East Suffolk Council (202221434)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202221434

East Suffolk Council

30 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 handling of a repair to a cooker socket.

Background

2. The resident is a secure tenant at the property of the landlord. The landlord is a local authority.
3. Through a prior complaint, the landlord agreed to alter the kitchen of the property to allow the resident to install a double-sized cooker. The resident said this was necessary to enable meals to be prepared for his household of seven. The landlord had prior knowledge that a number of household members had vulnerabilities.
4. The landlord commenced work to alter the kitchen on 7 November 2022. That day, the resident found that the cooker socket was not connected to the fuse board, preventing him from using the cooker. The landlord returned the following day and uncovered another cooker socket which was concealed by a kitchen unit. This required carpentry work to expose it for use. The landlord returned the next day on 9 November 2022, to complete the work allowing use of the cooker.
5. The resident raised a stage one complaint with the landlord later on 9 November 2022. He was unhappy that he had been without cooking facilities for two days. He said that he was not prepared to go a second night without a hot meal and therefore ordered takeaway food to the value of £87.87. The resident wanted the landlord to reimburse him for this expense.
6. The landlord issued its stage one response to the resident on 16 November 2022. It said that although it had initially intended to complete the repair on 8 November 2022, it was unable to so due to the further works identified. However, it asserted that it had still completed the repair within three working days, in line with the right to repair scheme’s specified timeframe for a partial loss of power. The landlord acknowledged that it had made an error in initially not leaving the correct cooker socket available and offered compensation of £25 to the resident.
7. The resident escalated his complaint to the final stage later on 16 November 2022. He reiterated his request for the full reimbursement of his takeaway food costs.
8. The landlord provided its final response on 5 December 2022. It stated that it could add nothing further to its previous response and repeated its offer of £25 in compensation.
9. The resident informed the Ombudsman on 12 December 2022 that he remained dissatisfied as he wanted a full refund of his costs in purchasing the takeaway food.

Assessment and findings

10. The landlord’s repairs policy notes a number of different timeframes, depending on their priority. These include 24 hours for an ‘emergency’ repair, and three working days for an ‘urgent’ repair.
11. The Ombudsman notes there is disagreement over what information was provided to the resident by the landlord when the repair was reported. As there was no contemporaneous evidence to substantiate either party’s account of what was said verbally, it cannot be determined if a communication failure occurred or not. However, it will be considered whether the landlord responded appropriately once it became aware of the issue with the cooker socket.
12. The resident reported the unusable cooker socket to the landlord on 7 November 2022. The landlord attended the following day, and completed the repair one day later. This was within the three-working-day timeframe for an urgent repair, as specified above. Given that the cooker socket repair was not reported to pose an immediate hazard to health, it was reasonable that the landlord did not consider the issue to be an emergency. The three days taken by the landlord to complete the repair was therefore reasonable in the circumstances and in line with its policies.
13. The landlord was aware that the resident’s household included vulnerabilities. When vulnerabilities are present in a household, a resident may be disproportionately vulnerable to experiencing detriment from an outstanding repair issue. In such circumstances, the Ombudsman would expect a landlord to prioritise repairs to minimise any detriment experienced. The landlord has sought to prioritise the repair within one day; however, the need for further carpentry work meant a further visit was needed. While this meant that the repairs took the full three days allowed for in the landlord’s policies, its actions nevertheless demonstrate it attempted to prioritise the repairs.
14. When the Ombudsman considers awarding compensation, it is to proportionately address any detriment experienced by the resident as a result of any failure by the landlord. If a resident incurred evidenced financial detriment as a direct result of a landlord’s failure then this will be considered in any compensation award.
15. In this case it was clear that the resident was inconvenienced by being left without cooking facilities for two days. However, the landlord prioritised the repair and completed it promptly, minimising the inconvenience to the resident. Its complaint responses also acknowledged that the repair had come about due to its error in providing the incorrect cooker socket to him. The landlord, therefore, acted reasonably in carrying out the repair promptly and offering compensation that was proportionate to the length of delay experienced by the resident. In the Ombudsman’s opinion, this amounted to reasonable redress in the circumstances.
16. The resident said that he incurred expenses as a result of not being able to cook. While this would be frustrating for the resident, the decision to therefore order takeaway was not discussed with the landlord, nor agreed to prior to it being ordered. It was therefore unreasonable to expect the landlord to cover this expense without first discussing it, or giving it the opportunity to present alternative options.

Determination

17. In accordance with paragraph 53(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord made an offer of redress to the resident which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion satisfactorily resolves the complaint about its handling of a repair to a cooker socket.

Recommendations

18. The landlord is recommended to reiterate its offer of £25 in compensation, if this is yet to be accepted.