A2Dominion Housing Group Limited (202120617)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202120617

A2Dominion Housing Group Limited

29 May 2022


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:
    1. Handling of the resident’s gas safety concerns.
    2. Complaint handling.

Background

  1. The resident is a tenant of the landlord. The property is a two bedroomed second floor flat.
  2. On 22 November 2019 the landlord installed a new boiler at the resident’s property and completed a gas safety check the same day, which was passed.
  3. On 22 September 2020 the landlord’s gas contractor completed its yearly gas safety check at the property and recorded that all was OK.
  4. On 7 September 2021 the landlord’s gas contractor commenced the yearly gas safety check at the property and smelt gas. The identified that the smell was coming from near the emergency control valve (ECV), which is located where the gas supplier/transporter’s pipe meets the meter. They turned off the gas supply to the property and contacted the gas supplier. They also placed “DO NOT USE” warning notices on the resident’s boiler, cooker and installation pipe work.
  5. Although we have not advised of the date, the gas supplier visited the property and noted that gas was escaping from the capped outlet and that a washer was missing. It rectified the issue by installing a new cap with a washer and advised the resident to contact her landlord.
  6. The landlords gas contractor attended the property on 9 September 2021 to complete safety checks to confirm that the leak had been resolved and that the customer could use her gas appliances again. Their notes say “ trace and repair leak found on boiler gas union repaired and tested”. They also raised repair jobs for a minor repair to the gas cooker and for a carbon monoxide alarm to be fitted.
  7. The resident raised a complaint on 9 September 2021 as she said she had been given differing versions of whether there was a leak and where it was from. She said she was told by the gas contractor that there had been a leak from the boiler which had been there since its installation two and a half years prior. She was unhappy that the landlord’s previous gas safety inspections had not picked this up and that she had had no carbon monoxide alarm at the property. She also wanted compensation for her gas bills which she said had been very high since the boiler was fitted.
  8. Following contact from the resident, this Service wrote to the landlord on 28 September 2021 and 21 October 2021 asking it to respond to the resident’s complaint. The landlord response to this Service on 25 October 2021 explained that difficult behaviour from the resident had precluded its ability to take the complaint forward but that it would arrange for a senior member of staff to call the resident and would issue a stage one complaint response within the week.
  9. On 26 October 2021 in its stage one response the landlord explained that the leak had been from the meter not the boiler and that the contractor had reported it to the gas supplier as the location of the leak meant it was the supplier’s responsibility. It said the meter had passed previous safety checks which is why the leak had not been picked up before. It confirmed that the contractor’s reports did not state that the boiler had been leaking since installation, the boiler had passed the annual gas safety checks and there were no reports that evidenced that it was dangerous. The landlord’s investigation records for stage one of the complaint show that there had been a typo in the contractors notes from the visit on 9 September 2021. Where it said “leak found on boiler gas union repaired and tested” it should have said “meter” not “boiler”, as there was only one leak and this was from the meter not the boiler.
  10. In its stage two response on 22 November 2021 the landlord said during the visit on 9 September 2021 the contractor had “found a gas leak attributed to the boiler and external gas union and repaired”. It said that the boiler was isolated and made safe when the gas contractor and the supplier attended. It said that although the resident was concerned about the possibility of a gas leak from the boiler from the time of installation, its contractors had confirmed that there was no possibility of such an occurrence at the time and that the boiler was serviced in 2020 and no gas leak was detected then either. It also noted that the resident had not reported any smell of gas to the landlord between the service in 2020 and the service in 2021. It also explained that the type of flue the resident’s boiler had, did not require the landlord to fit a carbon monoxide detector, but that the contractor had fitted one for her on the visit on 9 September 2021. It advised the resident how to contact this Service if she remained dissatisfied with its response.
  11. The resident advised this Service on 7 December 2021 that she was unhappy with the landlord’s final response as they had not accepted liability for the gas leak which she said had been ongoing since the boiler was installed in November 2019, or compensated her for her gas bills from that date.

Assessment and findings

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s gas safety concerns

  1. A landlord is responsible for ensuring that a gas safety check is carried out by a gas safe engineer within 12 months of the installation of a new appliance which it provides, and annually thereafter. The landlord installed a new boiler at the resident’s property in November 2019 and acted appropriately by completing a gas safety check at the time and then completing its annual gas safety check in September 2020, where no issues were identified.
  2. On 7 September 2021 the landlord arrived at the resident’s property to conduct the next annual safety check and noted a smell of gas near the meter. The landlord is responsible for the gas pipework from the property to the meter and the gas supplier is responsible for the pipework from the meter to the gas network. As the location of the gas smell was “after the ECV” and the ECV is the point where the gas supplier/transporter’s pipe meets the meter it was the supplier’s responsibility and the landlord acted appropriately by contacting the supplier to report the leak.
  3. The landlord also acted appropriately and with the resident’s safety in mind by turning off the gas whilst the resident waited for the supplier to investigate the leak and by putting “Do not use” notices on the gas appliances. Once the supplier had investigated the leak and had completed its repairs the landlord acted appropriately by returning to the property on 9 September 2021 to carry out another inspection to ensure it was safe to turn the gas back on.
  4. The resident raised her complaint on 9 September 2021 as she believed that the leak was from the boiler and that it had been there since the boiler was installed in 2019. The landlord acted appropriately by investigating resident’s concerns. As part of these investigations the landlord contacted the contractor in order to confirm whether the gas leak was from the boiler, the meter or both. The contractor explained that where the notes from the visit from 9 September 2021 said “trace and repair leak found on boiler gas union repaired and tested “the word “boiler” had been a typo and should have said “meter”. It confirmed that there had been no leak from the boiler and that the only leak had been at the meter, and that it had been repaired by the gas supplier. The landlord’s stage one response confirmed that the leak had been at the meter but did not explain that the confusion was due to a typo in the contractors notes.
  5. In its stage two response the landlord changed its position and said that the contractor had found and repaired a leak on 9 September 2021 which was “attributed to the boiler”. It is not clear what prompted this change of position as no further evidence had been provided about that visit from the contractor and the landlord appears to have disregarded or overlooked the contractor’s previous explanation that the only leak had been from the meter and that the word boiler was a typing error.
  6. From the contractor’s evidence during the stage one investigations it would appear that the leak was only from the meter and that the stage two response was misleading. However, it is worth noting that if the contractor had found a gas leak during the 9 September 2021 inspection and had repaired it, then the contractor acted appropriately. Furthermore, a gas leak being found in September 2021 would not mean that the leak had been present since the boiler was installed in 2019, particularly as the boiler had passed the gas safety inspection at the time it was fitted in 2019 and had passed the annual safety check in September 2020. There had also been no reports from the resident at any point since its installation of any problems with the boiler or any smell of gas. 
  7. The resident also raised the issue of not having a carbon monoxide detector installed at the property at the time that the gas leak was found in September 2021. At that point, unlike private landlords, social landlords did not have a legal obligation to install carbon monoxide detectors. New regulations have now been laid before parliament and if agreed, will take effect on 1 October 2022. This will remove the exemption of social landlords, so that from October 2022 housing associations and local authority landlords will be subject to the 2015 regulations. The landlord has confirmed to this Service that the resident does not have an appliance that would legally require a carbon monoxide alarm to be fitted, but that it had installed one at the property anyway, following her request for one in September 2021.
  8.  Although the landlord giving the resident two contradictory responses about the location of the gas leak was no doubt frustrating and confusing for the resident , the landlord’s gas contractors acted appropriately at all times. It is also reasonable for landlords to rely on the findings of their specialist contractors in the assessment of reported repairs and the appropriate measure for dealing with them.
  9. The landlord also had no legal obligation to install a carbon monoxide detector at the time the gas leak was discovered. Therefore, there was no maladministration by the landlord in respect of its handling of the resident’s gas safety concerns.

The landlord’s complaint handling

  1. The complaints procedure that the landlord has provided to this Service does not specify the timeframe that it should issue a stage one complaint response within. However, in accordance with the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code, it is recommended that a landlord’s complaints procedure shall include the following maximum timescales for response:
    1. Stage one decision – 10 working days from receipt of complaint – if this is not possible, an explanation and a date by when the stage one response should be received. This should not exceed a further 10 days without good reason 
    2. Stage two response – 20 working days from request to escalate – if this is not possible an explanation and a date when the stage two response will be received. This should not exceed a further 10 working days without good reason
  2. The resident raised her complaint on 9 September 2021 and it would have been reasonable for the landlord to have provided a stage one complaint response by 23 September 2021. However following contact from the resident, this Service had to contact the landlord on 28 September and 21 October 2021 to request that it provide the resident with a complaint response.
  3. The landlord explained that the delay was due to it experiencing challenging behavior from the resident. Though the landlord did not provide records of the challenging behavior from the stage one complaint process to support this claim, the landlord’s description of this behaviour was supported by the content and tone of the resident’s reply to its stage one complaint response and her subsequent communication with this Service.
  4. However, its complaint policy states, “If a complainant behaves inappropriately when making a complaint,(the landlord) will seek to manage that behaviour as necessary, while treating the complaint like any other”. Therefore, though this Service has noted the landlord’s views, challenging behavior by the resident would not fully justify its failure to provide a timely response. It would have been reasonable for the resident to expect a complaint response within a reasonable timeframe or for the landlord to have contacted them to advise that there would be a delay. We have not been provided with any record of the landlord doing so.
  5. The landlord issued its stage one complaint response on 26 October 2021, which  exceeded this Service’s 10 working day guideline for stage one responses. It would also have been reasonable for the landlord to have acknowledged the delay, explained the reason for it and if necessary apologised for it in its complaint response, however neither complaint response did so. As the landlord did not respond to the resident’s complaint within 10 working days and did not advise the resident there would be a delay, or acknowledge or apologise for it in its complaint responses there was service failure by the landlord in respect of its complaint handling.
  6. The landlord’s stage one and stage two responses also gave contradictory explanations for the source of the gas leak.
  7. The explanation in the stage one complaint response was that there was only one gas leak and that it was located near the meter. This explanation was reasonable as it was supported by the contractors comments that explained that a typo had been made and the contractor had used the word boiler instead of meter, and it is reasonable for the landlord to rely on the professional knowledge of its contractors.
  8. The explanation in its stage two complaint response that there was a leak near the gas meter and then a further leak from the boiler is not supported by the evidence the landlord or the contractor have provided and in fact ignores the evidence that the contractor provided about there being a typo. It is reasonable for a resident to expect the landlord’s complaint responses to be clear and concise and on this occasion the two responses gave differing accounts and were confusing. As the landlord did not provide clear concise responses to the resident’s complaint there was further service failure by the landlord in respect of its complaint handling. 

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 54 of The Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was no maladministration by the landlord in respect of its handling of the resident’s gas safety concerns.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 54 of The Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was service failure by the landlord in respect of its complaint handling.

Orders

  1. In light of the delay in responding to the resident’s complaint and the lack of clarity in the landlord’s complaint responses over the location of the gas leak, the landlord is to pay the resident £50 compensation.