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London Borough of Hillingdon (202322717)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202322717

London Borough of Hillingdon

23 April 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

  1. This complaint is about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of a loss of heating and hot water.

Background

  1. The resident holds a secure tenancy.
  2. The property is a 1-bedroom third-floor flat. The resident does not speak English, and an advocate has represented her throughout the complaints process. For the sake of clarity, this report refers to any actions taken by the advocate as being by ‘the resident’.
  3. The resident moved into the property in July 2022. In September 2022, she reported she had no hot water. The landlord attended on 17 October 2022 to fit a new hot water sensor.
  4. The resident reported this again to the landlord on 10 February 2023. The landlord attended on 6 March 2023 and found the kitchen mixer was faulty. The landlord attempted a follow-up appointment on 23 May 2023 but was unable to access the property.
  5. The landlord returned to complete repairs on 8 June 2023 but was unable to do so due to a broken stopcock. It repaired the stopcock on 31 July 2023.
  6. The resident complained to the landlord on 7 August 2023. She said that she had no hot water in her kitchen since July 2022 when she moved into the flat. The landlord provided its stage 1 complaint response on 7 August 2023. It said that it believed that it had completed all of the outstanding works on 31 July 2023 and restored hot water on this date. It apologised to the resident for the length of time it took to complete this repair.
  7. The resident contacted the landlord on 22 August 2023 to escalate her complaint to stage 2 of its complaint process. She was unhappy that the landlord missed several appointments and said that she was still having issues with the hot water tap. She also reported a problem with her heating. She said that both of these had been ongoing since moving to the flat in July 2022.
  8. The landlord responded to the stage 2 complaint on 7 September 2023. It said that it had noted internally in October 2022 that she had no water from the hot tap in her kitchen. It offered her £300 compensation for the delay in fixing this. It also said it had arranged an appointment for a plumber to attend on 8 September 2023 to complete any repairs. It gave feedback on appointments that were made in May and July 2023.
  9. The landlord arranged additional appointments on 25 September 2023 and 29 September 2023, following which the resident has said the landlord fixed the hot water issue.
  10. The resident wrote to the Ombudsman on 2 October 2023, asking us to consider her complaint. She said that the landlord had now restored hot water to her kitchen sink, but her heating was not working. To resolve her complaint, she said she wanted an urgent repair of the heating and additional compensation since she used an electric fan heater in winter causing additional electricity charges.

Assessment and findings

  1. The landlord’s website says that it is responsible in circumstances where there is ‘total or partial loss of heating and/or hot water’. Its repairs and maintenance factsheet says that it will complete emergency works within 1 working day, routine repairs within 20 working days and minor works (larger jobs that require more planning) in 90 working days.
  2. The landlord has provided the Ombudsman with limited information about this repair. The Ombudsman requested additional evidence from the landlord, but it only supplied some of this. The landlord’s inability to provide this information is concerning and demonstrated poor record keeping. The landlord should ensure that it records detailed and accurate repairs information and that this is provided to the Ombudsman when requested.
  3. The landlord and the resident disagree over whether there was a loss of heating. The landlord has told the Ombudsman that it believed the resident’s heating system was functional since she moved to the property. Its records show there was a thermostat replacement in March 2022, but this was before the resident moved in. The landlord recorded its job description from 6 March 2023 as a ‘boiler breakdown’ but, following its inspection, its contractor only noted a fault with the hot water in the kitchen tap. The contractors’ reports do not mention a non-functioning boiler or a fault with the heating system at any point following this.
  4. The landlord’s most recent inspection on 6 October 2023, after the resident referred her complaint to the Ombudsman, tested the heating and hot water in the property and found no faults. The Ombudsman is therefore unable to find that the resident was without heating for any significant period of time. The available evidence also does not show the resident reported a loss of heating prior to the complaints process. Given this, the Ombudsman is unable to say that the landlord should have taken any actions to repair the heating.
  5. The resident stated that she would like the landlord to refund the cost of her heating, which forms part of the rent payment. As shown above, the Ombudsman is unable to find evidence of her being without heating in the property for any length of time. Given this, the Ombudsman is not able to order the landlord to refund any heating charge to the resident.
  6. However, the landlord took around 1 year to restore hot water to the resident’s kitchen tap. The landlord first undertook repairs on 17 October 2022, fitting a new hot water sensor. The landlord’s stage 2 complaint response mentioned that it failed to act on reports of a hot water problem following a visit from the resident’s tenancy management officer in October 2022. The Ombudsman asked the landlord for more information about the visit, but it has not provided this.
  7. The Ombudsman asked the landlord to provide its communication with the resident from this period, but it has failed to do so. The Ombudsman is therefore unable to determine how often the resident reported problems with the hot water. However, the landlord (as part of its stage 2 complaint response) said that it was aware the resident was without hot water in her kitchen from October 2022. The landlord’s next appointment to deal with this took place 5 months later. The time taken to follow up on this and to restore hot water to the kitchen tap fell significantly outside the timescales specified in its repairs policy. The landlord’s delay in repairing the resident’s hot water tap undoubtedly caused her a significant amount of inconvenience
  8. The landlord arranged at least 9 appointments between March 2023 and October 2023 in its attempt to complete the hot water repair and to post-inspect. It recorded at least 2 of these appointments as ‘no access’, whilst 4 of these appear to have been inspection appointments. The lack of evidence provided makes it difficult for the Ombudsman to determine exactly why the landlord needed so many inspections and appointments to restore hot water to the kitchen tap.
  9. The Ombudsman does however recognise that there were some unavoidable delays in completing the repairs. In particular, the landlord needed to inform other residents in the building they would temporarily lose water supply when it replaced the stopcock. It is reasonable that the landlord gave other residents advance notice of this. This accounts for some delay during June-July 2023.
  10. However, the landlord took almost 12 months from when it first inspected the kitchen hot water fault to complete the relevant repair. This was a significant delay. There were delays performing follow-up appointments between 20 March 2023 and 23 May 2023. The number of appointments and delays between these attempts indicate a failure to properly co-ordinate with all of the necessary contractors. This undoubtedly caused additional distress and inconvenience to the resident.
  11. The landlord resolved the stop cock issue at the end of July 2023, but it still took until the end of September 2023 to restore the kitchen hot water. This continued delay was unreasonable and outside of the landlord’s routine repair timescale.
  12. The landlord said that some of its appointments were unable to go ahead due to a lack of access. However, the landlord has not given the Ombudsman evidence to demonstrate it gave the resident sufficient prior notice of these appointments. This is especially concerning given the resident’s communication requirements, which the landlord is aware of.
  13. The landlord should have taken these needs into consideration when arranging appointments – for example, by sending letters and information about this in the resident’s language. Its failure to do so may have impacted the resident’s ability to arrange access, further delaying the repairs. This represented a failure to make reasonable adjustments and treat the resident fairly.
  14. The landlord recognised that it failed to properly handle the resident’s reports about her hot water. It offered her £300 compensation for the delay. Whilst it was positive for the landlord to recognise the distress and inconvenience its failings caused, the compensation was insufficient given the delay of almost a year. The landlord’s failure to properly follow up the resident’s reports left her without hot water in her kitchen for around 12 months.
  15. We have therefore found service failure in the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of a loss of heating and hot water. Whilst it did recognise some level of failing, it did not demonstrate that it properly considered her communication needs when arranging appointments. The number of appointments it required to perform the repair indicated a failure to properly organise and manage the work. The landlord did not acknowledge all of these failings through its complaints process.
  16. The landlord should therefore pay the resident £400 for the delay in completing the hot water repair. This is inclusive of the offer made in its stage 2 complaint response. This is in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance which recommends figures in this range where there has been ‘a failure which adversely affected the resident’.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Service, there was service failure in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of a loss of heating and hot water.

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks of the date of this letter, the landlord should:
    1. Pay the resident £400 compensation, inclusive of its previous offer of £300, for the distress and inconvenience caused by its failures in handling her reports of a loss of heating and hot water.
    2. Write to the resident to apologise for the findings identified in this report.
    3. Provide evidence that it has done so.