Birmingham City Council (202006376)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202006376

Birmingham City Council

30 April 2021

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 concerns:
   1. the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of outstanding repairs in her property.
   2. the impact the condition of the property had on the resident’s health.

Jurisdiction

2. What we can and cannot consider is called the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. This is governed by the Housing Ombudsman Scheme. When a complaint is brought to the Ombudsman, we must consider all the circumstances of the case as there are sometimes reasons why a complaint will not be investigated.
3. Under paragraph 39(i) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the Ombudsman will not consider complaints which “concern matters where the Ombudsman considers it quicker, fairer, more reasonable or more effective to seek a remedy through the courts, a designated person, other tribunal or procedure”.
4. In the resident’s complaints she has referred to how the condition of her property, specifically the dampness, has impacted her health. Unfortunately, the Ombudsman cannot draw conclusions on the causation of, or liability for, impacts on health and wellbeing. This would be more usually dealt with as a personal injury claim through the courts, who can call upon expert medical evidence, and make legally binding judgements. Nevertheless, we have taken into account the distress and inconvenience the resident experienced as a result of the situation.

Background and summary of events

5. The resident is a tenant of the landlord.
6. On 17 July 2020 the resident emailed the landlord. She said that she had been “dealing with various repairs over the past [two] years” which included damp. She said her property was not “fit for purpose”. She listed the outstanding issues in her property which were:
   1. “dampness all around the house
   2. bathroom floor tiles
   3. kitchen floor [had] collapsed and deep hole
   4. garden gate and frame
   5. lounge ceiling need[ed] fixing
   6. bathroom unfinished repairs after toilet [leak]
   7. exposed wall and pipes
   8. missing cupboards to cover the pipe
   9. rotting floor boards.”
7. On 4 September 2020 the resident raised a formal complaint over the telephone to the landlord. According to the landlord’s records, she said that the repairs in her property had not been completed. She reported the issues that she was experiencing. These included “smells around the house”, the kitchen cupboards being in poor condition, collapsed flooring, dampness, a collapsed kitchen wall, and damaged floorboards. The resident also said that although the damp in her property had been treated, it had not resolved the issue. She asked the landlord to investigate and address the issues in her property. 
8. The landlord issued its stage one complaint response on 16 September 2020. It said that its contractors had confirmed that plastering work to the walls and ceiling had been completed. It said that it had organised “a recall for the damp repairs” and had arranged “floor/stairs follow up work” for 29 October. It apologised for the delays to the repairs.
9. It concluded by explaining how the resident could escalate her complaint if she remained dissatisfied with the outcome.
10. On 18 September 2020 the resident asked the landlord to escalate her complaint. She said that the landlord’s stage one response had “overlooked [her] complaint by not fully investigating the level of the current situation within [her property]”. She reiterated her problems with dampness and that the contractors had been unable to resolve the issue. She said that the plastering was incomplete, and she also said that she had rotten door frames, cracks in the living room window, and a water leak from an outside pipe.
11. The landlord issued its final complaint response on 22 September 2020. It said that it had been advised that the plastering work had been completed and that the resident had confirmed this with its contractors. It said that it had previously advised the resident that it would contact be in contact regarding a damp inspection. It also said that repairs to her flooring had been booked for 29 October.
12. It concluded by explaining how she could refer her complaint to this Service if she remained dissatisfied with the outcome.

Assessment and findings

13. According to the landlord’s repairs policy, providing that any damage is not due to actions or neglect on the resident’s behalf, the landlord is responsible for the maintenance and repair of the structure, external, and internal components of the resident’s property. The landlord therefore took reasonable action in response the resident’s complaint by organising various work to be completed to her property, as the issues it addressed fell under its repair obligations. However, its responses lacked detail and did not address the resident’s complaint in its entirety. The landlord’s complaint policy stipulates that when a resident makes a complaint it will “investigate [the issue] fully” and “send a full response”. However, in this case the two complaint responses issued to the resident failed to meet this criterion. The landlord copied ambiguous notes left by its contractors like “floor/stairs follow up work” and “a recall for the damp repairs”, and sent this to the resident as its formal stage one complaint response. It was not entirely clear from them what work would be carried out, and this was an unreasonable response from the landlord as did not provide the resident with any clarity or reassurance of what work would be carried out.
14. In its stage two complaint response, the landlord explained that it had organised plastering work, a damp inspection, and repairs to the flooring. It then said that “these were all of the repairs detailed in [the resident’s] complaint”. However, in the resident’s formal complaint on 4 September 2020, she explained that she also had issues with smells around the property, and that the kitchen cupboards were in poor condition. In her escalation request, she also mentioned rotten door frames, cracked windows, and a leak outside. The landlord failed to acknowledge these other repair issues and therefore acted unreasonably by not addressing the resident’s whole complaint. Even if it did not consider itself responsible for these particular problems, it should have at least explained it stance to the resident in order to manage her expectations.
15. No evidence has been provided for this investigation of the landlord responding to, or acknowledging the resident’s reports of repair issues from 17 July 2020. In the landlord’s correspondence with this Service, it has provided a timeline of various repairs that were carried out in the resident’s property throughout 2020 including ones which were undertaken following the resident’s email in July. But this timeline did not include specific detail of the nature of the repair work. Rather, the timeline refers to damp and mould issues in the resident property that were “reported 3 March 2020 completed 22 June 2020”. Aside from this timeline and the notes copied in its stage one complaint response, the landlord has not provided any evidence to corroborate its account of events that any repairs took place.
16. It is vital that landlords keep clear, accurate and easily accessible records to provide an audit trail. If we investigate a complaint, we will ask for the landlord’s records. If there is disputed evidence and no audit trail, we may not be able to conclude that an action took place or that the landlord followed its own policies and procedures. Even though the landlord advised this Service that there were no copies of inspection reports or feedback from its contractors, it did not explain why or how it had been able to produce its own timeline. In the absence of such records, we cannot robustly determine whether the landlord had carried out any repair work to the resident’s property prior to her formal complaint and impacts on our overall assessment of its handling of the resident’s reports of outstanding repairs. The landlord’s failure to provide evidence of its previous repairs, its failure to address all the repair concerns that the resident raised, alongside its failure to provide the resident with clear and informative complaint responses are significant enough to be considered maladministration.

Determination (decision)

17. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in way it handled the resident’s reports of outstanding repairs in the property.

Orders and recommendations

18. The landlord to pay the resident £400 for the distress and inconvenience experienced as a result of the maladministration identified with the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of outstanding repairs in the property.
19. This payment should be made within four weeks of the date of this report. The landlord should update this Service when the payment has been made.

Reasons

20. Although the landlord did arrange for repair work to be carried out in the resident’s property, its complaint responses lacked detail and clarity. It did not respond to the resident’s complaint in its entirety and failed to provide any evidence for this investigation to substantiate its claims that it had previously carried out repair work in the resident’s property.