Clarion Housing Association Limited (202348372)

Background

1. The resident’s flat is within a block and he sublet it to tenants. He reported a sewage leak to the landlord before raising his complaint.

What the complaint is about

2. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of a sewage leak.
3. We have also considered the landlord’s handling of the complaint.

Our decision (determination)

4. We have found that there was:
   1. Reasonable redress in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of a sewage leak.
   2. Service failure in the landlord’s handling of the complaint.

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

Summary of reasons

5. The landlord’s contractor attended the repair within the timescale given for an emergency repair in its policy. The leak was not resolved within the timescale given and the landlord has accepted that its contractor did not handle the issue in a satisfactory way. It has provided compensation in line with its policy for the distress and inconvenience caused. And referred the resident to its liability insurer to make a claim for other damages or losses.
6. The landlord did not fully investigate the resident’s complaint. The landlord identified and compensated the resident for some failings in its complaint handling, but not all of them.

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.

7. The resident’s lease sets out that the landlord is responsible for repairs to the pipework including water and waste pipes. The landlord’s maintenance and responsive repairs policy says that it will attend an emergency repair within 24 hours and that works to make safe or temporarily repair the issue will take place on this initial visit. It also says that further remedial works may be needed later.
8. The resident reported the issue with a sewage leak to the landlord on 4 January 2024. The landlord’s contractor attended the same day. This was within the 24 hours allowed under its policy. The contractors’ report says that the issues were resolved on this visit. The resident disputes this and raised his concerns about the leak with the landlord again on 5 January 2024.
9. The landlord attended again on 5 January 2024 and its contractor was unable to gain access to the property. There were visits to the property again on 6 and 8 January 2024. The notes left by the contractor indicate that issues were resolved on these occasions, but the resident remained unhappy with the leak throughout this time. It is not clear what work was completed during these visits, as we have confirmation that the issues were not resolved by the contractor until 15 January 2024. This points to a record keeping failure.
10. The resident told the landlord that there was damage to the flat and that he had experienced additional costs due to the leak. He said he had paid for his own plumbers to investigate and had to find alternative accommodation for his tenants. In response to this the landlord asked the resident to provide details so that it could raise an insurance claim with its own liability insurers. This was appropriate and would have given the resident the opportunity to make a claim to mitigate these costs. The landlord did not receive the information needed to allow it to make a claim on behalf of the resident.
11. The landlord accepted that repairs took too long and offered a total of £700 compensation for this in its complaint responses. This level of compensation is within the landlord’s medium band and is for cases where there is considerable failure but no permanent impact on the resident. This is appropriate considering the high impact the landlord’s failures had on the resident over a short period of time.

12. The landlord’s complaints policy at the time of the complaint says that it will acknowledge and log a complaint within 10 days at both stages. It says it will provide a response within 20 working days at stage 1 and within 40 working days at stage 2.
13. The resident raised his complaint with the landlord on 11 January 2024. The landlord did not acknowledge this but provided a stage 1 response on 18 January 2024. This was within the time allowed in its policy.
14. The resident asked to escalate his complaint to stage 2 on 29 January 2024. The landlord did not provide an acknowledgement but provided its stage 2 response on 2 February 2024. This was also within the time allowed in its policy.
15. The landlord did not fully investigate the resident’s complaint about the way he was spoken to by some members of staff. It should have taken additional steps during its complaint investigation to find out more details about this to allow it to further investigate and resolve the resident’s concerns. This is a failing.
16. Failing to investigate this element of the resident’s complaint is likely to have caused him to think that the landlord was not taking his concerns seriously. It is likely to have caused him additional distress and inconvenience while he was trying to resolve the issues with the leak.
17. The landlord has offered payments of £50 for failures in complaint handling and £50 for poor customer service. Had the landlord identified its failure to properly investigate this element of the complaint during its own complaints process this may have been sufficient, but we are unable to make a finding of reasonable redress when the landlord has not properly identified or acknowledged its failings.
18. Considering the impact that these failures are likely to have caused the resident landlord must make an additional payment of £50. This will bring the compensation for the distress and inconvenience caused by the landlord’s handling of the complaint to £150. This is appropriate when a landlord has made an attempt to put things right but it is not proportionate to the failings identified by our investigation.

Learning

19. The landlord did not properly investigate all elements of the resident’s complaint and did not identify this during the complaints process. The landlord should take steps to ensure it properly investigates all elements of complaints made to it.

Knowledge information management (record keeping)

20. The repair records provided by the landlord were not clear about what work was completed by its contractor. This is likely to have contributed to the delays the resident experienced. The landlord should take steps to ensure it keeps more accurate repair records in future.

Communication

21. The landlord did not keep the resident properly updated about the repair and the steps it was taking to fix the leak. It also gave the resident incorrect and misleading information which it identified in its complaint response.