Notting Hill Genesis (202440517)

Back to Top

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202440517

Notting Hill Genesis (NHG)

23 July 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:
    1. The resident’s reports of a faulty shower.
    2. The resident’s complaint.

Background

  1. The resident has an assured tenancy which began on 22 December 2014. The property is a 4-bed house. Landlord records show that the resident’s wife is a wheelchair user with physical and mental health vulnerabilities.
  2. On 28 September 2024, the resident reported a fault with his shower which caused a leak in the bathroom. The landlord raised an emergency works order to attend and make safe. However, the landlord did not attend as it failed to obtain an out-of-hours contractor.
  3. The landlord raised a further works order on 30 September 2024 to repair the shower. The resident chased this with the landlord on 1 October 2024 as he still had no use of a shower. The landlord repaired the shower on 4 October 2024.
  4. The resident raised a stage 1 complaint on 4 October 2024 about the landlord’s management of the shower repair. He said the landlord had not considered his wife’s vulnerability or the severity of the problem.
  5. The landlord provided its stage 1 response on 26 November 2024 in which it acknowledged the delay in the repair and offered compensation of £100. The resident was not happy with the outcome of the complaint and requested an escalation to stage 2 on 27 November 2024.
  6. On 9 December 2024, the resident reported another fault with the shower. A contractor attended on 17 December 2024 and suggested follow on works to repair the shower.
  7. The landlord provided a stage 2 response on 9 January 2025 in which it upheld the complaint. The landlord acknowledged the delays in carrying out both shower repairs and confirmed follow on works for the next day. The landlord increased its compensation offer to £500 (including £50 for complaint handling).
  8. A contractor attended on 10 January 2025 and repaired the shower by re-setting the pump. The resident confirmed it as working in an email dated 13 January 2025.
  9. The resident remained unhappy with the landlord’s response and brought it to this Service for further review.  

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. Following the shower repair on 10 January 2025, the resident reported a further fault with the shower on 29 January 2025. The resident raised a complaint, the date of which is unclear, regarding this repair and the landlord provided a stage 1 response on 10 April 2025.
  2. We can only investigate issues that have completed the landlord’s complaint process. Therefore, our investigation will focus solely on the events between 28 September 2024 and the end of the complaint process on 9 January 2025. Should the resident remain dissatisfied with the outcome of his new complaint, he can escalate it to the Ombudsman once he has exhausted the landlord’s complaints process.

Shower repairs

  1. The landlord’s repair policy says that it should attend emergency repairs within 4 hours. The landlord raised the relevant works order on Saturday 28 September 2024 as an emergency repair due to the report of a leak caused by the shower fault. The notes from this works order show that the landlord cancelled the works order less than 90 minutes after raising it. The landlord’s actions were unreasonable given the concerns around a leak in the property.
  2. It is understandable that a landlord can struggle to find out-of-hours engineers to attend such repairs. However, it would be reasonable for the landlord to seek alternative contractors or methods by which to make safe the situation in the resident’s property given its emergency repair obligations.
  3. The landlord has not provided any evidence to show that it made such attempts once the initially named contractor was unable to attend. Instead, the resident had to wait until 2 days later to make a new request for a repair. This was an unreasonable delay which left the resident to deal with a potential health and safety hazard in their property. This was a service failure on the part of the landlord.
  4. Although the landlord raised a new works order on Monday 30 September 2024, it only assigned a standard response time to the works order. In doing so, it failed to acknowledge that there was still a potential health and safety concern that it should address. As the landlord raised the initial works order as an emergency and then did not attend, it was unreasonable to reduce the urgency of the job.
  5. Given the initial failure to attend as an emergency and that the landlord was aware of vulnerabilities in the property, it should have prioritised the repair on 30 September 2024. Instead, the repair took an additional 4 days, meaning the resident (and their household) was without use of bathing facilities for 7 days in total. This demonstrates a lack of consideration for the individual circumstances of the resident and his family.
  6. In situations such as the loss of bathing facilities, although the landlord’s repair policy may allow up to 20 working days for a standard repair, the impact on a resident over such a period can be significant. A landlord should use its discretion, especially in the case of vulnerable residents, to ensure that it appropriately prioritises repairs. Within its stage 1 response dated 26 November 2024, the landlord said that it had learned from its failings.
  7. When the resident made a further report of a shower fault on 9 December 2024, the landlord again recorded it as a standard repair. Despite being aware of previous issues and vulnerabilities at the property, the landlord did not repair the shower until 10 January 2025, some 22 working days later. Although parts and follow-on works were necessary, this was an unreasonable delay.
  8. Within the stage 2 response, the landlord found that a delay in approving a quote contributed to the overall delay. This demonstrates a lack of adequate oversight of high priority works and proper consideration of the household circumstances. The delay left the resident and his family in the unenviable position of being without bathing facilities for 32 days. This was a significant service failing by the landlord which inevitably caused the resident and his family distress and inconvenience.
  9. Ultimately, the landlord failed to manage either repair with the urgency required. The landlord should have been able to utilise alternative contractors when it could not initially attend the emergency repair. After it claimed to have learned from the initial delays, the landlord then failed to manage the next repair appropriately and took even longer to complete the recommended works. The landlord did not show adequate consideration to the resident and his family and left them in the undignified position of not being able to bathe and without an alternative method by which to do so.
  10. When addressing the stage 2 complaint, the landlord apologised for the delays and offered compensation of £450 for the failings linked to the shower repair. This offer was in line with Housing Ombudsman remedies guidance for a case where there have been landlord failings that had an adverse impact on a resident. This was the case here given the errors made by the landlord which caused significant distress and inconvenience to the resident over several weeks. The level of compensation was therefore appropriate given the circumstances of the case alongside the apology and the landlord’s commitment to learn lessons in line with our dispute resolution principles.
  11. Considering the failings identified in this report and the landlord’s actions to put things right, the Ombudsman finds that it offered reasonable redress. This may have been a finding of maladministration had the landlord not taken steps to acknowledge and provide redress for its failings. The finding does not mean the Ombudsman thinks the landlord’s handling of the shower repairs, or impact on the resident, was ‘reasonable.’ The finding reflects that there were considerable failings by the landlord which it acknowledged and offered compensation for in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance.

The resident’s complaint

  1. The landlord’s complaint policy says it should acknowledge stage 1 complaints within 5 working days and provide a response within 10 working days. This Service has not had sight of the landlord sending an acknowledgement to the resident at stage 1. The landlord’s stage 1 response then took 38 working days – this was a few weeks outside of the timeframe set out in its policy. This was a service failing on the part of the landlord.
  2. The landlord’s complaint policy says that it should acknowledge stage 2 complaints within 5 working days and provide a response within 20 working days. Despite providing an acknowledgement in the right timeframe, the response from the landlord took 29 working days with no update provided to the resident. This was another service failing on the part of the landlord.
  3. Within the stage 2 response, the landlord acknowledged its complaint handling delays. It proposed compensation of £50 for these failings. This was proportionate and in line with our remedies guidance for service failings of a short duration that do not affect the overall outcome for the resident. We therefore conclude that the landlord offered reasonable redress.

Determination (decision)

  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 a faulty shower.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 53b of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was reasonable redress in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint.

Recommendations

  1. If it has not already done so, the landlord should pay the resident the compensation amounts of £450 (for the impact caused by the shower repairs) and £50 (for its complaint handling) that it offered through the complaints process. The Ombudsman’s reasonable redress decisions are made on the basis that these amounts are paid.