Sanctuary Housing Association (202318865)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202318865

Sanctuary Housing Association

20 March 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. This complaint is about the landlord’s handling of:
    1. The resident’s reports of water ingress.
    2. The associated complaint.

Background

  1. The resident holds an assured tenancy.
  2. The property is a 2-bedroom flat on the 1st floor. The landlord has noted that the resident suffers from mental health issues but does not specify what these are. The resident’s brother also lives at the property.
  3. The resident began reporting water ingress through the ceiling of her bathroom in July 2021. The landlord raised a work order in September 2021 to inspect but was unable to gain access on 2 occasions in October 2021. In December 2021, its contractor inspected the property and the roof and provided the landlord with a quote for works needed to rectify the water ingress. The resident asked the landlord for an update on this in May 2022 which it said it would chase internally.
  4. The resident reported the same leak on 15 February 2023 saying this had been ongoing for several years and caused damp and mould in her property. The landlord attempted to visit on 17 February 2023 but was unable to gain access. The resident reported the leak again on 16 March 2023. The landlord’s contractors visited the property on 21 March 2023 and raised roof and gutter repair works but did not perform any temporary repairs during this visit.
  5. The resident raised a complaint with the landlord on 21 March 2023. She was unhappy it had still taken no action to remedy the ingress despite its visit to the property. She said that this negatively affected her mental health. The resident continued to chase the landlord for updates throughout March and April 2023. The landlord’s contractors provided a quote for the work on 22 May 2023 and the landlord approved this and raised works on 5 June 2023.
  6. The landlord provided its stage 1 complaint response on 14 June 2023. It apologised for the delay in completing the works and said it was attempting to do so by 3 July 2023. The landlord offered £175 compensation. This consisted of £125 for time, trouble and inconvenience as well as £50 for its complaint handling failures.
  7. The resident escalated her complaint to stage 2 of the complaints process on 18 July 2023 as she reported the landlord was yet to begin repair works.
  8. The resident moved into temporary accommodation on 19 July 2023 after the ceiling in her bathroom collapsed. The landlord completed works to repair the roof and gutter on 31 July 2023. It completed follow up-works inside the property which it inspected and signed off on 10 August 2023.
  9. The landlord provided the resident with its stage 2 complaint response on 25 August 2023. It apologised that its repairs had taken longer than expected. It offered her £960 compensation for its failings, consisting of £400 for distress and inconvenience, £160 for the loss of enjoyment of her home, £150 for complaint handling delays, £100 for poor communication, £100 for record keeping and £50 for future impact caused by outstanding repairs.
  10. The resident wrote to the Ombudsman on 29 August 2023 to ask us to consider her complaint. She was unhappy with the time taken for the landlord to complete its repairs, and that some remedial works remained outstanding.
  11. The landlord reviewed its compensation offer on 21 September 2023 and increased this to £1,470. It increased its compensation amounts for loss of enjoyment of her home to £620, and for complaint handling delays to £200. The resident told the Ombudsman there were still remedial works to complete. To resolve her complaint, she wanted the landlord to complete the remedial works and pay additional compensation for the distress and inconvenience its actions caused.

Assessment and findings

The scope of this investigation

  1. The landlord decided as part of its complaint response to not consider the resident’s reports about the water ingress in 2021 and 2022 respectively. The Ombudsman has discretion to consider complaints where the matters complained about occurred a lengthy period before the complaint was made. There is evidence that the roof leak complained about in 2023 was the same as that raised during 2021. A 2021 inspection referred to the box gutter and waterproofing and the 2023 works quote referred to replacement of the box gutter and waterproofing to the roof. The Ombudsman has therefore decided to consider the landlord’s response to these reports as part of our investigation.

The landlord’s handling of reports of water ingress

  1. The resident tenancy agreement states that the landlord ‘shall maintain and where appropriate keep in proper working order…the outside of the structure and outside of the property including roof’. This means the landlord was responsible for completing the roof and gutter repairs.
  2. The landlord’s repair policy says that it will deal with emergency repairs within 24 hours. It describes emergency repairs as issues which have ‘a risk of serious damage to your property’. This includes situations where a resident has ‘water leaking through the ceiling’. The landlord says it will complete any routine repairs within 28 days. Given the resident had water leaking through her ceiling, the landlord should have dealt with this as an emergency repair.
  3. The earliest evidence provided by the resident to the Ombudsman demonstrates that she reported water ingress at her property on 30 July 2021. The landlord first raised a job to inspect on 3 September 2021. Its inspection was delayed due to two appointments where it was unable to access the property. The landlord’s contractors inspected on 9 December 2021 and provided the landlord with a quote for works. These included addressing the box cutter and applying a waterproof compound.
  4. However, when the resident chased these repairs in May 2022 the landlord still had not approved these works. It is unclear what caused this delay in the landlord’s process. The resident told the landlord in May 2022 that water came through the ceiling when it rained and that this was getting worse. The evidence demonstrates that by May 2022, the landlord had not completed any works relating to this water ingress. Nor had it by this time developed any plan for completing these works. This is despite the resident putting it on notice regarding this approximately 10 months earlier. This demonstrated a clear failure in service from the landlord.
  5. Following the new reports in 2023, the landlord attempted to attend on 17 February 2023 and 16 March 2023. On both occasions, it was unable to gain access. Its contractors eventually inspected on 21 March 2023 and raised works for the roof and guttering. It failed however to perform any form of temporary repair to alleviate the resident’s situation, meaning she remained in a property where water continued to leak through the ceiling of her bathroom. The landlord did not rectify the water ingress until 31 July 2023. This was around 5 months after the landlord raised the works to inspect the property again.
  6. The length of time the landlord took to complete the repairs following this inspection represented a clear failure in service. There was a 6-week delay in the contractor providing a quote for the works. However, it was the landlord’s responsibility to chase this quote and to properly manage the repairs process. The landlord had been aware of water ingress at the resident’s property, by the time it completed the roof and gutter repairs in July 2023, for around 2 years. The landlord has noted that the resident is vulnerable, and its lack of action demonstrates a failure to consider those vulnerabilities.
  7. The landlord should have done more to manage the resident’s situation if it was aware that it would not be able to stop the water ingress in a reasonable timeframe. The landlord offered the resident temporary accommodation, but this was only after the bathroom ceiling collapsed. This was on 18 July 2023. By this time, the resident had been suffering from water ingress and the subsequent damp and mould for 2 years. The resident’s situation, according to the landlord’s repairs policy, was an emergency situation.
  8. The landlord’s actions demonstrate that it failed to treat this with the severity it required. The landlord’s failure to consider temporary accommodation at an earlier stage, especially when it was aware of the delays to the repairs, represented a failure in service. The resident had told the landlord as early as March 2023 that she was unable to use the bathroom because of the leak.
  9. Following the bathroom ceiling collapse, the landlord offered the resident temporary accommodation. She did not take the landlord up on this offer, instead staying with friends and family. The landlord offered the resident £175 for the 7 days this disruption was due to occur. This consisted of £25 per day. When the contractor delayed roof repairs due to the weather, the resident needed further alternative accommodation. She was due to stay with a different friend. After this fell through, the landlord moved her and her brother into a hotel for a further 6 days. The landlord paid the resident £300 for this disruption. This consisted of £25 per day, per person. Whilst it was good practice for the landlord to pay the resident for the disruption, it is unclear why it took different approaches for these two periods.
  10. The landlord has not provided the Ombudsman with the decant guidance it used when making its decision on payments. However, the Ombudsman has seen copies of this from an earlier date. We have used this as a guide for assessing the landlord’s actions. This guidance says that it will make payments on a ‘per day per adult’ basis. Given this, the landlord should have offered its payments for both temporary accommodations on a per person basis. This means the landlord should have offered the resident an additional £175 for the initial 7 days when she and her brother were staying with friends. The landlord therefore failed to fairly handle these disruption payments.
  11. There were several appointments throughout the course of the complaint where the landlord and its contractors reported no access. This happened on 4 October 2021, 14 October 2021, 17 February 2023 and 16 March 2023. The landlord has not provided evidence of how it contacted the resident to inform her of the appointments in advance. Given the lack of evidence, the Ombudsman is unable to say whether there was fault on the landlord’s part and the resident has acknowledged that there were occasions when she was unable to provide access.
  12. The landlord signed the property off for the resident to return on 10 August 2023. However, the resident contacted it the following day to report that several jobs remained outstanding. There were marks on the ceiling caused by the repair, reports about outstanding damp and mould, and issues with the boxing around the toilet. The landlord agreed to undertake these repairs and provided the resident with compensation for the future disruption of having to do so. The landlord’s agreement to undertake these additional remedial works indicates not all of the post-leak works were complete albeit there is no evidence that the property was not habitable at this point.
  13. The landlord offered the resident a total of £1,270 for its failures relating to its handling of the water ingress. This was a significant level of compensation. However, it did not recognise all of its failings in responding to the water ingress during 2021 and 2022. It also failed to consider that it took differing approaches when dealing with its disruption payments whilst the household was in alternative accommodation.
  14. The Ombudsman has therefore made a finding of maladministration. It should increase its offer of compensation to £1,600. This is in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance which recommend offers of compensation in this range where there have been ‘a series of significant failures which have had a seriously detrimental impact on the resident’.

The landlord’s handling of the associated complaint

  1. The landlord’s complaints policy has 2 stages. At stage 1, the landlord says it will acknowledge complaints within 3 working days and respond within a further 10 working days. At stage 2, it will provide its response within 20 working days. Its policy also says that if a matter is complex or needs a longer timeframe, it may extend these timescales for a further 10 working days. It says that if it is going to do so, it will inform the resident of its extension.
  2. The landlord failed to keep to the timescales specified in its policy at stage 1 of the complaints process. The resident raised her complaint on 21 March 2023 and provided its stage 1 complaint response on14 June 2023. This was a delay of around 2 months. The landlord failed to keep the resident updated during these delays.
  3. At stage 2, the landlord again failed to provide its response within the timescales set out in its complaints policy. It took the landlord 28 working days to provide its complaint response. Although this delay was less significant than at stage 1, it still failed to keep the resident updated as it should have.
  4. In both its stage 1 and stage 2 complaint responses, the landlord recognised there were complaint handling failings and offered the resident compensation for this. The total award ended up being £200 which was offered in September 2023.
  5. The £200 offered by the landlord for complaint handling failures was a reasonable offer of redress given the extent of the delays. This is in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance which recommends figures in this range where there have been failures which ‘adversely affected the resident’.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of water ingress.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 53b of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was reasonable redress in the landlord’s handling of the associated complaint.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

  1. It is ordered that within 4 weeks of the date of this letter, the landlord:
    1. Pays the resident £1,600 in recognition of the distress and inconvenience caused by its failures in the handling of her reports of water ingress. This is inclusive of the £1,270 it offered in its e-mail of 21 September 2023 for these failings.
    2. Apologises to the resident for the failings identified in this report.
    3. Contacts the resident to arrange an inspection of her property to check for any residual damage caused by the water ingress. Within 2 weeks of the inspection, the landlord should confirm in writing to the resident and the Ombudsman any works that it will undertake and a schedule for doing so.
    4. Evidence to the Ombudsman that it has completed these actions.

Recommendations

  1. The landlord should pay the resident the £200 compensation offered for complaint handling failures in its 21 September 2023 letter, if it has not already done so. The finding of reasonable redress is based upon this amount being paid to the resident.