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London Borough of Havering Council (202221930)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202221930

Havering Council

30 June 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 kitchen refurbishment.
  2. We will also investigate the landlord’s handling of the associated complaint.

Background

  1. The resident has a secured joint tenancy with the landlord, which is a local council. The property is a 4-bedroom end terrace house and he lives there with his spouse and their 4 children.
  2. On 19 September 2022 the resident raised a complaint with the landlord. He was unhappy with:
    1. The length of time it had taken to complete the kitchen works. It was meant to take 15 days but had turned into months.
    2. One of the kitchen doors was blocked
    3. The kitchen sink units were not measured correctly causing the washing machine not to fit in the gap and, as a result, there was damage to the machine.
    4. Not receiving an apology and the kitchen sink had leaked again.

The resident asked who would compensate him for damage to the washing machine.

  1. The landlord issued a stage 1 complaint response on 27 September 2022, offering £30 compensation. The landlord said:
    1. An entire wall would be plastered as the works carried out were unsatisfactory.
    2. The contractors had moved the units so the washing machine did not touch the pipe.
    3. It requested images of the damage to the washing machine.
    4. The delay in completing the works was being dealt by the project manager and advised the resident to continue to communicate with him.
    5. It offered £30 compensation for the inconvenience of not being able to use the kitchen.
  2. The resident escalated the complaint to the landlord on 19 October 2022 as he was not happy with the compensation offer. The resident said the contractors had damaged the cooker. He added there were 2 large dents in the washing machine and the £30 compensation offered did not cover what he had lost and he had had to buy a new cooker because of the damage caused by its contractors.
  3. On 6 April 2023 the landlord said it would send out the stage 2 complaint response once it had reviewed the file. On 17 May 2023 it said the stage 2 complaint response would be issued “soon”.
  4. In its stage 2 complaint response dated 16 June 2023, the landlord increased its offer of compensation to £100. The landlord said:
    1. The resident should claim for the damage to the washing machine on its contractors liability insurance.
    2. It would carry out plastering work to allow repositioning of the washing machine.
    3. The assistant director had apologised to the resident for the delays and standard of workmanship.
    4. It was unable to offer more than £30 compensation. It explained that offer was based on the 15 days delay after the three weeks deadline.
  5. On 23 August 2023 the resident told the landlord and us that the contractor had paid for the washing machine so would like to withdraw the staged complaints as he felt the matter had been resolved. The complaint was withdrawn on 4 September 2023.
  6. The resident has since told us that he is not satisfied with the landlord’s responses and the matters are ongoing.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. When the resident approached us, he had not exhausted the landlords complaint procedure that was in place at the time. However, we note there was a conflict of interest at stage 3 and therefore the Ombudsman has used their discretion to investigate this complaint and will consider events up to 16 June 2023 (which is the date of the stage 2 complaint response). If the resident is unhappy with the events after this date, it is open to him to make a new complaint to the landlord.

Kitchen refurbishment works

  1. The tenancy agreement states the landlord’s repair obligations. The landlord has given the resident rights to have certain small urgent repairs which might affect the health, safety or security, done quickly and easily. It has to carry out these repairs within a certain time and if it fails to do so, the resident may be entitled to compensation.
  2. The landlord’s repairs policy sets out the repair categories and timeframes for repairs. Urgent repairs will be completed within 3 working days of the request and routine repairs within 28 working days.
  3. On 22 August 2022 the resident contacted the landlord letting it know the plastering job was not done at a satisfactory level, and the door was blocked off via the kitchen to the living room. It is not clear when this job was fully completed but on 13 January 2023, it said minor snags items in the kitchen had been completed and the resident was satisfied with the works. This is contrary to its repair policy where it states the work will be completed within 28 working days after receiving the request.
  4. On 2 September 2022the resident had called the landlord and said he was unhappy about the kitchen works. He said there was leaks, loose pipes, gaps behind skirting, and paint splashes over the cabinets. The landlord contacted the resident on 5 September 2022 to visit the property and made a note stating the priority was the leak. It was agreed for the contractors to revisit the home on 7 September 2022 to complete the job identifying the pipework was related to a hot/cold water pipework and not the heating pipework. The landlord carried out this repair as an urgent repair within 3 working days in line with its repair policy. The time taken by the landlord was therefore appropriate.
  5. On 20 September 2022 the resident complained of another leak in the kitchen and it arranged for the contractors to attend the residents home the same afternoon to look and resolve the leak. The resident also complained of another leak in the kitchen on 29 September 2022 and the contractors visited the resident’s home the following day. These visits and actions taken were appropriate given the nature of the issue and in line with the repair timescales mentioned in the repairs policy.
  6. While the landlord’s initial repair responses were mostly timely, its failure to follow up repairs causing distress and inconvenience to the resident. This was from the repairs call outs in September 2022. The resident had emailed the landlord on 14 September 2022 about his washing machine being “forced” into a small gap which caused issues. On 19 September 2022, contractors attended the residents property and identified the pipes were still hitting the machine. In addition, the resident had complained multiple times about various leaks including 2, 5, 19, 20, and 29 September 2022.
  7. The landlord offered the resident, in its final response dated 16 June 2023, £70 gesture of good will payment in addition to the £30 it had offered at stage 1. This brought the total compensation offered to £100.
  8. The landlord’s Goodwill Gesture & Discretionary Payment policy says it can make discretionary payments for time and trouble/distress and inconvenience. It says it will make such payments in a number of scenarios including where there have been unreasonable delays in providing a direct service e.g. in undertaking a repair.
  9. Considering all the circumstances, in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance, the compensation offered was not reasonable. This is because the resident was living in his home with unresolved repairs issues which had been on-going for an inappropriately lengthy period that caused the resident to contact the landlord on numerous occasions to chase the repair works which he also said caused him stress. Furthermore, the resident had he was not temporarily able to use his kitchen to get his medication from the fridge.
  10. Therefore, the landlord is ordered to apologise to the resident and pay him £200 compensation for the further failures identified by this investigation, in line with our remedies guidance. This is in addition to the £100 the landlord previously offered. This sum is in line with our remedies guidance where there has been a failure that adversely affected the resident but did not have a permanent impact.
  11. Complaint handling
  12. The landlord’s complaints policy states that the landlord operates a 3-stage complaints process. At stage 1, it will respond within 10 working days of acknowledging the complaint and at stage 2, within 25 working days of acknowledging the complaint which should be done within 3 working days. It has a further stage 3 process if the resident is dissatisfied with the outcome of the stage 2 investigation, they may request the complaint be reviewed by members of the Adjudication and Review Committee. A full written response is to be issued within 30 working days. We note that the landlord introduced a new 2-stage complaint policy that came into effect on 1 December 2023.
  13. The landlord acted accordingly by issuing a stage 1 complaint response within the expected timeframe. The response was sent on 27 September 2022 which was 6 working days after receiving the complaint.
  14. The landlord failed to provide a formal stage 2 response within the expected timeframe. The response was sent on 16 June 2023, almost after 8 months after the complaint was escalated on 19 October 2022. The resident was updated during this process but only after almost 6 months on 6 April 2022 and on 17 May 2023. The resident contacted the landlord again on 25 May 2023 reiterating his concerns about the complaint and requested a further updates from it on 9 and 13 June 2023. The landlord’s delay in providing a response was inappropriate and amounts to a service failure. Although it did acknowledge the delay and inconvenience caused in its response and an apology was issued by the assistant director,  landlords must provide responses to complaints according to its complaints policy and our complaints handling code (the Code)
  15. In his escalation request the resident raised a new issue about the cooker which he said had been damaged by contractors and requested compensation. The landlord said it would not deal with this new issue as it had not been considered at stage 1. This was appropriate. However, the resident had a right to expect a response on this matter and it would have been reasonable for the landlord to have raised a new stage 1 complaint. There is no evidence it did so. By not investigating the resident’s concerns, the landlord missed a chance to identify and fix issues at an earlier stage.
  16. We have made an order for the landlord to write to the resident with a decision on his request for compensation for the damaged cooker. This should include whether or not it should provide details of its liability insurer (if it has one). The liability insurance company is a separate organisation from the landlord and the landlord is not responsible for the insurer’s decision or the claims process, aside from passing on the details of how to claim to the resident (where it has liability insurance).
  17. We have made an order for the landlord to pay the resident £150 compensation for its complaint handling failures. This sum is in line with our remedies guidance where we recognise there was a failure which adversely affected the resident but did not have a permanent impact.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the kitchen repair works.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the complaint.

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks, the landlord is ordered to:
    1. provide a written apology to the resident for the failures identified in this report.
    2. pay the resident the £100 compensation it offered at its stage 2 response, if it has not done so already.
    3. pay £200 compensation directly to the resident in recognition of the impact caused by its handling of the kitchen repair works.
    4. pay £150 compensation directly to the resident in recognition of the time and trouble caused by the landlord’s failures in the complaint handling identified by this report.
    5. write to the resident with a decision on his request for compensation for the damaged cooker. This should include whether or not it should provide details of its liability insurer (if it has one).
    6. contact the Service within 4 weeks to provide evidence of compliance with the above orders.