Peabody Trust (202331995)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202331995

Peabody Trust

9 August 2024


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. Outstanding repairs, including damp and mould in the property.
    2. Reports of no heating and hot water in the property.
    3. The associated complaint.

Background

  1. The resident holds a secure tenancy. The property is a three-bedroom house.
  2. The resident has children living in the property, one of whom has autism.
  3. The resident previously raised a complaint with the landlord about its failure to complete repairs to her kitchen. She also mentioned in this complaint that she was still awaiting replacement windows and that mould was present in the policy. The landlord answered this complaint at stage 1 of its complaint process on 2 August 2023. This complaint was not escalated to stage 2 of the landlord’s complaint process. The resident reported a leak from her boiler coming through her kitchen lights on 18 October 2023. The landlord attended the same day, turning off the supply to the boiler. Due to requiring a part, the landlord was unable to fix this immediately, having to order a replacement part from a supplier. The landlord attended to make safe the electrics on 20 October 2023.
  4. The resident raised a new complaint on 23 October 2023 as she had been without hot water since 18 October 2023 and there was a vulnerable child in the property. The landlord completed the boiler repair on 1 November 2023.
  5. The resident reported damp and mould issues on 8 November 2023. She said there was condensation between the double glazing of her windows and that mould was growing on the window frames, ceilings and walls of the property. The resident raised a new complaint on 4 December 2023 due to the lack of response to her previous complaint. This also raised concerns about unfinished repairs to her kitchen and bathroom, the landlord’s contractors missing appointments and the language used by a contractor in her property. The resident contacted the Ombudsman on 11 December 2023 to inform us of the outstanding complaints, as well as chasing the landlord on 18 December 2023.
  6. The landlord provided its stage 1 complaint response on 5 March 2024. It upheld the complaint, offering £586 compensation. This consisted of £150 for the time, trouble and inconvenience its delays had caused her, £300 for delays responding to her complaints, £100 for missed appointments and £36 for the loss of heating. It also said that it intended to carry out a new survey and raise the necessary appointments for any outstanding works. It said that it would speak with the relevant contractors regarding staff conduct and deal with these matters internally.
  7. The resident escalated her complaint to stage 2 of the complaints process on 8 March 2024. She felt that the compensation the landlord offered was not sufficient due to the distress the its delays had caused her and her children. She said that she had undertaken the outstanding bathroom and kitchen works due to the landlord’s delay in completing these. She added that a surveyor had recently come to her property and queried why it was necessary for the landlord to do another survey. The landlord performed a damp and mould inspection at the property on 27 March 2024.
  8. The landlord provided its stage 2 complaint response on 16 May 2024. It increased its offer of compensation to £1,268. This consisted of £168 for the loss of heating and hot water, £650 for distress and inconvenience, £300 for complaint handling issues, and £150 for missed appointments. The landlord agreed that the windows were in bad condition and needed replacement. It said that it was currently discussing internally which department would be responsible for this replacement.
  9. The resident contacted the Ombudsman on 6 June 2024, asking us to consider her complaint. She said the mould issue was still ongoing and the planned window replacements to alleviate this remained outstanding. She felt the mould was affecting the health of her children. She said that throughout the complaints process the landlord’s communication had been poor. To resolve her complaint, she wanted the dates works would begin and a confirmation of all the works the landlord would be taking to combat the damp and mould.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. The resident has said that the damp and mould has had a negative effect on her children’s health. It is beyond the remit of the Ombudsman to decide on whether there was a direct link between the landlord’s actions and ill health. The resident may wish to seek independent advice on making a personal injury claim if she considers that her or her children’s health has been affected by any action or failure by the landlord. While the Ombudsman cannot consider the effect on health, consideration has been given to any general distress and inconvenience which the resident experienced as a result of any service failure by the landlord.

The landlord’s handling of reports of outstanding repairs, including damp and mould in the property

  1. The landlord’s damp and mould policy says that it treats reports of damp and mould as urgent repairs. It says that it will visit a customer’s home within 10 working days where there have been reports of damp and mould. It adds that it ‘will pro-actively seek out building defects that contribute to instances of damp and mould and respond swiftly by undertaking necessary repairs as a matter of urgency’.
  2. The landlord took a significant time to act in relation to the resident’s reports of damp and mould. The resident has reported concerns about damp and mould growth in the property since at least July 2023. She has linked this to the condition of windows which she advised she had been waiting to be replaced for a couple of years. The landlord failed to take any action until its inspection on 27 March 2023. This took over 8 months and was significantly outside the timescales specified in its damp and mould policy. This was despite the resident’s health impact concerns and contractor feedback in April 2024 which showed that the mould issues were ‘severe’.
  3. Following its inspection the landlord raised a work order in March 2024 to check if there was a leak contributing to damp and mould and undertook at least 1 mould wash – in May 2024. These were reasonable actions to consider if there was water ingress and to alleviate the impact of damp and mould in the short-term. Even so, contractors did attend the resident’s property regarding this, but she had not been informed of the pending visit. This represented a failure from the landlord in communicating with both the resident and with its contractors.
  4. It is unclear if the landlord’s inspection looked solely at the resident’s windows (which she said were rotting due to damp and mould) or if this considered the damp and mould in the property as a whole. The landlord did not have a written survey produced following this inspection. Given the ongoing reports of mould since at least July 2023 and the resident’s concerns about health impact, the landlord should have performed a full survey to determine the cause of the mould with a report and action plan produced. Whilst it was suitable to consider the condition of the windows, it is inappropriate that the landlord failed to demonstrate it investigated the root cause of the damp and mould as per its policy.
  5. The landlord, at the time of its May 2024 stage 2 complaint response, was still unable to provide the resident with the details on what department would be responsible for replacing the windows. Whilst it may have been reasonable for the landlord to choose to replace the windows as part of its improvement works, it still has an obligation to ensure that the resident is living in a safe habitable environment. This means that even if these would be undertaken as part of improvement works, the Ombudsman would still expect in the short-term that the landlord performs any necessary repairs to both make safe the windows and prevent any further mould in the property.
  6. The resident raised concerns about outstanding repairs to her kitchen, windows and to a bathroom. Whilst the landlord considered the window condition as part of its damp and mould response, it failed to mention the other outstanding repairs when dealing with her complaint. Although this may have formed the basis of an earlier complaint which was dealt with at stage 1 of its complaint process in August 2023, the landlord’s failure to mention or address these further represented a significant failure in service from the landlord. The resident later informed the resident that she had been forced to complete these works at her own cost due to the landlord’s lack of communication. The landlord’s failure to respond to these points when dealing with the resident’s complaint represented a significant failing which the landlord has failed to offer redress for.
  7. The resident also raised concerns with the conduct of contractors completing repairs in the property. These included the language used by an operative, as well as missed appointments, and a contractor coming out when the appointments had not been arranged.
  8. The Ombudsman is unable to conclusively establish what was said between a contractor and a resident where there is no documentary evidence. However, we would expect a landlord to investigate a resident’s concerns and advise them of the outcome of these investigations. The landlord advised the resident that it had considered the resident’s allegations and fed this back to the relevant parties. While this was fair and the landlord would be limited in the level of feedback it would be able to offer on personnel matters, it is unreasonable that it failed to offer assurance on how it would attempt to reduce the likelihood of such an event happening in future, particularly given the resident’s concerns were about language that was not inclusive and likely to cause distress.
  9. The landlord considered the missed appointments as part of its offer of compensation, awarding the resident a total of £150 for these missed appointments. The landlord’s records do not indicate the exact number of missed appointments, but it was fair of the landlord to award compensation in recognition of the time and trouble these events will have caused the resident.
  10. The resident has informed the Ombudsman that the works to replace the windows and deal with the damp and mould in the property remain outstanding. This represents a clear failure from the landlord to fulfil commitments made in its stage 2 complaint response, more than 3 months after the complaints process was exhausted.
  11. The landlord offered the resident a total of £800 compensation for these matters. This represented £150 for the missed appointments plus £650 for distress and inconvenience, although this payment was also in recognition of distress and inconvenience caused by loss of heating and hot water. Whilst it was appropriate for the landlord to acknowledge faults and pay compensation, accordingly, given the extent of the failings over a period of almost a year and the likely impact of these on the resident’s living condition, the level of compensation was insufficient. Further, the landlord has failed to fulfil commitments made in its stage 2 complaint response to adequately deal with the damp and mould or decide how it would resolve the poor condition of the windows. The landlord’s handling of this matter therefore represented maladministration.

The landlord’s handling of reports of no heating and hot water in the property

  1. The landlord’s repair policy states that for emergency repairs, these are ‘to be attended and completed within 4 hours’. It also has a timescale for emergency repairs outside of normal working hours which it states ‘will be attended within 4 hours and made safe within 24 hours’. As part of its compensation policy, the landlord states that it will provide compensation at £5 for each day where there is a total loss of mains water.
  2. A boiler leak was first reported to the landlord on 18 October 2023, but it failed to attend this until 21 October 2023. It is unclear of the exact time that this was reported by the resident and if this would fall inside working hours, but the landlord failed to respond within either its normal working hours or out of hours timescales. This was a clear failure in service from the landlord.
  3. It took the landlord until 1 November 2023 to complete the repair and restore functioning hot water to the property. The issue was caused by a defective water combination valve which the landlord needed to replace.
  4. To complete the repair, the landlord needed to order a new valve. This inevitably caused some delay as the landlord needed to order, and receive, a new part. However, the landlord failed to consider whether there were interim heating and hot water options in the meantime. It internally noted considering the resident for a decant, whilst she asked if the landlord would move her and her children to a hotel whilst she remained without hot water. There is no evidence that the landlord took any steps or assessment towards considering this. There was a vulnerable child in the property at the time and the landlord does not appear to have taken this into consideration in its decision-making. The landlord’s failure to properly consider the temporary alternative accommodation request was unreasonable.
  5. The landlord offered the resident £168 compensation for the time she was left without hot water and heating in the property. This is an equivalent to £12 per day, higher than the customary £5 per day figure quoted in the landlord’s compensation policy. The landlord also included distress and inconvenience for ‘the delays in progressing repairs’ for the ‘water and heating issue’ as part of the £650 compensation it offered in its stage 2 complaint response.
  6. Whilst the distress and inconvenience payment does not refer solely to the delays in handling the reports of no heating and hot water, this (alongside the £168 outage amount) was a reasonable offer of redress from the landlord for this aspect of her complaint. This is within a range that the Ombudsman would recommend for failings that have adversely affected a resident which was appropriate given 2-week period that the resident was without heating and hot water.

The landlord’s handling of the associated complaint

  1. The landlord’s complaint policy has 2 stages. At stage 1 of the complaints process, it says it will log complaints within 5 working days and provide a full stage 1 complaint response within 10 days. At stage 2 of the complaints process, the landlord says it will provide its complaint response within 20 working days of the request being received. The landlord adds that there may be occasions where it will require extensions to provide these complaint responses, but that it will communicate this to residents.
  2. At stage 1 of the complaints process, there were significant delays in the landlord providing its complaint responses. The resident first raised a complaint on 23 October 2023, and it took the landlord until 5 March 2024 to provide its stage 1 response. This was around 4 months outside of its complaints policy. The landlord’s delay in providing this, coupled with a failure to communicate about those delays, led to the resident raising additional complaints. This inevitably caused additional distress and inconvenience to the resident.
  3. The resident escalated her complaint to stage 2 of the complaints process on 8 March 2024 and the landlord provided its stage 2 complaint response on 16 May 2024. This was again outside of the timescales specified in the landlord’s complaints policy.
  4. The landlord recognised through its complaint responses that there had been failures in its service and offered the resident £300 compensation. It did not increase this amount between its stage1 and 2 responses despite the additional delay of more than a month at stage 2.
  5. Nevertheless, the landlord’s apology and compensation offer of £300 represented a reasonable offer of redress and was in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance for situations where delays have adversely impacted a resident.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of outstanding repairs, including damp and mould in the property.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 53b of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was reasonable redress in the landlord’s handling of the reports of no heating and hot water in the property.
  3. 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. Writes to the resident to:
      1. apologise for the failings identified in this report;
      2. update her on its plan for the renewal and/or repair to windows, including a timescale of when it expects these to be complete;
      3. advise her how it intends to ensure that its contractors’ staff are trained not to use inclusive and sensitive language.
    2. Pays the resident compensation of £1,000 (inclusive of its previous offer of £650 for distress and inconvenience and £150 for missed appointments) for the failures in its handling the reports of outstanding repairs, including damp and mould in the resident’s property.
    3. Performs a new damp and mould survey of the resident’s property, including a diagnosis of the cause of damp and mould. Within 2 weeks of this being completed, the landlord should provide an inspection report to the resident and the Ombudsman, including an action plan of what works it will complete and a schedule for completing these.
  2. Within 2 weeks of providing its plans for completion of window and damp and mould related works, the landlord should assess what additional compensation it will pay for any ongoing distress and inconvenience caused to the resident from the date of the stage 2 complaint response to the projected completion date of the outstanding works. It should write to the resident with a breakdown of this compensation.
  3. The landlord must reply to this Service with evidence of compliance with these orders within the timescales set out above.

Recommendations

  1. If it has not already done so, the landlord should pay the resident the £468 compensation offered in its stage 2 complaint response for its failures in handling the complaint and the reports of loss of hot water and heating. The Ombudsman’s reasonable redress decisions are made on the basis that this amount is paid.