Housing association failed to help disabled tenant with anti-social neighbour

A housing association failed to help a disabled tenant deal with a nuisance neighbour, left them with heating and hot water issues, and let others use their allocated parking spot.

The Wheatley Housing Group tenant reported anti-social behaviour from a neighbour on multiple occasions, and complained about people regularly parking in their allocated disabled parking bay.

They also reported issues with their heating and hot water system, which went unaddressed for an “unacceptable” length of time at their home in the east of Scotland.

The Scottish Public Services Ombudsman (SPSO) received a complaint from the tenant about Wheatley Housing, which owns and manages over 93,700 homes and delivers services to more than 210,000 people across Scotland.

The complaint was upheld on all counts.

The landlord “unreasonably” didn’t consider some of the neighbour’s behaviour as bad enough for action, and when it did, it didn’t deal with it properly.

In some cases, Wheatley Group failed to acknowledge reports, reasonably complete forms, undertake checks of previous incidents, conduct interviews, and log reports within a reasonable time.

The housing association also provided inaccurate information to the tenant about its use of CCTV footage in the investigation of reports.

The ombudsman also found that the length of time the tenant waited for heating and hot water repairs was “unacceptable”.

The landlord also concluded that the complaints had been resolved before the effectiveness of the repair had been confirmed.

Wheatley Group also took an “unreasonable length of time” to “substantively” respond to the parking issues the tenant raised.

The ombudsman made a number of recommendations, including that the housing association apologise to the tenant.

Laura Henderson, the managing director of Wheatley Homes East, said: “We’re very sorry that on this occasion our service fell short of the standards our tenants rightly expect.

“We accept the findings of the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman and have apologised to our tenant for the distress caused.

“As part of our response, we have fully implemented all of the SPSO’s recommendations related to this case to ensure we do better in future.”