Leeds City Council (202338609)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202338609

Leeds City Council

8 May 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

The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s requests for a repair to the hallway.

Background

The resident occupies a 2-bedroom house (the property) under an assured tenancy agreement. The landlord is a local authority.
On 19 July 2023 the resident reported damage to the wall in the hallway and raised a repair request with the landlord. The contractor attended the property the following day and inspected the work required. The landlord raised a new job on 31 July 2023 which stated ‘large hole in hallway and another two holes about to fall out’. On 01 August 2023 a contractor attended the property and requested that an asbestos survey is required prior to any other work being done.
The resident raised a complaint on 01 September 2023 stating that she was not happy with how the landlord had dealt with the repair requests and its lack of communication.
The landlord issued its stage 1 complaint response on 15 September 2023 in which it:
1. Apologised for the delay and lack of communication and acknowledged the resident had chased it regarding the repairs.
2. Explained that the contractors had not left any notes for it to consider which caused the initial delay.
3. Explained why the asbestos survey was required and that it had attempted to contact the resident with no luck.
4. It had taken learning from this and will provide further training to the contractors to ensure all follow up work is noted on the system.
On 02 October 2023 the resident escalated her complaint to stage 2, she said:
1. The asbestos team had carried out a survey but she had not heard anything else after.
2. Additional repairs were needed; water was pooling on the veranda, bathroom ceiling is cracking, damp and mould.
3. She had chased up repairs several times.
On 12 and 13 October 2023, the landlord’s contractor attended the property to assess what repairs were needed.
The landlord issued its stage 2 response on 24 October 2023 in which it acknowledged that several repairs were still outstanding to the external front and side elevations, rear veranda, bathroom and hallway. It provided appointment dates and timeframes for some of the repairs raised related to the external front and side elevation, hallway, bathroom and rear veranda. It also apologised for the delay in responding and gave a direct contact number for the resident to contact for any other issues.
Between 24 October 2023 and 22 March 2024 the contractors attended the property to inspect what further work was needed and to also carry out the work. All of the work that was identified during these inspections was noted as completed by 22 March 2024, including the ones related to the entrance hallway.
In bringing her complaint to the Service, the resident advised that she still had some outstanding issues with the landlord about the repairs relating to damp and mould in the property. She also explained how the repairs reported had impacted her health.

Assessment and findings

Scope of the investigation

In her escalation request on 2 October 2023, the resident reported some additional repairs related to damp and mould, the veranda and the bathroom at the property. While the landlord acknowledged them in its stage 2 response as a service request, we have not seen evidence that these exhausted its complaints process.
In accordance with paragraph 42.a. of the Scheme, the scope of this investigation is limited to the issues raised during the resident’s formal complaint. Any new issues or repairs raised during the escalation to stage 2 or following the end of the landlord’s complaint process will not be considered as part of this investigation. This is because the landlord needs to be given a fair opportunity to investigate and respond to any reported dissatisfaction with its actions prior to our involvement. Any further issues that have not been subject to a formal complaint can be addressed directly with the landlord and progressed as a new formal complaint if required.
In bringing the complaint to the Service the resident said the condition of her home impacted her health. The Ombudsman does not doubt the resident’s comments about this, it is widely accepted that damp and mould can have a negative impact on health. It is outside the Ombudsman’s role to establish legal liability or whether a landlord’s actions or lack of action have had a detrimental impact on a resident’s health. Nor can we calculate or award damages for damage to health. The Ombudsman is therefore unable to consider the personal injury aspects of the complaint. In line with paragraph 42.f. of the Scheme these matters are better suited to consideration by a court or via a personal injury claim to the landlord’s liability insurer.

Legal and policy framework

The tenancy agreement states that the landlord is responsible for the structure of the building and plastering if over 5mm wide. It also explains that the repair timescales are:
1. Emergency will be attended within 3 hours and completed within 24 hours – risk to the health and safety of the resident.
2. Priority repairs will be completed within 3 working days for plumbing and draining faults or 7 working days for roof leaks etc.
3. General repairs will be completed within 20 working days.
The landlord’s compensation policy states that in most cases an apology will suffice but it can still offer compensation if the resident has been moderately inconvenienced on more than one occasion.
The landlord’s repairs policy states that it will:
1. Inform the resident of the completion date and arrange an appointment before the repair.
2. During the repair it will communicate with the resident.
3. Explain what repairs will be carried out and explain how it is progressing/how long it will take.
4. Explain when the job has been completed and what has been done.

Assessment

The resident first reported the issue with holes in the hallway on 19 July 2023 and explained the potential risk to her health and safety. The contractor attended the property the following day and took photos of the damage which showed a large hole and crack. This was an appropriate step for the landlord to take given the reported potential risk. However, the repair request was cancelled and despite the landlord noting in its file the risk of the walls ‘falling out’ another was not raised until 31 July 2023. The repair to the wall was marked as completed by the landlord on 26 October 2023, which is outside the timeframes of its policy for both a priority and general repair.
The landlord identified that an asbestos survey was required in August 2023 and conducted this in September 2023, which contributed to the delay. Despite the survey, the work was still unnecessarily delayed and outside the landlord’s own repairs policy. Given the potential impact to the resident’s safety the landlord could not demonstrate that it had dealt with the repair with the required urgency.
Additionally, the repair log shows that the further remedial works to the hallway identified in October 2023 were not fully completed until March 2024. This was a considerable delay of additional 5 months and outside the timeframes of the landlord’s policy for general repairs. During this time the resident chased repairs and the outcome of the asbestos inspection on a number of occasions (including in her complaint and escalation request from September 2023) which caused additional frustration and inconvenience.
While the resident reported the impact the repairs had on her mental health to us. We have not seen evidence of this being raised with the landlord. As such it would not be fair to expect the landlord to take into account issues which it was not aware of. The landlord has since acknowledged the resident’s health concerns and has taken steps to ensure they are supporting the resident going forward – it arranged for an ‘annual tenancy check in’ that took place in August 2024. However, as this was following the end of the landlord’s process, if the resident remains dissatisfied with these steps and wishes to pursue this further, she may raise a new complaint.
In her complaint to the landlord the resident stated that it did not keep in good contact with her. Although the landlord stated in its complaint responses that it reached out (at stage 1 in relation to the asbestos survey), we have not seen evidence of it. However, the landlord also acknowledged at stage 1 of its process that it had not kept the resident fully updated and she had to chase the repairs on several occasions. It further acknowledged it had to improve its contractor’s record keeping. However, it did not provide any compensation for the inconvenience caused to the resident by its identified failures.
The landlord’s stage 2 response was an opportunity for it to set out its understanding of the issues, its investigation into them and timeframes in which the repairs would be completed. The landlord appropriately provided an overview of the outstanding repairs and notes from the repairs team for any further appointments. It apologised for the “delay in its response”. However, it did not provide reasons for the further delays or explanation of the lack of communication, and as such it could not evidence an appropriate investigation. By not conducting an in-depth investigation, it missed an opportunity to take learning and put things right for the resident.
The Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code) 7.2 states that “any remedy offered must reflect the impact on the resident as a result of any fault identified”. Landlords are expected to adhere to the Code’s prescriptions. Our remedies guidance explained that we can award compensation for any avoidable inconvenience, distress and detriment. While the impact of the landlord’s action or inaction cannot simply be remedied by a financial payment, a compensation is recognised as an acknowledgement of how the resident has been affected.
The resident was left with damage to the property for just over 3 months that posed a risk to her health and safety (from her initial report on 19 July 2023 until 26 October 2023). Additionally, there were delays in the remedial works to the hallway for further 5 months, and until 22 March 2024.In this case while the landlord acknowledged delays in repairs and lack of communication, it did not provide any reasons for these or offer any compensation in recognition of the inconvenience these had caused.

Determination

In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in respect of the handling of resident’s repair request.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

Within 4 weeks of the date of this report, the landlord is ordered to pay the resident a total of £350 compensation for the distress and inconvenience caused to her by the landlord’s failures identified in this report – poor communication and delay in actioning the resident’s repair request.
The landlord must provide evidence of compliance within 4 weeks of the date of this report.

Recommendations

It is recommended that the landlord reach out to the resident to resolve any outstanding issues that the resident has regarding the property and repairs.