London Borough of Waltham Forest (202442607)

Background

1. The resident lives in a ground floor flat. The resident reported in around March 2024 that previous repairs to a bay window in his living room were failing.

What the complaint is about

2. The complaint is about the landlord’s response to:
   1. A structural repair of the resident’s window.
   2. the associated complaint.

Our decision (determination)

3. We have found that:
   1. There was maladministration in the landlord’s response to the structural repair of the resident’s window.
   2. There was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the complaint.

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

Summary of reasons

4. There were unexplained, unreasonable delays in the repair to the resident’s window. As of the date of this report, the window has not been repaired. The landlord’s communication with the resident was inadequate, and its records were incomplete.
5. The landlord did not follow its complaints handling process. Some of the information it gave the resident in its complaints responses was unclear or not recent.  The landlord offered £50 in compensation for the delay in its complaints handling. This was not sufficient to recognise its overall failures.

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.

Recommendations

Our recommendations are not binding, and a landlord may decide not to follow them.

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.

6. The landlord did a structural repair to the bay window at the resident’s home in 2019. However, the repair failed. The landlord established in June 2024 that this failure was due to incorrect material choices in the earlier repair.
7. We have not seen evidence of a formal complaint exhausting the landlord’s complaints process until November 2024. In the interests of fairness, and considering the availability of evidence, this investigation is focused on events from April 2024 onwards, which were addressed in both stages of the complaints process.
8. The landlord’s repairs policy says that it aims for its building contractor to complete repairs within 14 days of the initial appointment. The works to the resident’s home are complex, requiring structural surveys and for the resident to be decanted (moved temporarily). As such it is reasonable to expect that the repairs might exceed the landlord’s policy timescales.
9. However, there were significant periods of delay throughout the case that the landlord’s records do not explain. As they are unexplained, we consider them to be avoidable delays. They amount to maladministration by the landlord. They include:
   1. On 24 April 2024 the landlord said it would appoint a structural engineer and carry out a survey in around 1 month. An initial appraisal was carried out on 19 June 2024. This was a delay of 1 month, which the landlord has not explained. As such, we find that this was an unreasonable delay.
   2. On 4 September 2024 the landlord’s internal emails showed an avoidable delay of 3 months between it receiving a repair report and booking in works.
   3. There was a further delay of around 7 months between the landlord’s contractor saying it would appoint a subcontractor to do the work in September 2024, and it doing so. There were large gaps in communication between the landlord and its contractor during this period, which suggested that the repair was not being actively progressed.
   4. As of October 2025, around 18 months after the landlord became aware of the repairs, the landlord has not begun the repairs.
10. The landlord did not always have good records of what it had done in this case. For example, when the resident contacted the landlord in April 2024, its internal emails show that it had visited the resident ‘a few weeks before’. However, the landlord did not provide our investigation with contemporaneous notes of this visit, and another member of staff said she was not aware of the case. As such, we presume that no records were made. This was a record keeping failure. The landlord should have clear records of each visit, and these should be readily available to all relevant members of staff.
11. It is good practice for landlords to keep residents updated on the progress of repairs. Clear communication manages resident expectations and helps to build trust. In this case we saw few examples of the landlord contacting the resident about the repairs outside of the complaints process.
12. In the resident’s stage 2 complaint escalation request, he said the landlord had not appointed a structural engineer as it agreed in April 2024. He did not appear to be aware of the desktop assessment the landlord had asked a structural engineering firm to complete in June 2024. We saw no evidence the landlord shared the result of this assessment with him before he complained. The lack of communication from the landlord may have led him to feel that there had been no progress in the repairs. If possible, the landlord should consider appointing a single point of contact for the resident going forward, to ensure the resident is kept up to date about his repairs.
13. We are unable to say if disrepair in the property has caused additional heat loss. In its complaint responses, the landlord said that the cracks in the property would not cause ‘thermal discomfort’ to the resident. He disputed this. He said the property damage meant that his window could not close properly, causing a draught. He said this made the property cold and impacted his heating bills. His claim was supported by a report on the energy efficiency of the resident’s home completed by a not-for-profit organisation in 2022. The landlord’s records show it had a copy of this report in April 2024, before the resident’s complaint. The report said ‘The bay window also seems to be subsiding as evidenced by the fact that the windows no longer close properly’.
14.   When the resident disputed the landlord’s findings at stage 1 of its complaints process, the landlord said it could not ‘overturn or otherwise amend the decision of professionals in their roles’. While the member of staff in question may not have had the expertise to investigate this, it should have asked a suitably qualified member of staff to review the resident’s concerns. If it agreed that the disrepair had stopped the windows from shutting fully, it may have been able to do a temporary repair to the windows, while pursuing the permanent repair. The landlord’s failure to fully investigate the resident’s concerns may have caused the resident additional inconvenience and distress.

The resident told the landlord and the Ombudsman that he does not feel safe in the property.  The landlord addressed the safety of the property at both stages of the complaints process, saying that there was no risk of any parts of the building collapsing, and this was reasonable.

15. Overall, the landlord’s response to the resident’s repairs was inadequate, and is likely to have caused the resident avoidable distress and inconvenience. In recognition of this, the landlord is ordered to pay £600 in compensation. This complies with the Ombudsman’s approach to compensation set out in our remedies guidance (published on our website). The remedies guidance suggests awards in this range where there has been a failure by the landlord which adversely affected the resident, but there has been no permanent impact.
16. The landlord is ordered to do a case review to help it identify what caused the delays in its handling of the repair. This is discussed in detail in the orders section of this report. The landlord is ordered to complete the resident’s repairs, and to apologise to the resident for the failures identified in this report.

17. The landlord’s complaints process has 2 stages. It says it will provide a stage 1 complaint response within 10 working days and a stage 2 complaint response within 20 working days.  These timescales are compliant with the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code) which sets out our expectations of landlords’ complaints processes.
18. The landlord responded to the resident’s initial complaint within its policy timescale. There was a delay of over 1 month in the landlord’s stage 2 complaint response. The landlord acknowledged this and offered the resident £50 compensation. This was sufficient to recognise the delay and aligns with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance referenced above.
19. In its response to the resident’s initial complaint, the landlord said that it was treating the complaint as a ‘service request’ as the resident had not expressed dissatisfaction with the landlord’s standards of service, actions, or lack of action, in his online complaint form. The resident’s initial complaint form was very brief, requesting a property survey and attaching pictures. As such, the landlord was entitled to either treat the contact as a service request, or a stage 1 complaint, but it should have been clear about which approach it intended to take, to avoid confusion.
20. The landlord sent a full complaint response to the resident and explained to him that he could escalate his complaint to the second stage of its complaints process if he was unhappy with its response. When he asked to escalate the complaint, it sent a response at the final stage of its complaints process. This means in practice, its response was a stage 1 complaint response and we have referred to it as such in this report.
21. The landlord’s complaints policy says that when it receives a stage 1 complaint, it will contact the resident within 48 hours to establish the ‘particulars of the complaint and address any ambiguity’. There was no evidence the landlord did this. This was not appropriate, particularly as in this case the submission the resident made on the landlord’s online complaint form was very short. Without full information about the complaint, the landlord and the resident do not have a shared understanding of the complaint.
22. In this case, the landlord did not consider the timeliness of the repairs to be part of the resident’s complaint. As a result, it did not uphold the resident’s complaint even though it acknowledged that it could have progressed the repairs more quickly. We cannot say whether the resident would have raised the timeliness of the repairs in the initial complaint process if the landlord had contacted him for more information, but it was one of the issues the resident raised in his complaint escalation request.  In the circumstances of the case, the landlord should have included expanded its definition of the complaint to include its handling of the repair as a whole.
23. Landlords’ complaints teams should make sure they give residents up to date information, including recent updates, and clear ‘next steps’ with specific times and dates. This shows that they are taking take ownership of complaints, putting things right and preventing future issues. This did not happen in this case.  For example:
    1. The landlord did not give the resident any appointment dates or times or tell him when he would next be updated on the repairs.
    2. In its stage 2 complaint response the landlord included an extract from an email written by a member of staff. In it, the member of staff said they spoke to the resident ‘a few weeks ago’ and would ‘find out’ the repair’s status. This was an ambiguous update which did not show that the landlord had been proactively

addressing the repair.  The landlord should have got a current update before sending its response.

24. Where the landlord provided updates on the repairs in its complaint responses, they were not always recent. For example:
    1. In its stage 1 response, the landlord said it had received an initial appraisal of the works 2 months previously, in June 2024, and that its contractor would now actively progress the repairs. It failed to address why no progress had been made in the 2 months between it receiving the report, and its complaint response.
    2. In its stage 2 response sent in November 2024, it gave an update that its contractor had told it 2 months previously that it was appointing a subcontractor. If there had been no progress in appointing a subcontractor in this time frame, it should have indicated to the landlord that there was an unreasonable delay in its repairs, as it would be reasonable to expect progress in a 2-month period.
25. At the end of its stage 1 response, the landlord said that it trusted that its response showed it was progressing the repairs with ‘as much urgency as is reasonable’ given the repair was not a health and safety concern. In the context of the updates it had given, which did not demonstrate urgency, this could have led to the resident feeling that his repairs had not been taken seriously.
26. Overall, these failures will have caused the resident frustration, distress, and inconvenience. They amount to maladministration. To put things right for the resident, the landlord is ordered to pay the resident £150 in compensation, in addition to the £50 it has already offered. As above, this is in line with our remedies guidance.

Learning

27. The landlord should ensure that when it gives updates in its complaints responses, they are current at the time of the response.

Communication

28. The landlord should ensure that, particularly where there are complicated repairs, it gives residents regular updates on the progress of their repair.