Clarion Housing Association Limited (202007157)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202007157

Clarion Housing Association Limited

21 September 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 is about the landlord’s response to the resident’s report of a leak.
  2. The complaint is about the complaint handling.

Background and summary of events

Background

  1. The resident is a leaseholder. The lease commenced in February 2014. The property is a flat.

Policies and procedures

  1. The landlord and resident’s respective obligations are set out in the lease. The landlord is obliged to maintain, repair, redecorate and renew the structural parts of the building including the roof, foundations, joints and external walls. The lease sets out the conditions which limit the landlord’s liability in respect of the above obligation.
  2. The repairs and maintenance policy states that communal repairs are appointed depending on the nature of the work (non-emergency or emergency) and should be completed within 28 days.
  3. The compensation policy explains the landlord’s approach towards offering discretionary payments and its compensation bands. Awards of £50 – £250 correlate to failures to meet service standards for actions and responses (with no significant impact). Such awards also correlate to failures where the impact experienced include distress and inconvenience, time and trouble or delays in getting matters resolved.
  4. The policy states that payments will be considered on a case by case basis, but where the landlord has made a mistake, it will take ownership of this. It will offer compensation based on factors including whether the problem has occurred due to a direct failure by the landlord, the length of time taken to resolve the problem, whether the resident’s needs were made worse by the situation or a failure of staff to follow published policies and procedures.
  5. The landlord operates a two staged complaint process. The timescale for a stage one response is ten working days. The timescale for a stage two response is 20 working days, or longer with notice.

Outstanding dispute and scope of this investigation

  1. In July 2021 the resident discussed the complaint with the Ombudsman’s triage and mediation team. The resident’s concerns were that:
    1. Leaseholders were charged for repairs through the service charge.
    2. The leak would return.
  2. In September 2021 the resident told the Ombudsman that he also wished for the Ombudsman to investigate the landlord’s compliance with a historic order made in 2015 about leaks. The resident also added that he had an additional report about a repair. This was about flooding in the bathtub due to a drainage issue.
  3. There is no evidence that the landlord has formally considered a complaint about the resident’s concern about the service charge or drainage repair. Therefore, these issues are not within the scope of this investigation.
  4. The Ombudsman is unable to consider historic complaints about the landlord’s repair service from 2014/15 or its compliance with a historic repair ordered by the Ombudsman in 2015. The resident and landlord would have had the opportunity at the time raise this with the Ombudsman under the relevant dispute resolution process. This element of the complaint is also outside of the scope of this investigation.
  5. The resident may still engage with the landlord in respect of his broader concerns about the historic repairs in the property and the landlord may consider addressing this in accordance with its obligations. 
  6. The remaining scope of this investigation is from April 2020, when the resident first reported the leak, to 13 May 2021, when the complaint process concluded.

Summary of events

  1. On 16 April 2020 the resident contacted the landlord about a leak coming into his property. The landlord responded the next day and the parties discussed the repair obligations by email (17 – 20 April 2020):
    1. The landlord considered that the leak was inside of the property, so the resident had to arrange the repair as he was the leaseholder. It said that if the repair were a communal issue, then it would be able to investigate this.
    2. The resident disputed that the leak was coming from inside of the property and he said it was coming from the ceiling.
    3. The landlord asked what was above his property in order to ascertain if it was a communal repair.
    4. The resident said that it was another property and he was unable to access the repair pipe. He said that it should be considered as a communal matter.
    5. The landlord told the resident that the repair from the leak above was not covered by the landlord for shared ownership or leasehold properties. It went on to explain that it would only cover communal repairs that did not require access to individual shared ownership or leasehold flats.
  2. There is limited evidence to demonstrate what happened throughout May, June or July 2020.
  3. The landlord appears to have later accepted responsibility for the leak. On 23 August 2020 there was a note about scaffolding. Then, on 6 October 2020 there was a note stating the details of the repair (gutter clearance). This was completed on 12 October 2020.
  4. The internal records state that on 12 October 2020 “the repairs carried out were removal of the debris in the gutters leading to hopper to drop creating a split. This was pushed up with the use of the gutter vac attachments on the visit. At the time it was decided to hold off in erecting scaffolding in case the sky vac attachments would solve the dropped pipe” (as per the landlord’s email of 19 April 2021 reviewing the repair records).
  5. On 14 October 2020 the resident contacted the Ombudsman about his concerns; this was about his experience with repairs in 2014 and his concern that the repairs at the time were not resolved. The resident wanted the repairs to be completed and said the landlord refused to accept the repairs when he had reported it. The resident was advised to send the landlord’s final response; he subsequently provided a copy of the landlord’s response of April 2020 to his concern about the current leak in the property.
  6. On 20 October 2020 the Ombudsman contacted the landlord to prompt it to get in touch with the resident. 
  7. The landlord confirmed on 28 October 2020 that it logged a stage one complaint and would be in touch with the resident. It updated the resident similarly on 2 November 2020.
  8. On 20 November 2020 it issued a stage one response. It said:
    1. It was asked to investigate concerns about a delay in repairing a leak from the flat above the resident’s. It attempted to contact the resident twice but did not hear back.
    2. It contacted the area manager to investigate the issue; it was confirmed that the issue was with the guttering that needed clearing and this was done on 12 October 2020. The landlord said that there was no further work required, the delay was due to the need for access to equipment (scaffolding) which needed to be approved by the landlord due to cost.
    3. It identified a service failure due to the delay in getting access to the equipment needed to clear the guttering and said it would uphold this complaint. It said that it attempted to contact the resident on 19 November 2020 on the selected contact number but did not reach him.
  9.  On 27 November 2020 the resident escalated the complaint:
    1. He acknowledged that the landlord tried to get in touch with him about the complaint.
    2. The leak started at the beginning of the first lockdown and damaged his flat; the damage in the flat had not been repaired.
    3. The leak was due to “guttering that needed clearing in the flat above” which meant that it was not the resident’s fault.
    4. His flat had been repainted in February 2019 and he felt the work had been undone in the corner of the flat that had been affected by the leak.
    5. He could not trust that the leak was fixed. He referred to his experienced with the operatives in 2014 and repairs they had completed.
    6. He wanted the flat to be repaired and repainted in the area that had been damaged.
  10. On 30 January 2021 the resident contacted the Ombudsman and said that the landlord had not responded to his escalation request.
  11. On 19 March 2021 the Ombudsman asked the landlord to escalate the complaint. The landlord acknowledged this on 22 March 2021 and said it would contact the resident to ask about the outstanding complaint. The Ombudsman updated the resident.
  12. On 23 April 2021 an inspection of the guttering and down pipe was carried out, following the resident’s concern about the quality of the repair/his concern that the leak would return. The inspection survey has not been seen. The details have been taken from the landlord’s internal email about the repair. The landlord said that the operative turned up, discussed the matter with the resident and established that there were no issues with the guttering. The operative did a survey of the gutters and found “no split connections or hoppers”. The landlord iterated this in the complaint response to the resident and this was not disputed.
  13. On 23 April 2021 the resident reported to the Ombudsman that the landlord had not responded to the complaint. On 10 May 2021 the Ombudsman asked the landlord to escalate the complaint.
  14. On 13 May 2021 the landlord issued its stage two final response:
    1. It apologised for the complaint handling delay.
    2. It summarised the previously investigated (stage one) complaint; the resident contacted the landlord via the Ombudsman on 20 October 2020 about the delay in resolving a leak. It understood that the resident did not know if he could trust that the leak was fixed and he was dissatisfied about the damage to the flat following the leak. It understood that the resident wanted the landlord to fix the internal water damage to the resident’s hallway.
    3. It explained the repairs it had carried out:
      1. On 12 October 2020 there was a repair to remove debris from the gutters which had caused part of the guttering to drop and caused a split.
      2. The ‘SkyVac’ was used to push up the guttering, it did not erect scaffolding.
      3. In the process of carrying out a review, it inspected the guttering and down pipe (in April 2021) and found no issues.
    4. It responded to the resident’s query about a historic leak of 2014. It considered that this was separate to the current leak due to the lack of records to show the same repair.
    5. In regard to clearance of guttering, it did not have a planned programme but its repairs team would respond to call outs for repairs when this was raised.
    6. It said that the resident was responsible for internal decorative works.
    7. It said that the resident could submit a claim for damages to internal aspects of the property under his building insurance or pursue a claim against the landlord and submit this to the landlord’s insurance team (and it provided details of this process).
    8. It offered compensation for the following acknowledged service failures:
      1. There was a delay to remedy the leak due to time taken to arrange access equipment (scaffolding) which was then not needed; it offered compensation for the repair being outside of its service level (£50).
      2. It offered compensation for the inconvenience of the leak since the beginning of lockdown to October 2020 (£100).
      3. There was a delay in communication from 27 November 2020 (the escalation request), it explained this (the email was not forwarded to a particular team), apologised and offered compensation (£50).
    1. It signposted the resident to the Ombudsman service and confirmed the complaint process had concluded.
  1. The landlord has resolved the leak and offered compensation for its acknowledged service failures in the delay to remedy the leak and the delay caused by waiting for the access equipment which was not needed. It also considered the delay in escalating the complaint in November 2020.
  2. After the complaint process, the resident confirmed that the insurance company had been out to fix the wall, but he remained dissatisfied due to the reasons outlined in the background section of this report.

Assessment and findings

  1. The landlord is obliged to maintain and repair structural parts of the building. It is also obliged to complete communal repairs within 28 days. The resident reported the leak on 16 April 2020, however, the leak was resolved on 12 October 2020. There was therefore an unreasonable delay in the landlord’s response to the resident’s report about the leak.
  2. There is no evidence to demonstrate when the landlord diagnosed the initial repair (ie that it was due to the guttering and how it was categorised), and therefore when it became liable for completing the repair. The repair was outstanding for approximately 6 months, which was 5 months over the appropriate timescale for communal repairs. There is also no evidence to show that it communicated its delay due to the scaffolding at the time to the resident. Therefore, there was a service failure by the delay in carrying out the work and its communication with the resident during the period.
  3. Although the landlord identified its service failure and offered redress in recognition of this, the amount which it offered to the resident was not reasonable. Its offer was £100 for the inconvenience of the outstanding repair (which it calculated from March 2020 to October 2020). It offered a further £50 for the repair being outside of its service level/delay caused by the scaffolding.
  4. The delay caused the resident’s property to be exposed to the leak for an unreasonable timeframe. Although it was appropriate for the landlord to direct the resident to the insurer in respect of any damages, it did not consider the distress, time and trouble that the resident experienced as a result of the unreasonable length of time that the repair was outstanding for. It would have been resolution focused for the landlord to calculate this into its offer of redress in line with the dispute resolution principles to put things right.
  5. Following the resident’s concern over the standard of the repair, the landlord took reasonable steps to arrange a visit to the property and an inspection of the guttering (April 2021). The visit by an operative to survey the guttering and down pipe was conveyed in the landlord’s internal emails during the review period of the investigation and within its complaint response to the resident, which was not disputed. The landlord took reasonable steps to satisfy itself that the repair to the guttering was completed.
  6. It was also reasonable for the landlord to refer the resident to its insurer in respect of the report of damage inside of the resident’s property. This is because the insurer can appropriately assess and calculate liability for the damages.
  7. In respect of the complaint handling, the landlord did not respond in line with its policy timescales. It explained that it had tried to contact the resident before the stage one response, which the resident acknowledged. It offered an apology and compensation (£50) for the timeliness of its response; this was reasonable and resolution focused.

Determination (decision)

  1. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord’s response to the resident’s report of a leak.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 55 (b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord offered reasonable redress for the complaint handling service failure. 

Reasons

  1. There was an unreasonable delay between when the leak was reported and when it was resolved. The timescale was inappropriate under the landlord’s repair policy. The landlord appropriately identified this as a service failure, but it did not offer proportional redress. The resident experienced distress, time and trouble in addition to the inconvenience which the landlord identified. The landlord’s offer of compensation was disproportional to the impact of the delay.
  2. The landlord identified a service failure due to the delay in escalating the resident’s complaint and offered reasonable redress in recognition of this.

Orders and recommendations

Order

  1. Within four weeks of the date of this report, the landlord is ordered to offer the resident a total of £225 compensation for the distress, time and trouble associated with the repair (reduced by the original compensation amount of £150 if this has already paid).

Recommendation

  1. Within four weeks of the date of this report the landlord is recommended to pay the resident the £50 compensation for its identified service failure in its complaint handling, if this has not already been paid.