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Incommunities Limited (202227759)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202227759

Incommunities Limited

11 March 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 repairs to the resident’s roof.

Background

  1. The resident is an assured tenant of a 3-bedroom house.
  2. On 17 November 2022 the resident raised a complaint with the landlord. She said that cement was coming away from the ridges in her roof and that she had been reporting this to the landlord since May 2021. She said that heat was escaping from her home.
  3. The landlord responded to the complaint on 30 November 2022. It said that it had sent the repair to the major works team and that someone would be in touch soon.
  4. The resident emailed on 7 December 2022. She said the stage 1 did not provide a resolution as the landlord did not give her a timescale for when it would complete the repair. She reiterated that she was losing heat from her home.
  5. The landlord responded at stage 2 on 9 December 2022. It apologised that it did not give a date for the repairs to start in its stage 1 response. It said that scaffolding works would begin on 19 December 2022. It offered £25 for its poor communication. It said it could not compensate for heating because the roof was suitably insulated.
  6. The landlord completed the repairs to the roof on 20 January 2023. The resident has asked the Ombudsman to investigate.

Assessment and findings

  1. The resident said that she had been chasing this repair since May 2021. The landlord did not provide the Ombudsman with records dating back to this time. However, we have seen an internal email on 13 October 2022, which said the resident was chasing up the repair. We therefore consider it likely that the resident had been chasing the repair, prior to the stage 1 complaint.
  2. The landlord’s repairs policy states that it aims to respond to general repairs within 9 days. Based on the evidence, the landlord has not demonstrated that it responded within its own timescales.
  3. The resident said that she was losing heat from the home. The landlord provided an energy certificate and said that the home was suitably insulated. Based on the evidence provided, we cannot determine that there was any heat loss from the home.
  4. The major works began on 19 December 2022 and completed on 30 January 2023. The landlord did not provide us with records during this period. We are unable to say why the repair took this long, however, given that the major works team had been allocated the repair, we would not consider 6 weeks to be an unreasonable time for the landlord to complete the repair.
  5. When the resident raised the complaint, the landlord should have properly assessed her concerns and provided her with a solution. The landlord acknowledged communication failings in not providing a start date during its stage 1 complaint. It offered £25. This is a reasonable compensation offer for this failing, as the landlord rectified the matter within 10 days.
  6. The landlord did not acknowledge when the resident first reported the repair, or the delay prior to the stage 1 complaint. We acknowledge that the landlord has said the delays to the repair did not impact the resident, as the insulation in the property would have stopped any heat loss. However, we consider that the landlord should have acknowledged the resident’s time and effort in getting the repair completed. We consider this to be a service failure from the landlord.
  7. Although there was service failure, we accept that based on the evidence, the repair was unlikely to have a significant long term affect on the resident. We therefore consider a further £50 compensation to be appropriate.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was service failure in the landlord’s handling of repairs to the roof.

Orders

  1. The landlord is ordered to pay the resident £75.
    1. This consists of the £25 offered a stage 2. If the landlord has already paid this, it can deduct it from the total.
    2. £50 for the failure to acknowledge the time and trouble the resident faced in getting the repair raised.