London Borough of Newham (202451567)

Background

1. The property is a 2-bed flat on the second floor in a block of flats. The resident reported longstanding issues with the water pressure in the property on 12 April 2023, stating that this was making it very difficult for her and her family to wash. The landlord first completed works to replace pipes and repair a leaking stopcock in August and September 2023, but the issue persisted throughout the block. After advising the resident that it believed this was the water supplier’s responsibility to repair, the landlord later coordinated with them to identify the source of the issue. The water supplier completed works to resolve the issue on 27 November 2025.

What the complaint is about

2. The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of low water pressure.
3. We have also considered the landlord’s complaint handling.

Our decision (determination)

4. There was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of low water pressure.
5. There was severe maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling.

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

Summary of reasons

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of low water pressure

6. The landlord did not carry out the works to replace pipes and repair the leaking stopcock within its timescales. It did not follow up on a plan to install a water pressure booster pump, and did not communicate with the resident any alternate plans it had to progress the repairs. There were significant delays before the landlord worked with the water supplier to find a resolution after its stage 2 response. The landlord did not fully acknowledge the impact of this repair on the ability of the resident and her family to wash and bathe. As such the compensation was not sufficient to put things right. 

The landlord’s handling of the complaint

7. There were considerable delays in the complaint progressing at both stage 1 and stage 2. While it acknowledged stage 2 delays and offered compensation, it did not acknowledge the delays at stage 1. The landlord failed to identify 4 reasonable requests to escalate the complaint to stage 2, contributing to the delays. The landlord could not demonstrate learning and its compensation was not sufficient 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.

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.

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

8. The resident reported that both her and her daughter’s health had been negatively impacted by this issue. We do not doubt the resident’s comments, however it is not within our remit and expertise to determine causation, liability, or the impact on a resident’s health. Such matters are more appropriately addressed through the courts.
9. We are aware that the resident said she had been reporting issues with the water pressure for several years before 12 April 2023, but we have not seen any reports of this earlier than their first complaint of the same date. While we do not doubt these historical reports occurred we have to work with the evidence we have to hand, and we expect residents to raise a complaint within a reasonable time of an issue becoming apparent. Therefore we have considered in this investigation events from 12 April 2023 onwards.

What we have considered

10. The landlord accepted repair responsibility (as set out in the tenancy agreement) for the maintenance of communal areas including external pipes, as well as installations for the supply of water.
11. The landlord’s repairs policy explains that it will attend to and complete repairs deemed urgent between 3 and 7 calendar days, and more routine works will be attended to within 20 working days.
12. The landlord’s compensation policy (the version provided for this investigation) says that the landlord may consider compensation for continuing loss of amenity, including difficulties in being able to wash. As early as 25 May 2023 the resident’s MP wrote to the landlord and described the impact on the resident’s family, namely, that it took several hours to be able to shower, and that water would abruptly shut off. Our investigation period shows that the resident and her family were intermittently impacted by this for over 2 years.
13. Both of the first 2 stage 1 responses (21 April 2023 and 5 May 2023) lacked detail on how the landlord planned to respond to this repair issue. The first said that an emergency job had been attended to, and a follow-on repair had been booked, but we cannot see any evidence of this further repair. The second said that a list of outstanding repairs had been passed to management to monitor, and that a surveyor would carry out an inspection. We cannot see what specific repairs these are, and again there is no evidence of these repairs being booked or attended to around this time, though the resident confirmed that an inspection did take place in early June 2023.
14. Following this, the landlord emailed a contractor on 8 June 2023, asking it to test, trace and rectify the source of low water pressure. These works were confirmed to be completed on 23 August 2023 which, at 92 working days after the resident’s first report, is significantly outside of the landlord’s timescales to attend to routine repairs.
15. The third stage 1 response (3 August 2023) erroneously said that low water pressure had not been raised as a repair. However, by this point the resident had already reported this, and her MP had also raised this with the landlord. We can also see that the landlord had already inspected the property, and raised works with contractors specifically for low water pressure. This oversight meant that the landlord missed a chance to identify a way to resolve these repairs, and also showed issues with its record keeping. This caused additional frustration to the resident.
16. The landlord’s fourth stage 1 response on 19 October 2023 acknowledged that the works completed in August and September had not resolved the issue, and that it would look into whether a water pressure booster pump could be fitted. At stage 2, which was issued 14 months later, it acknowledged that this had never been followed up on, and said that orders would be soon raised for this. The resident continued to chase this for the next 2 months, and there is no evidence that this pump was ever fitted.
17. This may be because the landlord later decided on a different course of action, and we see that it did complete alternate works in October 2025. However, good customer service requires it to keep in contact and provide updates on the progress of works, particularly when they are complex and require further investigation and time. There is no evidence the landlord did so from February to November 2025.
18. It is clear that throughout the complaint there were questions over whether the landlord or the water supplier was responsible for resolving this issue. As early as 25 May 2023 the resident’s MP highlighted this, and asked if the landlord could coordinate with the water supplier to try and find a solution. While it was the water supplier that completed works to resolve the issue on 27 November 2025, it was reasonable to expect that the landlord take a role in coordinating with another body who may have been responsible for a repair impacting its properties. From the evidence submitted we cannot see that this happened until September 2025, which is 28 months after it was first requested to so do.
19. At stage 2 the landlord acknowledged the delays and offered £550 compensation both for delays in the works being done, and the resident’s trouble in chasing the repairs. However, it could not demonstrate that it had taken any learning as it did not improve its communication with the resident after stage 2 response was issued. It also did not effectively communicate with the water supplier in a timely manner.
20. The overall compensation did not go far enough to account for the failings in communication, and the time the repairs remained outstanding. As already stated above, it failed to assess whether this led to the loss of the ability for the resident and her family to wash. However, this reportedly impacted their use of the property. In line with our compensation guidance have ordered a total of £750 compensation (including the landlord’s offer of £550) to reflect both the length of time the resident was adversely impacted by this, and the severity of this impact.

21. The Code in place (at the time of the complaint being considered at stage 1) required landlords to issue a stage 1 response within 10 working days of a complaint being logged, and to issue a stage 2 response within 20 working days of a complaint being escalated. Later during the landlord’s consideration at stage 2 our Code had been updated to give landlords an additional 5 working days to acknowledge a complaint at stage 2.
22. The Code that was in place in 2023 also made clear that if all or part of a complaint was not resolved to the resident’s satisfaction at stage 1, then it must be progressed to stage 2 of the landlord’s procedure. The landlord’s housing complaints policy confirmed that if a resident does not agree with a stage 1 response then it should be escalated to stage 2.
23. The resident first raised the issue of water pressure within a complaint on 12 April 2023. While the landlord did mention this in its stage 1 response of 21 April, it did not make clear whether it was treating the water pressure issue as a first time service request or a complaint. As the landlord did not clarify this, it was understandable that the resident considered its response to the issue as a complaint response.
24. She expressed her dissatisfaction with the response on 21 April, the same day as the first stage 1 response. The landlord should have either treated this as an escalation request, or explained why it raised another stage 1 complaint for the same issue. However, the landlord did not do any of this, and instead sent out another stage 1 response on 5 May 2023.
25. There were further expressions of dissatisfaction which led the landlord to send out a further 2 stage 1 responses, making a total of 4 stage 1 responses being provided for the same issue. The last stage 1 response was issued in October 2023, after considerable delays. This caused both confusion about the landlord’s complaint process, and avoidable delays. This serious failure meant that the resident was prevented from exhausting the landlord’s process and bringing her complaint to us at an earlier stage. It also inconvenienced the resident as she had to involve her MP to assist with chasing this issue.
26. Following the landlord’s fourth stage 1 response, the resident contacted its complaints team inbox on 6 November 2023 where she reported that the water pressure problems were ongoing, and that there were still leaks from pipes. Much like the earlier instances of her dissatisfaction as referred above, this email should have been treated as an escalation request as it was clear that the complaint had not been resolved for the resident. However, the landlord did not escalate her complaint until November 2024 after the resident explicitly said that she wanted it to be escalated to stage 2. These further failings meant that the complaint took considerable time to exhaust the landlord’s process, with a total of 457 working days at both stages.
27. The landlord missed opportunities to demonstrate learning as it only identified failings in its complaint handling at stage 2, and its offer of £50 for failings at stage 2 was insufficient. In addition to the learning order, and in line with our compensation guidance we have ordered £250 compensation to reflect the lengthy delays at both stage 1 and stage 2, and the significant errors in the landlord’s application of the Code, and its own complaints policy.

Learning

28. We have asked the landlord to complete a learning review. The landlord failed to retain an oversight over its contractors and procedures to ensure that it could meet its repair timescales. In particular when raising repairs, coordinating with another stakeholder, and updating residents on the progress of repairs. The landlord needs to know why these failures occurred.

Knowledge information management (record keeping)

29. The landlord could not evidence all the repair appointments it referred to in its complaint responses. Additionally, its information management affected its response and led to incorrect statements that the resident had not reported the water pressure.

Communication

30. Outside of the stage 1 and stage 2 complaint responses, there is no evidence of the landlord keeping the resident updated on the progress of repairs and reasons for delays with both the substantive issue and its complaint handling. This continued for several months after the complaints procedure was exhausted.