Haringey London Borough Council (202232783)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202232783

Haringey London Borough Council

14 May 2024

 

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. This complaint is about the landlord’s handling of a leak in the resident’s property.

Background

  1. The resident holds a secure tenancy. She suffers from diabetes.
  2. The resident reported a leak coming through her living room ceiling on 31 December 2022. The landlord came out on the same day to make this safe, turning the boiler off as the leak was coming from the central heating pipework. The resident chased the landlord and its contractors for a follow up appointment on 3 January 2023 and a contractor visited the resident on 4 January 2023. The contractor was unable to complete the necessary works and a further appointment was scheduled for 6 January 2023. No one attended the appointment. A contractor came out on 10 January 2023 to replace the boiler pipe which was the primary cause of the leak, but no further works were completed on this appointment and the heating was not turned back on.
  3. Following this, the resident raised a complaint on 11 January 2023. She was unhappy she had been left without heating for 3 weeks. During this time, she only had a single fan heater to warm her house. She was unhappy with the delays and wanted the landlord to urgently complete the repairs. The resident called the landlord on 13 January 2023 and 16 January 2023 to chase the repairs, informing it that she was extremely cold due to the lack of heating. The landlord visited on 17 January 2023 to turn the heating back on. It discovered further water ingress caused by water leaking from the tiles and sealant around the bath and penetrating the ceiling below. The landlord raised additional works including replacement of the bath tiles, the bath to be resealed and flooring fixed in the top bedroom. On 23 January 2023 the resident reported a further leak, this time coming from the cistern.
  4. The landlord provided its stage 1 complaint response on 25 January 2023. It apologised for the issues the resident had been experiencing. It confirmed the cause of the leak and that remedial works had been scheduled for 9 February 2023. It said that once this work had been undertaken, it would complete any necessary additional works to make good any damage caused by the leaks. The resident was unhappy with the landlord’s response, escalating her complaint on the same day and she felt the ceiling had severe water damage putting her at risk. Discussing this over the phone with the landlord, she was told this would be repaired in May 2023. She was unhappy at being expected to live in those conditions for 4 months.
  5. The landlord provided its stage 2 complaint response on 6 March 2023. It upheld the resident’s complaint, awarding her £296 compensation. This consisted of £200 for her time and trouble, £20 per week for the boiler shutdown (for a 3-week period) and £2 per day for 18 days’ worth of electricity usage. The landlord confirmed that the causes of the water ingress had now been resolved and that during the visit on 10 January 2023, it replaced the boiler pipe causing the leak. It added that it had attended on 23 January 2023 and 9 February 2023 to remedy the leak from the toilet, following up on 23 February 2023 to repair the toilet cistern. It also scheduled further works to repair any damage caused by the water ingress. It intended to carry out works to the bathroom, sealant, and tiles to stop water ingress on 11 April 2023, to renew the vinyl flooring on 17 April 2023, and to repair the living room ceiling on 9 May 2023.
  6. The resident contacted the Ombudsman on 20 March 2023 to ask us to consider her complaint. She said that she wanted the compensation amount offered by the landlord to be reviewed and for the repair works to be carried out as soon as possible. She provided a further update to the Ombudsman on 24 May 2023 when she said that the repairs had still not been completed, and that the bathroom works were now due on 1 June 2023.

Assessment and findings

  1. The landlord’s repair handbook has 3 timescales for completing repairs. For emergency repairs, it says it will complete these within 24 hours. For agreed appointments, it says it will complete these within 28 days. And for planned repairs, it says it will inspect within 28 days and tell residents at the inspection when the job will be carried out.
  2. The landlord acknowledged in its complaint responses that there were service failures in its handling of the water ingress at the resident’s property. It also acknowledged that the resident should not have been left without heating for the amount of time she was and offered compensation for the impact of these failings. In line with its compensation policy, it offered her compensation for the time without heating, and to cover any additional costs.
  3. However, the landlord took a significant amount of time to complete the repairs it promised to carry out as part of its stage 2 complaint response. According to its work orders, it appears to have taken 5 months to complete the works necessary in the bathroom. These works were originally scheduled for 9 February 2023, and subsequently delayed on several occasions. The landlord therefore failed to fulfil the commitments it made in its stage 2 complaint response with all of the works it listed subsequently being delayed. At the time of its submission to the Ombudsman, it had still not fulfilled the appointment it mentioned to plaster the ceiling following the leak.
  4. The landlord also appears to have not fully inspected the damage caused by the leak, or properly rectified this damage. In its submission to the Ombudsman, the landlord mentioned a number of outstanding works such as fixing the light fixture where the leak first came through and reinstalling the smoke alarm which it removed when first attending the leak. It also mentioned delays in performing cosmetic works such as decorating the living room ceiling where the leaks left water marks. The landlord said that it had booked a painter to attend these works on 16 November 2023. This was over 11 months after the leak was first reported. These delays represented maladministration from the landlord in handling the leak.
  5. The landlord’s complaint policy says that it will provide its stage 1 complaint response within 10 working days. After a complaint is escalated to stage 2 of the complaints process, it says that it will provide its response within 25 working days of the escalation.
  6. The landlord’s complaint response at stage 1 took 11 working days. Whilst this was slightly outside of the timescale specified in the complaints policy, the level of delay was not significant enough to have likely caused any additional distress and inconvenience to the resident.
  7. At stage 2, the landlord took 29 working days to provide its complaint response. The landlord recognised this failing, apologising to the resident in its complaint response. It also said that these delays were considered as part of the time and trouble payment it provided to the resident in compensation. Given the length of the delay, this was an appropriate response to any failings stemming from its handling of the complaint.
  8. Nevertheless, the landlord’s delay in completing the necessary works to fully rectify the issues left by the leak represented maladministration and demonstrated that it did not fully put right the failings it had acknowledged. For theses delays, the landlord should pay the resident £600, inclusive of its previous offer of £296. This is in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance which recommends figures in this range where there ‘was a failure which adversely affected the resident’.
  9. If the landlord has still not completed all of the works outstanding in relation to rectifying the damage caused by the leak, it should also write to the resident outlining when it intends to complete this work. These repairs should be completed in line with the timescales set out in its repair policy.
  10. The landlord should also consider how it handles reports of loss of heating, especially in regard to the provision of temporary heaters. The landlord should consider if, as part of its repair policy, it could offer these at an earlier stage rather than a resident needing to request them.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the leak in the resident’s property.

Orders and Recommendations

Orders

  1. It is ordered that within 4 weeks of the date of this letter, the landlord must:
    1. Pay the resident £600 compensation, inclusive of its £296 offer made in its stage 2 complaint response, for the impact of its failures in the handling of repairs.
    2. If not already completed, write to the resident to provide a schedule of outstanding works and dates when it will be completing these. These dates should be in line with the timelines specified by its repairs policy.
    3. Apologise to the resident for the delay in completing these works.
    4. Provide evidence to the Ombudsman that it has done so.

Recommendations

  1. The landlord should review its policy in relation to provision of temporary heaters when a resident loses heating. It should consider providing these as soon as there is a report of a loss of heating.