London Borough of Hackney (202228862)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202228862

London Borough of Hackney

22 March 2024

 

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 handling of repairs to the kitchen ceiling and boiler following leaks at the property.

2.     We have also investigated the landlord’s complaint handling.

3.     We have also investigated the landlord’s knowledge and information management.

Background

4.     The resident has been a secure tenant of the landlord for over 40 years. The property is a 2-bedroom fourth floor flat. The landlord says it does not have any vulnerabilities recorded for the resident. The resident is a pensioner and suffers from arthritis and joint pain.

Scope

5.     The resident has expressed concerns regarding the impact the situation has caused to her health. This Service is unable to draw conclusions on the causation of, or liability for, impacts on health and wellbeing as claims of personal injury are, ultimately, matters for a court of law who can consider medical evidence and make legally binding findings. Nonetheless, consideration has been given to the general distress and inconvenience which the situation may have caused the resident.

Summary of events

Policies procedures and legal obligations

6.     The landlord is obliged under section 11 of the Landlord & Tenant Act 1985 to maintain the structure, exterior and services of their property. The reports made by the resident would fall within the landlord’s obligation to maintain.

7.     The landlord said that at the time we made our initial enquiries, it had a complaints procedure, but it did not have a complaints policy. It has since published a 2 stage complaints policy. It says stage 1 complaint responses will be issued within 10 working days. If the resident remains dissatisfied, a complaint can be escalated to stage 2. At stage 2 the complaint will be investigated by an independent team, and a response will be issued within 20 working days.

8.     The Housing Ombudsman Complaints Handling Code, (“the Code”), issued in July 2020, sets out requirements for landlords who are members of the Scheme. Compliance with the Code forms part of the membership’s obligations. Of particular relevance to this investigation, the Code says, among other things:

  1. A complaint should be resolved at the earliest opportunity, having assessed what evidence is needed to fully consider the issues, what outcome would resolve the matter for the resident and whether there are any urgent actions required. (Section 4.4)
  2. A complaint response must be sent to the resident when the answer to the complaint is known, not when the outstanding actions required to address the issue, are completed. Outstanding actions must still be tracked and actioned expeditiously with regular updates provided to the resident. (Section 5.5)
  3. Where something has gone wrong a landlord must acknowledge this and set out the actions it has already taken or intends to take to put things right. (Section 6.1)
  4. Any remedy offered must reflect the extent of any service failures and the level of detriment caused to the resident as a result. (Section 6.2)

9.     The landlord’s policy states that compensation payments may be deemed necessary and appropriate to put a resident back in the position they would have been had it not been for the fault the landlord accepted or identified. It confirms that payments of compensation vary from case to case and the landlord does not provide specific guidance on precisely how much should be paid. Instead, it recommends considering the Ombudsman’s guidance to determine levels accordingly. The landlord offers discretionary payments for time, trouble, and distress.

10. The landlord’s Repairs Guide (“the Guide”) sets out its target response times for various repairs. These range from “Immediate” (attend within 2 hours) and “Emergency” (attend within 24 hours) to “Normal” (attend within 21 working days). Urgent repairs are considered to be those where the fault or failure does not cause danger to the occupants but needs to be put right to prevent inconvenience and keep the property in a reasonable condition.

11. The landlord’s policy says that in relation to heating repairs, it prioritises repairs attendance for elderly or vulnerable visitors.

12. The Guide promises that it will “…make sure the services, such as water pipes, that bring water, gas, electricity or heating to your home, and appliance for these which we have installed such as boilers, are in good working order.”

13. The landlord has a procedure for considering temporary decants. It says that where a surveyor considers that the extent or duration of the works mean a temporary decant is essential or if an assessment by a relevant officer records that the household concerned is especially vulnerable and it would not be reasonable for them to stay in the property while the works are ongoing, it will temporarily decant the resident.

Summary of events

14. On 17 August 2022 the resident contacted the landlord to inform it that heavy rainfall had caused a large hole to form in her kitchen ceiling. The rain had dripped into her boiler and damaged it.

15. The resident said she was therefore without hot water and had to boil kettles and pots to carry out daily activities such as bathing and washing up. She said it cost a significant amount of money to top up the electricity.

16. The landlord raised a job with an ‘immediate’ priority categorisation. It asked a carpenter to attend. The resident said the carpenter informed her that he could not remedy the situation because someone would need to access the roof in order to do so. The landlord’s records say the job was completed on the same day.

17. Also on 17 August 2022, the landlord called a gas engineer to attend at the property. When they did not attend, the resident contacted the landlord. She was told that they had up to 2 hours to attend. They did not attend that night. On the following morning, the landlord’s records show the resident contacted it again as the contractor had not attended. The landlord chased this up and an operative attended later that day. They confirmed the resident’s report about the kitchen ceiling having collapsed. They said the boiler needed replacing because of the water damage. The landlord told the resident to switch off the boiler.

18. On 18 August 2022 the landlord raised a job for a roofer to attend the property. It marked the request as urgent. It was recorded as being booked for 5 September 2022. The resident expressed her disappointment. The landlord’s notes stated, “…there’s a big hole in her kitchen ceiling just under her boiler, and she’s worried that when it does rain again the whole kitchen will be flooded.”

19. The landlord sent an internal email saying that, while it appreciated there had been hundreds of roof leaks/issues as a result of the previous day’s heavy rain, if there were any cancellations or early appointments, it would like the resident to be considered.

20. The landlord replaced the boiler on 4 October 2022.

21. A job was raised for a plasterer to attend to remedy the hole in the kitchen ceiling. However, upon attending on 17 October 2022, the operative said not enough time had been provided for the job to be completed and left without doing it.

22. The resident made a stage 1 complaint on 23 October 2022. The main points were:

  1. She described the chronology of events as set out above.
  2. She had been without a boiler for 7 weeks despite “multiple phone calls to the repairs team about the issue.”
  3. She was therefore without hot water and had to boil kettles and pots to carry out daily activities such as bathing and washing-up. This cost a significant amount of money to top up the electricity.
  4. When the tradesman came on 17 October 2022, he told her he would make a report and arrange a new appointment. However, she had heard nothing, “…despite him seeing the severity of the issue.”
  5. On 23 October 2022, heavy rain poured through the hole into the boiler and the TV and all over the floor. The electricity went out and all the kitchen appliances turned off.
  6. She said, “Let me reiterate that I, a pensioner who suffers from arthritis and joint pain was without hot water and heating for over 2 months, and no one cared enough to fix the problem. What will it take for someone to come to the property and resolve the issue of the hole, must the whole ceiling fall down before the issue is taken seriously? I am beyond appalled by the ways in which this has been dealt with, and the lack of urgency in doing so.”

23. The landlord responded to the resident’s complaint at stage 1 of its process on 28 October 2022. The main points were:

  1. It set out the chronology of the case, saying that an out of hours carpenter had attended on 17 August 2022 to “make the kitchen ceiling safe”.
  2. A gas engineer had been arranged for 17th August 2022, but the resident reported that it did not attend and on 18th August 2022 it did attend, isolating the boiler and confirming that a new boiler was required. This was provided on 4 October 2022.
  3. A job had been raised on 22 August 2022 for a roofer to attend. As the landlord was having resourcing issues this could not happen until 29 September 2022.
  4. The plasterer who attended on 17 October 2022 was unable to carry out repairs in the time allocated as it required a half-day appointment.
  5. On 23 October 2022 following an out of hours call after a leak, an electrician attended and reported that “it was made safe.”
  6. As the resident reported that she was still experiencing a leak, the landlord arranged a recall visit on 26 October 2022. Roofers attended and reported that scaffolding was required. The landlord had sent an emergency request for scaffolding to its contractor.
  7. The landlord sincerely apologised and said that it would review her request for compensation once the leak was resolved and the works completed.

24. The resident responded to the above on 3 November 2022. The main points she made were:

  1. The carpenter did not make the ceiling safe. She said he told her it was an ‘outside job’ and there was nothing he could do.
  2. The gas engineer attempted to cover the hole in the ceiling by using kitchen roll.
  3. She had to cover the kitchen roll with newspaper as it was all she had and was “…uneasy and dissatisfied with a hole of that size being covered only with kitchen roll.”
  4. The previous night she had had to climb onto the work counter several times to empty out the bucket of water to ensure it did not overflow and damage the boiler again.
  5. If someone had inspected the roof before the scaffolder visited, the scale of the work needed would have been appreciated.
  6. She expressed her dissatisfaction with the length of time taken to get someone to inspect the roof, “…despite knowing the severity of the hole in the kitchen and the amount of water entering the property.”
  7. She appreciated the delays with the landlord’s roofing team but felt it should not have taken more than a month for an inspection after the initial report.
  8. She wanted to escalate her complaint because the statement that the ceiling had been made safe was incorrect. She added, “The large hole in the kitchen has been covered with newspaper and kitchen roll, however, it still lets large amounts of water in the property and a draft.”
  9. Emergency scaffolding had now been put up, but she had been given no advice on when the repairs would take place or how long they would take.

25. The landlord’s internal records show that its repairs team said the works were due to be completed on 9 November 2022. The complaints team followed this up, but the records show it was difficult to get a clear response from its repairs team. When the complaints team asked, for instance, if the leak had been resolved yet, they were told simply that the job was with the contractor.

26. On 24 November 2022 the landlord noted that the complaint was from “an elderly resident” and asked for a further update from its repairs team. The landlord noted that the report from the 29 September 2022 said that the job was completed, but the leak was still ongoing.

27. On 27 November 2022 the landlord asked its repairs team if there was a temporary repair that could be carried out to the kitchen until the roof works were completed. The reply was that “there is no temporary repair.”

28. The landlord asked for the necessary works to be prioritised. Initially, the repairs team said they had some difficultly arranging access as they did not appear to be able to get through to the resident on her mobile number. They then said an inspection had been arranged for 1 December 2022.

29. On 5 December 2022 the resident asked for an update, noting that it was now approaching 4 months since she had reported the leak.

30. The landlord responded the next day, apologising for the delay in responding to the resident’s stage 2 complaint. It said this was because it had wanted to resolve the repairs before providing a response. It explained that it was waiting for approval for the works to commence.

31. On 22 December 2022 the landlord again apologised for the delay in responding to the resident’s complaint. It said its repairs service had not been responsive.

32. On 10 January 2023 the landlord provided its stage 2 response. The main points were:

  1. It apologised for the delay and said this was because of the length of time it had taken the housing team to provide necessary information. It offered £170 compensation for “avoidable delays” and £80 for the distress and inconvenience caused by the time taken to replace the boiler.
  2. It said the roof repair had gone ahead on 21 December 2022 and an appointment had been made to mend the kitchen ceiling on 17 January 2023.

33. The landlord’s records show decorations were completed to the kitchen ceiling on 5 March 2023.

34. After the resident raised a complaint with the Ombudsman, the landlord reflected again on the level of compensation it had offered the resident. It increased this to £960 on 29 November 2023. This consisted of £280 for avoidable delays, £280 for distress and inconvenience and £400 as redress for any impact caused to the resident for the time taken to resolve the reported repairs in a timely manner.

Assessment and findings

On the landlord’s handling of repairs to the kitchen ceiling and boiler following leaks at the property.

35.        The landlord accepts failings in the way it dealt with the handling of repairs to the resident’s kitchen ceiling and boiler. It has apologised and offered compensation. After the resident came to the Ombudsman, the landlord offered an increased sum of compensation. We will say more about the landlord offering further compensation following completion of its internal complaints process under the section on complaint handling.

36.        The resident was an elderly lady with health problems. We consider that, as the landlord’s policy says it will prioritise heating repair appointments for elderly residents, it was inappropriate that it failed to do so. Its gas engineer, who was, in line with policy, supposed to attend within 2 hours, did not attend until the next day. This was an inappropriate delay.

37.        The landlord should have acted more quickly to provide the resident with hot water and heating. The resident had a large hole in her ceiling which allowed water to leak into her boiler, which broke it. The landlord took 7 weeks or 34 working days to provide her with a new boiler. Its policy says that urgent repairs should be conducted within 5 working days. This was an urgent situation that took the landlord far longer to deal with than it should have taken under its policy. It was inappropriate for the landlord to have left any resident, particularly an elderly one, in this situation for so long. It took 106 working days, from the day of the initial report to complete the repairs on the kitchen ceiling, which is again inappropriate. We understand from the records that the decoration was not completed but until March 2023.

38.        The first time the landlord’s records mentioned that the resident was elderly was in a 24 November 2022 internal email at around the time it was dealing with stage 2 of her complaint. It does not therefore appear that the fact that she was elderly was initially taken into consideration when the landlord responded to the resident’s reports that she required an urgent repair. At this stage, the landlord asked its repairs team to try and prioritise her complaint, but there is no evidence that this was because of her age and, in any event, as the roof was not repaired until 21 December 2021, there is no evidence that the repairs were, in fact, prioritised. It was unreasonable that the landlord did not appear to have a system which might have alerted staff to the fact that the resident was elderly at an earlier stage.

39.        Further, during this period, although the landlord claimed to have made the roof ‘safe’ it had not done so and, therefore, the resident suffered a further leak. On 2 November 2022, after the repair works had still not been satisfactorily completed, she reported that she had to climb on the kitchen counter to try and prevent the newly replaced boiler being damaged again. As an elderly person with arthritis, apart from the anxiety caused by worrying about a further serious potential leak, it was unreasonable that she should have been put in such a position.

40.        Given the seriousness of the situation the resident described to the landlord, it was inappropriate for it to have failed to remedy the situation more quickly, especially after her stage 2 escalation and because it knew that the resident was now living with a leaking ceiling during the winter months. While this Service accepts that the landlord had resource issues, it still had a responsibility to complete repairs in line with its policy. Its failure to do so was so serious as to warrant a finding of severe maladministration.

41.        In its response to the resident’s complaint the landlord apologised and offered compensation of £170 for “avoidable delays” and £80 for the distress and inconvenience caused by the time taken to replace the boiler.

42.        When there are acknowledged failings by a landlord, as is the case here, the Ombudsman will consider whether any redress offered by the landlord put things right and resolved the resident’s complaint satisfactorily in the circumstances. In considering this the Ombudsman takes into account whether the landlord’s offer of redress (an apology and compensation), was in line with the Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles; be fair, put things right and learn from outcomes.

43.        Whilst the landlord acted fairly by apologising, the amount of compensation offered was not proportionate to the distress and inconvenience incurred by the resident as a result of the landlord’s failings in its handling of the repairs. She was a vulnerable elderly person who was left in deep distress for a prolonged period, having had to also manage for an unreasonable amount of time without heating or hot water. It is also notable that the landlord did not offer the resident any alternative heating during this period. There is no evidence it took any steps to consider whether offering the resident a decant might be appropriate. Neither did the landlord’s repairs team suggest any temporary solution to the hole in the resident’s ceiling that would have provided better protection than kitchen roll and newspaper.

44.        We have ordered the landlord to pay a further sum to acknowledge the impact of the failings in this case that is proportionate to the issues the resident experienced for a prolonged period. The sum ordered is in line with our Guidance on Remedies for severe maladministration, which sets out that such payment is appropriate where there was a failure which had a significant impact on the resident. We also consider the fact that the resident was an elderly person was an aggravating factor and justifies an award at the higher end of the range of compensation.

On the landlord’s complaint handling

45.        The landlord’s stage 1 response was provided within the landlord’s policy timeframe. However, there were other issues with the response, as set out below:

  1. While the response provided a sincere apology for the inconvenience the landlord’s failure to repair had caused the resident, it failed to fully acknowledge the difficulties she had experienced, which is a failure under section 6.1 of our Code.  It said, for instance, that it had provided the resident with a new boiler on 4 October 2022, without acknowledging that she had been left without heating and hot water for 34 working days.
  2. It explained that it had resourcing issues and so, although an order had been raised for a roofer, it was unable to secure an appointment until 29 September 2022. But it did not acknowledge how this would have affected the resident, who had to collect water in a bucket every time it rained.
  3. It noted that its plasterer was unable to complete the job on the first visit but did not apologise for the fact that it had failed to book the plasterer for a suitable length of time to complete the works.  This would not have happened, if it had completed a survey at an early stage. This was a point the resident later raised.
  4. It failed to fully acknowledge the resident’s vulnerabilities and the impact on her of the landlord’s failure to resolve the issue.

46.        Section 4.4 of the Code says that landlords should try to resolve complaints at the earliest opportunity and the landlord’s stage 1 response, with its failures to fully acknowledge the detriment the resident had already experienced, failed to do this.

47.        The landlord’s stage 2 response was delayed. It should have taken 20 working days but instead took 46 working days. The landlord did apologise for the delays, explaining honestly that its repairs team had been unresponsive. However, these delays were still inappropriate. The resident had to chase updates and was increasingly concerned, during this period, about the length of time the landlord was taking to address the repairs.

48.        Section 5.5 of the Code says that landlords should provide a complaint response when the answer to the complaint is known, not when the outstanding actions required to address the issue are completed. In this case, the landlord initially held back responding to the resident in line with its policy timeframe as it wanted to do so after repairs had been completed. This was inappropriate. As it transpired, the repairs took so long they were still not completed at the time the landlord sent its stage 2 response.

49.        The landlord failed to adequately address the level of compensation required to resolve the complaint satisfactorily and increased it 10 months after its final response to the complaint and following the resident bringing her complaint to the Ombudsman.  An effective complaint procedure should identify significant service failures at the earliest opportunity and seek to provide reasonable redress from the very first stage. If a landlord is providing redress for issues through sizeable compensation payments at the end of its complaint procedure, this suggests a lack of learning.

50.        Overall, we find there was maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling. This caused the resident distress and we have made an order to acknowledge this.

On the landlord’s knowledge and information management

51. This investigation had shown that the landlord had some record keeping issues. For instance:

  1. The landlord’s records showed that when an operative visited the property on 17 August 2021 the job was completed the same day. This was not correct.
  2. The landlord’s records showed that when the operative visited the property on 23 October 2021 it had made the property safe. This does not appear to have been the case with the resident having to make a further report of leaks on 3 November 2021 and the repair works to stop the leaks not being completed until December 2021. An officer on 24 November 2021 noted that the report on the leak said that the “job is completed but leak still ongoing.”

52.        The failure to keep accurate records which properly set out what works have been completed and what needs to be done is a service failure.

Determinations

53.        In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was severe maladministration by the landlord in its handling of repairs to the kitchen ceiling and boiler following leaks at the property.

54.        In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in its complaint handling.

55.        In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in its knowledge and information handling.

Reasons

56. The landlord failed to remedy an urgent repair in a reasonable time or in the timeframes set out in its policy. This left an elderly resident without heating or hot water for 7 weeks. It did not complete the repairs at her property for 106 working days. The resident was therefore left with a hole in her kitchen ceiling during the winter months and was concerned that further rainfall would cause repeat damage to the replaced boiler, leading her to take her own measures to try and block the hole.

57. The landlord failed to acknowledge the resident’s vulnerabilities or the significance of the impact of the issue at the property in its first complaint response. Its stage 2 response was late and failed to acknowledge the extent of the detriment caused to the resident, with an offer of compensation that did not reflect the impact on the resident of the landlord’s failure to repair within a reasonable period. After the resident brought her complaint to the Ombudsman, it increased its offer of compensation, but the resident should not have had to raise her complaint with the Ombudsman for the landlord to properly consider compensation. This Service also considers that the landlord’s revised redress offer still failed to fully acknowledge the severe maladministration in this case.

58. The landlord’s records show that it did not always correctly record the stage a repair was at and in this case recorded a repair job as having been completed when there remained a leak at the property.

Orders and recommendations

59. The Ombudsman orders the landlord to pay the resident a total of £2200 in compensation. (This sum replaces the landlord’s previous offer of £960, which should be deducted from the above sum if already paid.) The payment should be made within 4 weeks, comprising:

  1. £1000 to acknowledge the distress and inconvenience caused to the resident for the time taken to resolve the repairs in a timely manner.
  2. £700 to acknowledge the distress and inconvenience of being without hot water or heating for 7 weeks during that period.
  3. £400 to acknowledge the landlord’s poor complaint handling.
  4. £100 to acknowledge the landlord’s poor knowledge and information management.

60. The landlord is to pay the resident directly and not use the payment to offset any monies that the resident may owe to the landlord. The landlord must update the Service when the resident had been paid.

61. Within 4 weeks the landlord’s chief executive or a senior member of the landlord’s staff should apologise to the resident.  The apology should acknowledge the maladministration, accept responsibility for it, explain clearly why it happened, and express regret.

Special investigation

62. We have not made any further orders around service improvement, particularly around the issues noted around the responsiveness of the landlord’s repairs team. This is because this landlord is currently the subject of an Ombudsman special investigation. Special investigation reports are conducted under paragraph 49 of the Scheme and allow the Ombudsman to conduct further investigations beyond an individual complaint to establish whether there is evidence of systemic failings. Some of the failings identified in this complaint have been the subject of orders made on other complaints that are being considered as part of the special investigation.