Peabody Trust (202326917)
REPORT
COMPLAINT 202326917
Peabody Trust
18 August 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 drainage repairs.
2. The Ombudsman has also considered the landlord’s complaint handling.
Background
3. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord. The property is a 3-bedroom flat. The resident has vulnerabilities which are known to the landlord.
4. The resident reported a blocked drain on 6 July 2023. The landlord’s contractor attended on the same day but was unable to clear the blockage and said that further investigation was needed as the blockage was extensive and affecting multiple shared drains.
5. On 10 July 2023 the landlord attended and attempted to jet the blockage, but said that it needed CCTV investigation. The landlord’s operative attended again on 13 July 2023 and discovered further issues and said that excavation work would be required in the resident’s back garden to repair the drains.
6. The resident made a formal complaint on 6 September 2023. She raised that she had requested numerous updates from the landlord and its contractors and they said they had not received the approved quote. She said this had caused her stress in chasing the matter.
7. On 28 September 2023 the landlord issued its stage 1 compliant response. The landlord acknowledged and apologised for the delays and its poor communication. It advised that training had been supplied to its staff and it had booked the repair for 29 September 2025. It offered total compensation of £275 consisting of £200 for time trouble and inconvenience, £50 for delays in repairs and £25 for the delay in the complaint response.
8. On 16 October 2023 the resident said she wished to escalate the complaint to stage 2 of the landlord’s complaints process as the repair had not been completed.
9. On 27 February 2024 the landlord acknowledged receipt of the resident’s escalation request and apologised to the resident for its delay in escalating her complaint. The landlord asked for a 5 day extension to respond, which the resident agreed to.
10. On 5 March 2024 the landlord issued its stage 2 response. The landlord advised there was a backlog of repairs and the job was still waiting on a contractor. It acknowledged further delays in the repair and service failures in its complaint handling and poor communication. It offered £450 total compensation which replaced its stage 1 offer. This consisted of £250 for time, trouble and inconvenience and £200 for its complaint handling failures.
11. On 8 May 2024 the resident reported to the landlord that there were terrible smells coming from the drains.
12. The landlord began the repair on 26 June 2024 and the work was completed on 29 July 2024.
13. The resident clarified recently with us that across the month of the repair she had to keep her windows shut and the noises were a disturbance. She also said she had to move out for the repair period and that the drains were slow to drain until repaired in July 2024, which impacted her daily life where the drains would back up regularly.
Assessment and findings
The landlord’s handling of drainage repairs
14. The landlord’s repair policy says that a non-urgent repair should be completed within 28 calendar days, where a repair is identified as complex it should be completed within 60 calendar days.
15. The landlord initially attended to the blocked drain issue on the day it was reported and acted quickly to try and alleviate the issue. It also acted to assign an appointment to have a closer look at the drain 4 days after it was reported. These actions were prompt and reasonable. However, following this point it did not act with urgency and said it was waiting on the quote to be approved and for its contractor to assign a work date. It took from 13 July 2023 (when the landlord was aware of the extent of the issue) until 29 July 2024 to complete the repair. This took 382 working days to complete which was well beyond its repair policy timeframe of 60 days for complex repairs. This delay was unreasonable.
16. At stage 1 the landlord did recognise there were delays in attending to the repair and offered compensation for this. However, it said the delays were because the contractors delayed supplying the quote for the work. This may have been the case, however there was a missed opportunity for the landlord to take responsibility itself or to seek to take action to hold its contractors accountable for delays. From the evidence it appears there was miscommunication from the landlord with its contractors, and it itself contributed to the delays by not approving the quote for an extended period time. Despite this, the landlord is ultimately responsible for progressing the repair within its policy timeframes. It was inappropriate for the landlord not to fully explain the reason for delays, or to evidence that it had taken actions to seek to improve its relationship with its contractors and response times moving forward.
17. Given the repair was complex the landlord should have monitored it to ensure all necessary actions were performed by the correct professionals. From the evidence it seems the landlord did not appropriately monitor the course of the repair. It did not follow up on the repair after its stage 2 response. The resident also had to chase the landlord after stage 2 to prompt the repair. This further delayed the repair and caused further frustration to the resident.
18. The landlord demonstrated poor communication across the timeframe that the complaint concerned, and the resident chased the landlord and its contractors for updates on multiple occasions. In its stage 1 response the landlord said the works would commence on 29 September 2023. However there are no repair notes for this date and this absence of evidence indicates that the landlord did not follow through on what it had promised. It was also unreasonable not to update the resident at this point to explain why the works were not going ahead.
19. The resident asked the landlord when works would be completed on 10 April 2024, but the landlord was not able to provide any clarity or a date for the works to take place. This caused further uncertainty and ongoing distress to the resident as to whether the repair would take place. While the landlord recognised its poor communication at stage 1 and 2 it did not improve its communication with the resident or its contractors across the complaint.
20. The landlord also missed an opportunity to fully acknowledge the impact to the resident and the daily impact she faced. She reported unpleasant smells and severe drainage problems with the sinks and toilet, and as a result she was unable to fully use and enjoy her property across an extended period.
21. Overall the landlord did recognise some of its failures in its handling of the drain repairs, however it did not acknowledge the full extent of these failures and the resulting impact to the resident. Its communication did not improve and it did not take responsibility for its actions or lack of. While it said it had taken learnings, it did not demonstrate that it had, especially given the repairs only took place 3 months after its stage 2 response.
22. The landlord’s final offer of £250 for time, trouble and inconvenience is in line with our remedies guidance for maladministration, although this offer was not proportionate to the failures identified, the time taken to resolve the repair, and the impact on the resident as a result. As such an order has been made to pay the resident an additional £500.
Complaint handling
23. The resident submitted her complaint to the landlord on 6 September 2023. The landlord logged the complaint within 5 working days. However, its stage 1 response was delayed by 2 working days beyond the initial 15 working day timeframe (including 5 working days for acknowledgement). The landlord recognised this delay in its stage 1 response (on 28 September 2023) but then at stage 2 reversed this as well as its offer of compensation for this delay. This was a miscalculation by the landlord, although minor, it should have acted with more care to recognise the appropriate policy timeframes.
24. The resident escalated the complaint on 16 October 2023. The landlord did not acknowledge the escalation within 5 working days, and only acknowledged it on 27 February 2024, after our intervention. The resident had to seek assistance from us to get a response from the landlord causing her additional time and trouble. It also delayed issuing its stage 2 complaint response, where it took 99 days to issue it after the resident’s escalation request. This is well beyond the 20 working day timeframe of its policy. These delays were unreasonable.
25. At stage 2 the landlord did act to recognise its complaint handling failures and sought to put things right. It acknowledged its lack of follow up after stage 1, its delay in escalating the complaint and the resident’s overall inconvenience and efforts to progress matters. It also offered £200 compensation for these failures. It was appropriate of the landlord to do so and we consider this offer proportionate to the failings identified and is in line with our remedies guidance for maladministration, where the resident was adversely affected. Therefore the compensation amounts to reasonable redress.
Determination
26. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the drain repairs.
27. In accordance with 53.b. of the Scheme, there was reasonable redress offered by the landlord in respect of its handling of the resident’s complaint.
Orders
28. Within 4 weeks of the date of this report, the landlord must provide evidence that it has:
- written a letter of apology to the resident which addresses the failures highlighted in this report.
- paid the resident £750 compensation which is made up of the following:
- £250 it already offered at stage 2 of its complaint response (if not already paid).
- £500 for the distress and inconvenience caused to the resident because of the landlord’s handling of the repairs.
Recommendations
29. The Ombudsman recommends the landlord to pay the resident £200 offered during its complaints process for complaint handling (if not paid already).