London Borough of Lambeth (202430004)

Background

1. The resident has complained about the landlord’s response to her reports that there has been a leak from the upstairs flat, which has caused damaged to her property. The property that the leak was stemming from is a tenanted property of the landlord’s. The resident has noted that the water has affected her electrics and she has no lighting in part of the property.

What the complaint is about

2. The complaint is about the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of a leak from another property and the resulting damage.
3. We have also considered the landlord’s complaint handling.

Our decision (determination)

4. We have found maladministration in the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of a leak from another property and the resulting damage.
5. We have found no maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling.

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

Summary of reasons

6. In summary, we found that the landlord:
   1. Acted appropriately by directing the resident to her insurers and providing its own insurance details.
   2. Took too long to complete the leak that was causing damage to the resident’s property.
   3. Did not keep the resident up to date or provide assurances it was taking the matter seriously.

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.

Our investigation

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.

7. The resident is a leaseholder, the lease agreement states that the resident is responsible for repairs within the property. The Homeowner’s handbook states that the leaseholder should make an insurance claim for any damage caused by a leak from another property owned by the landlord. The landlord acted appropriately by instructing the resident to make an insurance claim and providing its details. The landlord could have provided its details at an earlier opportunity, this would have helped to manage the resident’s expectations.
8. While the resident has noted that the leak began in February 2024, we cannot see that the landlord was informed that the leak was penetrating the resident’s property and caused damage until June 2024. The Homeowners Handbook states that when there is a leak from a tenanted property, the leaseholder should alert the landlord as soon as possible. In the interests of fairness, we cannot consider that the landlord was aware of the resident’s circumstances until June 2024.
9. The leak in the upstairs property was not resolved until November 2024, the landlord has accepted it was responsible for resolving the leak. This repair happened outside of the landlord’s policy time frame for an urgent repair. While the landlord has explained that a change of contractor in July 2024 caused delays, the delay continued for4 months after this. The time taken to resolve the leak caused distress to the resident. The landlord was aware that the leak had damaged the electrics in the resident’s property but did not take steps to show it had considered this when deciding how to respond to the leak or whether to prioritise the repair.
10. We have seen evidence that the resident needed to chase the landlord for an update which caused inconvenience. The landlord did not keep the resident up to date or provide assurances that it was taking the matter seriously. The resident was evidently distressed by the impact on her home and the landlord failed to show it understood the resident’s concerns or was taking steps to complete the repair as soon as possible.
11. In its complaint responses, the landlord apologised for the inconvenience caused to the resident. It did not offer any compensation or reflection. In our view, the landlord did not go far enough to put things right. The time taken to resolve the leak, the lack of meaningful updates, and the distress caused to the resident are aggravating factors in this case.
12. With this in mind, we find maladministration in the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of a leak from the upstairs property. An award of £300 compensation has been made to reflect the distress and inconvenience caused by the landlord’s failures. This is in line with our remedies guidance where the landlord’s response is not proportionate to the detriment caused.

13. The landlord took 2 days to respond to the resident’s stage 1 complaint which was in line with the response times outlined in the Complaint Handling Code (the Code). The landlord’s complaints policy is compliant with the Code.
14. The landlord took 24 working days to respond to the resident’s stage 2 complaint which was outside of the timeframes listed in the Code. While there was a delay of 4 working days, we cannot see that this had a material impact on the outcome for the resident. Therefore, there was no maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling.

Learning

Knowledge information management (record keeping)

15. We did not identify any record keeping failures in our assessment.

Communication

16. The poor communication caused additional distress to the resident. The landlord should ensure that it completed repairs within its advertised timeframe. Where this is not possible, residents should be kept up to date with the progress of the repair in order to maintain a good landlord and resident relationship.