London Borough of Ealing (202314014)

Background

1. The resident reported a leak from the roof, which was coming through the toilet ceiling, on 3 November 2022. The landlord repaired the roof and resolved the leak on 2 May 2023. The resident made a complaint to the landlord on 18 July 2023. She expressed dissatisfaction at the delay in it resolving the leak and the fact that it had still not repaired the damage caused to the toilet ceiling. She said she was also waiting for the landlord to complete repairs to her kitchen and inspect damage to the exterior brickwork.

What the complaint is about

2. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of repairs to a roof leak, the toilet ceiling, kitchen and brickwork.
3. We have also assessed the landlord’s complaint handling.

Our decision (determination)

4. There was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of repairs to a roof leak, the toilet ceiling, kitchen and brickwork.
5. There was service failure in the landlord’s complaint handling.

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

Summary of reasons

6. The landlord delayed unreasonably in completing the repairs and has still failed to address all outstanding issues. Its failure to proactively communicate with the resident about asbestos in the property also caused her significant distress and anxiety. While the landlord made an offer of redress to the resident, this was not proportionate to the level and duration of its failings.
7. The landlord failed to provide its stage 2 complaint response within the timescale required by its policy and our complaint handling code (the Code). It has not provided any evidence it communicated with the resident about this delay as its policy required. The landlord also failed to address the resident’s concerns about brickwork in its stage 1 or 2 complaint responses, which led to us asking it to issue a further ‘reviewed’ stage 2 complaint response months later.

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.

Recommendations

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

The complaint procedure

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.

Roof leak

8. In her complaint, the resident said that she first reported the roof leak to the landlord on 3 November 2022. This is supported by the landlord’s repair logs. The resident also said that the landlord took until 2 May 2023 to repair the leak. While it is unclear from the landlord’s records exactly when it repaired the leak, it did not contest the date of 2 May 2023 in either of its complaint responses.
9. The landlord’s repairs policy says that it will complete routine repairs within 28 working days. It defines routine repairs as any repair which it does not consider an emergency. The landlord took 6 months to repair the resident’s roof leak. This significantly exceeded its policy timescale and was unreasonable. Particularly given the resident has told us that the repair an operative eventually completed the repair using just a ladder.
10. The landlord’s records show that the resident contacted it repeatedly between November 2022 and March 2023 to chase up the repair and express concern about the water damage. Even after the landlord attended and boarded up the toilet ceiling, she told it that water was still pouring through the joins between the boards whenever it rained heavily. The resident has told us there is only one toilet in the property, so she was forced to use it even when water was leaking from the ceiling. This would have caused the resident significant distress and inconvenience during this period.
11. In its reviewed stage 2 complaint response, the landlord acknowledged that it “took too long” to repair the roof leak. However, it failed to offer the resident any explanation for the delay – which appears to have been due to issues with its roofing contractor.

Toilet ceiling

12. As noted above, the landlord boarded over the toilet ceiling until it could repair the roof leak. This was a reasonable temporary measure as the ceiling would continue to be damaged by rainfall until the leak was resolved.
13. The landlord’s repair logs show that it raised a works order to a contractor on 17 March 2023. This was to renew the toilet ceiling once the roof leak was resolved. The landlord’s records show that the order was cancelled as the “contractor refused work”. Despite the roof leak apparently being repaired on 2 May 2023, we have seen no evidence that the landlord raised a further works order for the ceiling until over 3 months later, after the resident made her complaint. This was an unreasonable delay which had already exceeded its routine repair timescale.
14. The landlord raised a works order to a new contractor on 10 August 2023. However, 4 days later it identified that the toilet ceiling contained asbestos. The landlord asked its contractor to put the work on hold while it arranged for this to be removed.
15. We have not seen any evidence the landlord told the resident about this development, and the additional work required. This led to the resident escalating her complaint on 17 August 2023, after the landlord’s contractor informed her that it was putting the ceiling repairs on hold due to the asbestos. This caused the resident significant distress and anxiety as she feared her and her family may have been exposed to asbestos since the roof leak began affecting the ceiling months previously. This could have been avoided had the landlord contacted her and appropriately explained the situation once it became aware of the asbestos.
16. In its stage 2 complaint response, the landlord appropriately explained to the resident that she was “perfectly safe” in her home. It said that the asbestos was in the lowest risk category and ‘trapped’ in the ceiling coating meaning that “fibre release is almost impossible without direct disturbance”.
17. In its reviewed stage 2 complaint response, the landlord showed learning from the complaint – saying that it had provided internal feedback about communicating the results of asbestos surveys, and how to manage any asbestos present, to residents. It said it had also reminded its lettings team that they should be informing new residents of any asbestos present in the property as part of the lettings process. This was good practice in keeping with our dispute resolution principle to learn from outcomes of complaints.
18. The landlord acted promptly and raised a works order for a specialist contractor to remove the asbestos on 14 August 2023. However, the work does not appear to have been completed until on or around 26 October 2023. The landlord has not provided any explanation for this significant delay. Following this, the landlord’s contractor repaired the toilet ceiling on 1 November 2023. It then returned a week later to redecorate the room.
19. On the repair notes from this visit, the contractor recorded that the resident had told it a small area of the toilet floor had “dipped down and sunk in”. We have seen no evidence that the landlord followed up on this, and the resident has told us it is still outstanding. The resident has also told us that boxing in around the toilet pipes, which was damaged by the roof leak, was not repaired to her satisfaction. We have made an order above for the landlord to inspect these and raise any required works.

Kitchen repairs

20. The landlord’s repair records indicate that it inspected the resident’s kitchen on 18 November 2022. This was in response to her reports that a section of the worktop was “rotten and sinking”. We have not seen any record of the inspections findings, or evidence of the landlord raising works orders based upon them.
21. The landlord included the kitchen repairs in the works order that it raised on 10 August 2023, following the resident’s complaint. This represented a delay of almost 9 months between it inspecting the kitchen and raising the works, which was unreasonable. The landlord has not provided any explanation for this delay.
22. After the landlord raised the works order, its contractor completed the kitchen works promptly on 29 August 2023. In its stage 2 response, 2 weeks later, the landlord acknowledged that some tiling work remained outstanding due to ‘differing colours’ but said it was investigating this.
23. In its review stage 2 response, the landlord said it had “now replaced the tiles that were missing or broken”. However, the resident disputes this. She told us on 26 March 2026 that tiling directly above the worktop is still missing, leaving exposed wall. The resident also said that the landlord removed a section of her kitchen door frame to get the new work tops into the room and has not repaired this. We have ordered the landlord to inspect both issues as part of our inspection order above.

Brickwork

24. In her original complaint, the resident said that the roofer who had repaired the leak had pointed out a large crack going through the brickwork and issues with the rendering on the outside of the property. She expressed concerns this could be contributing to mould in her bathroom.
25. The landlord failed to acknowledge or respond to this concern in its stage 1 or 2 complaint responses. It was not until its reviewed stage 2 complaint response, over 6 months after the resident first made her complaint, that it did so. In this response the landlord said it would arrange for its damp and mould contractor to treat the mould and determine what the cause was.
26. The damp and mould contractor attended promptly on 28 February 2024, 8 days after the landlord’s reviewed stage 2 complaint response. It treated the mould and identified loose pointing and gaps in the exterior brickwork. The landlord repaired these on 24 April 2024. However, the resident has told us there are still cracks in the brickwork, so we have included this in our inspection order too.

Summary

27. Between its stage 2 and reviewed stage 2 complaint responses, the landlord offered the resident a total of £250 compensation for its delays in completing the repairs and the time and trouble taken by the resident in pursuing them.
28. When considering whether an offer of compensation appropriately reflects the distress and inconvenience caused to a resident, we consider the level of failings, duration of them and the detriment caused. In this case the resident:
    1. Lived with an ongoing roof leak affecting her only toilet for a period of almost 6 months.
    2. Waited over 9 months for the landlord to complete repairs to her kitchen after it had inspected it.
    3. Repeatedly chased the landlord over its failure to log and complete necessary repairs in a timely manner.
    4. Was caused to fear she and her family had been exposed to asbestos for 9 months due to the landlord’s poor communication.
    5. Has told us that some issues are still outstanding over 2 years on from the landlord’s reviewed complaint response.
29. The landlord’s offer of £250 does not reasonably reflect the severity of its failings over such a lengthy period. Due to this, we make a finding of maladministration and order the landlord to pay the resident a total of £600, inclusive of its original offer of £250. This is in keeping with our remedies guidance for instances where a landlord has made some attempt to put things right, but the offer is not proportionate to the failings identified by our investigation.

30. At the time of the resident’s complaint, the landlord’s complaints policy said that that it would respond to complaints within 20 working days at each stage of its process. It said that, where it needed to extend these timescales, it would inform the resident and give an expected date for its response.
31. The landlord’s stage 1 timescale did not comply with the Code at that time, which required a stage 1 response to be issued within 10 working days of a complaint. However, during this period we allowed some discretion on timescales by local authority landlords, due to the fact their complaints policy covering numerous services with differing requirements. The landlord’s current policy is aligned to the latest version of the Code.
32. The resident made her complaint on 18 July 2023, and the landlord provided its response 17 working days later, in keeping with its policy timescale.
33. The resident escalated her complaint to stage 2 of the landlord’s process on 17 August 2023. The landlord failed to provide its stage 2 complaint response until 13 October 2023 – 41 working days later. We have not seen any evidence the landlord informed the resident of a delay or when she could expect to receive her response, as its policy requires. Nor did the landlord acknowledge the delay within the stage 2 response itself.
34. After the resident referred her complaint to us, we suggested that the landlord reissue its stage 2 complaint response as it had failed to address all the resident’s complaint points. It had failed to provide any response or comment upon the concerns she raised about cracks and rendering damage to the brickwork in either its stage 1 or initial stage 2 responses. This was not in keeping with the Code, which says that “landlords must address all points raised in the complaint”.
35. Due to these failings, we make a finding of service failure and order the landlord to pay the resident £100 compensation. This is in keeping with our remedies guidance for minor failures which did not affect the overall outcome for the resident.

Learning

36. In its reviewed stage 2 complaint response, the landlord said that it had “introduced proactive monitoring” of repairs and was creating an information leaflet to give to residents with asbestos in their homes. This evidenced good learning from the complaint.

Knowledge information management (record keeping)

37. The landlord’s records were generally clear and reasonably detailed. However, it failed to appropriately use these to manage and progress the repairs to the property.

Communication

38. We have limited evidence of the landlord’s communications with the resident outside of its complaint responses. However, it is evident that the resident repeatedly contacted the landlord about the roof repairs between November 2022 and March 2023 and it failed to provide her with clear updates.