London & Quadrant Housing Trust (202126700)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202126700

London & Quadrant Housing Trust

7 November 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 the landlord’s handling of:
   1. The resident’s reports of repairs to his shower.
   2. The resident’s reports of a broken terrace light.
   3. The associated complaint.

Background

2. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord. The tenancy commenced on 29 November 2021.
3. Between 12 December 2021 and 7 June 2022, the resident was intermittently left without access to a fully working shower. The shower pump was replaced on 14 December 2021, which failed to resolve the problem. Following this, the landlord hired a range of different professionals to attend the property to try and remediate the ongoing drainage problems, which were causing the wet room shower to flood whilst it was in use. Due to the issues persisting, as the plumbing of the property was narrow, the landlord ultimately opted to install a bath. The landlord’s repair records note that this was completed on 7 June 2022.
4. On 21 December 2021, the resident had also raised further issues including a broken garden light in the terrace. The landlord has stated that remedial work to the light was completed in March 2022.
5. The resident’s initial complaint was due to his dissatisfaction with the service he received in relation to the remedial work to his shower. He was unhappy that he had not been able to shower at the property due to the ongoing issues. The resident was dissatisfied with a variety of issues in the property, including; the drainage issues, especially as he had only moved in two weeks prior to the drainage issues beginning, the broken terrace light and that there were no holes for appliances in the kitchen.
6. In the landlord’s complaint responses, it apologised for the delays and for the ongoing issues, and stated the drainage issues would be addressed, advising that an repair had been raised for its contractor to attend and inspect/remedy and offered the resident a total of £265 compensation. This was made up of:
   1. £25 for Service failings.
   2. £30 for time and effort.
   3. £60 for distress.
   4. £100 inconvenience.
   5. £50 for delays.
7. The resident was dissatisfied with the landlord’s response as he felt the compensation was disproportionate as he had no access to a shower for six and a half months. He advised his family were having to travel daily for showers, and the terrace light had not yet been fixed. The resident also advised this Service that he has an ongoing separate complaint about being locked out of the property, which was raised on 22 July 2022. The resident is seeking £1500 compensation, for the terrace light to be fixed and for the landlord to treat him more appropriately.

Assessment and findings

Scope of Investigation

8. During the resident’s contact with this Service, he advised that he has a separate complaint regarding being locked out of the property, and the lack of service he received. As this is a separate issue to the complaint raised with the Service, this is not something that this Service can adjudicate on at this stage, as the landlord needs to be provided with the opportunity to investigate and respond to this aspect. The resident will need to contact the landlord and, if appropriate, escalate the complaint further.

Policies and Procedures

9. The landlord’s repairs policy states that emergency repairs which are reported out of hours, will be attend to within four hours. It states that this appointment will be to make safe the issue, and a follow-on repair will be raised at the earliest mutually convenient time.
10. The landlord’s repairs policy states that the resident is responsible for pipe blockages.
11. The landlord’s complaints policy states that it will respond to a stage one complaint within 10 working days. It states that it will respond to a stage two complaint within 20 working days. In both circumstances, it states that if an extension of a further 10 working days is needed, it will inform the resident of the reason.

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of drainage issues in the property.

12.  Whilst the resident has advised this Service that he was not able to shower in the property for the six and a half months during the repairs process, it is not wholly clear from the evidence provided whether this was due to the shower being completely unusable or whether it was not practical to use the shower due to the drainage issues which resulted in flooding. However, both the landlord and the resident have referred to the shower being out of use, as well as the shower working but causing flooding and, therefore, it is clear that the resident did not have access to a fully working shower throughout this period.
13.  It is not disputed that there were failings within the landlord’s service to the resident. The landlord has acknowledged that there were delays in its service, and that this has impacted the resident. To recognise this, the landlord offered the resident £265 compensation. Where there are admitted failings by a landlord, the Ombudsman’s role is to consider whether the redress offered by the landlord put things right and resolved the resident’s complaint satisfactorily in the circumstances. In considering this the Ombudsman takes into account whether the landlord’s offer of redress was in line with the Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles: be fair, put things right and learn from outcomes.
14. In this case, the landlord ultimately put things right by installing a bath in the property, which provided a permanent solution to the ongoing issues. However, whilst it acknowledged the delays and offered redress for the service it provided to the resident, it has not shown evidence of how it would learn from its mistakes going forward.
15. Furthermore, it failed to acknowledge and address the full extent that the ongoing issues were having on the resident, despite the resident explaining the impact on several occasions. In view of this, and when taking into consideration the full circumstances of the case, the landlord’s offer of £265 compensation was disproportionately low, especially when considering the compensation was offered on 19 April 2022, but the issue then remained ongoing until 7 June 2022.
16. Whilst the landlord did act appropriately when handling the issue initially by treating the resident’s reports on 12 and 14 December 2021, as emergency repairs, on 12 December 2021, the contractor failed to attend for the appointment. The landlord did acknowledge this as a failing, and provided the resident with a £20 voucher, which was evidence of it trying to make things right. The resident was dissatisfied with the service provided by the landlord on 14 December 2021 as the operative only attended to make the shower safe. However, this was in line with the landlord’s policy for emergency repairs that were reported ‘out of hours.’
17.  Whilst the evidence provided to this Service shows that the landlord made attempts on several occasions to investigate the ongoing issues, such as on 25 January 2022, it ultimately took the landlord six and a half months to find a permanent solution. This Service understands that for some repairs, the root cause of the issue may take longer to determine, and it may be necessary for multiple contractors to attend within different disciplines. However, there was a clear lack of progress in the situation, which was exacerbated by the landlord’s poor communication with both the resident and the contractor.
18. On 25 January 2022, contractors identified the root cause of the problem, yet the landlord’s communication remained to be poor. The resident had to regularly chase the landlord for updates on the works throughout the entire process. Whilst the evidence provided to this Service does show that the landlord was regularly chasing the contractors from 9 February 2022 onwards and, at times, expressed dissatisfaction with its service, it was ultimately responsible for the delays in remedial work.
19.  Furthermore, in the resident’s frequent contact with the landlord, he often explained the impact that the ongoing issues were having on him and his family. He also regularly updated the landlord on the length of time in which he had been unable to bathe/shower in the property. Under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, a landlord is legally obligated to keep in proper repair and working order the installations in the dwelling for sanitation. As the shower was the only sanitation facility for bathing, it would have been appropriate for the landlord to take the resident’s concerns more seriously. Whilst the landlord internally acknowledged that the resident may not have had use of the shower, it failed to adequately address the concerns to ensure the resident had the appropriate facilities available.
20. Similarly, the landlord regularly failed to appropriately set the resident’s expectations, such as when the resident was told on 4 May 2022 that the parts needed to install a bath in the property were in stock and an appointment had been arranged for 25 May 2022, and yet the remedial work continued to be delayed until 7 June 2022. Whilst it is not clear from the evidence provided why this delay had occurred, given that the issue had been ongoing since December 2021, it would have been best practice for the landlord to provide frequent communication with the resident in order to adequately set his expectations.
21.  There were delays in the remedial process which were somewhat outside of the landlord’s control, such as on 6 January 2022 when a contractor informed the landlord it could not complete the works due to the account being on hold. In that case, the landlord acted appropriately by finding an alternative contractor to complete the works, however, the landlord did not contact the contractor to arrange these works until 17 January 2022. It would have been appropriate for the landlord to contact the contractor at an earlier stage, to avoid delaying the remedial process any further.
22. Overall, the landlord has acknowledged its delays, and attempted to provide redress for its failings. However, it failed to acknowledge the extent of the impact which the ongoing issues had on the resident, and failed to address the residents concerns of not having access to shower adequately. Whilst the evidence is not wholly clear in relation to whether the shower was in complete disrepair, or impractical to use, it is evident that the resident only had intermittent access to the sanitation facility, and this is not disputed by either party.
23. This Service recommends compensation of £100 to £600 in cases where a landlord has acknowledged its failings and made some attempt to put things right, but failed to address the detriment to the resident and the offer was not proportionate to the failings. Therefore, it is the opinion of this service that the amount of compensation offered by the landlord should be increased to £365 in order to provide proportionate redress to the resident for its failings, this is inclusive of the £265 previously offered if it has not yet been paid.

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of a broken terrace light

24. The resident reported on 21 December 2021 that there was no light bulb fitted in the terrace light of the property. The landlord raised this with its contractor on 6 January 2022. On 17 January 2022, the landlord and its contractors decided that it would take responsibility for the light, as the resident had only moved into the property two weeks earlier. Due to these circumstances, it was reasonable for the landlord to take responsibility for any remedial work required as it had not been previously addressed in the voids work.
25.  However, it is disputed whether the works to the terrace light have been completed. The landlord stated in its stage two response that on 11 March 2022, the outstanding remedial work was completed. However, in the resident’s escalation to this Service, he has advised that the repair remains outstanding. The repair logs provided to this Service appear to show that the remedial work for the lights continued to be raised on 8 April and throughout May 2022, and was potentially completed on 29 July 2022. It does appear that the landlord was continuing to pursue the remedial work needed to the lights, although this is not definitive.
26. It is vital that a landlord ensures its record keeping includes all remedial work raised and attended to, as well as any contact in relation to these repairs. If there is disputed evidence and a poor audit trail, we may not be able to conclude that an action took place or that the landlord followed its own policies and procedures. Given the lack of consistency between what the landlord said in its stage two response and its repair records, it is therefore recommended that the landlord conduct a review of its record keeping processes, ensuring that there is a clear audit trail for repairs, which provides details of specifically when contact was made, what was said and what the agreed next steps and expectations were.
27. Overall, whilst the landlord acted appropriately by taking responsibility for the remedial work needed to the terrace light, due to the landlord’s poor record-keeping, this Service is not able to determine whether the remedial work was completed in line with its policies and therefore, this constitutes a service failure.
28. This Service recommends compensation of £50 to £100 in cases where there was a minor failure by the landlord that had an impact on the resident but did not significantly affect the overall outcome.
29. In order to put right the failings by the landlord it has therefore been ordered to pay the resident £50 compensation and to complete any remedial work needed to the terrace lights, if it has not yet done so.

The landlord’s handling of the associated complaint

30.  The resident raised the initial complaint on 16 December 2021, and the landlord sent its stage one response on 6 January 2022. This was a total of 12 working days. Whilst this is outside of the appropriate timeframe listed in the landlord’s complaints policy, the two-day delay would not have had a significant impact on the overall outcome of the complaint.
31. The resident originally requested to escalate his complaint on 9 February 2022, and the landlord’s internal notes show that it had advised the resident that escalating the complaint may lead to him receiving delayed updates regarding the remedial works and therefore, it had agreed with the resident to continue to monitor the complaint at stage one. The handling of the complaint should have had no impact on the remedial work needed at the property, and therefore it was inappropriate for the landlord to advise the resident this might be the case. Whilst this did not lead to a considerable delay in the complaint handling, as the escalation was accepted on 11 February 2022, only two days later, the landlord had misinformed the resident, and therefore this constitutes a service failure.
32. Following the escalation on 11 February 2022, the landlord provided a holding response on 3 March 2022. It then acknowledged the stage two complaint on 1 April 2022, before sending its stage two response on 19 April 2022. It was appropriate for the landlord to provide the resident with a holding response in order to more adequately set the resident’s expectations. However, the landlord’s complaints policy, and the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code, states that a stage two response should be sent within 20 working days, or if this is not possible, an extension of a further 10 working days. In this case, the stage two response was provided a total of 45 working days following the escalation. Therefore, this was outside of the appropriate timeframe and not in line with the landlord’s policies.
33. The landlord also failed to address within its complaint responses that the resident had stated that he and his family had no access to a shower throughout the repairs process. The Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code sets out requirements for member landlords that will allow them to respond to complaints effectively and fairly. It states that landlords shall address all points raised in the complaint and provide clear reasons for any decisions, referencing the relevant policy, law and good practice where appropriate. In view of this, the landlord should have addressed this aspect. Ultimately, the resident did not have the opportunity to have this aspect of the complaint reviewed, which was a failing by the landlord.
34. Overall, whilst there are evident delays in the landlord’s complaint handling, this did not have a significant impact on the overall outcome of the complaint. However, the landlord did provide inappropriate information to the resident in relation to his escalation, and failed to adequately address the full extent of the resident’s concerns. Therefore, compensation is due in view of this.
35. This Service recommends a total of £50 to £100 compensation for complaints where there was a minor failure by the landlord and it did not appropriately acknowledge these, or fully put them right. Therefore, it is the opinion of this Service that £100 compensation would provide proportionate redress for the landlord’s failings in its handling of the complaint.

Determination

36. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in way it handled the resident’s reports of repair to his shower.
37. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in way it handled the resident’s reports of a broken terrace light.
38. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in way it handled the associated complaint.

Orders

39. The landlord is ordered to pay the resident a total of £515 compensation, inclusive of the £265 previously offered if this has not yet been paid. This is made up of:
    1. £365 for the delays in repair to the resident’s shower.
    2. £50 for the landlord’s poor record keeping.
    3. £100 for the landlord’s complaint handling failures.
40. The landlord is also ordered to:
    1. Complete any outstanding remedial work needed to the terrace light at the property.
    2. To carry out a review of its record keeping and consider additional training around the way in which repairs are recorded and handled.
    3. Provide further staff training in relation to complaint handling, to ensure residents are provided with accurate information relating to escalations, and to ensure staff are aware of the appropriate timescales in which complaints should be handled.
41. The landlord is to confirm to this service that it has complied with the above orders within four weeks of the date of this determination.