London & Quadrant Housing Trust (202334282)

Decision
Case ID	202334282
Decision type	Investigation
Landlord	London & Quadrant Housing Trust
Landlord type	Housing Association
Occupancy	Leaseholder
Date	19 February 2026

Background

1. The resident has been the leaseholder of a flat (the property) where the landlord is the freeholder since 2013. The property is on an estate of blocks of flats. The resident rents out the property to tenants. The estate gets heating and hot water from a heating network maintained by the landlord, for which residents pay service charges. In early 2023 this system failed on several occasions, sometimes affecting the property. The resident was unhappy with the landlord’s handling of these issues.

What the complaint is about

2. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of:
   1. Repairs to the heating/hot water system.
   2. The complaint.

Our decision (determination)

3. We have found:
   1. Maladministration in the landlord’s handling of repairs to the heating/hot water system.
   2. Service failure in the landlord’s complaint handling failures.

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

Summary of reasons

Heating and hot water

4. The landlord’s records of responding to heating and hot water outages are not wholly reliable among other failings. The main issue was with the landlord’s communication, which was limited and caused distress and inconvenience.

The complaint

5. The landlord acknowledged that it delayed responding to the resident’s complaints. However, it did not acknowledge the full extent of its delay or other complaint handling 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.

Order	What the landlord must do	Due date
1	Compensation order The landlord must pay the resident £585 made up as follows: £200 to recognise the distress and inconvenience caused by the landlord’s poor response and communications around the heating and hot water outages at the property £75 to recognise the distress and inconvenience caused by the landlord’s complaint handling failures, particularly for its extended delay at stage 2 £310 (if not already paid) for the other complaint handling delays already recognised by the landlord at stage 1 and 2 of its process The landlord must provide evidence these payments have been made directly to the resident by the due date. The landlord may deduct from the total figure any payments it has already paid.	No later than 19 March 2026

Our investigation

The complaint procedure

Date	What happened
Between 28 February 2023 and 23 June 2023	The resident complained about matters including heating and hot water issues and concerns about: large service charge bills as a consequence of high maintenance costs staff changes along with poor record keeping turnaround times for responding to heating failures the landlord’s failure to provide lagging to improve thermal efficiency insufficient information about the landlord’s decision not to undertake recommendations set out in a report undertaken to assess the heat efficiency of the heat network
13 and 26 July 2023	The landlord provided its stage 1 response. It apologised for the delay. It provided some information to answer specific queries raised by the resident. In relation to the heating interruptions complained of, it: said lagging would be considered if necessary provided service level agreements for repairs explained it would only perform its ‘core obligations’ with regards to heating maintenance offered £150 for its complaint handling delays
26 July 2023	On 26 July 2023 the resident said the landlord’s response did not answer the issues raised in his 28 February 2023 complaint, such as staffing issues and a failure to be transparent and provide information it had said it would provide about required works.
4 August 2023	The landlord responded to a number of emails from the resident querying aspects of the stage 1 response. It confirmed its original position and said its response would not have covered the resident’s 28 February 2023 complaint as it had not been assigned to the complaints team to answer as a formal complaint. On the same day, the resident asked the landlord to escalate his complaint to stage 2, relying on his 26 July 2023 correspondence. He accepted the £150 compensation offered.
6 September 2023	The landlord apologised for the delay in escalating the resident’s complaint and said it had processed a cheque for the £150 compensation. It said it understood his complaint to be about: its failure to confirm that the recommendation to complete lagging would go ahead its failure to confirm the schedule of works planned to the heating/hot water system
21 November 2023	Following a number of chasers from the resident (on 13 and 15 September 2023, 12 October 2023, 1 November 2023, 14 November 2023, and 21 November 2023) the landlord wrote to the resident saying that it had told him on 6 and 15 September 2023 that it had escalated his complaint to stage 2.
15 February 2024	The landlord provided its stage 2 response. It said that: it had provided information on the heating/hot water interruptions on 13 June 2023, when it had offered £100 to residents in acknowledgement of any inconvenience caused it had provided a further email on 7 February 2024 about further disruptions and said an estate-wide response would be sent to complainants it apologised works had been agreed with its contractor and some had been implemented, further communications would be sent about these on 26 February 2024 and, if it considered further compensation was necessary, this would be offered then lagging was not a requirement on communal developments and would not affect the overall performance it offered compensation of £40 for the delay in providing the previously offered compensation of £150 and a further £120 for the delay in escalating the resident’s stage 2 complaint
Referral to the Ombudsman	The resident complained to the Ombudsman about the landlord’s response and wanted it to: contribute towards the cost of the replacement boilers on the basis that they had been poorly specified and inadequately maintained pay for the cost of the installation of an electric power shower in the flat reconsider the amount of compensation offered

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	Heating and hot water issues
Finding	Maladministration

What we did not investigate

6. The resident has said that:
   1. Since the final response was issued in February 2024, he has experienced further heating outages and problems with the landlord’s communications around service charges.
   2. Although he asked the landlord to pay for an electric shower, it did not respond.
   3. There is no evidence the landlord conducted a Housing Health and Safety Rating System test during the colder periods that residents were without heating.
7. The Ombudsman’s role is to investigate complaints brought to it that have exhausted a landlord’s internal complaints process. These issues have not been through that process, even though the resident raised some of them shortly afterwards. We have no power to investigate complaints which the landlord has not had the chance to put right first. Therefore, we have no power to investigate the above issues. This investigation report, therefore, concerns only those matters which were the subject of the resident’s formal complaint of February 2023 (when we consider that his first complaint was made) and which were the subject of the landlord’s final response dated 15 February 2024.
8. The resident has the right to make a new complaint to the landlord if he is unhappy with its handling of these newer issues. He can then return to us if he remains dissatisfied after receiving its responses.

What we did investigate

9. In its February 2024 stage 2 response, the landlord said its letter to all residents dated 13 June 2023 set out the details of the heating and hot water interruptions experienced in the first 6 months of 2023. It said the letter explained how it had responded to the outages and outlined its short-term approach. It also said it would communicate its long‑term strategy after completing further assessments.
10. This letter outlined 10 incidents between 7 January 2023 and 4 June 2023 where there had been a heating and hot water failure at the development. It said that, in all but one incident, the landlord had resolved supply on the same day. The landlord also mentioned a planned outage on 9 March 2023, for which it said residents had been given prior notice. These records indicate that the landlord generally attended within the 24‑hour timescale that was appropriate and in line with its policy.
11. However, some information in this letter does not match that found in the landlord’s records. These discrepancies support the resident’s account that the landlord did not always respond as quickly as indicated in the 13 June 2023 letter. For example:
    1. The landlord said it attended after a report on 5 March 2023 and resolved the issue the same day. The resident’s records, supported by another resident, state that the landlord had been due to attend the previous day but did not.
    2. The landlord said it attended after a report on 20 March 2023 and resolved the issue the same day. Other records show the report was made on 18 March 2023 and so the landlord did not attend within 24 hours.
    3. The landlord said it attended after a report on 22 March 2023 and completed the repair the next day. This conflicts with other records showing that residents continued to report a loss of supply after being told the issue had been resolved.
12. Although the discrepancies are small, they raise concerns about the accuracy of the landlord’s records.
13. Thereis also other evidence which indicateswider issues with the landlord’s responsiveness.Minutes from a residents’ meeting in July 2023 show the landlord’s representative confirming that it had to receive 3 reports of problems from residents before it attended to repair the communal system.Feedback at the same meeting recorded that call centre staff did not always appear to know that heating problems were the landlord’s responsibility. The landlord did not provide a heating and hot water policy to us, and its website does not indicate that 3 calls are required before a response is triggered. This approach would delay a response and does not appear to be in line with policy.
14. Our 2021 Spotlight Report on heating, hot water, and energy states that landlords should have contingency plans for supply interruptions, including access to temporary heaters, when multiple residents are affected. In his complaint, the resident asked what steps the landlord had taken to implement the recommendations in that report. Although the development experienced several days of heating and hot water failures in March 2023, including 1 period lasting 3 days during severe cold weather, and further heating outages in the winter months of 2024, the landlord did not acknowledge this in its complaint responses. We have also seen no evidence that alternative heating was offered. This was poor service by the landlord.
15. The frequency of system failures reduced during summer 2023. The resident said this was because there was less of a strain on the system during warmer weather and that the issues returned in January 2024 during colder weather. The landlord wrote to residents on 7 February 2024 acknowledging further outages and apologising. It said it had installed one replacement boiler to the network and planned to install a second. It said it would provide an action plan once it had reviewed all residents’ complaints.
16. The terms of the resident’s lease stated that he, along with other leaseholders, would have to pay a share of the cost of these works. He was, therefore, understandably concerned about the costs. However, he also wanted to ensure that the system worked efficiently. For this reason, it was understandable that he sought more information about the landlord’s plans to reform the system and why so many repairs were necessary. Its failure to fully explain its plans, therefore, was a serious failure.
17. In its 15 February 2024 stage 2 response, the landlord acknowledged further issues and said it had agreed works with a new contractor. It also said it would provide compensation if appropriate. (Nothing in this report prevents the landlord from providing further compensation in line with its policy, if it has not done so already.) It referred to a 2022 optimisation report and said that optimisation work was being carried out by the current contractor to improve reliability and performance.
18. Apart from comments about lagging, the landlord did not explain what those works were. On 5 June 2023, the resident asked the landlord to explain how it planned to address each recommendation in the optimisation report.  The report made several recommendations. The resident also asked whether the landlord intended to act on them and to explain why if not.
19. At stage 1, the landlord said it was “unable to comment” on the report and described the report’s findings as relating to “enhancements to the system” rather than operational requirements. This did not align with parts of the report that appeared to raise operational concerns, such as over‑pumping caused by poor control of distribution pumps. Even if the landlord considered the recommendations to be “non‑operational”, the response was a missed opportunity to explain its position and reassure the resident.
20. In its 7 February 2024 letter, the landlord said it understood that residents wanted an explanation of the causes of the issues and its plans to resolve them. However, a week later, when it wrote to the resident at stage 2, it did not explain what these would be. As the works were underway, it had clearly identified the necessary actions. It is likely it also knew the causes of the issues. It is unclear why it did not share this information with the resident, who, as a leaseholder, reasonably expected to be charged for the works and therefore had a clear interest in understanding them.
21. Without a clear explanation, the resident reasonably formed the view that the longstanding problems with the system might be linked to issues highlighted in the report and that the landlord was not addressing them.
22. Our Spotlight Report says that, where leaseholders contribute to maintenance costs, landlords must provide clear and timely information. As maintenance costs increased, the landlord did not respond helpfully to the resident’s requests for information. The evidence shows that this caused the resident considerable frustration.
23. The resident queried whether improving lagging would improve system efficiency. The landlord’s responses were non‑committal. This was not unreasonable, as it explained it would use this method if necessary but had not formed a view. The resident has since said this was not his primary concern.
24. The resident has said the landlord has since agreed to cover the cost of replacement boilers. This is a positive step. However, this was not known to the resident before the stage 2 response in February 2024. Between January 2023 and February 2024, the resident was concerned that the costs would be added to service charges. Clear communication during this period could have reduced the resident’s distress.
25. Overall, we consider that the repeated outages over 2 winter periods, combined with unclear communication about the issues with the heat network and the landlord’s plans to address them, caused the resident avoidable distress. We have therefore ordered it to pay him £200 compensation to recognise the distress and inconvenience caused by the landlord’s poor response and communications around the heating and hot water outages at the property. This is in line with our remedies guidance’s recommendation of compensation in this range for when such failures by the landlord negatively affect the resident.

Complaint	The complaint
Finding	Service failure

26. The landlord has a 2-stage complaint process that is line with the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code). It says the resident should then receive a formal response to stage 1 complaints within 10 working days and stage 2 complaints within 20 working days of the complaint acknowledgement.
27. The landlord gave us a copy of the resident’s initial complaint but it was undated. We consider the complaint raised to a senior officer on 28 February 2023 was the initial complaint. The landlord should have considered it in the same light, it being a clear expression of dissatisfaction. The fact that it was not passed to the complaints team was because of a failure in the landlord’s processes.
28. In any event, the February 2023 complaint covers the issues raised in the undated copy the landlord has provided. The landlord took 102 working days to provide a formal response on 26 July 2023. This is a 92-working-day delay. The landlord only acknowledged a 2-month delay. However, the compensation it offered for the delay, of £150, was in line with its compensation policy and with what we would have ordered based on our guidance on remedies.
29. At stage 2, the landlord delayed again, this time by 124 working days. The landlord provided compensation of £120 for its delay in escalating the resident’s complaint. However, this delay was longer than the previous one. The resident had expressed dissatisfaction with the stage 1 response on the same day it was sent, the 26 July 2024. However, the landlord took until 6 September 2024 to log that dissatisfaction as a request to escalate his complaint. The resident had to ask repeatedly about the progress of his complaint. On 21 November 2023, after he had chased the landlord 6 times, rather than apologise, it told him that his complaint had been escalated but also that if he contacted us, we could impose a deadline for it to issue a final response.
30. We then contacted the landlord on 9 February 2024 at the resident’s request to ask it to issue the final response, which it provided on 15 February 2024. It also offered him another £40 compensation for the delay in providing the compensation it previously offered. He should not have had to approach us to secure a response to his complaint.
31. Given that the landlord’s delay was longer than that at stage 1, to be consistent, we have ordered it to pay a further sum of £75 compensation to acknowledge its poor complaint handling. This is in addition to the £310 offered to the resident for the other complaint handling delays already recognised by the landlord at stage 1 and 2 of its process, if not already paid. This is in line with our remedies guidance’s recommendation of compensation in this range for when such failures by the landlord delay getting matters resolved.

Learning

32. In the landlord’s prepared response to the Ombudsman, it failed to correctly direct our attention to the appropriate files, answering our request for evidence by directing our attention to files that were unhelpful, and not providing any explanation for its failure to answer appropriately. This added unnecessarily to the complexities of the investigation.

Knowledge information management (record keeping)

33. We have identified above that there is a question as to the accuracy of the landlord’s record keeping. Residents in the block reported outages that lasted longer than was stated in the records. It should consider the recommendations in the Ombudsman’s spotlight report on Knowledge and Information Management for accurate record keeping.

Communication

34. Overall, the landlord’s communication with the resident was poor. It often failed to respond to him, and when it did, its updates lacked detail. It is understandable if a landlord cannot always commit to providing a full response. But in this case, when for instance, the landlord informed the residents it had replaced a boiler and was expecting to replace another, it is not clear why it would not have been able to provide some context around these decisions, especially since they were costly.