Habinteg Housing Association Limited (202008560)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202008560

Habinteg Housing Association Limited

9 September 2022

 

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:
    1. Response to the resident’s reports that her taps and shower were not working properly.
    2. Complaint handling.

Background

  1. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord. The property is a house.
  2. During parts of 2020 (due to the Covid-19 restrictions) the landlord had only responded to emergency repairs. In July 2020 the landlord introduced ‘HabFix’ days which were scheduled set days where the landlord would deal with the backlog of urgent and routine repairs that had built up due to the restrictions. It also contacted residents to ask if they had any non-emergency repairs that it could address on HabFix days.
  3. On 3 September 2020 the resident reported an issue with the taps at her property. The resident says that she reported that there was no hot water. The landlord says it recorded that she reported “Downstairs kitchen mixer tap dripping and stiff to turn off”. The landlord advised that it would address the repair on a HabFix day on 20 October 2020. On 23 September 2020 the landlord rang the resident to see if any other non-emergency repairs were needed and recorded that “Shower mixer valve not working – over bath shower – no water coming out, or only trickles out. Hot water tap for sink – no water coming out and very little hot water coming out of bath tap”. It agreed to address those repairs on the 20 October 2020 HabFix day too.
  4. When the contractor attended on 20 October 2020 he was unable to complete the repairs and the resident was left with no hot water at all. On 5 November 2020 the resident raised a complaint on the landlord’s social media page saying “please take note that this is a formal complaint and I would like it to go through the correct complaints procedure”. She said she had had no hot water for 2 months, wanted it fixed as soon as possible and wanted compensation for the inconvenience and stress it had caused.
  5. The landlord telephoned the resident between 9 and 11 November 2020 and she confirmed that the repair had been completed on 6 November 2020 but that the contractor had to return on 10 November as the problem had not been fully resolved. The landlord offered £225 compensation, which it said included an extra £15 for the additional loss of hot water from 7-10 November 2020. It confirmed the amount by email (though the email said it was for loss of hot water from 3 September to 6 November 2020).The resident contacted this Service on 10 November 2020, as she said the landlord told her verbally that £225 was its final offer and she did not think this was enough.
  6. During December 2020 and January 2021, this Service liaised with the landlord to confirm what stage of the complaint process the complaint was at, and as the landlord confirmed that the complaint had only been dealt with informally, the Ombudsman told the landlord to raise a formal stage one complaint. In its stage one complaint response on 29 January 2021 the landlord said the resident had not initially reported that there was no hot water or at any time before the Habfix appointment. It said that its response time was reasonable as all non-urgent repairs were being addressed via Habfix days. It said as there was no hot water from 20 October to 10 November 2020 she would be entitled to £100 compensation (£5 per day) but that it would honour its previous offer of £210. The resident escalated the complaint as she said she had not contacted the landlord again about having no hot water, as she had already been told the repair could not be done any earlier than 20 October 2020.
  7. In its stage two response on 24 February 2021 the landlord said that it had correctly prioritised the repairs reports the resident had made on 3 and 23 of September, as neither were reported as “total loss of hot water”. It said as its compensation policy said it would provide £5.00 compensation per day “after the first 24 hours for “breakdown of central heating, water heating including communal systems, where there is no other form of heating or water heating in the property, between 1st October and 31st March only”, it should have paid £95 compensation for the loss of hot water from 20 October to 10 November 2020. It said the original compensation offer of £225 was incorrectly calculated from 3 September 2020, but as it would be inappropriate for it to reduce that offer, it would still award £225 compensation.
  8. The resident and the landlord continued to liaise with each other and this Service, about the complaint and other issues until the resident accepted the landlord’s compensation offer of £225 on 21 December 2021. In February 2022 this Service told the landlord to reissue its stage two response, as the original version did not confirm that it was its final response or explain to the resident how to refer her complaint to the Ombudsman. The landlord increased its compensation offer to £250, agreed that the stage two response issued in February 2021 should be treated as its final response, and issued an amended stage two response on 28 March 2022. The resident accepted the increased offer, which was paid on 29 March 2022.

Assessment and findings

The resident’s reports that her taps and shower were not working properly.

  1. The landlord’s repairs guide lists three categories of repairs:
    1. Emergency repairs – to be completed within 24 hours (includes total loss of heating in severe weather, total loss of electric etc.)
    2. Urgent Repairs – to be completed within 5 days (includes no hot water, loss of heating etc.)
    3. Routine repairs – to be completed within 20 days (includes partial loss of heating, electric sockets not working etc.)
  2. During 2020 because of the Covid 19 restrictions the landlord took appropriate steps to set up HabFix days to deal with non-emergency repairs. which was a reasonable response, as the restrictions had led to a backlog of non-emergency repairs, which meant the landlord had not been able to deal with those repairs within its normal timeframes.
  3. There is a difference of opinion between the resident and the landlord about whether the resident said that she had no hot water when she reported the repair on 3 September 2020 and how long she was without hot water for. The landlord has confirmed that it does not have access to recordings of calls from that time period. In the absence of definitive evidence that proves exactly what was said on the call it is not possible for this Service to determine which version of events is accurate or to assess whether the landlord acted reasonably in categorising the repair as routine. However, it is noted that a report of no hot water would not be classed as an emergency repair. It would instead be classed as an urgent repair, which usually the landlord would aim to complete within five days. However, at the time the resident made her report in September 2020, the landlord was dealing with both urgent and routine repairs through its HabFix procedure, and it is not clear whether the HabFix date would have been any sooner for an urgent repair than it would have been for a routine repair.
  4. Once the landlord’s contractor attended the resident’s property on 20 October 2020 it is not disputed that the resident was left with no hot water for 20 days from that date, until, after several further appointments the problem was resolved on 10 November 2020. It was appropriate that the landlord awarded compensation for the loss of hot water in line with its compensation policy. The landlord states that the resident was without hot water from 20 October 2020 to 10 November 2020. Therefore, a compensation payment of £100 would be in line with its compensation policy.
  5. However, the resident states that she had no hot water from 3 September 2020 till 10 November 2020.  As the compensation policy states it pays £5 per day for loss of hot water during the period from 1 October to 31 March, the resident would only have received compensation from 1 October to 10 November 2020, which would have been 41 days at £5 per day totalling £205. Although this Service is unable to confirm whether or not the resident was without hot water for all of that time, the Ombudsman believes that £205 would be a reasonable award of compensation for loss of hot water for that time period, as it is in line with the landlord’s compensation policy.
  6. Although the landlord has explained that it believes that its original compensation award of £210 (which was then increased to £225) was incorrectly calculated and that it should only have awarded daily compensation from the 20 October 2020, it acted appropriately by agreeing to honour the amount of that offer, and has since increased that amount to £250. Therefore, although there were failings in how the landlord responded to the resident’s reports that her taps and shower were not working properly, which resulted in her being without hot water for an amount of time, this Service believes that the compensation, together with the completed repair, was a reasonable response to the complaint.

Complaint Handling

  1. As the landlord has retrospectively agreed for its stage two response issued on 24 February 2021 to be treated as its final response, this report will assess the landlord’s complaint handling from 5 November 2020, when the resident raised her complaint, until 24 February 2021. The complaints policy that was in effect in November 2020 had an initial informal stage that was not part of its formal complaints process that had the aim of resolving the complaint at first point of contact. Its formal complaint process started at stage one where it aimed to provide a full response from a manager within 10 working days. Following this stage, the complainant then has four weeks in which to escalate the complaint to stage two. At stage two it aims for a full response within 20 working days.
  2. When the resident raised her complaint on 5 November 2020, as she had specifically stated that it was a formal complaint that she wanted to go through the correct complaints procedure, the landlord should have dealt with the complaint as a formal complaint. As the landlord failed to deal with it as a formal complaint, and instead dealt with the complaint informally, outside of its formal complaint process, this was service failure by the landlord.
  3. Had the complaint been dealt with appropriately as a formal complaint the resident would have received a stage one response that explained how she could escalate her complaint if she was unhappy with the landlord’s decision. However, because it was dealt with informally over the telephone, the only correspondence that the resident received was a compensation form to sign and an accompanying email which confirmed compensation was “£225 for you having loss of hot water in your property from the date it was first reported to us on 3 September until 6 November when hot water was resumed.” This would have been confusing for the resident as the landlord’s records say it had agreed to pay compensation to the 10 November 2020 not 6 November 2020. The records also say that the resident had been unhappy with the compensation amount but it had explained that it was in line with its compensation policy and had taken into account that she had not explained the severity of the situation when she reported the repair. However, the email is ambiguous and suggests that the resident had in fact reported that there was no hot water on 3 September 2020 and the compensation had been calculated from that date too.
  4.  Although the email told the resident to sign and return the form if she was happy with the amount it did not tell her that her complaint had not been dealt with formally or what action to take to escalate the complaint if she was not satisfied with its response. It is noted that the landlord’s complaints policy did not clearly explain what the next steps were either. The lack of clarity in the landlord’s email and its failure to explain the next steps to the resident was further service failure by the landlord and resulted in the resident contacting this Service for advice. During December 2020 and January 2021 this Service liaised with the landlord to establish what a stage of its complaints process the complaint was at, and to ask it to raise the complaint as a stage one complaint once it had confirmed that it had been dealt with informally. This could have been avoided had the landlord acted appropriately by dealing with the resident’s original complaint as a stage one complaint.
  5. In its stage one response on 29 January 2021 the landlord said that non-urgent repairs were being dealt with through its HabFix days. This is incorrect as it was non-emergency repairs that were being dealt with through HabFix days rather than non-urgent, though it did correct this in its stage two response. The relevance of that distinction is that, in line with its repairs guide, loss of hot water is classed as an urgent repair not an emergency repair. Therefore, the resident’s repair report on 3 September 2020 would have been dealt with via a HabFix day, whether it was classed as a routine repair (if she had not mentioned loss of hot water) or an urgent repair (if she had mentioned the loss of hot water).
  6. Both of the landlord’s complaint responses took the position that the resident had not informed it that she had no hot water in September 2020 and that its previous informal response and calculation were incorrect. As explained previously we are not able to confirm whether the resident had initially reported that she had no hot water, but the landlord acted appropriately by agreeing to honour its original compensation offer of £225, even though it believed it was not accurate. It is noted that the stage one response incorrectly referred to the compensation amount as £210 rather than £225 but that was corrected in its stage two response and the landlord has since increased its offer to £250 which the resident has accepted. The stage two response also failed to signpost the resident to this Service but this was appropriately amended by the landlord when it confirmed to this Service that its stage two response should be treated as its final response, and as the resident was already in contact with this Service the resident was not impacted by this.
  7. As there was service failure by the landlord in its complaint handling this Service believes that it would be reasonable for the landlord to award an additional £75 compensation in recognition of its complaint handling failures. This is in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance which suggests awards of £50-250 for instances service failure resulting in some impact on the complainant, which could include distress and inconvenience, time and trouble, disappointment, loss of confidence, and delays in getting matters resolved.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 55 (b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, with reference to the part of the complaint concerning the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports that her taps and shower were not working properly, the landlord has made an offer of redress prior to investigation which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, resolves that part of the complaint satisfactorily.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in respect of its complaint handling.

Orders and recommendations

  1. Within four weeks of the date of this letter the landlord should pay the resident a further £75 compensation in recognition of its complaint handling failures.