Landlord for vulnerable women overhauls policies after being branded ’unsympathetic’ by watchdog
Housing for Women has overhauled its rent recovery and complaint-handling practices after the Housing Ombudsman found it incorrectly told a resident she owed more than £10,000 in rent.
The affordable housing provider, which was set up to support women and children fleeing domestic abuse, trafficking survivors, women leaving prison and older women, “took an adversarial and heavy-handed stance towards the resident”, said the watchdog.
It changed the amount owed to £2,000 after the tenant complained but still pursued legal action. This resulted in the tenant receiving an eviction notice from the court two days after Christmas, with the landlord’s actions leaving them “struggling to cope.”
Housing for Women ignored evidence to show that the resident had in fact made the missing payments, said the Ombudsman. The landlord also admitted that it did not consider the resident’s vulnerability and that a lack of senior management oversight and understanding by finance teams of the rent process contributed to its service failure.
Since the review, the landlord has implemented new processes for record keeping and staff training.
It has also revised its complaints procedure to comply with the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code after the watchdog described its tone as “dismissive and unsympathetic of the resident’s lived experiences.”
The landlord said multiple failings were down to a single staff member that was being performance managed during the time of the complaint, eventually leading to their dismissal.
In a learning statement issued to the ombudsman, Housing for Women, said: ”We are confident that the lessons learnt from this case have made our policies and processes more robust and ensured we have introduced effective monitoring of complaints and arrears management, ensuring that our approach to complaint handling and arrears management is robust and puts the customer first.”
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Richard Blakeway, Housing Ombudsman, said: “There can be an inherent imbalance of power between resident and landlord, and this case exemplifies it, very nearly leading to a family being unfairly evicted.
“Landlords have to do their job and residents have obligations to fulfil too, but the landlord’s handing was fundamentally flawed, and the complaint is littered with missed opportunities to reflect with a dismissive attitude, including of the Ombudsman, from the outset.
“As rent charges are made for the new financial year, this case shows the importance of regular reviews of rent arrears management. It also highlights the need for landlord staff to put themselves in the place of a resident, show empathy and provide support when working with a resident in arrears, or at risk of losing their home. This has never been more important given the current cost of living challenges and demand for affordable housing.”
Housing for Women’s learning statement
The following statement was issued by Housing for Women to the Housing Ombudsman
Following a severe maladministration order related to our failure to manage a tenants rent account and respond to the resident’s subsequent complaint. An internal review was completed, and the following issues were identified:
- we did not take into account the resident’s vulnerability
- there was no senior management oversight of the case
- we repeatedly failed to the resident’s complaints
To ensure that this doesn’t happen in the future we have put in placed the following policies, procedures, and processes.
- developed and implemented a new complaints policy and procedure that meets the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code
- developed and implemented a new compensation policy that gives staff clear guidance on when compensation should be offered
- introduced new response templates for compliant responses, ensuring that staff have clear guidance on how a compliant should be responded to
- ensured all staff have received training on the complaints policies and processes
- introduced reporting and monitoring of all complaints ensuring that there is senior management and Board oversight of complaints, and these are being responded to within the Ombudsman’s published timescales
- updated our rent arrears procedure to ensure it covers vulnerable residents and implemented additional steps within the procedure when managing arrears where we know the resident has a vulnerability – our procedure has also been updated to ensure that the Head of Housing & Customer Service must approve the serving of a Notice of Seeking Possession before it is served
- our Head of Housing & Customer Service and Head of Finance meet on a quarterly basis to ensure that rent payments have been posted to the correct account
We are confident that the lessons learnt from this case have made our policies and processes more robust and ensured we have introduced effective monitoring of complaints and arrears management, ensuring that our approach to complaint handling and arrears management is robust and puts the customer first.
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