London Borough of Tower Hamlets (202435197)

Decision
Case ID	202435197
Decision type	Investigation
Landlord	London Borough of Tower Hamlets
Landlord type	Local Authority / ALMO or TMO
Occupancy	Leaseholder
Date	22 December 2025

Background

The resident and his wife are leaseholders of a ground floor flat. They have 2 young children. The landlord owns the building. A tenant of the landlord lives above the resident. The resident reported a leak of water from the flat above. The landlord did inspections and repairs, but the leak was not completely fixed by the time it gave its stage 2 response to the complaint.

What the complaint is about

The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of reports of a leak from the upstairs flat.
We have also investigated the landlord’s complaint handling.

Our decision (determination)

There was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of reports of a leak from the upstairs flat.
There was service failure in the landlord’s complaint handling.

We have made orders for the landlord to put things right.

Summary of reasons

Handling of reports of leaks

The landlord did not raise a work order to trace and remedy the leak until almost 7 weeks after the resident first reported it.
This meant repairs were not completed until 3 months after the resident first reported the leak.
After further repairs in July 2024, the resident told the landlord the leak was ongoing.
The landlord did not raise a works order for another inspection for over 10 weeks.
The landlord has not affected a lasting resolution to the leak reported by the resident.

Complaint handling

The landlord did not acknowledge the complaint at stage 2.
The stage 2 response was late.
There is no evidence of learning or service improvement as a result of the complaint.

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: The apology is provided by senior officer. The apology is specific to the failures identified in this decision, meaningful and empathetic. It has due regard to our apologies guidance.	No later than 19 January 2026
	Compensation order The landlord must pay the resident a total of £400. We break this down as: £350 for the distress and inconvenience caused to the resident by its handling of reports of leaks from the upstairs flat. £50 for its complaint handling failings. The landlord may deduct any amounts which it has paid to the resident previously and pay the outstanding balance. This must be paid directly to the resident by the due date. The landlord must provide documentary evidence of payment by the due date.	No later than 19 January 2026
	Inspection order The landlord must inspect the wet room in the upstairs flat, and the ceiling of the resident’s bathroom and toilet. It must take all reasonable steps to ensure the inspections are completed by the due date. The inspection must be completed by someone suitably qualified to complete an inspection of the type needed. If the landlord cannot gain access to complete the inspection, it must provide us with documentary evidence of its attempts to inspect the property no later than the due date. What the inspection must achieve The landlord must ensure that the surveyor: Inspects the wet room of the flat above, and other areas where the leak could possibly originate from, and the ceiling of the resident’s bathroom and toilet, and produces a written report with photographs. The survey report must set out: The most likely cause of the leak into the resident’s flat. Whether the landlord is responsible to repair or resolve the issues, together with reasons where it is not responsible. A full scope of works to achieve a lasting and effective resolution to the issue (if the landlord is responsible), taking into account the above-average use of the shower by the upstairs neighbour. The likely timescales to commence and complete the work	No later than 16 February 2026

Recommendations

Our recommendations are not binding, and a landlord may decide not to follow them.

Our recommendations
The landlord should either direct the resident to make a claim to its liability insurer for the damage to his ceiling or undertake to repair the ceiling itself.
The landlord should provide a free of charge mould wash to the resident’s bathroom and toilet ceilings as an interim goodwill measure.
The landlord should refresh its offer of £15 per week compensation made at stage 2 (reflective of the resident’s time and trouble as a result of the leak), to take into account the period from November 2024 onwards to the date of an enduring resolution.

Our investigation

The complaint procedure

Date	What happened
1 July 2024	The resident complained that: Water from the upstairs neighbour’s shower leaked through his bathroom ceiling, causing it to “crumble.” The landlord had taken photographs but not done anything else. He wanted the landlord to fix the leak and re-plaster his bathroom ceiling.
4 July 2024	The landlord acknowledged the complaint at stage 1 of its complaints process.
15 July 2024	The landlord gave a stage 1 response: It set out the steps it had already taken to resolve the leak. Its contractor would investigate further on 17 July 2024, and do more repairs if needed. It apologised for the resident’s inconvenience. It was unable to plaster the resident’s ceiling, as this was his responsibility under his lease agreement. It advised he could claim on his home contents insurance or make a claim to its own insurer if he believed it had been negligent.
22 July 2024	The resident asked to escalate the complaint to stage 2. He disagreed with the landlord’s account of the work it had done. He said he did not cause the leak so he should not have to claim on his own home contents insurance to fix the ceiling.
25 October 2024	The landlord gave a stage 2 response: It set out the steps it had taken to resolve the leak. It upheld the resident’s complaint as, despite the treatment it had carried out, the resident was still affected by the leak. After an inspection on 24 October 2024, it would do more remedial work to the flat above. It apologised for the resident’s inconvenience and offered £280 compensation broken down as follows: – £255 for the resident’s time and trouble, calculated at £15 per week between 1 July 2024 and 13 November 2024, excluding a reasonable turnaround time of 20 days. – £25 for its delay in responding at stage 2.
Referral to the Ombudsman	The resident asked us to investigate as he was not happy with the landlord’s response. He said the leak has been intermittently ongoing up to at least 12 December 2025, with gaps when the upstairs neighbour had been away from home for months at a time. The leak had recently spread to the ceiling of the toilet, an adjacent room. He and his wife were concerned that the water-damaged ceiling would fall on their children when they were in the bath, and they were also concerned about the impact on the children of mould growth on the ceiling.

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	Handling of reports of a leak from the upstairs flat.
Finding	Maladministration

The terms of the resident’s lease say he is responsible for repairing and maintaining his own flat, including the ceiling plaster. However, the landlord is responsible for repairs to the structure of the building and communal areas, and the upstairs flat, which is occupied by one of its tenants. The landlord’s responsive repairs policy said it would do routine repairs within 20 working days. If a pre-inspection was needed this was not included in the 20-working day target. It would attend emergencies (for example uncontainable leaks of water) within 2 hours to make safe.

Handling of leak

The resident first reported water leaking from his bathroom ceiling light fitting on 19 July 2023. The landlord’s contractor attended promptly to make safe the electrics on the same day, and reinstated the bathroom light on 4 August 2023, within the 20-working day target. However, the landlord did not raise a work order to trace and remedy the leak from the upstairs flat until 5 September 2023, almost 7 weeks after the resident first reported the leak.
Once it had raised the works order to trace and remedy the leak, the landlord acted reasonably and in line with its repairs policy timescales:
1. Its contractor inspected the upstairs wet room, repaired and unblocked the waste on 15 September 2023, 8 working days after the work order was raised. It was noted the wet room floor needed renewing.
2. The contractor renewed the wet room floor on 4 October 2023, 13 working days after the initial inspection.
3. The resident reported the leak had recurred on 6 October 2023. The contractor inspected the upstairs wet room on 9 October 2023, the next working day, and noted some blown tiles and grout needed repair.
4. The contractor repaired the tiles and grout on 19 October 2023, 8 working days later.
However, the landlord’s delay in raising the works order to trace and remedy the leak meant that the repair works were not completed until 3 months after the resident first reported the leak on 19 July 2023. This caused inconvenience and distress to the resident.
On 1 July 2024 the resident raised a formal complaint with the landlord. He said that since 2023, every time the upstairs neighbour used the shower, water leaked from his bathroom ceiling. The landlord had not fixed this and as a result his bathroom ceiling had “crumbled away completely.” He asked the landlord to fix the leak and repair his ceiling.
Although the resident’s complaint was open to misunderstanding that the leak had been continuous since 2023, there is no evidence that he reported the leak to the landlord between October 2023 and July 2024. It therefore would have been reasonable for the landlord to assume that the work it did in September and October 2023 had repaired the leak.
The landlord appropriately raised a new work order to trace and remedy the leak on 1 July 2024. Although it is agreed that a contractor attended the upstairs flat on 18 July 2024, this is not shown in the repair records provided by the landlord. Following this, there was confusion about whether or not the leak had been fixed. It is likely the gap in the landlord’s repairs records contributed to this. The repair records show a repair to the shower pump was completed on 24 July 2024. However, despite correspondence from the resident indicating the leak was ongoing on 2 and 22 August 2024, the landlord delayed raising a works order for a further inspection until 14 October 2024. This was an unreasonable delay.
The landlord’s stage 2 response said that further works to the upstairs wet room were needed, after an inspection on 24 October 2024. It acknowledged it had not resolved the leak reported on 1 July 2024, and that this had caused inconvenience to the resident.
The landlord told the resident in its stage 1 response that it would not repair his ceiling, but he could make a claim on his contents insurance, or to its own insurer if he believed it had been negligent. It was appropriate that the landlord advised the resident of the possibility of making a claim to its insurer. Our guidance on complaints involving insurance issues says that landlords become responsible for damage caused by leaks to third parties’ properties if they do not carry out their repairing obligation within a reasonable time. The landlord acknowledged at stage 2 that it had not fully repaired the leak within a reasonable time. Given this acknowledgement, while a formal position remained to be determined, its likely liability might have been reasonably anticipated. As a result it should have given further consideration, beyond signposting the resident to a possible claim, to either repairing the resident’s ceiling, or more clearly directing him to make a claim to its liability insurer. It did however offer compensation of £15 per week to taking into account the resident’s time and trouble as a result of the leak.
The landlord’s contractor checked the pipework underneath the wet room on 16 November 2024 and re-set the wall tiles on 2 December 2024. However, on 11 December 2024 the resident reported that the leak was ongoing. There is no evidence of any further inspections or repairs by the landlord in response to this until the resident re-reported the leak in September 2025. The landlord’s contractor did an inspection on 1 December 2025 and found that further repairs to the wall tiles, grout and ply boxing were needed to stop water penetration.
Over the last 29 months the landlord has repaired and unblocked the waste, renewed the wet room floor, done 2 sets of repairs to the wall tiles and grout, and repaired the shower pump. However, it has not yet affected a lasting resolution to the leaks reported by the resident. As a result, the resident and his family been inconvenienced by water leaking from the bathroom ceiling for an extended period and have had reduced enjoyment of their home due to the water damage to the ceiling. The resident and his wife have been concerned for the safety of their children, as they are worried the ceiling may fall down due to the damage, and because there is black mould growth on the ceiling. They are understandably reluctant to arrange repairs to the ceiling until the leak is permanently resolved.
The landlord is aware that the upstairs neighbours uses the shower an above average number of times per day due to a health condition. There is no evidence the landlord has considered whether additional measures are needed to ensure the wet room remains water-tight given this high usage pattern.

Complaint	The handling of the complaint
Finding	Service failure

The landlord dealt with the complaint at stage 1 within the appropriate timescales. However, it failed to identify as part of its stage 1 investigation that it had not raised a work order to trace and remedy the leak from the upstairs flat until almost 7 weeks after the resident first reported the leak.
On 22 July 2024 the resident asked to escalate the complaint to stage 2. The landlord did not acknowledge this request. The stage 2 response was given 69 working days after the request to escalate. This was far outside the requirement within the landlord’s complaints policy, and our complaints handling code, to respond within 20 working days. The resident expended unnecessary time and trouble chasing the landlord at least twice for a response.
There is no evidence that the complaints investigation led to any real learning on the part of the landlord, or improvements in the handling of the matter complained about. The compensation award was not proportionate to the undisputed impacts.

Learning

Despite the leak not having been permanently resolved over an extended period, there is no evidence seen that the landlord has reviewed the case to identify how its handling of this matter could be improved and inform its response when future such matters arise.

Knowledge information management (record keeping)

The repairs records provided were found to be unclear and incomplete.

Communication

Some gaps in communication were noted, where the resident had to chase the landlord to respond.