Stonewater Limited (202409485)

Background

1. Following a kitchen refit, the resident reported that water was coming through the floor into the hallway. Whilst waiting for the landlord to identify the source of the leak, she found that the washing machine pipe had been incorrectly fitted. The kitchen contractors fixed the pipe, but she requested that the damaged flooring be replaced.

What the complaint is about

2. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s:
   1. Reports of a leak, including subsequent damage to the hallway flooring.
   2. Complaint.

Our decision (determination)

3. We have found that:
   1. The landlord made an offer of reasonable redress which resolved the resident’s complaint about the leak and subsequent damage to the hallway flooring.
   2. There was reasonable redress offered for the landlord’s handling of the complaint.

We have made a recommendation for the landlord.

Summary of reasons

4. The landlord failed to replace the hallway flooring within the expected timeframes. It also failed to call-back the resident when requested. However, it has offered redress proportionate to the failings identified.
5. The landlord failed to respond to the complaint within the timeframes set out in its policy and the Code. It did offer redress proportionate to the delay.

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.

6. The resident reported an impact to their mental health from the communication issues with the landlord. This Service is unable to determine liability or award damages for any impact to health because we do not have the authority or expertise to do so; this would be better suited for a court to decide upon. However, we have considered the general distress and inconvenience the resident experienced because of the landlord’s handling of the repair.
7. The landlord’s repair policy says that emergency repairs will be responded to within a maximum of 24 hours and non-emergency repairs within a maximum of 28 days. The resident reported the leak to the landlord on 22 February 2024. The landlord did attend within the expected timeframe for emergencies, but a CCTV inspection was needed which could take up to 10 days. During this time, the resident requested a call-back which she did not receive.
8. On 29 February, the resident asked the landlord to cancel the CCTV inspection as the leak had been fixed by the kitchen contractors. Once the leak was fixed, the hallway flooring should have been replaced within 28 days as a non-emergency repair. However, it took the landlord a total of 40 working days to do this. The landlord failed to comply with the repair timeframes set out in its policy for non-emergency repairs.
9. When there are failings by a landlord, as is the case here, we will consider whether the redress offered by the landlord put things right and resolved the resident’s complaint satisfactorily in the circumstances. In considering this, the Ombudsman takes into account whether the landlord’s offer of redress was in line with our Dispute Resolution Principles; be fair, put things right and learn from outcomes.
10. The landlord acted fairly by acknowledging and apologising for the missed call-back and repair delays experienced by the resident. It sought to put things right by offering compensation of £860 for the delays, inconvenience and service failures, which shows it considered the impact to the resident. The landlord also demonstrated learning through team restructuring, staff increases and internal learning sessions.
11. Overall, we consider the landlord’s compensation offer to be proportionate to the failings identified. It was also in line with its own policy and our remedies guidance where there was a failure which had a significant impact on the resident.

12. The Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code) March 2022 which applied at the time of this complaint, required landlords to respond to stage 1 and 2 complaints within 10 and 20 working days, respectively. The landlord has provided its complaint policy at the time which had a 10 day target to respond at both stages. The landlord’s complaint policy was updated in May 2024 but for the purposes of this investigation, we have relied on the policy which was in place when the initial complaint was logged.
13. The landlord took 13 days to respond at stage 1 and 29 days to respond at stage 2. The landlord acted fairly by acknowledging and apologising for the delay in responding to the complaint. It sought to put things right by offering compensation of £25 for the complaint handling delays. We consider this to be proportionate for the short delay in responding to the complaint.
14. Within the landlord’s stage 2 response, it did not clearly set out that its response only related to the hallway flooring. The resident had also requested an update about the kitchen flooring when she escalated her complaint, so it would have been helpful if the landlord had included this within its response. However, we understand the kitchen flooring issue was dealt with later as a separate complaint and the resident had a response on this issue.

Learning

Knowledge information management (record keeping) and communication

15. Overall, we found no concerns about the landlord’s record keeping and communication during this investigation. The landlord also acknowledged when it had got things wrong and implemented steps towards learning and future improvements.
16. We did note a duplicated paragraph within the landlord’s final response letter. More robust quality assurance checks can help to avoid similar errors in the future.