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Islington Council (202318442)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202318442

Islington Council

25 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. This complaint is about how the landlord handled a leak into the resident’s property.

Background

  1. The resident is a secure tenant of the landlord. The property is a 2-bed flat in a block of flats. The resident lived at the property with her young baby at the time of the leak.
  2. The resident reported a leak on 25 June 2023. She made a complaint about the handling of the leak on 27 June 2023. She said she did not know when the landlord would fix the leak, and the condition of the property was getting worse. She said she had no working light or electric cooker, was worried about her baby, and that she had to take extra medication for hypertension because of the stress this caused.
  3. The landlord issued its stage 1 response on 18 July 2023. It said it had sent someone to investigate the leak on the day the resident reported it, but could not carry out works. It said this was because the leak was from another flat, and the occupier of that flat refused access. It said it had raised a works order on 26 June 2023 to fix the resident’s light, and had booked an appointment to reinstate the light on 21 July 2023.
  4. The resident escalated her complaint on 21 July 2023. She said she still had no light in the corridor, and the leak had damaged her property. She said the time the landlord took to fix the leak and the damage was unacceptable. She said she wanted compensation for the stress and for the damage the leak caused to her property.
  5. The landlord issued a stage 2 response on 21 August 2023. It said it had not been able to determine when it had completed the repairs as either the operatives had not recorded the repairs, or it could not trace the job numbers due to system errors. It said the resident had confirmed that it had resolved the leak and electrical damage, and that its operatives had painted the affected areas on 1 August 2023. It offered £100 compensation for its delays, then increased the offer to £200.
  6. The resident was not happy with the landlord’s response, so contacted the Ombudsman. She said the leak lasted for 48 hours, she had no electricity for 1 day, and had no light in the hallway for a month. She said she was also unhappy with the works the landlord carried out to resolve the leak damage. She said she did not feel the compensation offered was enough to put things right.

Policies and procedures

  1. Under section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 and the tenancy agreement, the landlord has to keep the structure and exterior of the property in repair. It has to carry out repairs in a reasonable time.
  2. The landlord’s repairs policy says it will carry out repairs in the following timescales:
    1. Emergency repairs – it will make the area or appliance safe within 2 hours. If it is not able to complete the repair straight away, it will book an appointment to do so.
    2. Urgent repairs – within 24 hours.
    3. Routine repairs – within 20 working days.

Scope of the investigation

  1. The Ombudsman cannot investigate complaints which have not gone through the landlord’s complaints process. Any events after the landlord’s stage 2 response did not form part of the complaint which completed the landlord’s complaints process so we cannot consider them in this investigation. This includes the standard of the repair works.
  2. The resident also said the way the landlord dealt with the leak affected her health. She said she had to take extra medication as a result of the stress. We cannot draw conclusions on the causation of, or liability for, any impact on health and wellbeing. Personal injury claims are for the courts to decide, as they can consider medical evidence and make legally binding findings. However, we will consider the general distress and inconvenience any failings by the landlord may have caused the resident.

Assessment and findings

The initial leak

  1. The resident reported a leak into the entrance of her flat on 25 June 2023. She said the leak was coming through a light fitting. The landlord logged an emergency repair and arranged for an inspection that day. Its records show that an electrician attended the same day and made the electrics in the property safe, but could not fix the hallway light until the leak stopped.
  2. It also had a plumber attend on the same day. The plumber said that the leak was affecting the communal corridor, and was coming from another flat. However, the occupants of that flat refused access to the plumber.
  3. A landlord can only stop a leak from a flat when the occupants give it access to do so. It cannot force access to a flat without a court order allowing it to do so. As the occupants of the flat refused access for the repair, the landlord was unable to carry out a repair until those occupants gave the landlord access. They did so on 27 June 2023, 2 days after the leak started. The plumber identified that the leak had been caused by plumbing work carried out by another resident, and stopped the leak that day. This was reasonable and in line with its repair obligations.

Loss of power

  1. The resident said she had no power the day after the leak started. She said she could not cook or sterilise baby bottles, so she had to travel to a friend’s house.
  2. The landlord’s operatives turned the power in the flat off for 1 day on the day after the leak. The tenancy agreement explains that the landlord might sometimes need to disconnect services (such as the power) to carry out repairs.
  3. The Secure Tenants of Local Housing Authorities (Right to Repair) Regulations 1994 set out limits for certain urgent repairs to be carried out by social landlords. The time limit for a total loss of electric power is 1 working day. There is no evidence which shows it was unnecessary to cut the power, or that it cut the power for an unreasonable length of time (by reference to the timescales under the right to repair regulations).
  4. As such, while the loss of power inevitably caused distress and inconvenience, that distress and inconvenience was not the result of failings on the landlord’s part.

Leak damage

  1. The landlord spoke to the resident on 27 and 28 June 2023, after it stopped the leak. Its notes say it told her it would take a few days for the water to stop completely, and a few weeks for the electrics and walls to dry out. It said it could not fix her light or inspect the walls before then. Its notes say it told her to speak to her area housing officer about her options in the meantime, as she had indicated she felt unsafe in the property.
  2. The resident told the landlord that she may not need to speak to her housing officer, as it appeared everything was being resolved. The records show that the landlord could not carry out further repairs at that time, for reasons outside of its control. It took reasonable steps to explain this, and the likely timescales, to the resident.
  3. The landlord’s records show it booked an appointment to fix the corridor light on 21 July 2023. It is unclear whether the appointment went ahead as scheduled, as the landlord has not provided any notes or records of the repair. However, the resident told the landlord on 21 August 2023 that the leak had been resolved, the light was fixed, and decorative repairs to the paintwork had gone ahead on 1 August 2023. The resident told the Ombudsman that she had no light in her hallway for around a month. As such, it is reasonable to conclude that the light was working from 21 July 2023, or shortly after.
  4. The corridor light would be a routine repair under the landlord’s repairs policy. The booked appointment was 19 working days after the leak started. This was within the 20 working-day timescale set out in the landlord’s policy. However, the landlord has not provided any evidence to show it fixed the light on that day. Without that evidence, we cannot confirm that the repair did take place within that timescale. It has also not explained why it did not offer the resident any temporary lighting in the meantime. As such, the landlord has not provided evidence to show it acted reasonably with regard to the corridor light.
  5. The landlord then repaired damage to the walls on 1 August 2023. This was 26 working days after the resident reported the leak. As such, it was outside of the timescales set out in the repairs policy. A repair outside of those timescales does not automatically mean there has been a failing, as there are many good reasons why a landlord may not be able to carry out a repair sooner. However, the landlord has not provided any evidence of the reason for delay.
  6. We note that the walls needed to dry out before the landlord could start works. The landlord had explained this to the resident at the outset, and said that it would likely take a few weeks. However, it has not provided any evidence of any visits to check whether or not the walls had dried out. Without that evidence, we cannot conclude that the delay was reasonable.

Summary

  1. We do not dispute that the resident experienced distress and inconvenience as a result of the leak. It is apparent from the information provided to both this Service and the landlord that this was the case. However, as set out above, the majority of the distress and inconvenience was caused by the leak itself, and not failings by the landlord.
  2. While there is some evidence of failings by the landlord, those are limited to a delay of around 1 week in carrying out the internal repairs, and a failure to provide or offer temporary lighting for the corridor until it could fix the light.
  3. The nature and level of the landlord’s failings in this case would usually lead to a finding of maladministration. The £200 compensation offered by the landlord is in line with the Ombudsman’s published remedies guidance for this level of failing, and the impact on the resident. It was therefore an appropriate level of compensation.
  4. The resident said that she had to buy new carpets because of the leak, and she believes any compensation should cover that cost. However, there is no evidence that any carpet damage was the result of failings by the landlord. We would not expect a landlord to pay for damaged items that insurance would usually cover unless the damage was the direct result of its failings. As such, it would be for the resident to make a claim on her contents insurance (or other appropriate policy), should she choose to do so.
  5. Having considered all of the above, we consider that the compensation offered by the landlord is enough to put things right, and is therefore a reasonable offer of redress.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 53(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord has offered redress to the resident prior to the Ombudsman’s investigation which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, resolves the complaint satisfactorily.

Recommendations

  1. If it has not already done so, the landlord should pay the resident the £200 compensation it previously offered to her. The determination of reasonable redress is dependent on the landlord making this payment.
  2. The landlord should respond to this Service to set out its position on this recommendation within 4 weeks of the date of this determination.