Harlow District Council (202124816)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202124816

Harlow District Council

30 June 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 decision to recharge the resident for rectifying a blockage in her kitchen sink.

Background

2. The resident is a tenant of the landlord and lives in a flat.
3. The resident contacted the landlord on 24 September 2021 and reported a blockage in her kitchen sink. The landlord’s contractor inspected the issue on 27 September 2021 and reported that the stack did not appear to be blocked (a soil stack is a pipe system that takes wastewater and sewage away from a building which is commonly shared in a block of flats). The blockage appeared to be in the resident’s sink waste pipe. The operative made recommendations for unblocking the pipe, and for an operative to reattend to complete the work if the resident agreed to the necessary recharge (under the landlord’s policies, tenants are responsible for blocked pipes in their own homes).
4. The resident complained to the landlord on 28 September 2020 that her soil stack was blocked, but the operative who attended to inspect the issue left the job unresolved. The resident told the landlord she was dissatisfied that it wanted to charge her for the incomplete work. She said that the operative who attended, agreed to reattend the same day but failed to do so. The landlord’s complaint responses and an email from the landlord’s contractor show that the works to unblock the sink were completed on 8 October 2021.
5. The landlord issued its stage one response on 26 October 2021. It said it had spoken, with the operative who inspected in September, who denied agreeing to reattend the resident’s property the same day. The landlord said its contractor had cleared the resident’s pipes in the past, but in this instance the blockage was isolated to the kitchen sink and not the soil stack. Because of this, it maintained the recharge as it said this type of blockage was the resident’s responsibility to clear.
6. The resident escalated her complaint as she was dissatisfied with the landlord’s response. The landlord responded to the resident’s complaint at stage two of its complaints process on 1 December 2021. The resident then escalated her complaint to stage three as she remained dissatisfied as she denied disposing of anything that would cause a blockage to the pipes. The resident’s reoccurring concern was that she said she had been told that the pipe blockages she experienced every few years resulted from the way the property was built. She also said, that on the advice of the landlord and its contractor, she had purchased a tool to unblock the pipe herself, but said this had not resolved the blockage.
7. The landlord issued its final response on 26 January 2022. It said the operative who initially attended the resident’s home did so to determine whether the blockage was within the stack or was isolated to the resident’s property. It reaffirmed that the operative determined the blockage was not within the stack but to the kitchen sink only. It clarified that this operative did not have the relevant equipment to rectify the issue on initial inspection, but said that its policy is to not remove the type of blockage in question unless it is agreed to be recharged by the resident.
8. The resident contacted this Service as she remained dissatisfied with the landlord’s response. Her outstanding concerns were that she believed the issue to be a result of the structural design of the building as she said that she was told this would cause the issue to reoccur. She disagreed that the blockage was due to her pouring fat and grease down the sink as she denied doing this. She was also unhappy that the landlord had initially told her to buy a cleaning device which did not resolve the issue. The resident felt she should not have to pay the recharge levied by the landlord.

Assessment and findings

9. The landlord has a repairs policy that states it is responsible for blocked communal or shared waste pipes, soil vent pipes, gulley’s or toilets. It states that it recharges for attending blockages that are found to be caused by tenants due to inappropriate disposal. The policy also states that tenants are responsible for blockages to non-shared pipes, gulley’s, and wastes.
10. In this case the landlord acted appropriately by attending to inspect the problem reported by the resident, in order to establish where the issue lay and what caused it.
11. On completion of the inspection, the landlord’s contractor reported that the blockage was a result of “Mis-use… grease/fat/food etc. Once it drops in the main stack its flushed away, but it was certainly blocked in her own flat and not in the shared waste system.” Although the resident disputes that she poured anything into the sink which would cause blockage, a landlord is entitled to rely on the conclusions of its appropriately qualified staff and contractors. Considering this, the landlord’s decision to recharge the resident was reasonable as it was based on information from its contractor about the location and cause of the issue, and in line with its repair policy.
12. The resident denied doing anything to cause the blockage, and on that basis complained about the landlord’s decision to recharge her for the work. In conducting our investigations, the Ombudsman relies on contemporaneous documentary evidence to ascertain what events took place and establish whether the landlord responded reasonably to the resident’s concerns, in accordance with its policy. The landlord’s decision was supported by comments and feedback by the contractors, and there is nothing in the evidence seen for this investigation which suggests the landlord should have disregarded the contractor’s professional opinion.
13. The resident told the landlord she had been informed that structural problems within the block of flats were the cause of the blockages, which had occurred on a regular basis every one to two years. The landlord’s repair records show that it attended the resident’s property in 2019 to resolve a blockage in the shared stack pipe. The landlord acknowledged this repair in its complaint response. However, there is no indication that the contractor believed the 2021 blockage resulted from the communal pipes, or that the issue was due to wider structural problems with the building design. The resident was also concerned that structural issues would continue to cause blockages. This investigation is not able to speculate on what repair issues may occur in the future. Nonetheless, the resident would be entitled to ask the landlord to investigate whether there were any wider repair implications regarding blockages due to the building’s design, if the issue persists and does so in a more frequent manner, or if any clear evidence of structural problems becomes apparent.
14. It is not clear from the evidence whether the matter of the landlord’s suggestion that the resident purchase equipment to clear the blockage was raised formally as part of her complaint. Regardless, such a suggestion would seem to be entirely reasonable in the circumstances of this complaint, where the landlord had determined the blockage was the resident’s responsibility to resolve.

Determination

15. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was no maladministration by the landlord in respect of the complaint.