Southwark Council (202336645)

Background

1. The resident lives in a flat, with heating and hot water supplied by a district heating system. The landlord maintains the heating system under the terms of the lease. There was a heating and hot water outage which started on 15 November 2023. The resident is unhappy with the time it took the landlord to repair the system, so made a complaint.

What the complaint is about

2. This complaint is about how the landlord responded to the resident’s loss of heating and hot water.
3. We have also assessed the landlord’s complaint handling.

Our decision (determination)

4. We find there has been a reasonable offer of redress for:
   1. How the landlord responded to the resident’s loss of heating and hot water.
   2. The landlord’s complaint handling.

The landlord does not need to do anything further to put things right.

Summary of reasons

5. The landlord has accepted that there were unreasonable delays in restoring the heating and hot water, and took steps to put things right. The compensation offered for loss of heating and hot water was in excess of the amounts due under its compensation policy. The compensation for the distress and inconvenience caused is in line with our compensation guidance, and it explained in its stage 2 response what steps it would take to improve the reliability of the heating and hot water in future. It has therefore done enough to put things right.
6. The landlord’s complaint responses were delayed, meaning the resident had to spend time chasing a response. The  compensation offered is in line with our compensation guidance, and is enough to put things right.

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.

Recommendations

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

Our investigation

The complaint procedure

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.

What we have not considered

7. When referring his complaint to us, the resident raised wider concerns about the landlord’s district heating system. This includes the level of service charge for running it, the effect on leaseholders generally, and recent issues with outages. Our scheme rules say we may not investigate a complaint which has not completed a landlord’s internal complaints process, or which is about the level or reasonableness of service charges or any service charge increases. This means we cannot investigate these further concerns as part of this investigation. We can only investigate how the landlord handled the loss of heating and hot water between 15 November and 7 December 2023.

Assessment

8. The resident reported a total loss of heating and hot water on 15 November 2023. Under its repairs policy, the landlord had to try to resolve the issue within 24 hours. The 24 hours starts from the time it is notified of an outage in a property, rather than when the outage starts. In this case, it took 5-6 days to initially restore the heating and hot water, and the resident confirmed on 22 November 2023 that both had been working since 20 November 2023.
9. The landlord’s records show it did send operatives within 24 hours, but marked the initial repair as complete when the operatives confirmed there were no issues with the plant machinery. This was despite there having been no works to restore the heating and hot water to the resident’s property. This was caused by confusion between the landlord and its contractors about whether repairs should be raised against the resident’s property, or the block as a whole. It then corrected this by raising the repairs against the individual property on 20 November 2023.
10. The result of this was that the resident was without heating or hot water from 15 to 20 November 2023, and had to contact the landlord on a number of occasions to have it raise more works orders after it marked the existing orders as complete. The resident told the landlord that he was also given inconsistent information about whether or not contractors would be attending when he called, and it took the intervention of a local councillor to have someone attend and complete the repairs.
11. He then told the landlord on 4 December 2023 that while the hot water was still working, the heating was only partially working (only 1 radiator was working). The landlord’s records show it attended on 5 December 2023 to confirm that the communal heating equipment was working, and booked an appointment for 7 December 2023 to check the resident’s property. That appointment was successful, and the landlord fully restored the heating at that time.
12. The report from the engineer confirms that the fault leading to partial heating loss was not the same fault that led to the total loss of heating and hot water, and the engineers have not suggested to the landlord that the 2 were linked, or one caused by the other. As such, this was 2 separate repairs. The first took 5-6 days to resolve, and the second took 3-4 days to resolve.
13. The landlord accepts it did not complete the repairs within the relevant timescales, and has offered the resident compensation for the delays and the loss of heating and hot water. It offered £69 for each utility, calculated at £3 per day for 23 days. Its policy says it will offer £3 for each whole day of an outage. The resident was totally without either heating or hot water for 5-6 days, and had a partial loss of heating for 3-4 days after he reported it on 4 December 2023. The landlord has used its discretion to offer more compensation than was required under its policy, which was reasonable and resolution-focused.
14. In addition to the compensation for loss of heating and hot water, the landlord also offered £100 compensation. This was £30 for delays in completing the repairs, and £70 for time and trouble. It was appropriate for the landlord to recognise that its failings caused distress and inconvenience, and its offer shows it took steps to put things right. It also calculated this compensation based on 23 days to complete repairs, rather than the period of the outage. The amount offered is in line with our compensation guidance for failings which adversely affect a resident, but which have no permanent impact. As such, this was a reasonable offer of compensation.
15. Overall, the landlord has recognised its failings in this case, and taken reasonable steps to put things right. It resolved the outage, offered appropriate compensation, and explained the steps it had taken and would take in future to improve the reliability of the heating system when issuing its stage 2 response. We note the resident has raised concerns about whether the landlord has learned anything based on a recent outage this month. However, it would not be fair or reasonable for us to assess the landlord’s plan to improve the service using the benefit of hindsight.
16. Any recent outages took place after the stage 2 response, and we therefore cannot consider them as part of this investigation. If the resident wishes us to investigate the handling of recent issues, he would need to take those through the landlord’s complaints process before we could investigate.

17. Under the Complaint Handling Code, the landlord must acknowledge a complaint or an escalation request within 5 working days. It must issue a stage 1 response within 10 working days of acknowledging the complaint, and a stage 2 response within 20 working days of acknowledging the escalation request. The timescales under the landlord’s complaints policy from the time were similar to those set out in the Code.
18. The resident made a complaint on 17 November 2023. The landlord acknowledged the complaint on 20 November 2023, which was within the relevant timescales. It told the resident it would respond on 4 December 2023, but extended this by a week as the resident reported there were still issues with the heating on 4 December 2023. This meant the stage 1 response was 5 working days late.
19. While this was slightly outside of the relevant timescales, it was reasonable in the circumstances as it meant the landlord could include the later partial loss of heating in its complaint response. This was resolution focused, and benefited the resident (as he did not need to make a second complaint to have the partial loss of heating considered). The landlord then met the extended deadline.
20. The resident escalated his complaint on 12 December 2023. The landlord has provided no evidence that it acknowledged the complaint, and its stage 2 response was delayed by 10 working days. This meant the resident had to chase up a final response to his complaint.
21. The landlord has acknowledged the delay, and explained it was in part caused by issues with internal communication. It apologised and offered £100 compensation for the delays (£50 for each stage). This is in line with our compensation guidance for complaint handling failings which adversely affect a resident, but have no permanent impact. It is therefore a reasonable offer of redress, and the landlord does not need to do anything further to put things right with regard to this complaint.

Learning

Repairs

22. The landlord’s repair records show the initial delays were caused by confusion around whether a repair should be logged against the property or the block, resulting in a lack of follow up. If it has not already done so since this complaint, it would benefit from reviewing its processes to ensure its staff all know how district heating repairs should be raised with contractors. It may also benefit from reviewing how it ensures that the issues are resolved before recording a repair as complete.

Knowledge information management (record keeping)

23. The landlord’s record keeping was generally reasonable and appropriate in this case.

Communication

24. The landlord’s communication in this case was lacking both with the resident and internally. It has not shown it gave updates on the repairs, gave the resident accurate information when he requested updates, or had effective internal communication. If it has not done so since this complaint, it would benefit from reviewing its communication practices.