Cornwall Council (202216451)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202216451

Cornwall Council

03 July 2023

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 repair of the resident’s heating system and an insulation upgrade which was due at the property.
2. This Service has also considered the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint.

Background

3. The resident is a secure tenant of the landlord and the property is a three bed semi-detached house. The landlord had no vulnerabilities recorded for the resident. However, the resident did inform the landlord that he is a full time carer to one child who is autistic. At the time of the complaint, the landlord was aware that the resident had a small child at the property.
4. On 22 September 2021, the landlord forwarded the resident’s complaint to its complaint’s team. The complaint was about a survey that the landlord had carried out approximately one year before, that showed that the property did not have the right type of heating in place. Also, the resident complained about not being provided with an update by the landlord, after receiving confirmation in April 2020 that the property would receive a new heating and installation upgrade.
5. On 5 October 2021, the landlord acknowledged the complaint and requested 20 working days to investigate it and provide a response. It stated that this timeframe was reflective of its current capacity at that time due to the pressures caused by the covid pandemic. During this time, the resident shared his energy bills with the landlord to demonstrate his rising costs. He expressed concerns about the winter period.
6. On 27 October 2021, the landlord sent its stage one response. It upheld the complaint, apologised to the resident, and stated that it was trying to include the insulation upgrade into its current year’s capital works programme. Also, it stated that it would assess a compensation claim after all relevant works had been completed.
7. On 23 September 2022, the resident escalated the complaint to stage two of the landlord’s process. The landlord subsequently provided its stage two response on 27 October 2022. It explained:
   1. The roof insulation had been scheduled for the end of November 2022.
   2. No works to address the cavity wall insulation could be undertaken until March 2023 due to the presence of bats.
   3. Its Panel felt that it was unqualified to consider the right amount of compensation given the circumstance. It recommended that this task be left to the Ombudsman Service.
   4. An offer of £1,500 would be made to account for the lengths the resident had gone to in reporting, chasing and getting a resolution to the complaint.
8. This Service is aware that matters remained ongoing after this time. On 18 November 2022, the landlord inspected the property and concluded that it was ‘questionable as to whether the property was habitable in its current state’. It simultaneously took the decision to increase its compensation offer to £2,500, noting that the resident’s electricity for the year to date was £2856. The resident was decanted to another property on or around 18 February 2023.
9. The resident has advised this Service that he remained dissatisfied as ithad taken two to three years for the landlord to acknowledge the issues hehad reported and to deal with them.

Assessment and findings

Scope

10. The resident explained in his complaint that his mental health and that of his family had been adversely impacted by the living conditions they were in. Unfortunately, it is beyond the expertise of this Service to determine whether there was a causal link between the landlord’s handling of matters and the deterioration of the resident’s family’s health. This would be better dealt with as a personal injury claim or through a more effective body, such as the courts. The courts can call on medical experts and make legally binding judgements. Nonetheless, consideration will be given to the general distress and inconvenience which the situation may have caused the resident and his family.
11. Additionally, in the resident’s reply to the landlord’s stage two response, he raised that there was a rat infestation. This was an issue which did not form part of the resident’s initial complaint, however, and as such, this Service will not be investigating this matter within this report. This is because it was not brought to the attention of the landlord as part of the resident’s initial formal complaint. Should the resident wish to pursue the handling of this matter, he will need to raise this with the landlord as a formal complaint in the first instance.

The landlord’s repair of the resident’s heating system and an insulation upgrade which was due at the property.

12. Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 places an obligation on a landlord to bring a property up to standard and keep in repair and proper working order the installations for heating. In accordance with this obligation the landlord was required to investigate the resident’s reports regarding the heating and insulation at the property and to put right any issues it identified which were its responsibility.
13. The landlord’s repairs policy makes it clear that it is the landlord’s responsibility for repairing and maintaining the heating equipment and that repairs must be done in a reasonable time. For total or partial heating failure jobs, the policy states this will be completed within three working days.
14. The landlord’s compensation policy states that it may pay compensation for serious service failures, such as failures to diagnose repairs and/or carry them out within set timescales or in a satisfactory manner. Further, it states that it would look at the severity of the distress, length of time, number of people affected and whether they are vulnerable. Also, for service breakdown that has major impact where it has full responsibility the amount that it will offer is £500. It also states that before paying compensation it will check if a resident has any debt or arrears and will use the compensation to reduce this.
15. The landlord had on 5 October 2021, acknowledged in its internal communications that the original heating system at the resident’s property should have been fixed. It stated that the original system was installed with a view to upgrade the insulation on the property, however this was taking a prolonged time to complete.
16. The evidence shows that the resident after his initial complaint was chasing the matter and requesting support with his increasing energy costs. On 5 October 2021, the resident requested a timescale for when the works would be completed. After chasing an update, he was advised by the landlord on 18 October 2021 that it was not in a position to provide an update. The landlord should have at this juncture offered support to the resident regarding his struggles with his high energy bills. This is especially considering the fact that the resident had young children at the cold property including a baby. At a minimum, the landlord should have signposted the resident to support services that could have assisted him with his financial hardship. There is no evidence that the landlord recognised this.
17. While it was practical for the landlord to advise the resident that it would consider compensation for his high energy bills after all the relevant works were completed, given that the works took a considerable length of time, this offered the resident no support during a difficult period. The landlord had suggested that works would commence in early January 2022, yet several months passed without any further contact or updates given to the resident. Not only was the resident subsequently unclear about the timeline, this Service is also unable to see that the landlord made any attempt to check on his and his family’s welfare. Landlords have a duty of care and should be protecting the health and safety of their residents.
18. The resident chased the landlord on 6 & 11 April 2022, again informing it about his rising energy costs and chasing updates on works, stating that he could no longer cope and that he had found the landlord unhelpful. He also expressed his dissatisfaction that the works had been pushed back until 13 June 2022. On 12 April 2022, the landlord stated that it will arrange for a visit by a heating installer to check the resident’s heating system and alter settings to reduce the running costs. This would have been a positive move to put things right, however, the evidence shows that nothing was done to progress the works until quite some months later when an inspection was carried out on 18 November 2022. This was an unreasonably long delay that would have resulted in increased detrimental impact on the resident and his family.
19. On 15 November 2022, the landlord informed the resident that works had been delayed, because it wanted to complete other jobs regarding pest infestations at the property. It stated that it had arranged for its supervisor to visit on 3 January 2023, to measure for installation, however the evidence shows that this did not occur. The landlord also has stated it had delays because of difficulties decanting the resident, due to the size of his family. However, the evidence shows that the landlord did not start any discussions to decant the resident until November 2022. Although it stated that it took several months to find suitable accommodation for the resident’s family of nine so that it could commence works, it was reasonable to expect it to have started this process at a much earlier time. The landlord did not appropriately consider the resident’s various difficulties or living conditions until after its visit on the 18 November 2022.
20. The resident was eventually decanted on the 18 and 19 February 2023. In light of the circumstances of this case, this should have been identified and occurred far sooner. The landlord had failed to take the necessary proportionate action when the issues were first reported. This Service has been informed that the works are yet to be completed.
21. Also, in its response, the landlord did not clearly address the issues raised by the resident about its service failures and to compound matters it informed him that it would only assess his compensation after the relevant works were completed. This goes against the guidance set out in this Service’s Complaint Handling Code. Landlords should not wait until works are completed before offering reasonable redress to residents. The landlord should have reviewed whether the heating system was suitable, referring back to all his initial questions, and addressed its lack of communication throughout and its broken promises that works would be completed. An offer of redress should have been made at this point, irrespective of its future intention to complete the required works. The landlord had acted unfairly and missed opportunities’ to put things right and support the resident.
22. The resident’s living situation with his family was not fully considered by the landlord. Although an offer of compensation was made, this did not initially consider the resident’s energy costs, as the landlord said it would. The compensation was offered as redress for the lengths the resident had gone to in reporting, chasing and getting a resolution to his complaint, but was insufficient.
23. The landlord’s tenant appeal panel concluded that it was unable to consider the right compensation for the resident and recommended that this task be escalated to this Service. After speaking with the resident, nonetheless, the landlord took the decision to offer the resident £2,500 in November 2022. The landlord had explained that £1,500 was offered for “the lengths…[the resident]…had to go to in reporting and following-up on [his] complaint and a resolution”. It later noted that the increase to £2,500 was a figure which had been agreed with the resident and which accounted for his costs. An apology was also offered in the landlord’s stage two response.
24. Noting this, however, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, the redress offered did not proportionately reflect the prolonged period of time taken to address the issues at the resident’s property, and the inconvenience and distress this caused.
25. Moreover, on 18 November 2022, the landlord had acknowledged that the cost of the resident’s electricity for the year to that date was £2,856. As such, if the landlord was seeking to cover the full cost of the resident’s energy bill (it is unclear whether it was), it would have fallen short in this regard too. This Service is not satisfied that the landlord acknowledged the full detriment experienced by the resident and his family.

The handling of the complaint.

26. The landlord has supplied its complaints policy that was in effect at the time. This policy was last reviewed on 21 April 2020. The policy’s stated stages and timescales for complaints and responses, was in line with this Services Complaint Handling Code. The Code sets out good practice to allow landlords to respond to complaints effectively and fairly. In section 3.11 it states that a landlord’s stage one decision should be sent to a resident within ten working days and the stage two response within 20 working days from receipt of the complaint. Also, that if this is not possible at either stage, then the landlord should send an explanation and a date by when the response would be received, which should not exceed a further ten days without good reason.
27. The resident made his stage one complaint on 5 October 2021. Although the landlord updated the resident on delays in completing its stage one response on 18 October 2021, this was not done in a timely manner. This Service expects landlord’s to update resident’s at the earliest opportunity of any need for extensions in replies or to advise of delays. A landlord should not request an extension on the day a resident has been led to expect a response. It is reasonable to advise a resident when to expect a response before the response date. The Ombudsman is aware that the subsequent reply was still not provided until 27 October 2021, three weeks after it should have been and with no apology. This was inappropriate.
28. The evidence shows that the resident on 11 April 2022, complained to the landlord again and requested ‘to take matters further’. Despite this request to escalate his complaint, the landlord did not proceed to stage two of its process until it decided to do so itself on 23 September 2022. It provided its stage two response to the resident on 25 October 2022. This again was in contravention of the code as it effectively prevented the resident from having a review of its decision and also it constituted an unreasonably long time to respond to the resident. By not escalating the complaint when requested to do so or issuing responses in a fair and timely manner the landlord failed to follow its complaints policy and this Service’s Code. This would have caused the resident significant distress and inconvenience.
29. In this Services opinion, the landlord’s offer of £1,500 for the failures in its complaint handling although relatively high, has provided a reasonable remedy to the resident. The reason being the resident had to wait for a prolonged period of roughly six months for a final response after his request for escalation was ignored by the landlord. The residents frustration with response times, and the time and trouble taken to chase updates throughout is apparent.

Determination

30. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration in the time taken to install the insulation and inspect the heating system.
31. In accordance with paragraph 53 (b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord has offered reasonable redress to the complainant prior to the investigation which, in this Service’s opinion, resolves the complaint satisfactorily.

Orders

32. Within one month of the date of this report, the landlord must:
    1. Pay the resident a further £750 in recognition of its handling of the resident’s repairs and living situation. Thisis in addition to the £2,500 the landlord has already offered.
    2. Review the handling of this complaint, to determine the reasons for the failings and what action has been/will be taken to prevent a recurrence of these in the future.
    3. Apologise to the resident in writing as promised and express in the letter how the landlord has learned lessons from the outcomes of this case.

Recommendations 

33. The landlord should ensure that the £2,500 offered to the resident for the lengths he had to go to in pursuing his complaint / resolution is paid. This Services finding of reasonable redress has been made on this basis. For clarity, the total amount payable to the resident should subsequently be £3,250.