Lambeth Council (202204833)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202204833

Lambeth Council

12 March 2023 

 

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:
    1. Response to the resident’s report of having no hot water or heating.
    2. Handling of the associated complaint.

Background

  1. The resident is a secure tenant of the landlord. The property is a house, which the resident moved into on 6 December 2021 by way of a mutual exchange.
  2. The resident reported that the boiler was not working on the 6 December 2021. The gas contractor inspected it on 7 December 2021 and made a morning appointment for 10 December 2021 for the printed circuit board (PCB), from which all the electronic components of the boiler get its instructions, to be replaced. The contractor did not turn up for that appointment or for the rearranged appointment on 13 December 2021. At that point the resident requested supervisor call backs from the contractor and the landlord. The resident says that the landlord did not call back. However, the contractor called to say the part had not arrived and that they should not have booked the appointment. They rearranged the appointment for the morning of 15 December 2021.
  3. On 15 December 2021, the contractor did not arrive, and the resident raised a complaint as she had had no hot water or heating since moving in on 6 December 2021. She said it was dangerous having to carry saucepans of hot water about in order to maintain personal hygiene. She said she had taken two days off work and as she was a shopkeeper this meant she had to close her shop and lost income, so the lack of communication from the contractor was stressful. She requested the landlord contact her and arrange the repairs within 24 hours. And that if she did not hear anything she would assume that she could book a private gas engineer and invoice the landlord.
  4. It is not clear whether the landlord contacted the resident but on 17 December 2021 the contractor attended to change the PCB but the boiler still did not work. The contractor ordered a different part and requested that portable heaters be supplied to the resident. The resident emailed the landlord requesting that her complaint be escalated as she still had no heating or hot water and had a child in the house. She requested compensation for loss of earnings and for the time spent on the phone trying to resolve the problem. On 19 December 2021 fan heaters were delivered to the resident. On 20 December 2021, the landlord replied to the escalation request to say the complaint was still within timeframe for a stage one response so could not be escalated. It advised the resident to ring its repairs team to chase the repair rather than wait for its stage one complaint response.
  5. In its stage one complaint response on 22 December 2021, the landlord apologised that the resident had had to make numerous calls and had not been given correct information. The landlord acknowledged the additional inconvenience caused to the resident by having to call to chase the repair to her heating and hot water and apologised for the service failures experienced overall. It said its management were aware of long wait times and it was working with contractors to reduce this. It said it had booked an engineer’s visit for the following day and that a customer liaison officer would monitor the repair.
  6. The resident said nobody arrived on 23 December 2021. Although the repair records show the contractor rang the doorbell and took pictures. The visit was rebooked for 24 December 2021 with a note saying the doorbell was not working. During that visit the contractor ordered an additional part. The resident says the contractor said that the poor installation of the PCB had damaged the boiler. On 29 December 2021, the contractor called the resident to say it had decided to carry out a survey for a new boiler. The survey took place on 6 January 2022 and a new boiler was installed on 17 January 2022.
  7. The resident escalated her complaint on 25 January 2022. She explained that she felt the house had been uninhabitable for the period that she had no heating or hot water, that a family member had a health condition that was affected by changes in temperature and that she had ended up having to install an electric shower. She requested compensation of over £2,500, which included amounts for the installation of the shower, loss of income, the cost of purchasing heaters before the landlord provided any, and the cost of running those heaters. She also requested a rent rebate and compensation for the stress and trauma of living in a property that she considered unfit for human habitation due to lack of heating and hot water.
  8. The landlord acknowledged the escalation request on 11 February 2022, and in its stage two complaint response on 3 March 2022, the landlord apologised for any inconvenience or upset caused and said that the contractor would be processing the resident’s compensation claim and would contact her within in 28 days. The resident came to this Service as the contractor only awarded her £59.82 compensation and she was unhappy with how the landlord had handled her complaint.

Assessment and findings

  1. The resident has referenced how the lack of heating and hot water impacted on a member of the household’s health as they had a condition that was affected by temperature changes. The Ombudsman cannot draw conclusions on the causation of, or liability for, impacts on health and wellbeing. This is because we do not have the expertise to establish whether there was a direct link between the landlord’s actions and/or inaction and member of the household’s health.
  2. There is no evidence that the landlord was aware of this condition until the resident mentioned it in her escalation request, after the issue had been resolved. However, as the landlord has not made the Ombudsman aware of any vulnerabilities in the household, this Service will be recommending that it contacts the resident to ensure it has an accurate record of any vulnerabilities in the household.

Response to the resident’s report of having no hot water or heating.

  1. When the resident first reported that her boiler was not working on 6 December 2021 the landlord responded appropriately by sending a contractor to inspect the boiler on 7 December 2021. Although the landlord does not specify a timeframe for such issues it was reasonable as it was in line with the 24 hours advised in the government’s right to repair guidelines.
  2. However, once the contractor had established that the repair could not be completed that day and that it would need to order a new PCB, it would have been appropriate for the contractor to have kept the resident updated on the progress of the order and to have notified her of any delay that may impact on any appointment it had already booked to carry out the repair. However, it failed to do so. This resulted in inconvenience to the resident as she had taken time off work and waited for the contractor to turn up, only on several occasions for nobody to arrive. The landlord’s lack of communication also led to the resident spending unreasonable lengths of time making phone calls to both the landlord and the contractor try to get the issue resolved.
  3. As it was winter, it would also have been appropriate for the contractor to have asked at that time whether the resident required any fan heaters whilst the heating was not working. However, it failed to do so until 17 December 2021, and the heaters were then not delivered until 19 December 2021. The delay in offering heaters led to the resident purchasing their own heaters.
  4.  It is not clear whether the contractor should have made the decision to replace the boiler at an earlier date, or whether the contractor’s actions in replacing the PCB led to further damage to the boiler, and ultimately the need to replace it. However, it is reasonable for a landlord to rely on the expertise of its contractors, and the contractor did not confirm that the boiler should be replaced until the survey on 6 January 2022. At which point it made appropriate arrangements to replace the boiler.
  5. In its stage two response the landlord advised that the contractor would be processing the resident’s compensation claim and the resident has confirmed that the contractor only awarded £59.82 compensation rather than the full amount she had asked for. The landlord has not provided this Service with a breakdown of how that compensation was calculated. However, this Service does not consider the amount of £59.82 to be reasonable or proportionate for the failings identified in this report. It is noted that the resident claimed compensation for loss of hot water and heating for seven weeks and for the cost of an electric shower for hygiene purposes, given that she had no hot water. It Is not clear when the shower was installed. However, an electric shower was not something that the landlord was either obliged to provide or had agreed to fund, and this Service does not consider it something that would be reasonable to expect a landlord to fund as a solution to a temporary loss of hot water.
  6. The resident also requested £280 compensation for loss of earnings whilst waiting in for the contractor at the times when they did not arrive and making phone calls. Although the landlord’s compensation policy says it will consider factors such as loss of earnings caused by pursuing a complaint (under its time and trouble section), it does not state that it will compensate for loss of earnings caused by cancelled or non-attended appointments. Therefore, it was reasonable that the landlord did not award compensation for loss of earnings for the cancelled appointments. This Service will also not be awarding compensation for loss of earnings but will be considering the time and trouble the resident spent pursuing the complaint, which would include the time spent making phone calls, and will also be considering the stress and inconvenience caused by the appointments that the contractor did not attend.
  7. As it is not clear how long the resident was completely without hot water for, this Service will use the 43 days from 6 December 2021, when the resident first reported having no heating or hot water till 17 January 2022 when the boiler was replaced, as the period for which the resident was potentially without hot water and having to use portable heaters as her only source of heating. This Service will also be ordering the landlord to pay compensation for the additional costs involved in using portable heaters during that period, the stress and inconvenience caused by the boiler being out of use during that time period and the time and trouble involved in trying to contact both the landlord and the contractor to resolve the issue, and the contractors failure to communicate with the resident (including its failure to keep its scheduled appointments).
  8. Taking into account the £59.82 already paid, the Ombudsman considers an additional compensation amount of £540.18 to be reasonable, bringing the total payable to the resident to £600. This in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance for cases of maladministration which suggests awards between £100 and £600 where there was a failure which adversely affected the resident, and where the landlord acknowledged failings and/or made some attempt to put things right but the offer was not proportionate to the failings identified by our investigation.

Complaint Handling.

  1. The landlord has a two-stage complaint process for formal complaints. The Local Resolution stage, where the landlord will acknowledge the complaint within two working days and provide a full written response within 20 working days. And Final Review stage where the resident can escalate his complaint if they are not happy with the response at stage one, and a full response will be given within 25 working days. It is noted that these timeframes are not in line with the response timeframes detailed in the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (which are 10 working days at stage one, and 20 working days at stage two). Therefore, although this report recognises that the landlord complied with the timeframes within its complaint policy, this Service will be recommending that the landlord brings its complaint policy in line with the Ombudsman’s complaint handling code.
  2. It is noted that after raising the complaint on 15 December 2021, the resident requested that her complaint be escalated two days later. The landlord’s decision not to escalate at that point was reasonable as the complaint was still within the timeframe for it to respond at stage one of the complaints process and it appropriately explained that to the resident. There would also have been no benefit to the resident in escalating the complaint and it would have denied her the chance to request that it review its first complaint response. The landlord appropriately escalated the complaint on 25 January 2022, following a further escalation request from the resident, after the stage one complaint response had been issued.
  3. The Ombudsman’s Complaint handling code states that “landlords shall address all points raised in the complaint and provide clear reasons for any decisions, referencing the relevant policy, law and good practice where appropriate”. The resident raised a number of points at both stages of the complaint process, including her dissatisfaction with the landlord’s call centre and the landlord’s failure to call her back on 13 December 2021, and that there was no log book for the boiler. She also mentioned in her escalation request that a member of her household had a health condition that was impacted by changes in temperature. In line with the complaint handling code, it would have been appropriate for the landlord to have addressed these issues. However, although the landlord gave a general apology for “the service failures experienced overall” and ““any distress or inconvenience caused” it failed to address the specific points the resident had made. Its responses were generic and did not show an understanding of how the issues had affected the resident personally, and there was no evidence that it had actually investigated all of the issues that she had raised.
  4. An effective complaint process should enable a landlord to learn from any issues that arise, and to identify any trends or themes, so that it can address those areas and take action to prevent further issues. However, as the landlord failed to respond to all the points raised by the resident, it also failed to learn from those issues or take steps to prevent them happening in future. In view of that there was maladministration by the landlord in respect of its complaint handling. Therefore, this Service will be ordering the landlord to pay compensation of £150 for this aspect of the complaint This is in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance for cases where there was a failure that adversely affected the resident, which may include disappointment and loss of confidence in the landlord.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in respect of its response to the resident’s report of having no hot water or heating.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in respect of its complaint handling.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

  1. Within four weeks of the date of this determination the landlord is ordered to:
    1. Pay the resident a further £540.18 compensation, in addition to the £59.82 that it has already paid, in respect of its response to the resident’s report of no heating and hot water. This brings the total compensation for this element of the complaint to £600.
    2. Pay the resident the £150 for its maladministration in respect of its complaint handling.
    3. Confirm that it has complied with the above order.

Recommendations

  1. The landlord is recommended to contact the resident to ensure it has an accurate record of any vulnerabilities at the property.
  2. The landlord is recommended to bring its complaints policy in line with the complaint response timeframes in the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code.