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Clarion Housing Association Limited (202442614)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202442614

Clarion Housing Association Limited

10 October 2025


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 handling of repairs to the resident’s hot water supply.

Background

  1. The resident occupies a 1-bedroom flat under an assured shorthold tenancy from the landlord.
  2. The resident said the hot water had been initially lost on 29 September 2024, and she reported the issue to her neighbourhood response officer on 30 September 2024.
  3. The landlord’s contractor attended on 1, 2 and 3 October 2024 and following further reports they reattended again on 6 and 8 October. The landlord’s contractor noted the hot water was left working on 8 October 2024.
  4. The resident raised a complaint on 15 October 2024. She said she had been left without hot water for 9 days and asked for full rent reimbursement for the period. The landlord reattended on 18 October 2024 after a further loss of hot water, and again on 21 October 2024 when it noted the hot water was left working. The resident added to her complaint on 23 October 2024 that she had been left 12 days without hot water.
  5. The landlord responded to the complaint at stage 1 of its internal complaint process on 24 October 2024 and said the resident had first reported the issue on 1 October 2024, and it had repaired it on the sixth day. It added that the second occasion of loss of hot water was also shorter than 7 days and as such it would not offer compensation for loss of hot water or look to refund parts of the rent The landlord said its communication fell short which it said caused confusion and inconvenience to the resident, for which it apologised. It offered compensation of £100 in recognition of the repeat operative visits, and to recognise the problems experienced and the inconvenience caused by being passed through multiple teams when the resident had contacted the landlord.
  6. The resident escalated her complaint to stage 2 on 24 October 2024 over the phone, because she was unhappy with the level of compensation offered. The resident also disagreed with the date the landlord had noted in the stage 1 report of when the initial loss of hot water occurred, reiterating that she had informed her neighbourhood response officer on 30 September 2024. The resident said she had informed the landlord on 4 October she had used a private contractor to attend the fault and was seeking a refund of £150 from the landlord.
  7. The landlord responded to the complaint at stage 2 on 22 November 2024. The landlord said the compensation was awarded at a rate of £5 per day after 7 days of the initial report. The landlord was satisfied that the compensation offered at stage 1 was correctly calculated. It also said it considered that it had attended the repair as an emergency on 1 October 2024, and it had completed further follow-on works in line with its service level agreement.
  8. The landlord said it would not reimburse the costs of the private contractor. It added that at the time it had advised the resident, it had been dealing with the repair and would not reimburse her.
  9. The resident brought her complaint to the Ombudsman in January 2025 because she was dissatisfied with the landlord’s handling of the repairs and said she was left without hot water for 13 days in total. She wanted further compensation. Since then, she raised complaints with the landlord about heating issues, windows, communal door repair, and mould due to insufficient heating at the property.

Assessment and findings

Scope of the investigation

  1. In January 2025, the resident raised concerns that her heating was not working properly. She also raised concerns regarding issues with her windows, space heaters, a communal door, and an issue with mould growth. The landlord responded at stage 1 of its complaint process on 28 March 2025. We have not seen evidence that this complaint was escalated or exhausted the landlord’s complaint process. Landlords should be provided with a fair opportunity to respond to the resident’s concerns before we can investigate a complaint. If the resident remains concerned about her heating, she may wish to contact the landlord and follow its process until she exhausts it before bringing her complaint to us.

The landlord’s handling of repairs to the resident’s hot water supply.

  1. The landlord’s responsive repairs and maintenance policy (“repair policy”) says emergency repairs should be responded to within 24 hours to make safe and/or make temporary repairs, with further follow-on repairs to be completed within 28 days.
  2. The landlord confirmed within its stage 2 response that its neighbourhood response officer had been made aware of the loss of hot water on 30 September 2024 but it appears the officer did not take any action to pass this information onto the landlord’s customer service team to log the repair The landlord’s policy does not specify that repairs reported via email should be sent to its customer service as it stated at stage 2. While the landlord advised the resident should have reported the repair in different ways it would have been reasonable for the officer to have raised the loss of hot water with the relevant department. As such the Ombudsman considers that the landlord was notified of the loss of hot water on 30 September.
  3. While the landlord’s repair records do not show any evidence that it attended the resident’s home on the 1 October 2024, it is not disputed that it attended on that date.  Regardless of the confusion with the report of the repair the landlord attended on the next day of the report within or close to the 24 hours required by its policy. Its records also show that following an order of a part, its operatives fully repaired the issue within the 28 days quoted within its repair policy for follow-on works. While this was appropriate, the delay in supplying and installing the part left the resident without hot water on 2 occasions between 30 September and 8 October and between 18 October and 21 October 2024. This was for a total of 12 days.
  4. In respect of the resident’s request for a partial refund of her rent for the time she was without hot water. There is no entry within the landlord’s compensation policy that says it should offer a rent refund for times residents experience a loss of hot water. As such, this response was reasonable.
  5. In its complaint responses the landlord stated that its compensation policy allows a daily payment of £5 per day after the first 7 days the issue is initially reported. However, the policy the landlord referred to was its old policy from October 2020 which was no longer effective at the time of the complaint. Landlords should apply their existing policies at the time of the complaint events and during its compensation decisions for consistency, fairness and transparency in their approach. The compensation policy effective from April 2024, and during the complaint events says that the landlord will consider compensation for loss of amenities. As opposed to the old policy, the recent policy does not specify any timeframes or limitations from when the issue is reported. As such, it was inappropriate that during its complaint process the landlord did not consider compensation for the loss of hot water from the moment the resident reported it.  
  6. The landlord acknowledged in its complaint responses that there had been a loss of hot water on 2 occasions. However, at stage 1 it also said that the loss of hot water was only for 6 days during the first occasion rather than for 9 days as we have seen from the evidence. At stage 2, the landlord appropriately acknowledged that the water was reinstated on 8 October 2024, which was 9 days after the resident’s initial report from 30 September 2024. However, it did not consider any increase in the compensation for the loss of hot water, which was unreasonable.
  7. While the landlord included as part of the reasons for compensation at stage 1 the multiple repeat attendances the resident needed to accommodate, it did not fully address those in any of its complaint responses. The landlord attended on 1, 2, 3, 6, 8, 18 and 21 October 20204 before fully rectifying the issue. Further to the distress that the loss of hot water had caused to the resident, she also needed to make herself available for each attendance which caused additional inconvenience.
  8. The landlord said that it had identified areas where it had failed to follow its policy to resolve matters within its noted timescales. The landlord further acknowledged the lack of clear communication between its contractor and its contact centre had created confusion about the repair process. It further said the resident had been passed between teams without clear ownership of the issue, which had contributed to inconvenience and uncertainty about when hot water would be restored. It was appropriate for the landlord to acknowledge the failings it identified.
  9. With reference to the resident’s request to be reimbursed for the cost of the private contractor, the landlord said the resident had taken upon herself to instruct a private contractor without its prior agreement. As such, the landlord did not accept any liability for the associated cost. The landlord’s records show that it met its contractual obligation by instructing it’s operative to attend the repair as an emergency and it arranged appropriate follow-on works to complete the necessary repair. Additionally, we have seen evidence that the landlord explained to the resident at the time of her request (4 October 2024) that it would not reimburse her for any privately done job as it had arranged the repairs.
  10. There is nothing within the landlord’s compensation policy that says that in such circumstances the landlord should be liable to pay for privately instructed contractors, nor have we seen any evidence of the landlord’s agreement to that prior to the resident instructing the private contractor. The landlord’s response to decline reimbursement was appropriate.
  11. In conclusion, the landlord resolved the issue with the loss of hot water, and it appropriately acknowledged its failings in communication. It acknowledged the impact of the failures it had identified on the resident and demonstrated learning. The landlord said it had fed back the communication failures to the relevant departments to improve the standard of service it provided moving forward. The landlord also appropriately addressed the resident’s request to be reimbursed for the cost of the private contractor.
  12. However, the landlord did not acknowledge fully the length of time the resident was without hot water. Its decision to not offer compensation for the loss of hot water was inappropriate and based on old policy. It also did not fully address the multiple attendances and as such the inconvenience caused by these. For the reasons outlined above, the £100 offered during the landlord’s internal complaint process was not sufficient to recognise the impact on the resident. The landlord is therefore ordered below to pay the resident additional compensation of £100.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52. of the Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of repairs to the resident’s hot water supply.

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks from the date of this report the Ombudsman orders the landlord to pay the resident £200 compensation for distress and inconvenience caused by its failures in handling of the hot water loss repair (this includes the £100 compensation it offered during its internal complaint process if that has not already been paid).
  2. Within 6 weeks of the date of this report the Ombudsman orders the landlord to arrange a training and learning for its staff in relation to use of policy to make sure that the relevant and most recent policies are applied when investigating complaints.
  3. The landlord must provide evidence of compliance with these orders to the Service within their respective timeframes.