London Borough of Hounslow (202128145)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202128145

Hounslow Council

16 October 2022

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 landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of a leak in her bedroom and bathroom.

Background

2. The resident is a leaseholder. There is a walkway above her property, which connects properties in the row.
3. The resident reported in 2019 that she had a leak occurring in her property. Between September 2019 and October 20219, the resident reported the leak on at least five occasions with the landlord attending every time to inspect the leak. The resident raised a complaint at the time for which the landlord issued a stage one response.
4. The leak was then not reported again until October 2020, the landlord attended the property and identified the downpipe needed repairing. The landlord subsequently repaired a downpipe, cleared the guttering, and assessed other possible entry points of the leak.
5. In December 2020, the resident informed the landlord that the leak was emanating from the walkway above her property, as other properties also had leaks. Upon attending the property the landlord identified a balcony leaking, which it suspected to be the origin of the leak. No follow-on repair for the walkway to be inspected was raised.
6. Between January 2021 and October 2021, the resident raised a further ten reports of a leak in the property, with the landlord attending on every occasion. Plumbers were hired to source the leak, with repairs undertaken to the guttering and the upstairs neighbour’s balcony.
7. The resident raised a complaint on 8 November 2021 stating that she had reported a leak in her property a year ago and, despite several visits to establish the problem as well as the completion of minor repairs, the leak remained ongoing. The resident stated that if the repairs were charged to her via her service charges, she would be disputing these.
8. The landlord raised a job for the walkway to be lifted on 8 November 2021. The slabs were subsequently resealed and re-laid towards the end of January 2022. The specific date is unknown.
9. The landlord provided the resident with its stage one and stage two response on 21 December 2021 and 23 March 2022 respectively. The landlord acknowledged that time taken to resolve leaks was disproportionately long and that the defect in the walkway was hidden within the building structure, meaning multiple visits were required to accurately diagnose the leak.
10. As a resolution to her complaint, the landlord apologised to the resident, said that it would reimburse her block repairs service charges for 2019-2021 to the value of £325.68 in relation to the repeated appointments, and offered a further £300 compensation for the stress and inconvenience.
11. The resident referred this matter to this Service on 25 March 2022. The resident remains unhappy with the landlord’s response, as it implied that the time taken to complete investigations into the leak was necessary, despite the source being identified in December 2020. The resident also remains unhappy with the compensation offered as she does not believe £300 is adequate given the stress and inconvenience caused. In addition, the resident is requesting compensation for the additional costs that she incurred as a result of the leak, saying that the items in her bathroom that were damaged cost at least £800. As a resolution, the resident would like the landlord to accept that not all work carried out was necessary and she would like a more realistic offer of compensation.

Assessment and findings

Policies and procedures.

12. As per the landlord’s repairs policy, routine repairs are defined as those that cause inconvenience but are not urgent and do not pose an immediate risk to a resident’s health and safety. The landlord should attend these repairs within 20 working days.

Assessment.

13. The resident reported a leak in September 2019, the landlord attended and the reports of a leak stopped in October 2019. The resident raised a formal complaint with the landlord at that time, for which it issued a stage one response, however, the complaint was not escalated any further. The leak was not reported again until 26 October 2020. As a year had passed with no further leaks reported, it was reasonable for the landlord to assume that the leak was resolved. Whilst the resident’s reports in 2019 provides contextual background, this report will be focusing on the landlord’s actions from 26 October 2020, as this is when the resident reported further leaks.
14. The landlord’s repairs policy states that repairs should be attended to within 20 working days. The landlord attended every repair request within the timescales set out in its repairs policy.
15. However, whilst it attended the resident’s property in December 2020 within a reasonable amount of time and identified a leaking balcony, it did not arrange a follow-up appointment for the walkway, despite this being identified by the resident as a potential source of the leak.
16. In cases such as this it can take some time to locate the source of a leak and it is not always possible to locate leaks immediately. It may also take multiple attempts to find the source of a leak and resolve it. In this case, the landlord has stated that the leak was difficult to identify as it was hidden within the building structure, meaning there was no guarantee even if the repair was completed in December 2020 that this would have resolved the leak fully.
17. This Service cannot speculate whether the completion of the repair to the walkway in December 2020 would have fully resolved the leak at that time, or if the walkway was the sole source of the leak, due to the number of other repairs that were carried out. However, as the landlord acknowledged, the time taken to resolve the leak was disproportionately long. In addition, the landlord not exploring the possibility of the leak emanating from the walkway at that time was a missed opportunity given that it later did carry out repairs to the walkway.
18. In order to resolve the complaint, and in recognition of the resident’s concerns about being charged for the repeated appointments, the landlord said that it would credit the resident’s 2019-2021 block repairs service charge by £325.68. The landlord also offered the resident a further £300 compensation for the stress and inconvenience caused, bringing the total compensation offered to £625.68.
19. This compensation is in line with the Ombudsman’s Remedies guidance (published on our website) for cases where the Ombudsman has found considerable service failure or maladministration, but where there is no permanent impact on the resident. In this case, the landlord failed to make the following on appointment for the walkway and the length of time taken to resolve the matter was, as the landlord acknowledged, disproportionately long. However, the landlord attended all other appointments within the relevant timeframes and tried to identify the leak by completing a number of repairs. Therefore, the compensation amount awarded, in this Service’s opinion, is reasonable.
20. The resident also requested compensation for personal items which had been damaged as a result of the leak. Residents are encouraged to take out home insurance to cover the cost of any damage to their personal possessions caused by sudden unforeseen events such as water leaks. The landlord would not be expected to pay for such damage unless it is proven that the damage occurred as a direct result of the landlord’s actions or inaction. In this case, there is no evidence that the landlord or its contractors caused the leak and, although there were some delays in resolving the leak, this would not mean the landlord was responsible for the damage to the resident’s possessions and as such it would not be obliged to compensate her for this.

Determination

21. In accordance with paragraph 53(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord has made an offer of redress prior to investigation which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, resolves the complaint about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of a leak in her bedroom and bathroom satisfactorily.

Recommendations

22. If the landlord has not already done so, it is recommended that it:
    1. Pay the resident the £300 compensation offered at stage two of the process.
    2. Credit the resident’s service charge account with the £325.68 compensation offered at stage two of the process.
23. The finding of reasonable redress being dependent on the landlord paying the resident the compensation as offered in its final response.