Birmingham City Council (202107243)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202107243

Birmingham City Council

18 March 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:
    1. The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports that a communal pipe was leaking into her bathroom.
    2. The landlord’s handling of the associated complaint.

Background

  1. The resident is a leaseholder of a flat within a block of similar properties. The landlord is the freeholder. There is a communal pipe which runs externally down through a walkway in the building, then internally through the property above the resident’s and into the resident’s property. 
  2. The resident said that she initially reported a leak into her bathroom in March 2021. She raised a complaint with the landlord in April 2021 and reported that there was a leak from a communal pipe above her property. The landlord responded to the resident in June 2021 and explained that scaffolding would be erected on 9 June 2021 with a follow-on appointment scheduled for 11 June 2021. It apologised for the delay to the repair and any inconvenience caused.
  3. The resident escalated her complaint as she remained dissatisfied with the lack of progress made by the landlord. She confirmed that a roofer had attended on 18 June 2021 but established that it was a drainage issue rather than a roofing issue. She was also dissatisfied that the landlord had not rectified the uncontainable leak from the pipe into her bathroom since this had been reported in March 2021. In response, the landlord confirmed that its contractors had sealed around the pipe and sealed a crack in the walkway above the resident’s property.
  4. Following this, the resident continued to report that the issue had not been resolved and liaised with the landlord via her local MP. A camera survey of the drainage pipe took place in early August 2021; a joint inside the pipework was found to be displaced and a repair was completed on 20 August 2021. The resident asked for a report to show that the works had been completed for insurance purposes on 3 September 2021 and this was provided on 21 September 2021.
  5. The resident referred her complaint to this Service as she remained dissatisfied with the landlord’s handling of the repair issue, specifically the delay in repair works being carried out. 

Assessment and findings

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports that a communal pipe was leaking into her bathroom.

  1. The lease states that the landlord is responsible for maintaining the structure and common parts of the building in which the property is situated.  The resident would be responsible for maintaining the internal parts of the property. The landlord’s repairs policy states that emergency repairs should be attended to within 2 hours. Urgent repairs should be attended to within one, three or seven days depending on the severity of the repair issue and routine repairs should be completed within 30 days. The landlord would be expected to keep the resident regularly updated on the progress of the works, explain any delays and provided expected timescales for when the repair would be completed.
  2. As part of this investigation the landlord was asked to provide documents, correspondence, and any other evidence relevant to the resident’s complaint. Only limited information was received, which did not include significant items such as repair or communication logs. The Ombudsman would expect a landlord to keep a robust record of contacts and repairs, yet the evidence has not been comprehensive in this case. 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. The omissions indicate poor record keeping by the landlord in that it was not able to provide the relevant information when asked. This poor record keeping directly affected the quality of the repair service provided.
  3. The evidence suggests that the resident first reported a leak into her bathroom coming from the property above in March 2021. Following this, the resident has advised that several inspections took place, however, there is a lack of evidence to confirm the findings of all of these visits or the dates these took place. There is no evidence to suggest that any repairs had taken place or works had progressed until June 2021 when the landlord confirmed that scaffolding would be erected and a roofer would attend. This was significantly outside of the landlord’s repair timescales for both urgent and routine repairs.
  4. It should be noted that it can take more than one attempt to resolve issues such as leaks as it can be difficult to identify the cause of issue at the outset and in some cases different repairs may need to be attempted before the matter is resolved. This would not necessarily constitute a service failure by the landlord. However, given the resident’s reports that the leak was uncontainable, it would have been appropriate for the landlord to have treated the issue as an urgent or emergency repair and to have kept the resident regularly updated on the progress it made. There is, however, a lack of evidence to show that it did so. The landlord apologised for the delay to the repairs in its initial response to the resident but did not outline the reason for the delay or any steps it had taken in an attempt to resolve the issue.
  5. It was reasonable for the landlord to arrange for the pipe to be sealed on 24 June 2021 following the resident’s continued reports that the leak into her bathroom was ongoing and uncontainable. However, it would have been appropriate for the landlord to have confirmed whether this resolved the issue at the time to determine whether further works were required prior to closing the complaint. As it failed to do so, this necessitated additional involvement by the resident who needed to follow-up with the landlord through her local MP and explain that the issue was not resolved.
  6. Following an appointment in mid-June 2021 where it was established that the leak was not caused by a roofing issue, there was a delay in arranging a survey of the pipe until around 6 August 2021. Given the nature of the repair issue, it would have been appropriate for the landlord to have communicated with the resident regarding any delay and offered an apology for the inconvenience caused but, again, there is no evidence to suggest that it had done so.
  7. In summary, there has been significant failures by the landlord in respect of its handling of the resident’s reports of a leak into her property from a communal pipe. There were significant unexplained delays and a lack of clear communication from the landlord which resulted in an unnecessary level of involvement by the resident who needed to repeatedly chase repairs and responses. The delay in resolving the communal pipe leak and providing the resident with the repair report may have also caused further inconvenience for the resident who needed to wait for the issue to be resolved before rectifying any damage caused to her bathroom.
  8. In view of the service failures identified, the landlord should offer compensation to the resident in recognition of the inconvenience caused by the repair delays and its poor communication. It is also recommended that the landlord conduct a review of its record keeping processes to ensure that it has adequate records of repairs and communication with a resident related to their complaint so that these can be used to resolve ongoing repair issues such as tracing the source of a leak, and so they can be used if the service needs investigating by the landlord or the Ombudsman.

The landlord’s handling of the associated complaint.

  1. The landlords complaints policy states that it has a two stage formal complaints process. A response should be initially sent within 15 working days. If the resident remains dissatisfied, they can escalate their complaint to be reviewed. The landlord should provide its review response within 20 working days. The policy confirms that the initial response would be issued by the department responsible for providing the service. The review response would be issued by an independent officer (unrelated to the complaint issue). If, at any stage, there is likely to be a delay, the landlord would be expected to contact the resident, explain the reason for the delay and provide a new timescale in which the resident could receive a response.
  2. In considering a landlord’s response to a complaint, the Ombudsman considers whether the landlord acted in line with the Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles: be fair, put things right and learn from outcomes. The Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code sets out requirements for member landlords that will allow them to respond to complaints effectively and fairly. The code states that each complaint response must confirm:
    1. The complaint stage and the complaint definition.
    2. The decision on the complaint and the reasons for any decisions made.
    3. The details of any remedy offered to put things right.
    4. Details of any outstanding actions. 
    5. Details of how to escalate the matter to the next stage if the resident is not satisfied with the answer, or, if this was the final stage, details of how to escalate the matter to the Housing Ombudsman Service.
  3. The Code also states that the person considering the complaint at the review stage, must not be the same person that considered the complaint at stage one (investigation stage). This is basic good practice, helps ensure impartiality, and brings in a wider perspective of the matters at hand.
  4. The landlord’s records show that the initial complaint was received by letter on 16 April 2021. A copy of the letter has not been provided to this Service for review and the landlord’s record outlining the details of the complaint is not comprehensive. As such, it is not clear as to whether each aspect of the resident’s complaint was addressed. The landlord did not provide its initial complaint response until 1 June 2021, which was 15 working days outside of its published timescale. There is no evidence to suggest that the landlord had made the resident aware of the delay, nor did it apologise or explain the reason for the delay in its complaint responses which is likely to have caused inconvenience to the resident.
  5. Furthermore, whilst the landlord acknowledged and apologised for the repair delay at this stage, it had not taken steps to explain the cause of the delay or what went wrong. In addition, the response did not set out the landlord’s decision regarding the complaint or explain the reasons for its decision. The Ombudsman would expect to have seen evidence of specific actions the landlord had taken to resolve the issue such as appointment dates and findings and a conclusion on whether the correct process had been followed. As such, the landlord failed to provide a satisfactory response to the complaint at this stage.
  6. The resident raised further concern about the repair issue on 23 June 2021 and the complaint was escalated for review. The landlord provided its final response to the resident on 24 June 2021. Whilst this response outlined the repairs that had been carried out in an attempt to resolve the leak, this response was similarly incomplete and did not set out the landlord’s position.  Furthermore, both formal complaint responses were issued by the same individual member of staff. As the review was conducted by the same person who had originally responded to the complaint, the landlord did not follow its policy, and acted contrary to basic complaint handling principles of fairness and impartiality.
  7. In summary, the landlord’s complaint handling in this case has been poor. The landlord failed to demonstrate that it had adequately investigated the resident’s complaint. The landlord has not taken the opportunity of the formal complaints process to fully investigate the reports, formally confirm its position, and adequately redress any identified service failings. It has also not demonstrated compliance with the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code. In view of this, the landlord should offer compensation to the resident in view of the inconvenience caused by its complaint handling failures. It is also recommended that the landlord considers carrying out staff training for complaint handlers to ensure that the correct process is followed. It should also ensure that complaints escalated to its review stage are investigated by an independent member of staff and its complaint responses are in line with the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code.

Determination (decision)

  1. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in respect of its handling of the residents reports that a communal pipe was leaking into her bathroom.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in respect of its handling of the associated complaint.

Orders

  1. The Ombudsman orders that the following actions take place within four weeks:
    1. The landlord is to pay the resident £400, comprised of:
      1. £250 in recognition of the inconvenience caused by the delayed repairs and its poor communication.
      2. £150 in recognition caused by its poor complaint handling.

Recommendations

  1. It is recommended that the landlord conduct a review of its record keeping processes to ensure that it has adequate records of repairs and communication with a resident.
  2. It is recommended that the landlord considers carrying out staff training for complaint handlers to ensure that the correct process is followed. It should also ensure that complaints escalated to its review stage are investigated by an independent member of staff and its complaint responses are in line with the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code.