London Borough of Camden Council (202342417)

Back to Top

 

Decision

Case ID

202342417

Decision type

Investigation

Landlord

London Borough of Camden Council

Landlord type

Local Authority / ALMO or TMO

Occupancy

Secure Tenancy

Date

28 November 2025

Background

  1. The resident and her husband are joint tenants. They occupy a 2-bedroom, fifth-floor flat with their 2 children aged under 5 years. The resident has mobility needs due to a long-term health condition.

What the complaint is about

  1. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of a leak in the property and related repairs.
  2. We have also considered the landlord’s handling of the complaint.

Our decision (determination)

  1. We found:
    1. Severe maladministration in respect of the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of a leak in the property and related repairs.
    2. Maladministration in respect of the landlord’s handling of the complaint.

We have made orders for the landlord to put things right.

Summary of reasons

  1. At the time of our investigation, the landlord had not resolved the roof leak, which had been ongoing for 3 years. It repeatedly delayed in sending out contractors and its communications with the resident were poor.
  2. The landlord delayed in responding to the resident’s complaint and did not use its complaints procedure as an effective tool to address her concerns.

Putting things right

Where we find service failure, maladministration or severe maladministration we can make orders for the landlord to put things right. We have the discretion to make recommendations in all other cases within our jurisdiction.

Orders

Landlords must comply with our orders in the manner and timescales we specify. The landlord must provide documentary evidence of compliance with our orders by the due date set.

Order

What the landlord must do

Due date

1

Apology order

The landlord must apologise in writing to the resident for the failures identified in this report. The landlord must ensure:

  • The apology is provided by its chief executive officer.
  • The apology is specific to the failures identified in this decision, meaningful and empathetic.
  • It has due regard to our apologies guidance.

No later than

07 January 2026

 

Compensation order

The landlord must pay the resident £2,298.49 made up as follows:

  • £648.49 for the loss of amenity due to the kitchen light being disconnected for over 6 months.
  • £1,500 for its failures in its handling of the leak and related repairs.
  • £150 for its complaint handling failures.

This must be paid directly to the resident by the due date. The landlord must provide documentary evidence of payment by the due date.

The landlord may deduct from the total figure any payments it has already made.

No later than

07 January 2026

 

Inspection order

The landlord must arrange for a suitably qualified person to inspect and produce a written report in respect of:

  1. The roof of the building.
  2. The leak affecting the resident’s kitchen and bedroom.

The surveyor’s report must clearly set out:

  • Whether the property is fit for human habitation and whether there are any hazards.
  • The most likely cause of the leak affecting the resident’s property.
  • Whether the landlord is responsible to repair or resolve the issues identified, together with reasons where it is not responsible.
  • A full schedule of works to achieve a lasting and effective resolution to the issue (if the landlord is responsible).
  • The likely timescales to commence and complete the works.
  • Whether temporary alternative accommodation is necessary either because of the condition of the property or during the works.

By the due date, the landlord must submit to us a copy of the surveyor’s report and evidence the schedule of works has been shared with the resident.

No later than

23 January 2026

 

Starting the works

The landlord must take all steps to ensure the works noted in the schedule of works are started no later than the due date.

If the landlord cannot start the works in this time, it must explain to us, by the due date:

  • Why it cannot start the works by the due date and provide evidence to support its reasons. It must provide a revised timescale of when it will start and finish the works; or
  • The steps it has taken to start the works and provide us with documentary evidence of its attempts to ensure the works were started by the due date. It must provide a revised timescale if it is able to or explain why it cannot.
  • Whether suitable alternative accommodation is necessary and will be made available to the resident.

No later than

20 February 2026

 

Case review order

The landlord must carry out a review of its handling of matters in this case. It must produce a report detailing the outcome of the review and share this with us and its governing body. The report should identify:

  • What went wrong, what it has learned from the resident’s experience, and what it will do differently to avoid the same happening again.
  • Any changes made to its processes and practices to ensure it deals with repairs effectively and without delay. This should include, but is not limited to, consideration of its communications with residents and contractors, appropriate oversight and monitoring of issues.
  • Any staff training needs to ensure policies and procedures, such as the Right to Repair scheme, are embedded in everyday practice.

No later than

20 February 2026

 

Recommendations

Our recommendations are not binding, and a landlord may decide not to follow them.

Our recommendations

The landlord should familiarise itself with the recommendations at pages 44 to 47 of our spotlight report on knowledge and information management, and consider training for relevant frontline staff and those working in its repairs service.

Our investigation

The complaint procedure

Date

What happened

December 2022 to January 2023

The resident reported a roof leak, which was coming through into her kitchen. The leak subsequently affected the lighting in the kitchen and this was disconnected.

9 August 2023

The resident complained to the landlord that it had taken 6 months to restore lighting in the kitchen following a roof leak, which made it difficult to access with 2 small children under 3 years of age. She said it took 7 months “to supposedly ‘fix’ the leak”, whereas the Right to Repair scheme provided for a roof leak to be resolved within 7 days or compensation was payable to the tenant. She said the plaster to the kitchen ceiling had bubbled and cracked a week after it was repaired, and water was pooling up “with bits of the ceiling starting to hang off”. She was unhappy that an appointment had been scheduled in mid-September to investigate the source of the leak, and she requested an earlier appointment to fix the leak.

28 September 2023

The landlord’s stage 1 response stated:

  • As a roof leak was a qualifying repair under the Right to Repair scheme, the initial appointment was required within 7 working days. However, the repair did not have to be completed within this timeframe. The initial appointment offered would have entitled her to exercise her right to request another contractor attend.
  • The roofing contractor identified and resolved the leak during the first appointment.
  • It apologised for the delay in providing its complaint response.
  • The resident reported the roof leak at the end of December 2022. Repairs to the valley gutter that ran from the front to the rear of the building were completed on 19 May 2023. This took a little longer because a combination of repairs were needed to the existing roofing material (flashings) as well as a waterproof sealant, for which dry weather conditions were required.
  • The kitchen light was affected by the leak and was disconnected as a ‘make safe’ measure on 4 January 2023. On completion of the roof works, the light was reinstated on 12 June 2023.
  • The contractor was unable to attend an appointment to assess the kitchen ceiling on 14 June 2023. However, they subsequently attended on 3 July 2023. The assessment concluded that a plaster repair was required, which was completed on 1 August 2023.
  • The appointment had been brought forward and blockages to the drainage outlets and a pipe were cleared on 21 August 2023. No defects were noted with the work carried out previously, which provided some assurance the previous repairs were carried out to a good standard.
  • The damage to the kitchen ceiling was repaired on 7 September 2023. Although decoration was the resident’s responsibility, it offered her a £50 decoration voucher to assist with the purchase of paint and/or the materials required to complete this task.

31 October 2023

The resident requested escalation of her complaint to stage 2 as the roof leak was ongoing. She noted she had not received a response to her email to the complaint handler over 2 weeks ago, and said she was unhappy nothing had been done to resolve the problem for a year.

9 January 2024

The stage 2 response stated that the landlord upheld the complaint, and said:

  • There had been unreasonable delay in resolving the leak over the past 12 months, although the contractor had attended and carried out works on several occasions.
  • It had contacted the contractor to re-evaluate the work previously done. However, no further work had been done by 2 January 2024, when the resident reported a leak affecting her bedroom. A repair appointment had been scheduled for 13 February 2024, but it would explore the possibility of an earlier date.
  • The contractors would be working on the roof so might not necessarily visit the resident’s property.
  • Despite the steps it had taken to resolve the reported leak, it offered the resident compensation of £20 per month, in line with its remedies policy, for the 12 months from January 2023. It also offered a further £50 to reflect the distress she had suffered, making a total of £290 payable to her.

Referral to the Ombudsman

The resident told us the leaks affecting the kitchen and bedroom ceilings had not been resolved. She said the original leak led to the kitchen light exploding and the family being left with no kitchen lighting for 6 months, from January to June 2023. She said it was very difficult to cook, clean and prepare her baby’s bottles with no lighting, using only a torch when it went dark. She said she made many reports to the landlord, but it did not seem to care about the difficulties they were having.

October 2025

The resident told us the landlord offered no explanation or follow up on roof works, or how long she would be without lighting. This was in the winter months, which made day–to–day life difficult and unsafe, especially given her mobility problems. She said the issues with leaks persisted because the landlord had not carried out any remedial works to the roof itself and, therefore, had not addressed the root cause of the problem. Specifically, she said the roofing contractor had advised her the lagging needed repair and the roof required renewal.

What we found and why

The circumstances of this complaint are well known by the parties involved, so it is not necessary to detail everything that’s happened or comment on all the information we’ve reviewed. We’ve only included the key information that forms the basis of our decision of whether the landlord is responsible for maladministration.

Complaint

A leak in the property and related repairs

Finding

Severe maladministration
  1. Our spotlight report on knowledge and information management, published in May 2023, highlights the importance of good record keeping practices. It is vital for the landlord to keep clear, accurate and easily accessible records so that it can demonstrate its actions and interventions. This helps us to understand its actions and decision-making at the time. If there are disputed facts and no supporting evidence, we may not be able to determine that an action took place or that the landlord acted fairly and in line with its policies.
  2. In this case, the landlord has not provided us with evidence of communications between itself and the resident from December 2022 to June 2023. Therefore, we cannot see when the resident first contacted it about the roof leak and the effect on the kitchen light. Also, the outcome of contractor attendances is not clear. Although records note the work done on each occasion, they do not explain the investigations undertaken, the issues identified, or the course of action required to address them. Consequently, we cannot assess if the landlord took timely and appropriate actions. This amounts to a failure to keep accurate, contemporaneous records and/or to provide us with information for our investigation.
  3. The landlord’s repairs policy confirms a roof leak is covered by the government’s Right to Repair scheme and should be treated as an urgent repair. The policy provides for a temporary repair to make safe and stop the leak within 3 working days.
  4. Records show the repair for the roof leak was first raised by the landlord on 22 December 2022. There is no evidence it attended within 3 working days to make safe and stop the leak. Instead, the repair was given a 20-working-day priority, which was inconsistent with the repairs policy.
  5. It appears a roofing contractor first attended to the roof leak on 15 February 2023, which was 37 working days after the repair was logged. This was unacceptable given the landlord’s obligations under the Right to Repair scheme. The repair was subsequently completed on 19 May 2023, 5 months after first being raised, which was excessive and unreasonable.
  6. An electrical contractor attended on 4 January 2024 to make safe by disconnecting the kitchen light. Under the repairs policy, reconnection of the light ought to have been treated as an urgent repair and completed within 5 working days following completion of the leak repair. However, this was not raised until the resident contacted the landlord, seeking reinstatement of the light and repair to the kitchen ceiling, on or around 22 May 2023. This demonstrates a failure on its part to effectively monitor the outcome of contractor attendances and oversee follow-on works.
  7. The kitchen light was restored on 12 June 2023, 16 working days post-completion of the roof repair. The kitchen ceiling was repaired on 1 August 2023, 51 working days (10 weeks) after the resident reported this on 22 May 2023. These delays were excessive.
  8. The resident reported a recurrence of the leak at least 3 times, from 7 to 9 August 2023, before the landlord offered an appointment for 14 September 2023. One of these interactions appears to have been abandoned by the landlord, and it did not follow through with an appointment promised on the second contact, necessitating a chaser by the resident on the third day. This was unacceptable given the previous delays in addressing the leak and related repairs.
  9. We have received concerning call recordings regarding an unrelated repair reported by the resident in September 2023. These provide evidence of serious issues with staff attitudes, knowledge and poor customer service. For instance, in a conversation dated 4 September 2023, when the resident referred to the Right to Repair scheme, the call handler erroneously dismissed this as not being its own policy. While the particular repair issue has not been referred to us as part of this complaint, when considered alongside the failings identified in this investigation, the evidence points to a slow, inflexible service that fails to deal effectively with urgent repairs and recurring issues.
  10. In this case, records indicate contractors attended multiple times and cleared blocked guttering. Despite a further attendance on 21 August 2025, the resident continued to report the leak was ongoing on 3 and 31 October 2023. On 2 January 2024, she reported the leak had spread into her child’s bedroom. In its stage 2 response, the landlord accepted it failed to take any action to address those further reports.
  11. The landlord has not provided evidence of the appointment on 13 February 2024 or any further steps it took to investigate and resolve the leak. This further highlights its poor record keeping and/or failure to provide us with relevant information. In the circumstances, we find it unacceptable and a serious failing on the landlord’s part that the issues affecting the resident’s kitchen and bedroom are ongoing almost 3 years after the first roof repair was raised. We are satisfied this has caused the resident a significant amount of disruption, distress and inconvenience.
  12. There is no evidence of any proactive communications from the landlord to the resident regarding the repair issues she has experienced. Its responses to contact from the resident were also inadequate, as highlighted above. Its poor communications have put the resident to avoidable time and trouble in chasing outstanding repairs and updates.
  13. The compensation awarded by the landlord in its stage 2 complaint response did not adequately reflect its serious failings and the resulting impact of its multiple shortcomings on the resident and her family. In line with our remedies guidance, we consider it appropriate to award compensation for the loss of amenity in relation to the kitchen from 4 January to 12 June 2023. This has been calculated at 20% of the weekly rent as follows:
    1. 88 days (04/01/2023 to 02/04/2023) x (0.2 x £20.04 (daily rent @ £140.64/week)) = £352.64
    2. 69 days (03/04/2023 to 11/06/2023) x (0.2 x £21.44 (daily rent @ £150.48/week)) = £295.85
  14. In addition to this, we have awarded compensation for the landlord’s serious failings and the severe impact to the household.

Complaint

The handling of the complaint

Finding

Maladministration
  1. The landlord has provided us with a complaints policy and procedure dated March 2023. The timescales provided for dealing with complaints were not consistent with our Complaint Handling Code (‘the Code’) applicable at the time. Specifically, it stated it would:
    1. Acknowledge complaints at both stage within 2 working days. This was quicker than expected in the Code, which prescribed 5 working days.
    2. Provide its stage 1 response within 10 working days, extended to 20 working days for complex cases. This was in line with the expectation in the Code.
    3. Provide its stage 2 response within 25 working days, extended to 65 working days for complex cases. The expectation in the Code was a response within 20 working days, extended up to 40 working days if additional time was required.
  2. The landlord did not deal with the resident’s complaint within reasonable timescales:
    1. It did not acknowledge the resident’s complaint at stage 1 or 2.
    2. It sent its stage 1 response 36 working days after receiving the complaint.
    3. It issued its stage 2 response 48 working days after the resident’s escalation request. There is no evidence it informed the resident it would be extending the timescale for response. It was also excessive against our expectations.
  3. Both complaint responses addressed the resident’s concerns thoroughly. However, both failed to deal with complaint in line with our Dispute Resolution Principles (be fair, put things right, and learn from outcomes). For instance, the stage 1 response failed to offer a fair remedy to put things right. Although the stage 2 response offered compensation in line with the landlord’s compensation policy, this was not proportionate to the impact of its service failings. Furthermore, it failed to ensure it followed through with the actions it proposed to address the outstanding repairs. Also, neither complaint response recognised or sought to remedy the delays in its complaint handling.
  4. Overall, the landlord failed to use its complaints procedure as an effective tool for resolving the resident’s concerns. We consider it appropriate to award compensation for the inconvenience, time and trouble caused to the resident as a result of its failings.

Learning

  1. We have made an order requiring the landlord to carry out a case review so that it can identify and take learning from the resident’s experience.

Knowledge and information management (record keeping)

  1. The landlord did not keep adequate records of repairs and its communications with the resident.

Communication

  1. The available evidence shows the landlord’s communication with the resident was poor.