London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham (202340806)
|
Decision |
|
|
Case ID |
202340806 |
|
Decision type |
Investigation |
|
Landlord |
London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham |
|
Landlord type |
Local Authority / ALMO or TMO |
|
Occupancy |
Secure Tenancy |
|
Date |
28 November 2025 |
Background
- The resident lived in a maisonette in a terraced house until December 2024. The property shared a communal entrance with external steps leading down to the pavement. The resident has sickle cell disease which can affect mobility. She also has a visual impairment. The landlord is aware of the resident’s vulnerabilities. The resident complained that the landlord had not completed a repair to a communal post box. It had delayed in resolving an external leak. The water from the leak had frozen and she had fallen on the ice.
What the complaint is about
- The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s:
- Reports of communal repairs including an external leak and a post box repair.
- Associated complaint.
Our decision (determination)
- There was maladministration by the landlord in its handling of communal repairs, including an external leak and a post box repair.
- There was maladministration by the landlord in its handling of the resident’s complaint.
We have made orders for the landlord to put things right.
Summary of reasons
- In summary, the Ombudsman found that the landlord:
Communal repairs
- Failed to monitor the communal repairs via its regular inspections. It also failed to consider its obligations under the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS). It unreasonably delayed in investigating and tracing the external leak. Its failure to resolve the leak within a reasonable timeframe left the resident feeling unsafe each time she left her property.
Complaint handling
- Delayed in acknowledging the resident’s complaint at stage 2. It did not identify all the failures in this case.
Putting things right
Where we find service failure, maladministration or severe maladministration we can make orders for the landlord to put things right. We have the discretion to make recommendations in all other cases within our jurisdiction.
Orders
Landlords must comply with our orders in the manner and timescales we specify. The landlord must provide documentary evidence of compliance with our orders by the due date set.
|
Order |
What the landlord must do |
Due date |
|
1 |
Apology order The landlord must apologise in writing to the resident for the failures identified in this report. The landlord must ensure:
|
No later than 07 January 2026 |
|
2 |
Compensation order The landlord must pay the resident £750 made up as follows:
This must be paid directly to the resident by the due date. The landlord must provide documentary evidence of payment by the due date. The landlord may deduct from the total figure any payments it has already paid. |
No later than 07 January 2026 |
Our investigation
The complaint procedure
|
Date |
What happened |
|
24 January 2024 |
The resident complained to the landlord that she had fallen due to ice formed from a leak in the communal area. The leak was also damaging letters in a post box. She had no contact with her housing officer |
|
25 January 2024 |
The landlord acknowledged the resident’s complaint |
|
1 February 2024 |
The landlord sent its stage 1 complaint response. It provided details of its insurer in response to the resident’s fall. It had completed works to the post box. It would attend again to the post box and to the leak in 20 working days. There was no housing officer. There was no service failure. |
|
5 February 2024 |
The resident asked the landlord to escalate her complaint. |
|
14 February 2024 |
The landlord acknowledged the resident’s escalation. |
|
5 March 2024 |
The landlord sent its stage 2 complaint response. It upheld the decision at stage 1. It had carried out works which were challenging and is still ongoing. As lessons learnt it said the repairs to resolve the leak, post box and boiler pressure issues should have taken place earlier. It offered £200 compensation for delays, distress and inconvenience, right to repair scheme, poor communication, and missed appointments. |
|
Referral to the Ombudsman |
The resident told us the landlord’s failure to rectify the leak caused her to feel unsafe each time she left the property. She was scared she might fall again. She said she felt let down by the landlord because it was aware of her vulnerabilities. As an outcome she wanted the landlord to increase the compensation. |
What we found and why
The circumstances of this complaint are well known by the parties involved, so it is not necessary to detail everything that’s happened or comment on all the information we’ve reviewed. We’ve only included the key information that forms the basis of our decision of whether the landlord is responsible for maladministration.
|
Complaint |
The landlord’s handling of communal repairs including an external leak and post box repair. |
|
Finding |
Maladministration |
- The Ombudsman doesn’t usually investigate complaints unless they were formally made to the landlord within a year of the problem happening. Further to this the landlord’s complaint policy says residents need to make complaints within 12 calendar months of the failure so that the landlord can investigate fully and fairly. In this case, the resident told us she reported the communal leak before November 2023. Although we do not disbelieve the resident we have not seen any evidence to show she raised this as a formal complaint prior to January 2024. So we’ve considered what the resident said in her complaint in January 2024 up to March 2024, which is when the landlord sent its stage 2 complaint response. This includes any actions the landlord said it would complete as an outcome to the complaint.
- The resident told us that when she fell on the ice it had injured her. It would be fairer, more reasonable and more effective for the resident to make a personal injury claim for any injury caused. The courts are best placed to deal with this type of dispute as they will have the benefit of independent medical advice to decide on the cause of any injury and how long it will last. We’ve not investigated this further. We can decide if a landlord should pay compensation for distress and inconvenience.
- The landlord said it had not been aware of the damaged post box or the external leak before the resident reported the issues in December 2023 and January 2024. The landlord should have processes in place to complete regular inspections of its communal areas. We have not seen the landlord’s estate management policy or know if one exists. We have also not seen any evidence that it inspected the communal areas of the resident’s building prior to her complaint. As the repairs were in a communal area, the resident was not required to give the landlord notice of the repair. The landlord is under an obligation to complete repairs in communal areas as soon as they arise. It should have identified the repairs as part of its regular inspections, raised the repairs, and ensured it completed them within a reasonable timeframe.
Post box
- The resident reported the repair to the communal post box on 18 December 2023. The landlord attended on 5 January 2024. It shaved the door so that it would close into the gap. This was 11 working days after the resident reported it. This would be classified as a routine repair to be completed in 20 working days. We consider 11 working days to be a reasonable timeframe.
- In its stage 1 complaint response the landlord said it would revisit the repair to the post box. It said it would complete this by 21 February 2024. When a landlord completes a repair or inspects something, we would expect it to complete a job sheet. This provides a record to show when it attended, what it checked, and what the outcome was. The landlord has not provided this for its reattendance, therefore we cannot be satisfied that it completed this visit within a reasonable timeframe or at all.
Communal leak
- The resident said she reported the communal leak in November 2023. Having considered the landlord’s records we have not seen any evidence to show the resident reported the external leak before 24 January 2024. However, we can see she told it she had fallen in December 2023, which would equate to a report.
- HHSRS lists 29 common hazards. The impacts these hazards can have, and the potential causes. The protection against accidents section includes falling on flat surfaces and external stairs. Landlords need to make sure their homes are free from hazards. When a resident reports a risk, the landlord should quickly inspect the property to check for hazards. It must determine if the home is safe and fit to live in. Ignoring hazards can lead to serious consequences for everyone involved.
- The landlord’s repair policy says the priority allocated to the work order for a repair will be determined by the type of issue being reported and the likelihood to cause harm to the resident or the property. The landlord’s classification has an urgent emergency response within 4 hours and an emergency response within 24 hours. We believe the landlord should have addressed this report in 4 hours. In this case, the landlord failed to complete an urgent inspection of the communal area. It failed to assess the risk. It failed to consider what steps it could take to reduce the risk of the same thing happening again either to the resident or others.
- In its stage 1 complaint response, the landlord said it had raised a job to investigate the leak following the resident’s call on 24 January 2024. However, the evidence shows the first job raised to investigate and trace the leak was on 31 January 2024.
- The landlord said it would complete an inspection within its 20-working day timeframe. Based on the categories of repair the landlord classified this matter as routine. However, it fitted the classification of urgent emergency response. This meant it should attend within 4 hours to make safe, whereas the landlord raised a job by 21 February 2024 (24 January 2024 plus 20 working days). There was a delay in the landlord raising the repair. An internal file note shows the landlord attended on 6 February 2024 which was within its 20 working days but outside it 4 hours repair timescale. We have not seen a copy of its inspection report from this date. However, the file note states the landlord passed the works to the gas team to resolve an issue with a neighbour’s boiler.
- The landlord raised an urgent job to attend to a leaking pressure relief valve. However, it raised this to the resident’s address and not the neighbour’s. This was incorrect because it was not what the inspection had recommended.
- The gas team attempted to complete the urgent repair on 6 February 2024 and 7 February 2024 but the resident was not available. It then attended on 4 March 2024 and 9 March 2024. On both occasions the contractor noted there was no leak from the resident’s boiler. The contractor noted the leak must be from a neighbouring property.
- It was reasonable that the landlord should want to check the resident’s boiler for a leak. However there is no evidence to show it checked the other properties in the building at this time. We cannot say it fully investigated the source of the leak at this time.
- Throughout 2024 the landlord continued to try and trace the leak. It completed at least 7 further visits to check the resident’s boiler and the cold-water tank, which it had to access via the resident’s property. Some of the visits were unannounced. This caused the resident inconvenience because she had to be available each time the landlord wanted access. It also visited neighbouring properties. However, there continued to be miscommunication between the landlord and its gas team as to which flat the leak was coming from. This caused further delays in it identifying the source of the leak.
- The resident moved out of the property around December 2024. The landlord has since confirmed it traced the leak to a neighbouring property.
- The failures outlined in this report lead us to a finding of maladministration.
- The landlord attempted to put things right by apologising to the resident, agreeing to complete the repairs, and offering compensation of £200. This does not, in the Ombudsman’s view, recognise the distress and inconvenience caused to the resident. Based on the period this issue remained outstanding and the impact, a fairer level of compensation would be £600.
|
Complaint |
The handling of the complaint |
|
Finding |
Maladministration |
- The Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (‘the Code’) sets out when and how a landlord should respond to complaints. The relevant Code in this case is the 2024 edition (April 2024). Our findings are:
- The landlord has a published complaints policy which complies with the terms of the Code in respect of timescales.
- At stage 1, the landlord acknowledged the complaint and issued its complaint response inline with its policy and the Code.
- At stage 2, the landlord should have acknowledged the complaint within 5 working days (by 12 February 2024) and issued its response within 20 working days of the acknowledgement (by 11 March 2024). There was a delay of 2 working days in the landlord acknowledging the complaint. However, it issued its stage 2 complaint response by 5 March 2024.
- The landlord failed to recognise the delay in it acknowledging the complaint at stage 2. It also didn’t acknowledge any of the failures in relation to its handling of the communal repairs, as outlined earlier in this report. This would indicate it failed to complete a thorough investigation of the resident’s complaint. This was not in line with the Code.
- In relation to the resident’s request that the landlord pay her compensation due to the injuries caused because by a fall. The landlord’s compensation policy states it does not consider cases which relate to personal injury. The landlord referred the resident to its insurers and provided contact details for its insurers at both stages of her complaint. Therefore the landlord’s response was reasonable.
- Due to the delay in it acknowledging the resident’s escalation request, its failure to acknowledge this, and other failures, in its complaint responses, there was maladministration. To reflect this we have ordered the landlord pay compensation of £150 which is inline with our remedies guidance.
Learning
- The landlord should ensure its call handling staff can recognise HHSRS issues. They should know what questions to ask and how to escalate to the relevant team for further investigation.
- The landlord should ensure it classifies repairs correctly so that it attends to them within the timescale that fits the description of the issue reported.
Knowledge and information management (record keeping)
- The landlord demonstrated good record keeping in respect of the matters we have investigated in the case.
Communication
- The resident said she had been trying to report the issues to her housing officer for approximately 3 months. As part of its complaint investigation the landlord found there had been no housing officer in the resident’s area. The landlord should have processes in place to communicate staff changes to residents as soon as personnel change to avoid such circumstances arising.