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London Borough of Camden Council (202419803)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202419803

London Borough of Camden Council

30 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 response to the resident’s reports of a reoccurring leak through a communal roof into his living room and hallway.

Background

  1. The resident is a secure tenant of the landlord. He lives in a 1-bedroom flat on the top floor of a block of flats. The landlord recognises him as an enhanced tenant which means it will prioritise appointments, where available, because he is disabled and/or vulnerable.
  2. On 30 October 2023, the resident complained that he had been experiencing a leak through his living room and hallway ceilings regularly since 2007. He said:
    1. he had reported the leak in 2015, 2017, 2019, 2020, and 2022 but the landlord did not thoroughly investigate the cause.
    2. he had contacted his housing officer to report the most recent occurrence on 20 October 2023, but nothing was done until a week later, when he was asked to log a repair with the relevant team.
    3. he was living in fear of his ceiling collapsing and inconvenienced by having to use pans to collect the rainwater.

The resident asked the landlord to repair the roof urgently.

  1. The landlord issued its stage 1 response on 17 November 2023. It said it was only considering the resident’s reports from the previous 12 months because this was in line with its complaints policy. The landlord confirmed it had found failings in its handling of the repairs because:
    1. it was unable to establish that repairs to the communal green roof (also known as a living roof) was completed after the resident reported a recurrence of the leak in September 2022.
    2. its roofer did not undertake a thorough inspection of the roof following the resident’s more recent report because it said a repairs manager found defects they had not.

The landlord confirmed the repairs had been booked for 8 January 2024 and would be post-inspected. It said it was unable to guarantee this would resolve the issue and if not would then carry out a more in-depth investigation.

  1. Later, the resident escalated his complaint on 15 March 2024. He said this was because:
    1. the repairs that were completed at the postponed January 2024 appointment were not effective.
    2. he was unable to use his living room because it smelt of damp.

The resident said he had been caused increased energy bills, damage to his wooden floor, and that the situation had triggered his asthma.

  1. In the landlord’s stage 2 response, dated 17 April 2024, it acknowledged further failings had happened since its stage 1 response. This was that repairs scheduled for 15 April 2024 were not completed because the operative who attended was not a roofer. The landlord apologised for the further delay. It awarded £200 compensation for the impact on the resident’s living conditions and gave details about how to make an insurance claim. However, it advised that at each inspection of the resident’s ceiling it was found to be dry. It said this showed the leak was intermittent rather than ongoing.
  2. After the complaints process ended, the landlord completed a repair to the roof and cleared drain outlets in late-May 2024. It also used a damp meter on the resident’s living room ceiling and noted that there were no high readings. The resident reported another leak affecting the same area around 4 months later. According to the repair logs, the landlord completed some repairs and left the roof “watertight”.
  3. The resident referred his complaint to the Ombudsman because he said the landlord had not fixed the problem. He said the stress of the situation had affected his physical and mental health. He advised us that he is seeking the landlord to renew the roof.

 

 

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. The resident has raised concerns about a reoccurring leak from the communal roof over a 17-year period. The repair logs provided only go back to 2013. These show the resident has been reporting the problem from at least September 2015. While we recognise the problem is longstanding, there are time limits on what the Ombudsman may investigate. This is because the evidence that may have existed at the time may not be available or as reliable. There were also often long gaps of 1 year or more between the resident reporting leaks, which indicates it was not a continuous problem. We have largely focused our investigation on the 12 months before the resident complained until the landlord’s final response in April 2024.
  2. In the resident’s correspondence with this Service, he said the roof was still leaking when it rains. In the interest of fairness, we have limited the scope of this investigation to the issues raised during the resident’s formal complaint. This is because the landlord needs a fair opportunity to investigate and respond to any new issues before we do. We do though recommend that the landlord contacts the resident to discuss and investigate any more recent occurrences of the leak. In this investigation, we will consider if the landlord has completed actions it agreed in its complaint responses and whether it did so in a timely manner.
  3. The resident said living with damp from the leak caused his health to worsen and damaged his wooden flooring. The courts or a personal injury insurer are the most effective place to consider whether there is a link between damage to someone’s health and the actions or inactions of the landlord. Insurers are also better placed, in this case, to decide if the landlord is liable for any damage to the resident’s flooring. We will, however, consider if the landlord responded appropriately to the resident’s reports of damages.

Reoccurring leak

  1. In his October 2023 complaint the resident said that no repairs had been completed after he last reported the occurrence the year before. Records confirm this was on 13 September 2022.
  2. The landlord has a legal obligation to complete a repair within a ‘reasonable’ timescale. Numerous factors can affect what is a reasonable timescale, such as the nature, complexity, and cost of the work. We also recognise that some issues will need to first be inspected to diagnose the problem. In such cases, we would expect a landlord to complete inspections within a reasonable time. It should then complete any repairs identified within timescales specified in its repairs policy.
  3. According to the landlord’s repairs policy, the landlord would deal with routine, non-urgent repairs within 20 working days. It states that complex repairs involving “specialist works” would be completed “within an agreed timescale.” The repair logs show the landlord inspected the roof on 5 October 2022. This was 14 working days after the report, which was timely and within the routine timescale. The roofer noted that the issue was possibly from the green roof system and that it may be under warranty. The records state the matter was going to be referred to its complex works team. If the landlord did refer the matter, we have not been provided evidence of this.
  4. In the stage 1 response, from mid-November 2023, the landlord acknowledged that there was no evidence of any repairs being completed. The landlord said that, while this was the case, it was dry enough for the living room lights to be reinstated on 30 June 2023. The evidence supports that, apart from a second report the resident made in January 2023, there were no other reports from the resident of the leak recurring. Like the landlord, we are unable to know if this is because it failed to complete a repair or failed to record its actions. Either way it is a failing that it cannot demonstrate it met its repair obligations.
  5. Prior to the stage 1 response, the records show that an electrician attended and made the electrics safe on 20 October 2023, the day the resident reported the leak. It did so within its emergency response timescale of 24 hours, which was appropriate given the potential risk. There were then 2 inspections of the roof. This included from a senior roofer on 8 November 2023 who identified defects to the flashing around a tank room above the resident’s property. The landlord advised in its response that it would complete the repairs on 8 January 2023, which it said was the earliest it had capacity to. We have seen that the landlord’s repair logs referenced the fact the resident was an enhanced tenant. In the circumstances, 2 months instead of 20 working days was not an unreasonable amount of time for the repairs given the landlord’s availability.
  6. It said it was unable to guarantee that the repairs identified would resolve the issue. While we recognise this may have been disappointing, it was appropriate to set the resident’s expectations. It was also not unreasonable given that leaks into a home can sometimes be challenging to identify and fix and may in some cases take multiple attempts.
  7. The resident asked to escalate his complaint in mid-March 2024 because he said there had been delays with the repairs. He also said the leak was unresolved. After the initial response, the repair logs show the repairs were completed on 24 January 2024. This was over 2 weeks after they were originally scheduled to take place. Based on the records seen, the appointment was changed at the resident’s request. We are unable to then hold the landlord responsible for the repair being slightly delayed. However, there were avoidable delays caused by the landlord in its response to the resident’s report in late February 2024 that the leak was not resolved. This was due to 2 separate appointments needing to be rescheduled because the operative was either not able to access the roof or was not a roofer. The landlord appropriately took accountability for this delay in the stage 2 response from mid-April 2024, which up to that point was already 16 working days over its routine timescale.
  8. It was reasonable, in view of the delay, that the landlord completed both an inspection and repair only 12 working days after the final response. The repair logs state this included liquid coating of a crack on the flat roof. They also record that the resident’s ceiling was inspected again with a damp meter and there were no readings of damp. Again, it was appropriate to reinspect inside the property given the history.
  9. In his escalation, the resident said he was unable to use his living room because of damp from the leak. When a tenant reports not being able to use a room because of an outstanding repair we would expect a landlord to investigate this. In some cases, there may be grounds to consider an award for loss of amenity. The landlord advised in its final response that the operative who attended on 25 March 2024, after the resident escalated his complaint, inspected the ceiling using a damp meter. And that they found no damp. The repair logs support this account. The landlord’s explanation that this indicated that the leak was intermittent rather than continuous was therefore reasonable. There is also no evidence, that we have seen, that the living room was found to be unusable.
  10. The resident told the landlord that his wooden flooring had been damaged and his heating costs had increased. He also indicated his asthma had been affected. The landlord provided a link to its website explaining how to claim against it for both damage to property and personal injury. This was appropriate because its remedies policy states that it will not consider “remedies that could be settled by insurance claims”.
  11. It was apparent from the resident’s correspondence that he had been caused distress. In his initial complaint he said he was worried about leaving the flat when it rained. He added in his escalation that he was also concerned about his living conditions impacting his health and belongings. In the circumstances, it was appropriate for the landlord to consider awarding compensation for the distress the resident was caused from its acknowledged service failings. Its award of £200 was at the lower end of the range the remedies policy states it will pay for distress. This is also at the lower part of the scale the Ombudsman’s guidance on remedies recommends for failings that have adversely affected a resident. It was not proportionate to the impact and duration of the landlord’s failings, which were:
    1. not being able to demonstrate it completed a repair to the roof in the          13 months between the resident’s reports in September 2022 and October 2023.
    2. delaying the further inspection by around a month after the resident’s report in February 2024.
  12. The resident advised that the problem has recurred since the landlord’s repair. This is supported by records the landlord shared which show this was reported in September and December 2024. Clearly the issue is complex, and the fact that the problem was not resolved is itself not necessarily an indication of a failing in this case. We would expect to see that the landlord was proactively continuing with its investigations to identify and resolve the root cause of the problem. The repair logs show it carried out repairs in late October 2024, including sealing joints between the flat roof and masonry. However, there is no evidence, that we have seen, of any further inspection or repairs. We do not know if and how the landlord responded to the last report. As such, we have ordered the landlord to confirm if and how it did, and to explain the next stage of its investigation should the problem reoccur.
  13. In December 2024, the Ombudsman published a special report highlighting common failings we identified through our investigations into complaints about the landlord. These included poor record keeping of repairs, poor communication with residents awaiting repairs, and not meeting timescales. We made several recommendations in our special report for the landlord to improve in these areas. Because of this we have not made any orders around learning or service improvement in general. However, we encourage the landlord to take learning from the findings in this investigation and consider these in any ongoing work it is doing to improve its service.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of a reoccurring leak through a communal roof into his living room and hallway.

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks of this report the landlord is to provide evidence to the Ombudsman that it has completed the following actions:
    1. paid the resident £400 compensation.

If the landlord has already paid the compensation of £200 offered, this may be deducted, leaving £200 to pay.

  1. confirmed to the resident and us what action it took in response to his report in December 2024. It should also explain what action it will take next should the problem reoccur.

Recommendation

  1. The landlord should consider contacting the resident to discuss any current concerns/issues relating to the roof leak.