Newlon Housing Trust (202309930)

Decision
Case ID	202309930
Decision type	Investigation
Landlord	Newlon Housing Trust
Landlord type	Housing Association
Occupancy	Assured Tenancy
Date	17 November 2025

Background

1. The resident is a tenant of the landlord since 14 October 2019. The property is a 2-bedroom ground floor flat.

What the complaint is about

2. The complaint was about the landlord’s handling of:
   1. repairs to the boiler.
   2. a recurring leak and the associated remedial work.
3. We have also investigated the landlord’s complaint handling.

Our decision (determination)

4. We have found the landlord responsible for:
   1. service failure in its handling of repairs to the boiler.
   2. maladministration in its handling of a recurring leak and the associated remedial work.
5. We found reasonable redress in the landlord’s complaint handling.

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

Summary of reasons

Handling of repairs to the boiler

6. The landlord failed to complete urgent heating repairs within its stated timescales. Its contractor missed 4 consecutive appointments without notice and the compensation offered did not reflect the full impact on the resident.

Handling of a recurring leak and the associated remedial work

7. The landlord failed to resolve a recurring leak inside policy timeframes, despite its statutory and contractual obligations. There was poor record keeping and a failure to act on safeguarding concerns.

Complaint handling

8. The complaint handling fell significantly below expected standards. The landlord provided inaccurate information about repairs, delayed compensation for nine months, miscalculated redress, and repeatedly failed to escalate the complaint despite multiple requests. However, it acknowledged its failings and provided appropriate redress.

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 specific to the failures identified in this decision, meaningful and empathetic. It has due regard to our apologies guidance.	No later than 15 December 2025
2	Compensation order   The landlord must provide evidence that it has paid directly to the resident £500 in recognition of the failures identified in this report. This is made up of: £150 for the loss of heating and subsequent distress and inconvenience £350 for distress and inconvenience relating to the handling of the leak and remedial works This award replaces the landlords previous offer of £185 for the handling of the repairs. Any money already paid to the resident may be deducted from this order.	No later than 15 December 2025
3	Completing the works (resolve the leak and complete remedial works to the kitchen ceiling) The landlord must take all steps to ensure the work is completed promptly, if it has not been done already, by the due date. If the landlord cannot complete the works in this time, it must explain to us, by the due date: why it cannot complete the works by the due date and provide evidence to support its reasons. It must provide a revised timescale of when it will finish the works; or explain the steps it has taken to ensure the works were completed and provide supporting evidence. It must provide a revised timescale if it is able to or explain why it cannot.	No later than 15 December 2025

 

Recommendations

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

Our recommendations
Contact the resident – quantifiable loss Contact the resident to: inform her of her options for reimbursement for the reported damage to her computer. Give the resident appropriate advice on the process to make an insurance claim if required. ask for full copies of her utility bills for the period she was without heating, and decide if any recompense is due, if this has not already been done. It should tell the resident and this service the outcome of this enquiry.
Compensation The landlord should pay the resident the £400 compensation offered in its stage 2 complaint response.

Our investigation

The complaint procedure

Date	What happened
10/01/2023	The resident complained to the landlord about: the delay in repairing her boiler and missed contractor appointments. following a leak through her kitchen ceiling from the flat above, her property had been left in a dangerous condition. She was unhappy the leak had not been treated as an emergency.
24/01/2023	The landlord issued its stage 1 complaint response. It said: an appointment had been scheduled at the neighbour’s property to resolve the leak. the appointment for remedial works at the resident’s property on 2 February 2023 would be honoured. it recognised its failings and apologised for inconvenience caused. it would calculate compensation after repairs had been completed to ensure the length of time taken was considered.
21/02/2023	The resident asked for her complaint to be escalated. She said she wanted further compensation for the impact on her and additional costs she had incurred.
26/09/2023	The resident again asked the landlord to escalate her complaint to stage 2. It told her she needed to respond to the email it had sent in July 2023, where it asked her to confirm if all the necessary repairs and inspections had been carried out.
05/10/2023	The landlord acknowledged the resident’s escalation request. It gave her the option to either proceed to stage 2 with her complaint or continue to wait until it had made the offer of compensation it promised in its stage 1 complaint response 8 months before.
27/10/2023 – 24/01/2024	The resident initially said she wanted to wait for the offer of compensation, which the landlord confirmed as £185 on 27 October 2023. The compensation was calculated as follows: £25 for a missed appointment £25 for 7 days without heating £10 for 7 days electric heater usage £100 for inconvenience relating to ceiling repairs £25 for the delay in calculating compensation After further discussion by email between November 2023 and January 2024, she said she did not consider the compensation to be sufficient. She asked to progress her complaint to stage 2.
21/02/2024	The landlord provided its stage 2 response on 21 February 2024. It said: it was satisfied its stage 1 complaint response was fair. It upheld the resident’s complaint at stage 2 because the complaint and compensation offer had been managed poorly. it could not consider the resident’s evidence regarding her additional energy costs and needed to see full utility bills before it took this into account in any compensation calculation. it offered £400 in addition to the £185 compensation already offered. This was in recognition of the impact and inconvenience caused to the resident in pursuit of her complaint.
Referral to the Ombudsman	The resident was not satisfied with the landlord’s final complaint response and asked the Ombudsman to investigate her complaint on 16 April 2024.

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 repairs to the resident’s boiler
Finding	Service failure

9. The resident’s tenancy agreement states the landlord is responsible for keeping the central heating installations in good repair and proper working order.
10. The landlord’s repairs policy says it will complete urgent/routine repairs within 20 working days (with an average of 10 working days), prioritising “urgent” repairs. It defines the total loss of heating as an urgent repair.
11. The resident reported heating loss on 21 October 2022. The landlord raised a repair with its contractor on 24 October. It said the contractor attended on 27 October and found it needed to order parts to complete the repair. The landlord said the contractor completed the repair on 8 November 2022 (within 12 working days) but cannot evidence this.
12. When the resident reported a second loss of heating on 28 November 2022, the landlord raised an emergency repair but left the boiler requiring manual intervention every 15–20 minutes. This left the resident without reliable heating for an extended period. While the landlord said it had provided electric heaters, it could not evidence when or for how long.
13. The evidence shows that after the landlord’s contractor had attended an emergency appointment on 29 November 2022, it then made 4 subsequent appointments with the resident for 12, 16, 21 and 22 December 2022. The resident reports these were all missed. Whilst it is accepted that appointments can occasionally be missed due to unforeseen circumstances, missing 4 consecutive appointments without advance notice being given caused avoidable and repeated inconvenience to the resident.
14. The landlord calculated its offer of compensation in line with its compensation policy. It calculated elements of the award based on a 7-day period it said the resident was without heating and using temporary heaters. However, evidence shows the resident was without consistent heating for a period of 6 weeks, between 28 November 2022 and 9 January 2023. In the compensation calculation, the landlord also awarded £25 for 1 missed appointment, but evidence shows 4 appointments were missed. Therefore, we have ordered increased compensation to reflect this.
15. Overall, the landlord did not meet its repair timescales and missed 4 consecutive appointments without notice. These combined failures caused the resident inconvenience and amount to service failure.

Complaint	The handling of a recurring leak and the associated remedial work
Finding	Maladministration

16. The landlord’s repairs policy states that major plumbing leaks, or leaks where electrics are damaged, are considered an emergency repair. It will visit within 24 hours to make safe, reduce the urgency or carry out initial repairs.
17. In February 2022 the resident contacted the landlord by webform. She referenced a leak that had occurred recently. This caused water ingress through her kitchen ceiling and she reported her kitchen ceiling needed redecorating as a result.
18. The resident reported the leak, which appeared intermittently, on numerous occasions between September 2022 and March 2023. The landlord raised repair orders following each report, which indicated an attempt to meet its repair obligations. However, the recurrence of the leak over an extended period suggests the landlord’s actions were ineffective in resolving the underlying issue.
19. The resident first said her kitchen ceiling required redecoration in February 2022, following water ingress. Because the landlord delayed in resolving the root cause of the leak, this deferred its ability to address the ceiling issue. This contributed to prolonged inconvenience and dissatisfaction for the resident.
20. The landlord had determined the cause of the leak to be faulty washing machine pipework in the flat above. It experienced difficulties in accessing the neighbour’s property to repair the leak. While we acknowledge this would have presented a challenge, we would expect to see evidence it had taken reasonable steps to gain access as this was essential for the purpose of resolving the leak.
21. Whilst the landlord can evidence it made some attempts to access the neighbour’s property throughout December 2022 and January 2023, and wrote to the neighbour to remind them of their obligations, there is no evidence it escalated the matter. The absence of timely action meant the leak persisted, unnecessarily causing avoidable distress for the resident.
22. The landlord’s repair records often lack detail on the work it carried out and lack clarity on the completion of repairs. Despite responding well initially by raising repairs in response to the resident’s reports, it could not evidence completion, misdiagnosed the source of the leak, and closed the complaint before all the remedial works were completed. The landlord’s failure to maintain accurate and comprehensive repair records resulted in prolonged uncertainty for the resident and represents a service failure. This lack of clarity contributed to delays, miscommunication, and avoidable distress for the resident.
23. The resident told the landlord that the fire brigade had visited her twice in December 2022 and had provided her with a fire alarm. Subsequently, the fire brigade made a safeguarding referral to the landlord in January 2023, highlighting a safety concern with the ongoing leak from the flat above. The landlord acted promptly to mitigate safety risk after being notified the leak was affecting the electrics in the property.
24. However, the resident reported the kitchen light had been reinstated by the landlord’s contractor with the ceiling still wet and said she was advised by the fire brigade not to use it. Despite repeated chases, the landlord could not evidence the leak was resolved. These failures caused significant inconvenience and risk to the resident.
25. The resident reported the leak damaged her computer, disrupted holiday plans, and created significant stress for her and her family. She described having to empty buckets and clean regularly, with no light in the kitchen whenever the neighbours used their washing machine. These circumstances demonstrate the avoidable inconvenience and distress resulting from the landlord’s failure to resolve the leak promptly and effectively. There is no evidence the landlord advanced the repair sufficiently following the resident’s concerns. The impact extended beyond physical damage to emotional strain and disruption of daily life, reinforcing the seriousness of the landlord’s service failures.
26. The landlord cannot evidence it resolved the leak within a reasonable timeframe. In repair notes from May 2023it noted the leak had been repaired but it cannot evidence if or when this was done. In its final complaint response on 21 February 2024, the landlord did not confirm the status of the leak repair or indicate it had been completed.
27. The landlord delayed in ensuring access to the neighbour’s flat and cannot evidence it did enough to escalate the matter. Because of this, the resident experienced intermittent water ingress for approximately 6 months and subsequent delay in the remedial works needed to reinstate her kitchen light and redecorate her kitchen ceiling.
28. Overall, the ongoing leak and other failures caused significant and avoidable distress and inconvenience. For these reasons we have found maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the leak and associated remedial works.

Complaint	The handling of the complaint
Finding	Reasonable redress

29. The landlord demonstrated the following failings in its handling of the resident’s complaint:
    1. It incorrectly told the resident the leak had been repaired on 7 October 2022, contrary to its repair records which indicate it had been unable to gain access on this date.
    2. It failed to appropriately escalate the resident’s complaint despite numerous requests, instead offering her option to wait for the offer of compensation from stage 1. The stage 2 response was issued 12 months after the resident first asked to escalate her complaint, far exceeding the timescales of its policy and the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code). It should have advanced the complaint alongside any outstanding stage 1 actions, instead of prolonging the complaint resolution.
    3. It miscalculated its compensation offer, which did not reflect the actual number of missed appointments or length of time the resident was without heating.
    4. It upheld the resident’s complaint but failed to address a core element of the her concerns. It did not provide an update on the status of the leak and remedial works.
30. Overall, the landlord’s complaint handling breached its own policy and core principles of accuracy and timeliness. It provided incorrect information about repairs, delayed compensation for nine months, miscalculated redress, and repeatedly failed to escalate the complaint despite multiple requests. These failures caused prolonged uncertainty and undermined trust.
31. However, the landlord acknowledged its failings and offered compensation that exceeded what this Service would have awarded under the circumstances. Since the landlord offered redress before our investigation began, we consider this to satisfactorily resolve the handling of the resident’s complaint. Accordingly, we have made a finding of reasonable redress, subject to the landlord paying the previously offered £400 compensation if it has not already done so.

Learning

Knowledge information management (record keeping)

32. Inaccurate or incomplete records lead to misleading information and delayed resolution. The landlord should review its record-keeping processes and implement robust systems to ensure repair actions and outcomes are comprehensively documented.

Communication

33. The resident had to instigate contact and frequently chase for responses, which were often delayed or absent. There was a failure to provide timely and effective communication, contributing to avoidable distress and inconvenience. The landlord should adopt proactive communication practices and clear service standards to maintain trust and reduce distress.