Stage two complaints (housing)

[osdset]

I am wondering if anyone here has had any experience with the timescales involved in moving a stage one complaint to stage two?

My landlords are a housing association, I have had a disrepair problem going on now for 28 months I have been through a stage one complaint procedure, which I asked to be moved to stage two at the beginning of this month, I received a reply today stating that the first stage two meeting available would be mid August, this seems rather a long time, so is this a typical time frame or am I being a bit impatient?

[Good Sister]

Hi osdset,

 

Did you receive a copy of your housing association's complaints procedure when you made your stage 1 complaint? If you did, it may give timescales there.

 

My housing association do not give timescales for stage 2, as I found out when I made a stage 2 complaint last year. I decided to pursue mine after 4 weeks, as that was the time given for a stage 1 complaint to be addressed. Mine was not related to disrepairs though.

 

Your case seems like it has been going on for a while, might be worth checking to find out what they are looking into. I may be wrong here, but I would have thought a stage 2 complaint would only look into the issues already raised under the original complaint unless something new has come to light? Maybe someone on here with more expertise could answer that particular point.

 

Hope this helps in the meantime.

 

Good Sister

[stu007]

Hi osdset

 

Agree with Good Sister you really need or do you have a copy of the housing associations Complaints Procedure and if not why not as you should have already been given this by the housing association.

 

To get the best advice could you please give use a breakdown if you dont mind of what lead up to your complaint and the housing association actions. Remember also to keep everything in writing only (always best to have a paper trail) if they phone just say you wont discuss this on the phone can they send it in writing.

 

These documents may be of some use they are from Housing Ombudsman Service:

[osdset]

Thanks for the reply's

A full breakdown of events would run into pages! So I'll give a condensed version, during the winter of 2009 I reported damp issues effecting the lounge and bedroom of my flat, in Feb 2010 a specialist firm sent a surveyor who carried out a comprehensive inspection, he compiled a report with recommendations and submitted it to the HA.

Weeks went by without any communication, so I started complaining again, surveyors came and went all of them put the problems down to condensation, I strongly disagreed (I had been actively engaged in the building industry for over 35 years, and am experienced enough to disagree), I eventually escalated the complaint to stage 1 in 2010.

The HA eventually agreed with 50% of my complaint and assured me that they would be robust in dealing with the issue, so I gave them the benefit of the doubt, however they still insisted on treatment consistent with condensation, operatives visited scratched heads, offered to wash down walls, one even removed a section of plaster, only to patch it up again, in short the HA had instigated a series of cosmetic remedies, I sent letters e mails...........the list goes on.

Finally in the winter of 2011 yet another surveyor (by this time six surveyors had left the HA's employ) diagnosed the problems as mainly being due to severe rising damp caused by damp course failure.

I then contact the director of the Housing Association, referred him to the 60 odd letters, and 98 e mails I had sent over the whole period, and requested my concerns be escalated to a stage two complaint, they insisted that it would have to go through stage one again (sigh)

So in summary I have instigated two stage one complaints and one stage two, and the work still has not been done!

The holdup on the works at present is my doing as they are insisting I decant the property for an unspecified period of at least one month, as in their words the property would be uninhabitable, fair enough but in the meantime someone at the HA discovered that I have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, so they are now insisting that I provide a medical report to justify the decant that they insisted on in the first place!

The way this situation is going I can see it ending up in court.

Edited April 28, 2012 by osdset