The Housing Ombudsman Service upholds local council tenant Michelle Edwards’ complaints about her lamentable treatment by LBWF, again undermining LBWF’s claim to be resident focused

In a recent ruling, the Housing Ombudsman Service (HOS) finds in favour of long-term local council tenant Michelle Edwards over the way that LBWF has handled a series of complaints that she submitted in 2022 and 2023 (the most serious about Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB)) and concludes that that there have been four clear instances of LBWF ‘maladministration’.

Some of the details are eye catching.

For example, the HOS reports that when Ms. Edwards submitted one of her ASB complaints, LBWF not only failed to log it properly, but then broke the deadlines stipulated by its own complaints procedure at both stage one and stage two, in the end providing a final response only after an extraordinary ten months, and without ‘any explanation’.

Similarly, when the HOS scrutinises another of Ms. Edwards’ complaints, this about the delay over a home loss and disturbance payment that was due to her, it again underlines procedural flaws, and even hints at some degree of impropriety:

‘The landlord [LBWF] said that it was unable to make the payment as it had not received the resident’s bank details, but has not provided any evidence to support this. Meanwhile, the resident has provided copies of forms which contained her bank details. So, based on the available evidence, there was no reasonable explanation for the landlord delaying payment’.

Behind much of this, and, according to the HOS, in itself amounting to a further count of maladministration, is the fact that LBWF had ‘failed to keep complete records and update the resident’s records where appropriate’.

Given these findings, it is unsurprising that when the HOS turns to redress it takes a fairly uncompromising line, ordering LBWF to make a substantial compensation payment to Ms. Edwards; issue her an apology written by a senior manager; and provide evidence of compliance within 28 days.

One final point. Some may assume that this case is an outlier, but unfortunately it is not.

For though LBWF allegedly introduced ‘a new complaints procedure’ in March 2023, there is little sign that the kind of treatment meted out to Ms. Edwards has disappeared. Indeed, according to a LBWF survey conducted at the turn of 2025, only a fifth of those tenants who had made a complaint in the past 12 months now report themselves ‘satisfied’ with LBWF’s ‘approach to complaints handling’.

Once again, therefore, there is a yawning gap between the verbiage emanating from the Town Hall, particularly the unceasing promises about putting residents first, and the harsh realities on the ground. 

PS Michelle Edwards reports at https://x.com/NewBuildHell