. Neither did it give any timeframe for when it aimed to resolve the issues. The resident said she felt angry, frustrated and depressed at the prospect of having to endure another winter without the repairs being completed. She said the landlord’s response to her complaint did not demonstrate that it had considered the effect of the delayed repairs on her.  

We found severe maladministration for the landlord’s handling of the repairs, maladministration for its complaint handling and service failure for its record keeping.