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Stonewater Limited (202325080)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202325080

Stonewater Limited

22 April 2025

 

Our approach

The Housing Ombudsman’s approach to investigating and determining complaints is to decide what is fair in all the circumstances of the case. This is set out in the Housing Act 1996 and the Housing Ombudsman Scheme (the Scheme). The Ombudsman considers the evidence and looks to see if there has been any ‘maladministration’, for example whether the landlord has failed to keep to the law, followed proper procedure, followed good practice or behaved in a reasonable and competent manner.

Both the resident and the landlord have submitted information to the Ombudsman and this has been carefully considered. Their accounts of what has happened are summarised below. This report is not an exhaustive description of all the events that have occurred in relation to this case, but an outline of the key issues as a background to the investigation’s findings.

The complaint

  1. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s report of a leak.
  2. The Ombudsman has also investigated the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

  1. The resident was an assured tenant at the property from 4 August 1997 until 6 April 2025. The property is a 4-bedroom house. The resident advised the landlord that she had vulnerabilities due to her mental and physical health. The landlord’s records reflected this.
  2. On 14 October 2022 the landlord’s contractors completed a kitchen replacement at the property. On the same day the resident completed a customer satisfaction form that indicated that she was “very satisfied” with the work.
  3. On 27 February 2023 the resident reported that there was a leak behind her dishwasher which had been ongoing for a couple of days. A contractor attended the same day to resolve the leak and ordered follow-on work. This was to fit the correct waste fitting and re-run the cold feed with the correct fall so that the waste drained away better. It completed the follow-on work on 8 March 2023.
  4. On 15 March 2023 the resident complained to the landlord. She said that when the contractor replaced her kitchen it moved her tumble dryer and dishwasher to different locations. She said that they did not re-connect them properly which caused a leak behind the cabinets. This had caused the cabinets to swell and damaged her appliances.
  5. The landlord acknowledged receipt of the complaint on 16 March 2023. The kitchen contractor visited the property on 4 April 2023. It told the landlord that:
    1. The resident had advised it that the motor had fallen out of her dishwasher but this was not possible as it was a sealed unit.
    2. It had not done anything to the tumble drier, it was an old unit and had probably deteriorated over time.
    3. It had investigated the external waste pipe and found that it was blocked by a stone. It had removed the stone and renewed the pipe which would improve drainage.
    4. The resident had told it that she was moving out in 2 weeks due to other issues in the property.
  6. The landlord provided a stage 1 complaint response on 11 April 2023. It said that the contractor had visited on 4 April 2023 and would resolve any defects identified.
  7. The resident asked the landlord to escalate the complaint to stage 2 of the complaints process on 19 April 2023. The landlord acknowledged this request on 5 May 2023. This said that she had told it that:
    1. The issues with her kitchen had not been resolved and she would like it to acknowledge the distress and inconvenience this had caused.
    2. She had concerns that the leak had caused bacteria that affected the health of her family and pets.
  8. The landlord provided a stage 2 complaint response on 19 May 2023. It said that contractors had discovered a stone blocking the waste pipe when they visited the property after her first complaint and they had renewed the pipe. It was sorry that she had experienced issues with her kitchen installation and wished her well with her move. It said that she had mentioned issues she was having with damp, mould, and flies in the property but it was managing this. It offered her £75 compensation because it had not escalated her complaint to stage 2 of the process within a reasonable time.
  9. On 6 June 2024 the landlord wrote to the resident. It said that it had reviewed her case when supplying evidence to this Service as part of our investigation. It said that it wanted to apologise again and could see that a contractor had missed 2 appointments in May 2023. Therefore, it offered her £250 compensation for its lack of communication around this and the distress and inconvenience it caused.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. Unlike a court, the Ombudsman cannot establish liability or award damages. As a result, we cannot determine whether the landlord’s actions impacted the resident’s or her pets’ health. A determination relating to damages caused to the resident’s health is more appropriate for the courts.

Leak

  1. The landlord’s repairs policy says that it will categorise repairs as either “high priority” or “by appointment”. It says that it will make a temporary or permanent repair for any high priority repairs that do not pose an immediate danger within 24 hours of them being reported.
  2. The landlord attended the property within 24 hours of the resident reporting the leak from the dishwasher. This was reasonable and in line with its policy. It then completed the follow-on work in 8 working days which was also reasonable.
  3. The landlord’s compensation policy states that insurance claims relating to damage to property will be dealt with in accordance with its insurance procedures or contract preliminaries.
  4. The resident said that her tumble drier and dishwasher were damaged due to the leak. The contractor attended the property and said that it did not think that this was the case. However, we have seen no evidence that the landlord communicated this to the resident or considered signposting her to her own or its insurance company. This communication failure cost her time and trouble because she escalated the complaint as she felt that the landlord had not addressed all the issues.
  5. The landlord did not offer any compensation during the complaints process for this element of the complaint. However, when it reviewed the evidence sent to this Service as part of the investigation it offered £250 compensation for 2 missed appointments in May 2023. These seem to be unrelated to this complaint and therefore we have not considered this offer.
  6. The landlord responded promptly to the resident’s report of a leak and rectified the issue. However, it did not answer the resident’s concerns about damaged appliances. Therefore, there was service failure in its handling of the report of a leak and we have ordered it to pay £50 compensation to the resident to reflect the time and trouble this caused her.

Complaint handling

  1. The Housing Ombudsman’s complaint handling code in place at the time of the complaint (the Code) said that landlords must address all points raised in the complaint and provide clear reasons for any decisions, referencing the relevant policy, law, and good practice where appropriate.
  2. The landlord’s stage 1 complaint response did not provide answers to any of the points that the resident raised. Despite the contractor having already visited the property at the time the landlord wrote the stage 1 complaint response, it gave no feedback to the resident about the visit. It said that the contractor would resolve any defects that it had identified at the visit, when the contractor had actually said that it would not be completing any further work. The landlord’s failure to pass on the information from the contractor meant that it did not manage the resident’s expectations.
  3. The resident also complained that the leak had caused the kitchen units to swell. The contractor went to inspect the kitchen as part of the complaint investigation. However, we have seen no evidence that it told the landlord whether there was any damage to the kitchen units, or that the landlord asked for clarification on this. The landlord therefore did not answer this part of the resident’s complaint. It is possible that the contractor thought that there was no damage to the units but if that was the case the landlord should have told the resident this. These failures to follow the Code cost the resident time and trouble because she escalated the complaint.
  4. The resident told the landlord that she wanted to escalate the complaint because she did not think it had acknowledged the distress and inconvenience caused and because she had concerns that the leak had caused bacteria that affected her and her pets. The landlord confirmed this in its stage 2 escalation acknowledgement. However, it did not address either of these issues in its stage 2 complaint response. This further failure to follow the Code cost the resident further time and trouble because she escalated the complaint to this Service.
  5. The Code also said that when residents raise additional complaints during the investigation, and the stage one response has been issued, or it would unreasonably delay the response, the issue should be logged as a new complaint
  6. There is evidence that the resident raised a further complaint issue after the stage 1 complaint response was provided. The stage 2 complaint response confirms that she mentioned issues with damp, mould, and flies to the complaint handler. But we have seen no evidence that the landlord logged a new complaint at that time, or advised the resident that she should report this as a new complaint. However, the landlord told us that the resident raised another complaint regarding over a year later, which it has since responded to.
  7. The landlord took 9 working days to escalate the resident’s complaint to stage 2 of the complaints process. However, it responded to the complaint within 20 working days which is in accordance with the Code
  8. Due to the landlord’s failure to provide full complaint responses and its failure to log the issues with damp, mould, and flies as a separate complaint at the time, there was maladministration in its handling of the resident’s complaint. It offered £75 compensation to reflect the delay in it acknowledging the stage 2 complaint. However, this did not consider the time and trouble taken by the resident due to the other complaint handling failings identified. Therefore, we have ordered the landlord to pay a further £75 compensation to the resident to reflect this.

Determination (decision)

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was service failure in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s report of a leak.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint.

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks of the date of this report the landlord must apologise to the resident in writing for the specific failures identified above.
  2. Within 4 weeks of the date of this report the landlord must pay the resident £200 directly comprising:
    1. £50 for the time and trouble caused by its failure in the handling of the report of a leak.
    2. £150 for the time and trouble caused by its complaint handling failures.
    3. This replaces the landlord’s previous offer of £75. Therefore £75 should be deducted from this amount if already paid.
  3. The landlord must review the complaint responses in this case and identify any training needs for complaint handlers. This is to ensure that all complaint responses address all the points raised by residents. The landlord should inform us of the outcome of this review within 6 weeks of the date of this report identifying any training that has already been completed or that it intends to arrange.
  4. The landlord must provide the Ombudsman with evidence of compliance with these orders by the above deadlines.