Islington Council (202224543)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202224543

Islington Council

27 November 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. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s:
   1. Reports of water ingress.
   2. Associated formal complaint.

Background

2. The resident has been the leaseholder of the property, a 2-bedroom, second floor flat, since 2008. The landlord, which is a local authority, is the freeholder of the building.
3. The landlord carried out major works on the balcony above the resident’s property in 2017. Since then she has reported issues with water ingress in the bedrooms beneath the balcony multiple times. The landlord carried out various repairs from 2018 to 2021, but none provided a lasting solution to the problem.
4. On 13 July 2021 the resident reported another instance of water ingress into the bedrooms.
5. The resident raised a complaint about how the landlord handled her reports on 16 May 2022. She said that, despite multiple emails to the landlord, it had not responded to her enquiries about ongoing water ingress due to “repeatedly ineffective and substandard repairs” to the balcony. She said that she had been told in August and October 2021 that works to the balcony would be authorised, but there had been no follow up despite her emails.
6. The landlord issued its stage 1 response on 30 May 2022. It said that repairs had previously been carried out on the balcony, and following an inspection on 25 November 2021 it believed a blocked gutter was the cause of the leak. It said it had ordered scaffolding and the gutter was cleared on 6 January 2022. It had decided to renew the balcony completely instead of attempting a repair, and its contractors would be in contact to co-ordinate these works. It acknowledged that there were delays and a lack of communication and offered £216.64 compensation.
7. The resident escalated her complaint to stage 2 on 25 July 2022 and followed this up with emails on 8 and 16 August 2022. She said she had not received any updates since 21 June 2022, when the landlord told her it was going to carry out a further survey.
8. The landlord issued its stage 2 response on 7 February 2023. It acknowledged its response was delayed, and said this was because her complaint had to be passed to another team for an action plan to be agreed. It said delays in reviewing or progressing the outstanding works therefore caused delays in its complaint response. In recognition of these delays it increased the compensation offer to £341.64 (including £75 for the delay in issuing the stage 2 response). It also said that, as there were still outstanding works which were being progressed, the resident should continue to liaise with it where necessary.
9. The resident referred her complaint to this Service on 15 February 2023. She said:
   1. The landlord’s response did not address her previous requests to be told which works were authorised following surveys in July and November 2021.
   2. The landlord did not acknowledge the physical and mental health impact of living with ongoing water ingress and damp over an extended period.
   3. The response did not provide details of how the landlord would avoid repeating its failings in future.
10. The resident has confirmed that, despite the landlord carrying out works on 6 March 2023 and 26 January 2024, the leak remains unresolved.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

11. While the resident first reported issues of water ingress in 2017, she did not raise a complaint about the landlord’s handling of the issues until May 2022. The Ombudsman encourage residents to bring complaints to the attention of the landlord within a reasonable time of the problem occurring, usually within 12 months, so that the landlord has a reasonable opportunity to resolve the issues whilst they are still ‘live’ and whilst the evidence is available to properly investigate them (reflected at paragraph 42.c of the Scheme). Therefore, the scope of this investigation includes events dating back to May 2021 (12 months before the complaint was made). Anything that happened before this is considered for context but not formally assessed or determined as part of this investigation.
12. When bringing her complaint to this Service the resident said the landlord had failed to acknowledge the physical and mental health impact of living with ongoing water ingress and damp over an extended period. It is beyond the remit of this Service to determine whether there was a direct link between the landlord’s actions and the resident’s ill-health. She may wish to seek independent advice on making a personal injury claim if she considers that her health has been affected by any action or failure by the landlord (reflected at paragraph 42.f of the Scheme). While the Ombudsman cannot consider the effect on health, consideration has been given to any general distress and inconvenience which the resident experienced as a result of any service failure by the landlord.

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of water ingress

13. Under the terms of the lease, the landlord is responsible for maintaining the structure of the building, including the drains, gutters and external pipes. The landlord’s repairs policy says that routine repairs will be completed within 20 working days. The policy also says that, where a survey is needed before any repairs take place, the landlord will complete this within 10 working days.
14. On 13 July 2021 the resident reported water ingress into the bedrooms. The landlord acknowledged this on 26 July 2021 and said it would contact her to arrange a surveyor to inspect the leak. Under its repairs policy, the landlord had until 7 August 2021 to complete the survey.
15. The landlord has not provided any evidence to show when this survey took place, or what the surveyor’s findings or recommendations were. However, emails from the resident to the landlord indicate that it carried out an initial survey on 12 August 2021, followed by a roof survey on 7 October 2021. It was reasonable for the landlord to arrange for an initial survey, as it would need to determine the likely cause of the leak and what repairs it needed to carry out.
16. However, both surveys were outside of the timescales set out in the repairs policy. The landlord has provided no reason for either the initial delay, or the delay of almost 2 months between the 2 surveys. It has also provided no copies of any survey reports. The resident has told the Ombudsman that multiple roofers who have attended on behalf of the landlord told her the leak was caused by a design defect in the balcony. She said they told her that the stack at the back of the balcony was too small for the number of flats it connects to.
17. The Ombudsman has seen no evidence that any of its contractors told the landlord about any potential latent defects. However, the landlord has provided no survey reports or inspection notes to show what investigations took place, or what the surveyors’ recommendations were. In the absence of such documentation, the Ombudsman cannot reasonably conclude that the landlord carried out adequate investigations into the cause of the leak. As such, the landlord has not shown that it acted reasonably at that stage.
18. The landlord carried out a third survey on 25 November 2021. The surveyor told the landlord that the leak was likely caused by blocked gutters, which were causing water to overflow. The landlord erected scaffolding on 6 January 2022 and unblocked the gutters on 21 January 2022. However, while it took reasonable action in response to the surveyor’s findings, there was a delay of more than a month between the roof survey and the third survey. There was then a delay of more than a month between the third survey and any works being completed.
19. The landlord has provided no reason for the delay between the second and third survey, so the Ombudsman cannot establish that there were mitigating factors or valid reasons for the delay. The landlord told the resident in its stage 2 response that the delay between the third survey and the works was because it was unable to source an appropriate cherry picker and therefore had to erect scaffolding. However, it has provided no evidence to show what attempts it made to source the cherry picker, or when it first tried to do so. It has also provided no explanation for why it waited until 2 weeks after the scaffolding had been erected to complete the repair. This was outside the timescales in its repairs policy and caused further delays to any attempts to resolve the leak.
20. On 11 and 22 March 2022 the resident contacted the landlord about the repairs. She said she had been told in August and October 2021 that they would be authorised, but she had heard nothing since. She also said that, while the clearing of the gutters had been helpful, this had not been the source of the ongoing leak. The landlord has not provided any evidence of responding to the resident’s concerns at the time or taking any action in response to the report that the leak was ongoing. It has therefore not demonstrated that it responded in line with its policy or standard industry practice.
21. After receiving no response from the landlord, the resident raised a complaint on 16 May 2022. The landlord told the resident in its stage 1 response that it had chosen to renew the balcony completely rather than carrying out further repairs. It also said that its contractors would be in contact with her directly to co-ordinate these works. It was reasonable for the landlord to provide an update on its action plan for the works in this way. However, the Ombudsman expects landlords to proactively update residents on their intentions for repairs and the associated timeframes. It is unreasonable that the landlord only provided the update in question when the resident made a complaint.
22. On 21 June 2022, the landlord told the resident that it would be carrying out a further survey to determine the underlying cause of the water ingress, and to make a final decision on the best course of action. It then told the resident in its stage 2 response that its intention was to clear the gutter to eliminate that as the source of the leak, and to renew the balcony if that did not work. This did not match what the resident was told in May 2022, a month earlier.
23. While it can be reasonable for a landlord to change its approach to repairs, the Ombudsman would expect to see evidence that this was based on the advice of appropriately qualified experts, or new information becoming available. The landlord has provided no such evidence, nor any reasoning for its change of position, or why it planned to carry out the January 2022 repairs a second time, when they had not worked the first time.
24. The landlord then took no further action until 10 December 2022, when it carried out a dye test. This was a further significant delay, for which the landlord has provided no explanation. This caused further delays in identifying the source of the leak and determining what works would be required, which subsequently caused additional distress and inconvenience to the resident. It also impacted her enjoyment of the property, as the leaks and associated damp and mould continued. Throughout that time, the resident chased the landlord for updates on multiple occasions. The landlord has provided no evidence of responding to any of the resident’s emails and has therefore failed to show it acted reasonably.
25. The results of the dye test and any resulting recommendations have not been provided to this Service. In its stage 2 response of 7 February 2023, the landlord told the resident that a further inspection had been scheduled the day before. However, it has provided no evidence of any action taken in the 2 months since the dye test, no explanation for why it took 2 months to schedule a further inspection, and no evidence that it notified the resident of the inspection in advance. This was a further unreasonable delay, demonstrating that the landlord missed the opportunity to learn from the complaint or put things right (in contravention of the Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles).
26. The landlord acknowledged in both its stage 1 and 2 responses that there were failings in the way it handled the resident’s reports and it offered a total of £241.64 compensation. However, the Ombudsman does not consider that the compensation offered is proportionate to the failings, and level of detriment, identified in this report.
27. It should be noted that it can take more than one attempt to resolve issues such as leaks, as it can be difficult to identify the cause of the issue at the outset. It can also be the case that a landlord may need to attempt multiple different repairs before the matter is resolved. This would not necessarily constitute a service failure by the landlord, as long as it was acting on the advice of its appropriately qualified staff and contractors in a timely and reasonable way.
28. However, in this case the evidence provided does not indicate that the delays were caused purely by a complex leak, but by multiple and repeated failings on the part of the landlord. Those failings left the resident living in a property with ongoing leaks, and damp and mould, for a significant length of time. It is also important to note that this was a property with a history of leaks in the bedrooms, and that several repair attempts since 2018 had failed to fully resolve them. Additionally, since reporting the new instance of a leak in July 2021, the resident had to repeatedly chase the landlord for updates.
29. Overall the landlord’s failures, amount to maladministration and can be summarised as a failure to adhere to its repairs policy timescales and adequately communicate with the resident. In view of this, the Ombudsman has ordered the landlord to increase the compensation for distress and inconvenience caused by its poor handling of repairs to £600. This is in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance for failings where the landlord has made some attempt to put things right, but the offer was not proportionate to the failings identified by our investigation.
30. Additionally, the Ombudsman has ordered the landlord to write to the resident and set out what actions it will take to resolve the leaks and provide a schedule for these works. Finally, the Ombudsman considers that the landlord’s practices surrounding this repair may give rise to further complaints. Therefore an order is made in accordance with paragraph 54.g of the Scheme for the landlord to consider how the issues raised may affect other residents.

The landlord’s complaint handling

31. The landlord’s complaints policy says it will respond to stage 1 complaints within 10 working days of registration. In this instance, the resident raised her complaint on 16 May 2022 and the landlord issued its response on 30 May 2022. This was within the timescale set out in the landlord’s complaints policy.
32. The resident escalated her complaint on 25 July 2022. Under the landlord’s complaints policy and the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code) operated at the time, the landlord should have issued a stage 2 response within 20 working days. In this instance the landlord issued its stage 2 response on 7 February 2023, nearly 7 months after the escalation request. This was a significant and unacceptable delay.
33. In its stage 2 response the landlord explained that the escalation request had been returned to the customer service team due to the outstanding works. It said a delay in progressing the works delayed it issuing its stage 2 response. The landlord’s complaints policy in force at the time said that complaint escalation requests would not be accepted if there were any outstanding or proposed works following the stage 1 response.
34. Paragraph 4.14 of the Code said a landlord must not unreasonably refuse to escalate a complaint through all stages of the complaints procedure and must have clear and valid reasons for taking that course of action. The reasons for declining to escalate a complaint must be clearly set out in a landlord’s complaints policy and must be the same as the reasons for not accepting a complaint. Under paragraph 5.9 of the Code, the landlord also had to communicate the reasons for declining the escalation request to the resident and provide referral rights to this Service.
35. In this instance, the reason the landlord gave for not escalating the resident’s complaint is set out in its complaints policy. However, it is not a reason for which it would have been able to decline the complaint at stage 1. Additionally, the landlord has not provided any evidence to show that it communicated and explained the decision not to escalate the complaint to the resident.
36. By failing to adhere to the Code and not progressing these outstanding works, the landlord caused a 6 month delay in responding to the complaint. Additionally, its failure to communicate its decision not to escalate the complaint caused the resident unnecessary inconvenience, as the evidence shows that between 25 July and 16 August 2022 she chased the landlord multiple times regarding its lack of acknowledgement of her escalation request. No evidence has been seen to show the landlord responded to the resident until around 25 October 2022, following an email requesting the details of the supervisor of the works.
37. In recognition of the delays the landlord offered the resident £75 compensation. Having taken into consideration all of the above, the Ombudsman finds that this level of redress does not adequately address the inconvenience, time and trouble caused to the resident by the 6 month delay in responding to her complaint.
38. Overall the landlord’s failures, and subsequent failure to offer appropriate redress, amount to maladministration. In view of this, the Ombudsman orders the landlord to apologise for the failings identified in this report and increase the compensation to £200. This is in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance for failings where the landlord has made some attempt to put things right, but the offer was not proportionate to the failings identified by our investigation. As the landlord has since updated its complaints policy, the Ombudsman has not made any orders for a policy review.

Determination

39. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in its handling of the resident’s:
    1. Reports of water ingress.
    2. Associated formal complaint.

Orders and recommendations

40. Within 4 weeks of the date of this determination, the landlord is ordered to:
    1. Issue a written apology to the resident for the failings identified in this report. The apology must be from a member of the landlord’s management team and should follow the Ombudsman’s apologies guidance on our website.
    2. Directly pay to the resident (and not offset against any arrears) a total of £800 compensation, which includes the £341.64 offered in its final response, comprised of:
       1. £600 for its poor handling of works to remedy water ingress.
       2. £200 for its poor handling of the resident’s complaint.
    3. Write to the resident to confirm the following:
       1. What the surveys have identified as the source of the leak, and any recommended actions.
       2. Whether or not it needs to carry out any further surveys. Including to investigate the resident’s comments that there is a latent defect in the balcony.
       3. Whether or not the balcony is going to be renewed. If not, it must confirm what action it intends to take to resolve the leaks.
       4. A complete schedule for any works that are to be carried out to resolve the leak, including timeframes.
41. In accordance with paragraph 54.g of the Scheme, the landlord is ordered to provide the Ombudsman with a review conducted by a senior manager. The review must be carried out within 12 weeks of the date of this report and should include as a minimum (but is not limited to):
    1. An exploration of the failings identified by this investigation, including the landlord’s ability to progress lasting repairs to completion within reasonable timescales.
    2. A review of the processes and procedures it has in place for:
       1. Responding to reports of repair issues.
       2. Ensuring that repairs are completed in a reasonable timescale.
       3. Ensuring that repairs it carries out are effective and lasting repairs which resolve the issue.
       4. Communicating with and providing meaningful updates to residents affected by repair issues.
       5. Record keeping, including reports of repair issues, all actions taken in response, inspection notes, and details of any repairs carried out.
    3. Identification of all other residents who may have been affected by the issues referred to in this report from July 2021 to present day. This should include those who have not necessarily engaged with its complaints procedure.
42. Following the review, the landlord must, within an additional 4 weeks, produce a report that sets out the findings and learning from the review, and its action plan for preventing similar failings occurring in the future.
43. The landlord is to reply to this Service to provide evidence of compliance with these orders within the timescales set out above.