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Guinness Housing Association Limited (202206324)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202206324

Guinness Housing Association Limited

17 January 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 amount of compensation offered by the landlord following its handling of a sewage leak at the resident’s home.

Background

  1. The resident is a shared ownership leaseholder and lives in a flat.
  2. On 16 January 2022, the resident made a complaint to the landlord. She said that on 14 January 2022, she had reported a blockage in the soil stack outside her flat, which resulted in sewage overflowing into her home from her toilet. She was dissatisfied that the situation had not been rectified since. She said that when the contractor initially attended that day, it had been unable to complete the repair as she was told that the job would require a camera and suction equipment (this accorded with the relevant repair record). The resident implied that by the time the contractor had gained permission to use the necessary equipment, this had fallen outside of usual working hours, which had held up the completion of the repair. She said that this had resulted in her and her husband “constantly clearing water and toilet excrement out of [their] bathroom” over the weekend. During that time, she said that her husband had managed to disconnect the toilet and block the inlet, but that they had received no support from the landlord apart from one member of staff (who is understood to be an on-site caretaker). Due to the unresolved situation, the resident said that she was unable to use the toilet nor run any water and had no proper way of cleaning the debris in the bath.
  3. The landlord noted that its contractor had cleared the blockage on 17 January 2022. There is no evidence that any further issues were reported following this. However, the landlord had said that it undertook additional remedial works to the soil stack on 26 January 2022, though the scope of these works was not apparent.
  4. The landlord issued its final response on 16 March 2022 and upheld the complaint. It apologised that it did not rectify the issue on its initial attendance, and for the impact this had on the resident and her home life, especially because the issue resulted in the release of raw sewage into the resident’s home.  It said that as a gesture of goodwill, it had paid the resident £100 to cover her excess fee for an insurance claim she made against the building’s insurance, for damage she had incurred as a result of the leak. It is understood that the resident was successful in making a claim, but it was not apparent from the evidence what items had been claimed for. The landlord also reiterated its additional £200 offer of compensation, which it had initially awarded for inconvenience and poor communication. It said it believed this was an appropriate offer and in line with this Service’s remedies guidance. It said it provided feedback to its contractors to ensure that works required in emergency situations were authorised sooner. The landlord confirmed that’s its complaints process had been completed and included details by which the resident could contact this Service if she remained dissatisfied.
  5. The resident referred her complaint to this Service as she remained dissatisfied with the landlord’s response. She believed that the amount of compensation offered by the landlord did not reflect the length of time it took to repair the sewage leak, and the stress and inconvenience experienced as a result. To resolve the complaint, the resident wanted the landlord to increase the amount of compensation.

Assessment and findings

  1. As part of her initial complaint, the resident raised a concern that the landlord shared her telephone number with its contractor without her permission. In its initial response, the landlord said that it raised this with its information governance team who would contact the resident to provide an official formal response into the alleged data breach. The resident has since advised this Service that she has not received an adequate response. This aspect will not be considered in this investigation as this service has seen no evidence that this matter formed part of the resident’s stage two complaint. As such, the landlord has not had sufficient opportunity to address this point at both stages of its complaint procedure.
  2. If the resident has concerns about the use or misuse of her personal data, she can approach the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). The ICO is able to investigate complaints about possible breaches of the Data Protection Act. It is not part of this Service’s role to determine whether the landlord had adhered to this act, in accordance with paragraph 39(m) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme. It is therefore advised that the resident contacts the ICO for further information on taking this element of the complaint further.
  3. The landlord has a responsive repairs policy. It defines emergency repairs as those that may present an immediate health and safety risk. It sets out that in these instances, it will either complete a repair or carry out a temporary repair to make the situation safe within 24 hours of the repair being reported.
  4. There is no dispute that the landlord is responsible for resolving external drainage issues at the resident’s home, and it therefore appropriately took steps to rectify the blockage to the soil stack to stop sewage from back surging into the resident’s property. There is also no dispute that the landlord delayed in rectifying the matter, and exceeded its twenty-four-hour timeframe for emergency repairs, given that the situation was not rectified until three days after initial report. Accordingly, it appropriately upheld the resident’s complaint.
  5. When a landlord is at fault, it needs to put things right by acknowledging its mistakes and apologising for them, explaining why things went wrong and explaining what the landlord will do to prevent the same mistake from happening again. In this case, the landlord acknowledged the delay and apologised for the impact this had on the resident and her husband. It acknowledged that the resident had contacted it several times to chase the repair.  It also acknowledged that its contractor was unsuccessful in removing the blockage on initial attendance, that it could have done more to progress the repair during the out of hours period, and that the support it offered the resident during that time was lacking; all of which were particular factors in the resident’s complaint.
  6. The landlord implied that the reason for the delay in the progression of the works was because, once its contractor failed to complete the repair within usual working hours, it failed to escalate the job despite its urgent nature, leading to the repair being reattended and resolved the next working day. This appeared to be a reasonable explanation, and is supported by the evidence seen in this investigation.
  7. The resident’s view and remaining dispute, is that the compensation does not adequately address the distress and inconvenience caused to her and her household as a result of the landlord’s accepted service failures in this case.
  8. Considering the service failings identified by the landlord, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, the £150 compensation it offered for stress and inconvenience, £50 for poor communication, in conjunction with its decision to use its discretion to offer £100 to cover the resident’s insurance claim excess fee, amounts to an offer of reasonable redress in the circumstances. There was no apparent obligation on the landlord to assist the resident with her excess fee. The overall £300 it awarded, is in line with the Ombudsman’s Remedies Guidance (available on our website) which suggests that amounts in the range of £100 to £600 may be awarded in cases where a failure has adversely affected the resident but has had no apparent permanent impact. The resident would undoubtedly have experienced distress and inconvenience due to chasing the repair, managing and cleaning wastewater leaking into her home, and not having been able to use her bathroom in a practical manner for a time. Nonetheless, although the landlord exceeded its target timeframe for emergency repairs, and acknowledged that it should have done more to resolve the situation more urgently, it ultimately fulfilled its obligation by completing the repair and the overall delay was of short duration.
  9. Whilst it is understandable that the resident has found the situation distressing, there has been no apparent permanent impact in this case, and the landlord has demonstrated that ultimately it took reasonable steps to put things right. There was a failure in service, but the landlord adequately redressed its failings by completing the repair, offering its apologies and appropriate compensation. It is also noteworthy that information seen by this Service demonstrates that the landlord identified “improvement needed” in its service when reviewing the case, and said it provided feedback to its repairs service to try and ensure similar situations do not reoccur. This is appropriate and showed that the landlord committed to learning from its mistakes, which is in line with the Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles which expects landlords to learn from outcomes.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 53(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord has made an offer of redress prior to investigation which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, resolves the complaint satisfactorily.

Recommendations

  1. It is understood that the landlord has already paid the resident the sum of £100 as a gesture of goodwill to cover her insurance excess fee. In addition, the landlord should now pay the resident the additional £200 compensation offered as the finding of reasonable redress was made on that basis.