London & Quadrant Housing Trust (202320721)

Background

1. The resident lives in a 2-bedroom flat on the 2nd floor of a purpose-built block. She lives with 2 children. There are no vulnerabilities. She complained to her landlord as her property was affected by a gas leak for the 5-month period following her tenancy commencing.

What the complaint is about

2. The complaint is about the landlord’s:
   1. Response to a smell of gas at the property.
   2. Complaint handling.

Our decision (determination)

3. There was maladministration in the landlord’s response to a smell of gas at the property.
4. There was reasonable redress in the landlord’s complaint handling.

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

Summary of reasons

5. The landlord did not follow its own gas safety and void policies. It failed to ensure all gas fittings were safe before re-letting the property. Its failure exposed the resident and her family to an avoidable and potentially serious hazard.

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.

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 did not investigate

6. The resident has said that a gas leak has negatively affected her health. While we can consider the overall impact of the situation on the resident, the Ombudsman is not able to determine whether the leak caused personal injury. If the resident wishes to pursue a personal injury claim, she may wish to seek independent legal advice.

What we did investigate

7. The landlord’s voids policy requires its properties to meet health and safety standards, including preventing hazards under the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS). One of the prescribed HHSRS hazards is uncombusted fuel. Escaping fuel gas poses a risk of asphyxiation, fire or explosion.
8. The resident’s tenancy began on 11 April 2022. Under the landlord’s gas safety and voids policies, the gas supply must be capped when a property is in void. The policy also requires the landlord to cap any gas cooker installation to ensure a gas safe registered engineer installs a gas cooker. Once a new resident moves in, the landlord must attend within 24 hours to recommission the supply, safety check all relevant gas fittings and provide the incoming resident with the gas safety record.
9. The landlord recommissioned the gas on 13 April 2022. It completed a gas safety record, however the resident says she never received a copy despite repeated requests. The certificate from that date shows that the landlord checked only the boiler and did not inspect any other gas fittings.
10. The resident mentioned a smell of gas immediately to the contractor who recommissioned the boiler and again to a contractor several weeks later when she experienced boiler issues. The contractors reassured her that this was normal and confirmed the boiler was working, but they did not carry out wider safety checks. While the resident had not raised the smell of gas as a repair, she had made the landlord aware of a potential issue.
11. On 26 September 2022, the gas board attended and found that gas had been leaking from an uncapped gas cooker pipe since the start of the tenancy, creating a serious safety risk. The engineer sealed the pipe. The resident informed the landlord and it attended as an emergency as per its repairs policy but found the situation had already been made safe. The landlord’s gas safety policy requires staff to report health and safety incidents. A gas escape form was correctly completed and filed. The original gas safety certificate from 13 April 2022 shows that only the boiler was checked. This indicates that the landlord failed to inspect all gas fixtures as required. An uncapped gas pipe presents a clear safety risk. The landlord has not provided evidence that it issued a new gas safety certificate covering all fixtures after the leak.
12. In its complaint responses the landlord accepted responsibility for the5-month gas leak, however it did not explain how its safety procedures failed. The resident maintains that she has still not received a copy of the certificate despite multiple requests. Although it is unclear whether the landlord knew a gas cooker pipe existed, it still had a duty to follow its gas safety policy and ensured all gas fixtures and fittings were safe. The potential consequences of this failure were significant.
13. The landlord did not follow its own gas safety and void policies. It failed to ensure all gas fittings were safe before re-letting the property. It exposed the resident and her family to an avoidable and potentially serious hazard. This amounts to maladministration. The landlord has offered £380 compensation for service failures, distress and inconvenience. We have ordered it to pay an additional £220 in line with our remedies guidance.

14. The landlord’s complaints policy requires it to acknowledge complaints within 5 working days. It will respond to stage 1 complaints within 10 working days of a complaint being logged, which can be extended by 10 days for complex cases. It will respond to stage 2 complaints within 20 working days of the request to escalate, which can be extended by 10 working days for complex cases.
15. The landlord issued its stage 1 response 15 working days after it logged the complaint, outside its policy timescales. The resident requested escalation to stage 2 on 31 March 2023, but the landlord did not log the request until 17 April 2023. By the time the resident contacted the Ombudsman on 15 September 2023, she had still not received a stage 2 response. The landlord issued the response on 6 March 2024, 237 working days after the escalation request.
16. When the resident queried the stage 2 timescale, the landlord told her that stage 2 complaints usually take “around 4 months”. This statement was misleading and did not reflect the timescales set out in its policy.
17. The Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code sets out best practice for complaint handling. It states that landlords should explain their understanding of the complaint in the acknowledgement, seek clarification when needed and agree the scope of the complaint with the resident. Landlords must address all points raised, provide clear reasons for their decisions and explain any remedies offered.
18. The landlord emailed the resident to arrange a call to discuss her complaint and desired outcome, but the complaint handler failed to make that call. As a result, the stage 1 response did not address all the issues the resident wished to raise. She had to submit a further stage 1 complaint. The stage 2 response shows that, although the landlord attempted further contact, it still did not give the resident a fair opportunity to set out her concerns in full.
19. The stage 1 response appeared to uphold the complaint, but the landlord did not make this clear. It also referred to an unrelated repair appointment. It failed to set out any remedy.
20. The landlord’s delays, incorrect information, inadequate communication and incomplete stage 1 response amount to maladministration. It offered £250 for complaint handling failures, which is reasonable redress in line with our remedies guidance.

Learning

21. The landlord stated in its stage 1 response that it would work closely with contractors to ensure the service failures highlighted in this complaint do not happen again.

Knowledge information management (record keeping)

22. The landlord should maintain complete and accurate gas safety records that clearly evidence all gas fixtures and pipework present in the property.