London Borough of Islington (202341071)

Decision
Case ID	202341071
Decision type	Investigation
Landlord	London Borough of Islington
Landlord type	Local Authority / ALMO or TMO
Occupancy	Secure Tenancy
Date	31 October 2025

Background

The resident lives in a 2-bedroom second floor maisonette with her 3 children, 2 of which were under 2 years old at the time of her complaint. The landlord was aware there were young children in the property with respiratory issues and that the resident was recovering from a serious medical condition at the time of the complaint. The resident complained about an ongoing boiler repair which left her without heating and hot water over the winter months.

What the complaint is about

The complaint is about:
1. How the landlord dealt with the resident’s reports of no heating and hot water and the associated boiler repair.
2. How the landlord dealt with the resident’s complaint.

Our decision (determination)

There was maladministration by the landlord in its handling of the reports of no heating or hot water and the associated boiler repair.
There was reasonable redress by the landlord in its handling of the complaint.

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

Summary of reasons

In summary, the Ombudsman found the landlord:

Reports of no heating or hot water and the associated boiler repair

Took approximately 3 months to repair the boiler issues, which resulted in the resident being intermittently without heating and hot water between October 2022 and January 2023.
Delayed in providing temporary heating.
Did not provide advice on how the resident could access hot water.
Failed to consider and respond to the resident’s request for a temporary move.
Failed to give the resident its liability insurance details after she told it her family’s health was damaged by its handling of her heating, hot water, and boiler repairs.
Responded to more heating problems in July 2023 and December 2023 appropriately.
Offered £888.40 compensation that was not proportionate to fully recognise the resident’s distress and inconvenience from its handling of her heating, hot water, and boiler repairs under our remedies guidance.

Complaint handling

The landlord failed to respond in line with the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code) at both stages of the complaint. It acknowledged the failures in its stage 2 complaint response and apologised for the inconvenience caused. It offered the resident £300 compensation, which was in line with its policy and our remedies guidance.

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 a manager. 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 28 November 2025
2	Compensation order The landlord must pay the resident £1,388.40 made up as follows: £600 for the distress and inconvenience caused by the landlord’s handling of the boiler repair including poor communication. £96.20 for the lack of heating and hot water between 5 October 2022 to 17 October 2022 (13 days x £7.40). £392.20 for lack of heating and hot water between 23 November 2022 to 14 January 2023 (53 days x £7.40). £300 for the landlord’s complaint handling. 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 paid.	No later than 28 November 2025
3	The landlord must give the resident details to allow her to make a liability claim to it or its insurers for the damages she reported to her and her children’s health.	No later than 28 November 2025

Our investigation

The complaint procedure

Date	What happened
22 December 2022	The resident complained that the landlord had left her without heating and hot water since October 2022. She said the issue was affecting the physical and mental health of herself and her young children.
16 January 2023	The resident told the landlord she received an automated email stating she would receive a complaint response within 10 working days, but she had not received this.
8 February 2023	The landlord sent its stage 1 response. It upheld the complaint and apologised for the stress caused due to the time taken to repair the boiler. It acknowledged the resident had been without heating and hot water for more than 5 consecutive days between 5 December 2022 and 13 January 2023 and she was entitled to compensation. It said it had passed this to its Homes and Communities Team who would contact the resident to progress the payment.
9 March 2023	The resident told the landlord she had not received the compensation. She asked the landlord to proceed with her complaint.
15 January 2024	The resident told the landlord she had tried to escalate her complaint in early 2023 but had not received a response.
16 January 2024	The landlord acknowledged the resident’s escalation request and said it would provide a response within 20 working days.
31 January 2024	The landlord sent its stage 2 response. It accepted there had been failures in its handling of the resident’s loss of heating and hot water reports. This included delays in it resolving the issue with the boiler, poor communication, lack of follow-ups and actions, not responding to the resident’s request for a temporary move, and poor complaint handling. It also accepted the resident had not had heating and hot water between 5 October 2022 to 17 October 2022 and 23 November 2022 to 14 January 2023. It apologised for the upset and inconvenience caused and offered £1,188.40 total compensation, which it broke down as follows: £25 – for the late response at stage 1. £275 – for the delay in responding to the escalation – 11 months x £25. £100 – for failing to respond to communications and take follow up action. £300 – for the distress caused. £96.20 – for the lack of heating and hot water between 5 October 2022 to 17 October 2022 (13 days x £7.40). £392.20 – for the lack of heating and hot water between 23 November 2022 to 14 January 2023 (53 days x £7.40).
Referral to the Ombudsman	The resident told us she had to repeatedly chase the landlord for updates on the repair and access to temporary heating. She also said the landlord did not respond to her request for a temporary move. She said there were periods where she had no heating or hot water during the winter months. She was off work at the time recovering from a serious medical condition and she could not afford to pay for a hotel. The situation severely affected her due to her health issues and the age of her children. As an outcome she wanted the landlord to increase the compensation to fully recognise the distress and inconvenience it had caused her.

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	Reports of no heating and hot water and the associated boiler repair
Finding	Maladministration

The resident told us that the delay in repairing the boiler and the lack of heating and hot water during the winter months affected her and her children’s physical and mental health. It would be fairer, more reasonable, and more effective for the resident to make a personal injury claim for any injury caused. The courts are best placed to deal with this type of dispute as they will have the benefit of independent medical advice to decide on the cause of any injury and how long it will last. We’ve not investigated this further. We can decide if a landlord should pay compensation for distress and inconvenience.
The resident first reported boiler problems on 5 October 2022. The landlord marked it urgent but did not attend until 17 October 2022, which was not within its repairs guide’s 24-hour urgent response timescale but 7 working days later.
The resident kept reporting no heating or hot water in November 2022 and December 2022. The landlord completed some repairs and decided a new boiler was required on 1 December 2022. It installed the new boiler on 22 December 2022, but there was a fault. The manufacturer fixed the fault on 30 December 2022, but the landlord did not finish the installation until at least 12 January 2023. This meant the resident was intermittently without heating and hot water from at least 23 November 2022 until at least 12 January 2023.
The landlord raised an urgent appointment on 30 December 2022 for the immersion heater to give the resident hot water but found the property did not have one. The landlord did not give any advice to the resident regarding alternative access to hot water or take any further steps to reduce the effect on her.
The resident said she had to keep asking for additional heaters. The landlord finally gave her 2 heaters on 19 December 2022, which was almost 3 weeks after it knew the boiler needed replacing and the resident had intermittent heating on 1 December 2022. It should have offered these sooner.
On 28 and 30 December 2022, the resident asked the landlord to move her temporarily until it completed the repairs. The landlord passed the first request to its repairs team but then did nothing. We have not seen the landlord’s Decant Policy, however it accepted this had been a service failure in its stage 2 response.
The resident reported more heating problems in July 2023 and December 2023. This time it was a blocked pipe, not the boiler. The landlord came on time for 2 visits on 5 July 2023 and 12 December 2023 and was late for 2 others (over 45 minutes on 11 January 2024 and almost 5 hours on 7 December 2023). While this was slightly outside its repair guide’s 24-hour urgent timescale, it was reasonable it attended on the same day it was due to.
The landlord made attempts to put things right by completing the repair, apologising, and offering compensation of £888.40 for the failures in its handling of the boiler repair. This included £300 for distress. This amount was not proportionate to recognise the full effect of the failures in this case on the resident’s family under our remedies guidance. We have therefore ordered the landlord to apologise and pay her an extra £200 to recognise this in line with our guidance.
This brings the total compensation ordered for the landlord’s handling of the boiler repair is £1,088.40. This reflects our remedies guidance, which says such a sum would be payable where there has been a significant impact on the resident. It reflects the vulnerabilities of the household, which meant the delays and poor communication and the landlord’s handling of it would have had a more severe effect on them compared to other residents in the same position without their vulnerabilities. As the resident also reported that this meant their physical and mental health were damaged by these failings, we have ordered the landlord to give her details to allow her to make liability claim to it or its insurers for the damages she reported to her family’s health. This is because its corporate complaints policy says that such claims should be dealt with as insurance claims but its complaint responses did not give her details about how to do this.

Complaint	Complaint handling
Finding	Reasonable redress

The Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code) sets out when and how a landlord should respond to complaints. The relevant Code in this case is the 2022 edition (April 2022). Our findings are:
1. The landlord had a published corporate complaints policy which complied with the terms of the Code in respect of timescales.
2. At stage 1, the landlord had 5 working days to acknowledge and 10 working days to answer the complaint (up to 15 working days). In this case, the landlord acknowledged the complaint on 22 December 2022, which meant it should have provided its stage 1 response by no later than 10 January 2023. The landlord sent its stage 1 response within 32 working days (22 December 2022 to 8 February 2023). The landlord therefore acted outside its policy and the Code.
3. The landlord failed to recognise the resident’s request to escalate her complaint in March 2023, which meant she had to raise it again in January 2024.
4. The landlord delayed sending its stage 2 response that it had 5 working days to acknowledge and 20 working days to answer by approximately 10 months (from 20 working days after 9 March 2023 to 31 January 2024) which was not compliant with the Code. The landlord should have responded by 14 April 2023 and its failure to do so significantly delayed resolving matters for the resident.
The landlord attempted to put things right by apologising and offering £300 compensation. Given the landlord’s failings, the apology made, and the compensation offered, this would lead to a finding of reasonable redress in the landlord’s complaint handling. This is because its compensation offer was within the range of compensation recommended by our remedies guidance for such failures that adversely affected the resident.

Learning

The landlord delayed providing temporary fan heaters and did not provide alternatives or advice on accessing hot water. This was of particular concern in this case due to the vulnerabilities of the resident, her 2 young children, and that the delays occurred in the winter. The landlord should consider if further staff training is needed in relation to providing emergency heating and hot water alternatives. This is to make sure it provides access to these promptly in every case, and especially to vulnerable residents in the winter and during cold weather.
The landlord also did not give the resident details as to how to make a liability claim to it for the damages she reported to her family’s health. It should therefore also consider if further staff training is needed in relation to providing details of its liability insurance in response to reports of damage to health.

Knowledge information management (record keeping)

Overall, the landlord’s record keeping in this case was good. However, the contractor’s records could have been better. As a result, the landlord was unable to accurately assess what work they had done and when. It also could not accurately assess when the resident did not have heating and hot water. The landlord acknowledged this in its stage 2 response and said it would use the resident’s complaint as a learning opportunity to improve service delivery in the future.

Communication

The resident said she had to repeatedly chase the landlord for updates in relation to the repairs, lack of heating, and her request for a temporary move. While the landlord responded to some contacts, its communication could have been better. Had it responded appropriately, this would have made sure the resident felt she was being listened to and she would have received a timely response to her contacts.