Leeds City Council (202102741)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202102741

Leeds City Council

30 July 2021


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 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 concerns the time taken by the landlord to repair the resident’s lounge ceiling, following a leak from the property upstairs.

Background and summary of events

Background

  1. The resident is a tenant of the landlord.
  2. The property is a two-bedroom adapted flat, situated within a medium rise block of flats.
  3. As per the information provided to this Service, the resident experienced a water leak, coming from the property above his, on 4 March 2020, which caused damage to the ceiling in the lounge area of his property. Following his report of the leak on the same date, the landlord recorded that it raised invoices for emergency works to address the leak on that date and the damage to the ceiling on 6 March 2020, which were accepted on 23 March 2020, and it noted that it repaired these, removed the ceiling boards, and left only non-essential plastering outstanding.

Summary of events

  1. The landlord recorded that it visited the resident’s property on 16 September 2020, and that it identified the remaining remedial works needed to replaster his lounge ceiling, that had been outstanding since March 2020. It also confirmed that a work order was raised, on 17 September 2020, for these to be booked and completed as soon as possible. Although the landlord subsequently noted that this job was cancelled on 8 October 2020, as it was unable to access the property.
  2. The resident contacted the landlord via telephone on 15 December 2020 with a stage one complaint because the water ingress had occurred in “February 2020”, and the repairs to his lounge ceiling were still outstanding. Additionally, he advised that he was looking for a rent rebate from it for this because he had been paying the full rent while not being able to use the lounge area, and so he had been staying in his bedroom.
  3. The resident also reported that the landlord’s contractor had attended his property after the above work order to repair the lounge ceiling was raised in September 2020 without contacting him prior to the visit. He explained that this had led to him not attending the appointment as he worked shifts, and to the contractor leaving a card confirming the lack of access, for which he had unsuccessfully chased them to rearrange the work.
  4. The landlord issued the stage one complaint response to the resident on 16 December 2020, in which it advised that a work order for the replastering of his lounge ceiling was raised on 17 September 2020 and then cancelled on 7 October 2020, due to lack of access to his property. It acknowledged that its contractor should have first attempted to contact the resident via telephone and that, if that had failed, he should have then been contacted via a text message or a letter to confirm the appointment.
  5. The landlord apologised for this, and it further advised that a new work order was raised on 16 October 2020 to replaster the resident’s lounge ceiling, confirming that it had arranged for its contractor to contact him “as a matter of urgency” to arrange for the repairs to be carried out. Furthermore, the landlord apologised for the delays, and explained that it was experiencing a backlog of works due to the restrictions imposed by the corona virus pandemic.
  6. On 9 March 2021, the resident contacted the landlord via telephone to express his dissatisfaction with the fact that the repairs to his lounge ceiling were still outstanding one year after the leak had occurred, which he stated had meant that he had been unable to live in his property despite paying full rent and all of his bills for this. Additionally, he mentioned that his neighbour had similar remedial works completed in a timely fashion, that he wished for his complaint to be escalated to the final stage of its complaints procedure, and that he intended to approach this Service.
  7. The landlord then issued a final stage complaint response to the resident on 17 March 2021, in which it addressed the following:
    1. It found that an initial work order was raised on 6 March 2020, as it deemed that there was “serious damage” to his property due to the lounge “ceiling coming down” following the leak from the property above. However, this did not go ahead due to the first national corona virus lockdown. The landlord apologised for not contacting the resident in respect of this, and it advised that it had published an announcement on its website, on 25 March 2020, stating that non-emergency/non-essential repairs would be put on hold, such as reinstating the plasterboard covering his concrete lounge ceiling.
    2. It then attended his property on 16 September 2020 to assess the affected area, and it raised another work order for the replastering of the lounge ceiling on the following day. The landlord’s contractor subsequently attended the property on 7 October 2020, but they could not carry out the works due to a lack of access to this. Additionally, the landlord noted that the contractor had left a card for the resident for him to contact them to arrange a new appointment.
    3. It confirmed that a new work order was raised on 16 October 2020, and that the repairs were delayed due to a backlog and “further lockdowns in late 2020 and early 2021”. However, the landlord confirmed that the remedial works to the resident’s lounge ceiling were completed on 16 March 2021, and it apologised to him for the delays in this work due to the “unprecedented times”, with the work not being deemed to be “essential, dangerous or necessary for habitation.”
    4. It advised that, following its investigation, it could not locate any details indicating that he could not reside at the property due to the repair issues there, but that it had recorded making “a large adjustment to the account for a period where the plastering was outstanding.” The landlord added that it could not comment on repairs at another property for data protection reasons.
    5. It also advised that it was uncertain as to what he had requested compensation for, as he had not notified his housing office that he was not living at his property. The landlord additionally deemed that the repair was completed in a “reasonable timeframe considering the global pandemic, lockdowns, self-isolation and shielding of staff.” It explained that this was because “the ceiling repair, whilst unsightly, was not essential or urgent”, and it also mentioned that it had experienced a “significant backlog of work” and that “plaster was one of the materials that was in short supply”.
  8. The resident then contacted this Service on 5 May 2021 to advise that the landlord had not made an offer of compensation to him. He subsequently contacted us again on 20 May and 2 June 2021, when he noted that he had not been able to use “the whole of the flat for a year”, as it had taken this long to repair his lounge ceiling, and that he wished to receive compensation from it for this, but that he did not have an amount in mind.
  9. The landlord then contacted this Service at our request to provide us with the above information, and to confirm that it had previously adjusted the resident’s rent account by £939.51 on 9 March 2020. It stated that it had done this as a result of him being unable to stay at his property for a period of 13 weeks after he had initially moved there, which was due to extensive plastering works that were delayed from when this had been void.

Assessment and findings

The resident’s tenancy agreement

  1. The tenancy agreement states that the landlord will carry out repairs in a reasonable time, and will provide written confirmation of a request for a repair by the resident, unless the repair in question is an emergency.

The landlord’s repairs and maintenance handbook

  1. The landlord divides repairs into categories based on the type, as below:
    1. Emergency appointments are to be attended within three hours, and to be completed within 24 hours.
    2. Priority repairs are deemed to be when there is a serious impact on the resident’s comfort or to prevent damage to the property, and they are to be carried out within three to seven working days.
    3. General repairs are to be completed within 20 working days.
    4. Non-urgent/batched repairs are deemed to be when a pre-inspection and/or the order or manufacture of materials is required, and these are to be completed within 60 days. It is noted that works requiring plaster are included in this category.

The landlord’s criteria for essential/non-essential repairs

  1. The landlord’s criteria for repairs classes plastering works as non-essential repairs.

The time taken by the landlord to repair the resident’s lounge ceiling

  1. Considering the nature of the remedial works required to replaster the resident’s lounge ceiling, along with the landlord’s repairs and maintenance handbook and criteria for repairs detailed above, these plastering works were non-essential batched repairs, which were to be completed within 60 days. The water leak that caused the damage to the ceiling occurred on 4 March 2020. Taking the above into account, along with the fact that the first national corona virus lockdown was announced on 23 March 2020, with guidance issued for landlords to only access properties for serious and urgent issues on 28 March 2020, it is understandable that the landlord could not adhere to its 60–day timeframe to replaster the ceiling.
  2. Following the issuing of further guidance for landlords on 1 June 2020 recommending that routine repairs, inspections and planned internal works could be carried out within properties, the landlord inspected the resident’s property on 16 September 2020. It then raised a new work order for the plaster repairs to the lounge ceiling there on the following day. Considering that lockdown restrictions on repairs therefore started to be eased from 1 June 2020, along with the above classification of the repair, and the fact that the landlord advised that it had experienced a backlog of works, a delay in it attending the property again was to be expected. As a result, the period of approximately three-and-a-half months for it to do so from the easing of restrictions was not unreasonable in this instance.
  3. However, the landlord’s contractor then proceeded to attend the resident’s property to replaster his lounge ceiling on 7 October 2020, despite not being able to make contact with him, which then led to the cancellation of the work order on the next day, which caused unnecessary and avoidable delays to the completion of the works. Furthermore, the landlord acknowledged on 16 December 2020 that it should have contacted him via a text message or letter to confirm the appointment, when it was unable to reach him to do so via telephone. In this instance, its actions were unreasonable and did not fall within its expected standards to ensure that appointment times and dates were confirmed with residents to enable these to go ahead, and to make them aware of upcoming appointments.
  4. A further work order was then raised by the landlord on 16 October 2020 for it to replaster the resident’s lounge ceiling, however the repair was then not completed until 16 March 2021, which was inappropriate. This Service appreciates that there were circumstances that prevented it from completing the repair sooner, and we have taken into account the further lockdown periods from 5 November to 2 December 2020 and from 5 January to 8 March 2021, along with the other factors noted by it above. These included the reported self-isolation and shielding of the landlord’s staff, its significant backlog of works, and the short supply of plaster that it outlined to the resident on 17 March 2021.
  5. However, this did not change the fact that the repairs to the resident’s lounge ceiling were outstanding for approximately one year from March 2020 to March 2021. In this instance, the landlord should have ensured that appointment times to replaster the ceiling were confirmed and agreed upon with him, or at least have attempted to prioritise the repair after the cancellation on 7 October 2020, to ensure that unnecessary and unreasonable delays and inconvenience were avoided. Its failure to do so instead meant that its repairs and maintenance handbook’s 60-day timescale for the repair was twice exceeded after the end of the first and second of the above lockdowns, until this was completed on 16 March 2021.
  6. Additionally, there was a misunderstanding in the communication between the landlord and resident, in its final stage complaint response of 17 March 2021. This was where it advised that it had made a large adjustment to his rent account for a period where the plastering was outstanding at his property, in response to his report that he could not reside there because of the outstanding repairs.
  7. Based on the information provided by the landlord to this Service, however, it made the above adjustment of £939.51 on 9 March 2020 for when the resident previously could not use his property after he had initially moved there, which was due to extensive plastering works that were delayed from when this had been void. This meant that, although it had suggested that it had given him a remedy because of the repair issues to the lounge ceiling, for which he had sought a rent rebate because he continued to pay the full rent despite only being able to partially use the property, it had not done so for this.
  8. There is no evidence that the outstanding plastering to the ceiling prevented the resident from using the lounge or the rest of his property, and the adjustment of rent accounts is an outcome that is not within this Service’s authority to provide, as we do not have the legally-binding power necessary to do so. Nevertheless, the landlord should have remedied its repeated and lengthy delays in repairing the ceiling by offering him a proportionate level of compensation in recognition of any distress and inconvenience that he experienced from this.
  9. This Service’s remedies guidance recommends that compensation from £250 be awarded for failures over a considerable period of time to act in accordance with policy to address repairs. The landlord has therefore been ordered below to pay this to the resident, as well as recommended below to review its staff’s and its contractors’ training needs to seek to prevent a recurrence of its above failings in his case.
  10. To conclude, this Service appreciates the circumstances experienced by the landlord, however, this does not change the fact that the repairs to the resident’s lounge ceiling were outstanding for approximately one year. Moreover, certain delays and inconvenience to him could have been avoided by a more efficient management of the repairs on its part.


Determination (decision)

  1. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in the time taken by it to repair the resident’s lounge ceiling, following a leak from the property upstairs.

Reasons

  1. The landlord did not complete the repairs to the resident’s lounge ceiling in an effective or timely fashion, as these were left outstanding for approximately one year.
  2. The landlord’s contractor attended the property to carry out the repairs, and subsequently cancelled the work order, without establishing contact with the resident first.
  3. The landlord failed to recognise the resident’s distress and inconvenience experienced as a result of its repair delay with a proportionate level of compensation, and it instead mistakenly attributed an earlier adjustment to his rent account to this.

Order and recommendation

  1. The Ombudsman orders the landlord to pay £250 compensation to the resident within four weeks for any distress and inconvenience caused to him by its delays in completing repairs to his lounge ceiling.
  2. It is recommended that the landlord review its staff’s and contractors’ training needs in relation to contacting residents in respect of repair appointments, to ensure that times and dates are confirmed before allowing an appointment to go through, and their application of its repairs and maintenance handbook to seek to prevent a recurrence of its above failings in the resident’s case. This should include the completion of this Service’s free online dispute resolution training for landlords at https://www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk/landlords-info/e-learning/, if this has not been done recently, and the consideration of our remedies guidance at https://www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk/about-us/corporate-information/policies/dispute-resolution/policy-on-remedies/.
  3. The landlord shall contact this Service within four weeks to confirm that it has complied with the above order and whether it will follow the above recommendation.
  4. The Ombudsman accepts that, because of the present restrictions due to the corona virus pandemic, the timing of the above actions will depend on what is reasonable in the light of Government guidance regarding the health of the resident and of the landlord’s staff.