Stonewater Limited (202336531)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202336531

Stonewater Limited

10 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 reports of water ingress at the property.

Background

  1. The resident holds an assured tenancy.
  2. The resident is disabled and suffers from panic attacks. The resident’s daughter lives in the property and is autistic.
  3. The resident experienced a leak in November 2022 which the landlord resolved in February 2023. The resident contacted the landlord on 22 November 2023 to raise a complaint about a new leak as water patches had emerged on her ceiling. She also reported an issue with her back door not closing correctly.
  4. The landlord raised a work order on 4 December 2023 to deal with the water ingress. The resident reported to the landlord on 8 December 2023 that water was coming through the ceiling in her daughter’s bedroom.
  5. The landlord provided its stage 1 complaint response on 11 December 2023. This response failed to make mention of the ongoing water ingress, instead referring to the November 2022 leak. It offered the resident £475 for delays completing works and for the inconvenience in relation to this and the back door.
  6. The resident continued to report water ingress throughout December 2023. The landlord attended on various occasions but was unable to determine the cause of the leak or stop this.
  7. The resident escalated her complaint to stage 2 of the complaints process on 2 January 2024. She was unhappy that water was continuing to pour through the ceiling in her daughter’s room. She did not escalate the door issue. The landlord agreed to temporarily move the resident on 4 January 2024.
  8. The landlord provided its stage 2 complaint response on 8 February 2024. It upheld the complaint, increasing its compensation offer to £1,125. This consisted of £25 for delays in providing the stage 2 response, £50 for poor communication, £50 for complaint handling failures and £1,000 for the distress and inconvenience of the situation. It also said that it had fixed the leak on 14 January 2024 and booked in remedial works to repair the damage on 10 February 2024 and 14 February 2024.
  9. The resident contacted the Ombudsman on 19 February 2024 to ask us to consider her complaint. She felt that the landlord’s repair was insufficient and there was a potential for further leaks and water ingress in the future. She said that she remained in a hotel as the landlord had not finished remedial works.
  10. The resident’s temporary accommodation ended on 5 April 2024. The landlord awarded the resident a further £490 compensation in response to a complaint raised on 17 February 2024. The resident reported in December 2024 that the leak had re-emerged.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. The evidence provided by the landlord suggests that, following the conclusion of the complaints process, there were additional delays in it completing the necessary remedial works. However, the resident raised a new complaint on 17 February 2024 which the landlord dealt with at stage 1 of its complaints process. It provided the resident with £490 additional compensation for this in May 2024. We have seen no evidence that this complaint then exhausted the landlord’s complaints process.
  2. A further complaint regarding the new leak in December 2024 was also made by the resident. This exhausted the landlord’s complaints process in February 2025.
  3. Given the resident brought her original complaint to us in February 2024 and we are unable to consider matters that have not exhausted a landlord’s complaints process, we have not assessed the landlord’s handling of the additional complaints made after 8 February 2024. The resident may wish to escalate the matters to the Ombudsman if she is still dissatisfied despite the February 2025 final complaint response. The Ombudsman has not considered any delays in the landlord completing remedial works after the February 2024 final complaint response.

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of water ingress at the property

  1. The landlord’s repair policy states that it will deliver ’emergency repairs’ – which it describes as ‘those which pose a threat to the safety of our customers, their homes or their communities’ – within a maximum of 24 hours from receiving notification. For non-emergency repairs, the landlord said it will complete these within a maximum period of 28 days. Any major repairs, where there is a significant amount of work required beyond the original repair, the landlord would complete these within a maximum of 42 days.
  2. The landlord initially failed to respond appropriately to the resident’s reports of new water ingress. The resident wrote to the landlord complaining about this on 22 November 2023. The landlord failed to raise a job for this until 4 December 2023, 12 days later. This was outside of the timescales for a repair job of this nature as described by the landlord’s repairs policy and represented service failure from the landlord.
  3. The landlord’s records demonstrate that it raised several jobs in relation to the water ingress between December 2023 and January 2024. However, its records do not demonstrate exactly what actions it took in relation to these jobs, nor does this information clearly outline the landlord’s plan for investigating or repairing the water ingress. The landlord does not appear to have performed any formal survey of the problem at that point.
  4. The evidence available suggests that the landlord managed these repairs poorly. It did not have a clear plan for diagnosing, and resolving, the leak. The landlord did not promptly escalate or take reasonable steps to determine the cause of the leak after initial inspections failed to diagnose the fault. It appears that contractors attended on multiple occasions, but it took the landlord until 25 January 2024 to locate the cause. This was over 2 months after the resident first reported the water ingress. This demonstrated a clear failure to efficiently investigate the resident’s reports.
  5. The landlord’s internal communication includes a report from a site visit on 25 January 2024. This says that blocked downpipes and hoppers had caused overflow. It also said it had completed roof repairs, although it believed (due to the resident’s position on the ground floor) that this may not have been a direct cause of ingress to the resident’s property. The landlord said it believed the blockages were the most likely cause of the ingress, however that it could also have been the balconies from the flats above. It said it had been unable to investigate these due to the neighbours not responding to letters requesting access.
  6. The landlord said in its stage 2 complaint response that it repaired the cause of the water ingress on 14 January 2024. However, its records do not indicate exactly what works it performed on this date. The landlord’s reports from a site visit on 25 January 2024 suggest however that it had located the cause of the leak and performed the necessary repairs to stop this. This site visit took place 64 days after the resident first reported the repair. This represented a failure from the landlord to complete the necessary repair in the timescales outlined its repair policy.
  7. The landlord’s stage 2 complaint response listed 14 February 2024 as the date that it was due to have completed the remedial repairs to put things right following the ingress. This was approximately 84 days after the resident first reported water ingress to it. This fell significantly outside of the timescales the landlord outlined in its complaints policy.
  8. The landlord’s decant policy states that when a customer is moved to accommodation that has less facilities than their current home, it will offer a disturbance payment of £20 per person per day to cover any additional expenses that may be incurred through lack of facilities that would usually be available to them in their home. The landlord’s policy also says that it can pay discretionary compensation for various reasons, including ‘to cover additional travel expenses’.
  9. The landlord temporarily moved the resident for 92 days, approximately 13 weeks. This started on 4 January 2024. By this time, the resident had been experiencing water ingress to her property for 43 days. The landlord failed to evidence that it considered the vulnerabilities of the residents. The resident’s daughter was unable to use her bedroom due to water ingress from the ceiling. Given the resident’s vulnerability, as well as her daughter’s, the landlord should have considered the need for a temporary move at an earlier stage.
  10. Once the landlord moved the resident it was fair in its handling of the matter. The landlord was flexible to her concerns, allowing her to change location to one closer to her home. It also agreed, in line with its policy, to pay the resident for any additional petrol expenditure that was the result of being in a different location. These both represented good practice from the landlord.
  11. The disturbance payment that the landlord’s policy makes mention of would not be applicable in this case. This is due to the fact that the landlord placed the resident in an Airbnb that had cooking facilities. The landlord did however recognise that the move had caused the resident distress and inconvenience in its stage 2 complaint response. The landlord considered the distress and inconvenience caused within its overall offer of compensation.
  12. The resident has contacted the Ombudsman in December 2024 to say that a new leak emerged. This was 11 months after the landlord said it fixed the initial cause of water ingress. Given the length of time between the instances of water ingress, the Ombudsman is unable to make a conclusive finding that this represented an ongoing issue caused by the landlord’s failure to resolve the November 2023 leak correctly.
  13. The resident also mentioned to the Ombudsman that her insurance would not pay for a sofa that was damaged by the water ingress. Although she did not raise this as part of her complaint, the Ombudsman recommends that the landlord writes to the resident providing information on its insurer and how the resident can make a claim for any possessions damaged.
  14. The landlord’s stage 1 complaint response failed to address the ingress the resident was experiencing at the time, instead focusing on a leak that occurred almost a year earlier. It ignored the water ingress that was ongoing at the time. In doing so, it failed to raise the necessary jobs to help rectify the new leak the resident was experiencing. The failure of the landlord to properly consider this undoubtedly led to additional delays in stopping the water ingress.
  15. The landlord’s stage 2 complaint response increased its offer of compensation to £1,125. For the distress and inconvenience that the resident experienced, the landlord offered her £1,000 compensation. It also awarded £125 for its failures in handling her complaint and poor communications. The landlord recognised that it had fallen short in its handling of these issues, providing an apology and acknowledging the likely affect on the resident’s wellbeing.
  16. The landlord’s compensation award represented a reasonable offer of redress for its failings. The compensation figure falls in the range that the Ombudsman would expect given the extent of its failings. This offer is in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance which recommends figures at this level where there have been failings by a landlord which ‘had a significant impact on the resident’. Given the delays were over several months and led a vulnerable household to have to temporarily move out of their property, it was proportionate for the landlord to award this level of compensation.

Determination

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

Recommendations

  1. If it has not already done so, the landlord should pay the resident the £1,125 compensation that it offered in its stage 2 complaint response on 8 February 2024. The Ombudsman’s reasonable redress finding is made on the basis that this amount is paid.
  2. The landlord should write to the resident providing information on its insurer and how the resident can make a liability claim for any possessions damaged by the water ingress.