London Borough of Lambeth (202423025)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202423025

Lambeth Council

16 May 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 water ingress at the property.
  2. We have also investigated the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

  1. The resident is a secure tenant and moved into the property in November 1994. The property is a 2-bedroom ground-floor flat. The landlord’s records do not list any vulnerabilities for the household.
  2. On 22 September 2023 the resident reported that water was entering her living room through the top of the window frame when it rained. The landlord attended on 10 October 2023 and repaired the window frame. Its records show that it also needed to repair the external rendering with the aid of scaffolding.
  3. The resident made a complaint on 2 January 2024 as the landlord had not completed the external rendering repair. She said that water was still leaking in and damaging her contents, and despite her chasing the landlord over November and December 2023 the issue was unresolved.
  4. The landlord issued its stage 1 response on 28 March 2024 and apologised for the delay in response. It confirmed that internal repairs were complete, and its repairs team would contact her to schedule external re-rendering. It provided details of how to make a claim to its insurer if the resident wished to claim for her damaged belongings.
  5. On 3 July 2024 the resident escalated her complaint to stage 2 as she was unhappy that the repairs had not been completed, and she had not received any updates. She contacted the landlord again on 2 September 2024 to say that the repairs team told her she had missed an appointment, but she was not aware one was scheduled.
  6. The landlord provided a stage 2 response on the same day and confirmed the appointment was not booked in advance. It apologised for the delay in response and the repair delays. It said that the work had previously been assigned to a contractor who it no longer worked with, and the job had just been reallocated.
  7. The landlord’s records state that it completed the external re-rendering and cleared the gutters on 18 October 2024. The resident remains unhappy with the landlord’s handling of the repair and associated delays. She has asked the Ombudsman to investigate.

Assessment and findings

The landlord’s handling of water ingress in the property

  1. The landlord’s repair policy lists the following repair timescales:
    1. Urgent repairs – it will attend within 2 hours and repair within 24 hours.
    2. Emergency repairs – It will complete within 1 working day.
    3. Routine repairs – it will complete within 28 days.
    4. Planned repairs – it will complete within 90 days.
  2. The policy says that planned repairs will be non-urgent in nature and, in general, are maintenance or preventative works. In this case, the water caused damage to the walls so the repair should have been categorised, at most, as a 28-day repair.
  3. In total, it was 274 working days between the original repair report and the completion date of external works. This is not acceptable and is not compliant with its policy. As of the date of this report, the landlord has not offered the resident any compensation for these delays and the associated distress and inconvenience.
  4. The resident informed the landlord throughout the period of the complaint that the leak was ongoing when it rained, and damage had been caused. The landlord should have taken steps to resolve the issue swiftly and minimise any water damage which could also lead to damp and mould.
  5. It was appropriate for the landlord to direct the resident to its insurer regarding the damage to her belongings rather than offer direct compensation as this was consistent with its compensation policy. We are not aware of whether the resident made a claim.
  6. While it is positive that the landlord identified that the repair was with the wrong contractor, it is not clear to us why it took so long to determine this. Even after it was reallocated, it took a further month to be completed. Given the length of time the issue had been ongoing, the landlord should have prioritised the repair. The landlord’s recordkeeping was not effective as it did not contain progress updates in relation to the repair, and it had incorrect information relating to appointments. This meant that it gave the resident incorrect advice that she missed an appointment, which led to confusion and frustration for her.
  7. Communication throughout the period investigated was poor. There is no evidence that the landlord provided proactive updates, instead giving updates only after the resident had chased it. The landlord should have been monitoring the case so it could provide the resident with realistic updates and reassure her that it had not forgotten her.
  8. There was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the water ingress in the property. The repair was ongoing for almost a year, and the communication was poor. The landlord did not consider the impact on the resident which included having to repeatedly chase for updates, damage to her belongings, and worry that the leak would escalate and cause more issues when it rained. It did not offer any compensation for the delays.
  9. An order for £550 has been made to reflect the distress and inconvenience caused to the resident. This is made up of £400 for the delay in completing the external repairs and £150 for the time, trouble, and inconvenience experienced by the resident due to the landlord’s lack of communication. This order is in line with this Service’s remedies guidance for instances where there has been a failure which has adversely affected the resident, the landlord has failed to acknowledge its failings and has made no attempt to put things right.

Complaint handling

  1. The landlord has a 2-stage complaints policy. It promises to respond within 10 working days at stage 1, and 20 working days at stage 2. The stage 1 response in this case came 63 working days after the resident made her complaint. The landlord apologised for the delay in the response but did not offer any redress.
  2. At stage 2, it was 43 working days between the resident’s escalation request and the landlord issuing the final response. It acknowledged the delay but did not offer any redress. It apologised for the delay and distress the resident had experienced because of the repair delays and explained the reasons. However, it did not consider the impact of the complaint handling delays on the resident, particularly as the repair delays were happening at the same time. The resident had to chase the landlord on both matters and this was not acceptable.
  3. The landlord’s compensation policy says that it will consider awarding compensation where it identifies unjustified delays or a failure to follow its policies. It also gives allowance for offering decorating vouchers where a resident’s internal decoration has been damaged due to repair work.
  4. Where there are failings by a landlord, as is the case here, this Service will consider whether the redress offered by the landlord (in this case, its apology) put things right and resolved the resident’s complaint satisfactorily in the circumstances. In considering this, this Service considers whether the landlord’s offer of redress was in line with the dispute resolution principles, be fair, put things right, and learn from outcomes.
  5. In this case, while it was appropriate for the landlord to apologise, it did not make any offer of redress. There is also no evidence that it considered the time, trouble, and inconvenience experienced by the resident because of its complaint handling failings. Given these failings, along with its delayed responses, there was maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling.
  6. We have received confirmation from the landlord that following another investigation from the same period, it has reviewed its complaint handling and taken action to improve its service. For this reason, we will not make any orders in this area relating to processes or training.
  7. However, an order for £150 has been made to reflect the distress and inconvenience caused to the resident. This is made up of £75 for the delay to its complaint response and £75 for the failure to consider appropriate redress. This order is in line with this service’s remedies guidance for instances where there has been a failure which has adversely affected the resident, the landlord has failed to acknowledge its failings, and has made no attempt to put things right.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of water ingress in the property.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling.

Orders

  1. The Ombudsman makes the following orders:
  2. Within 4 weeks of this report, the landlord must pay the resident £650 made up of:
    1. £500 for time, trouble, distress and inconvenience relating to its handling of repairs.
    2. £150 for time, trouble, distress and inconvenience relating to its complaint handling.
    3. The landlord must pay this directly to the resident and not to her rent account unless she explicitly requests it. The landlord must provide proof of payment to the Ombudsman within 4 weeks of this report.
  3. Within 6 weeks of this report, the landlord should complete a case review to conduct a review of the case to identify what went wrong and what it will do differently. The landlord must provide a copy of the review to the Ombudsman, also within 6 weeks.