Read our new Spotlight report on repairs and maintenance – repairing trust.

Haringey London Borough Council (202211631)

Back to Top

 

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202211631

Haringey London Borough Council

12 February 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 the resident’s reports of a leaking toilet and bath, causing damage to the kitchen ceiling and bathroom flooring.
  2. We have also investigated the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

  1. The resident has occupied the property, a 4 bedroom house, as a secure tenant since August 2021. The resident is disabled and she lives at the property with her 4 children, 2 of whom are autistic. The landlord is a local authority.
  2. The resident was given the keys to the property on 2 August 2021 and on 9 August 2021 reported the water pressure was low and the toilet was not flushing properly. She complained to the landlord on 8 September 2021 and it was acknowledged the following day, but no formal response was issued.
  3. The information provided by the landlord is not clear, but indicates that on both 20 and 27 August 2021 jobs were created to address the toilet not flushing properly and to replace the bath mixer tap as there was a leak in the bath.
  4. On 13 September 2021 the resident called her own plumber out at a cost of £90 to address the leak and repair the toilet, as nobody had attended the appointments made with the landlord. However, the leak from the bath continued and, although the landlord’s record states someone attended on 30 September 2021, it does not say what work, if any, was carried out.
  5. The landlord replaced the boiler around October 2021, which resolved the issue with the water pressure, but the resident paid £187.23 to replace the floor in the bathroom as a result of the leak. This invoice, along with the £90 invoice from the plumber, was sent to the landlord as the resident wanted to be reimbursed for these costs.
  6. The resident continued to report that she was still having problems with a leak from the bath and the upstairs toilet not working properly. The landlord attended on 26 October 2021 and adjusted the ball valve in the toilet.
  7. The resident chased the landlord on 23 February 2022 as repairs were outstanding. The landlord apologised for this and noted the plastering was outstanding, but it understood the plumbing issues were resolved. It asked the resident to say if that was not the case and invited her to resend the invoices she was claiming, so it could consider them.
  8. It is not known what happened after that until, on 31 August 2022, the resident referred a complaint to us. She explained that, when she moved in there was a leak from the bathroom that had gone through the kitchen ceiling and destroyed the bathroom flooring. It was not dealt with as an emergency, she had called her own plumber, and she was unhappy the landlord had not reimbursed her for that cost, despite having told her she would receive compensation.
  9. Following the Ombudsman’s intervention, the landlord issued its stage 1 response on 11 October 2022. It accepted its service had fallen short and said it was sorry for the poor communication the resident had received about compensation for the leak and the outstanding repairs. It set out repairs it understood to be needed and asked for a copy of the plumber invoice again. In terms of the damaged floor, it told the resident to claim on its insurance. If she remained unhappy she could escalate the complaint to stage 2 within 6 months.
  10. The resident asked for the complaint to be escalated on 19 January 2023. In response, the landlord advised she was out of time to escalate the complaint, on 17 February 2023.
  11. The resident reported another leak from the back of the toilet on 27 April 2023, and the landlord attended on 15 May 2023. It is not known what action was taken.
  12. On 29 May 2023, the landlord acknowledged that the complaint could be escalated and said it would reply within 20 days, by 26 June 2023. In the meantime the complaint had been referred back to us, and we advised the landlord on 21 June 2022 that the complaint had been escalated within 6 months, so it should consider it. On 27 June 2023, the landlord told the resident it was unable to respond to the complaint as it did not have enough information, but it would contact her by 5 July 2023.
  13. The landlord issued its independent review of the complaint on 5 July 2023. It noted the resident was unhappy with the length of time repairs were taking. It apologised for the poor management of jobs and said someone had attended on 27 June 2023 to address the plastering behind the toilet, but as the leak was ongoing a further visit was arranged for that day (5 July 2023). It also said follow on works to address the cause of leaks from the bath took place on 20 June 2023 and the tiler was going on 11 July 2023 to regrout. It offered £692 compensation in total.
  14. The resident responded the same day as she was unhappy with the level of compensation offered, due to the length of time there had been issues and that she had had to spend a lot of time chasing the landlord to get work done.
  15. The resident reported a further leak from the toilet on 25 August 2023 and a contractor attended on 1 September 2023 but could not gain access. The job was closed 3 days later as the landlord had not heard from the resident.
  16. The leak from around the bath was identified as being caused by the grout around the bath and a job was created on 5 September 2023 with a contractor attending on 5 October 2023. A further job was created on 16 October 2023 to address another leak from the bath and a contractor attended on 13 November 2023. In both cases, the landlord’s records do not say what work was carried out.
  17. In the meantime, on 13 September 2023, the landlord advised it would not increase its compensation offer, and under its new policy the limit would be £500.
  18. The tiles in the bathroom were replaced on 22 August 2024, which appears to have resolved the leak from the bath. The plastering of the kitchen ceiling was completed on 17 October 2024. The resident chased the landlord to complete the painting on 7 November 2024 and this was done on 14 November 2024.

Assessment and findings

Leaking toilet and bath, causing damage to the kitchen ceiling and bathroom flooring.

  1. The landlord has supplied a list of works orders which set out in basic detail the nature of jobs created. However, it does not provide any information about what work was done by the attending contractor. This has made the investigation very difficult as jobs are marked as complete when it is clear there was an ongoing issue with leaks from the toilet and bath for a long time and that, despite contractors attending, the repairs remained outstanding.
  2. For example, a plumbing problem was reported on 9 August 2021 but was logged against the incorrect address and it contained no information about what the issue was or what happened. In addition, a water leak was reported on 25 August 2023, which the works order sheet says was completed on 1 September 2023. However, the leak was not resolved as a further job was created on 5 September 2023 as the leak was thought to be from around the bath, and it continued to be an issue.
  3. In addition, it is clear the landlord has no record of certain key jobs taking place. The resident has confirmed that since moving to the property the boiler was replaced and eventually the toilet was also replaced, due to the number of leaks. However, there is no mention of these works in the information provided by the landlord.
  4. The landlord’s record keeping in relation to jobs and what work has been completed has been poor. This is something it acknowledged in its independent review of the complaint which is good to see. While it is positive that this was picked up by the landlord itself, the lack of detail recorded against jobs means it is not possible to know what, if any, work was done at each visit to address each repair reported. It also means the landlord would not have been able to easily identify what repairs remained outstanding in order to ensure they were actively monitored to resolution.
  5. The importance of keeping good records is set out in our Spotlight on Knowledge and Information Management (KIM) May 2023 report. The landlord should therefore review this and provide a report to us setting out how it intends to improve how it records information in the future.
  6. It has taken the landlord from August 2021 to November 2024, some 39 months, to complete all repairs relating to the leaks in the bathroom, which is unacceptable. There was initially an issue with the landlord creating jobs at the wrong address. This led to the resident arranging her own plumber to attend (as no landlord operative had attended) and replacing the bathroom flooring. The landlord then had to ask the resident to provide invoices twice, for the work she wanted it to reimburse her for, as it had evidently misplaced them. This is another example of poor record keeping.
  7. Having been sent this information in 2021, and asking for it again in October 2022 when it addressed the complaint, the landlord should have actioned this request promptly. It directed the resident to make an insurance claim for the bathroom flooring, which was an appropriate response as that was a claim for damage to property. However, the resident called a plumber out because, despite reporting issues in the bathroom, no-one had attended.
  8. The resident gave the landlord the opportunity to repair the leak initially, but it failed to do so. It agreed to consider reimbursing her for the plumber, but there is no evidence of it either reimbursing her or explaining why it would not do so, which is poor service. The landlord should therefore consider the claims made by the resident and if it will not reimburse her for her out of pocket expenses, provide a written explanation as to why.
  9. This was a vulnerable family having to deal with a number of issues, in particular a leak in the bathroom since August 2021. There is evidence of the resident chasing the landlord to get the repairs done, and she also had to make complaints in order for action to be taken. This is likely due to the way the landlord kept records from jobs and visits, which made it difficult to know what remedial work was carried out, and what issues remained outstanding. This meant it was usually left to the resident to follow up with the landlord, rather than the landlord ensuring that each job was proactively monitored until completion.
  10. It is difficult to rely upon the job information provided by the landlord as there is a lack of detail and clearly information missing. Therefore, while there are gaps in the landlord’s records which may indicate there were periods when the leak seemed to be resolved, it is not easy to rely on that being a true representation of what happened. This also means we cannot accurately assess dates of any missed or failed appointments. As we cannot determine exactly how many appointments were missed or the reasons why, it would be more appropriate to look at the landlord’s overall service delivery.
  11. On 5 July 2023 the landlord accepted that plastering works should have been completed by 19 May 2022, so it calculated compensation from that date. It offered £642 compensation for this part of the complaint, made up of:
    1. A one-off payment of £10, then £2 per day for up to 3 weeks (20 May to 19 June 2022) amounting to £42.
    2. £10 per week for 59 weeks, until the issue was resolved (10 June 2022 to 29 July 2023) amounting to £590.
  12. This vulnerable family had to live with a leak from the bathroom and toilet on and off for 3 years, which came through the kitchen ceiling. The resident had made a number of reports and, although contractors did attend, there is very little evidence to show what action was taken. The landlord’s record keeping has been extremely poor and it is worrying that it has no record at all of having replaced the toilet. It was also the resident that advised the landlord it had changed the boiler soon after she moved in. More importantly, the lack of information held by the landlord meant it could not have known what had been done at each visit and therefore whether each repair was complete.
  13. For the resident and her family to live with this ongoing issue for so long and having to chase for information and action to be taken is unacceptable and amounts to severe maladministration. It follows that the redress needed to put things right is substantial.
  14. The landlord’s Compensation policy says a high impact failure is when there was a persistent failure over a long period, or an unacceptable number of attempts to resolve and address the complaint. That is certainly the case here. The landlord had numerous opportunities to address the leak from the toilet and bath but whatever action was taken did not resolve the problem. It was not until the toilet was replaced, followed by the tiles in August 2024, that there were no more issues. The follow up plastering and painting then took until November 2024.
  15. The landlord’s Compensation policy suggests compensation of over £350 when it is fully responsible for the issue and there has been high impact on the resident. Its compensation offer is in line with that, but consideration also has been given to our Remedies guidance.
  16. Using the landlord’s own compensation calculation, the weekly £10 payment it felt was fair and reasonable to make until the repairs were complete, should be extended until 14 November 2024, when all work was finalised. This would mean an additional 68 weeks of payments. Therefore, that element of the compensation should be increased from £590 to £1,270. There seems to be no reason to alter the additional amount offered.
  17. Overall, that means compensation of £1,322, made up of the £10 one-off payment and £2 per day for up to 3 weeks amounting to £42 as already offered, as well as 127 weeks at £10 (£1,270) to recognise the impact on the resident for the time things took. Compensation of this amount is in line with remedies set out in our Remedies guidance, and is therefore deemed reasonable in the circumstances.

Complaint handling

  1. The landlord failed to address the resident’s initial complaint from 8 September 2021 despite acknowledging it, which meant she had to go to the trouble of contacting us for help. The landlord was asked to address the complaint on 6 September 2022 and, by that time, it was now more focused on a leak from the bath and toilet, as well as several issues which do not form part of this investigation. As the boiler had been replaced, it had resolved the resident’s initial water pressure issue.
  2. The landlord failed to provide its stage 1 response within 10 working days, as per its Complaints policy, and although it apologised for its communication, it missed an opportunity to apologise for not dealing with the first complaint and meant the resident had to complain again about similar issues. In addition, the landlord gave no consideration to paying the resident compensation to recognise the delay and inconvenience she had been caused as a result of its poor service.
  3. To compound matters, when the resident asked for her complaint to be escalated to stage 2 on 19 January 2023, the landlord incorrectly advised that she was out of time. It then took over 4 months for it to acknowledge its mistake. Despite it then apologising for the delay, and saying it would reply by 26 June 2022, it failed to meet that deadline and told the resident it could not respond as it did not have enough information; so it would need until 5 July 2023. The landlord did issue its independent review of the complaint on 5 July 2023, but this was 5 and a half months after the escalation request. Therefore, it failed to ensure its response was issued within 25 working days from the request to escalate, as per its Complaint policy at the time.
  4. The Ombudsman notes that the landlord did then accept a failure in the way it had dealt with the complaint, and it offered £50 compensation for the time and trouble taken in pursuing the complaint. There have been a number of failures in the way the complaint was handled, with it taking the landlord nearly 2 years to not only accept the shortcomings, but to also offer compensation as a remedy.
  5. The landlord’s Compensation policy says that, where it has been fully responsible for failings and there has been high impact, such as a persistent failure over a long period compensation should be over £350. This description applies in this case and, as a result, the landlord’s offer of £50 compensation was not proportionate to the identified failings.
  6. There were extensive delays in responding to the complaint, and it may only have been our intervention which prompted any action. The landlord failed to address the first complaint, delayed addressing the second complaint, did not escalate the complaint when asked, and did not offer compensation at stage 1. When it did then offer compensation, it was not sufficient. Taking all that in to account, a finding of maladministration is made. The landlord is ordered to pay £350 compensation, in line with our Remedies guidance as well as the landlord’s Compensation policy.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was:
    1. Severe maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of a leaking toilet and bath, causing damage to the kitchen ceiling and bathroom flooring.
    2. Maladministration in the landlord’ handling of the formal complaint.

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks of the date of this report, the landlord is ordered to:
    1. Apologise to the resident for the failings identified by this investigation.
    2. Pay compensation of £1,672 made up of:
      1. A one-off payment of £10.
      2. £2 per day for up to 3 weeks (20 May – 19 June 2022) amounting to £42.
      3. £10 per week for 127 weeks, until the issue was resolved (10 June 2022 to 14 November 2024) amounting to £1,270.
      4. £350 for its complaint handling (inclusive of the £50 already offered).
    3. Consider the 2 invoices produced by the resident as out of pocket expenses resulting from the leaks and, if it will not provide a refund, provide a written explanation as to why that is the case.
    4. Provide us with a report setting out how it intends to improve how it records information about work orders, based on our KIM report.