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London & Quadrant Housing Trust (202407216)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202407216

London & Quadrant Housing Trust (L&Q)

24 July 2025

 

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. Leaks affecting the resident’s balcony and living room ceiling.
    2. The complaint.

Background

  1. The resident holds an assured tenancy with the landlord. The property is a 2 bedroom flat within a block which houses other tenants and leaseholders. The flat has a roof directly above it and a large balcony (which is also the partial roof of a neighbouring flat). He lives in the property with his wife and 2 young children.
  2. Between January 2021 and up until his complaint on 15 March 2024 the resident reported problems with a leak from his balcony. He said the balcony was unusable and the leak was affecting the flat below. He complained that the landlord had not kept him updated about the repairs. He said that that there were “different contractors on several occasions passing back and forth through his flat carrying dusty equipment” which was affecting his son’s allergies.
  3. On 4 April and 8 May 2024 the resident told the landlord his living room ceiling was also leaking. He said the leak damaged his carpet and he asked the landlord to replace it. He said because of the repairs he had limited use of his living room.  He repeated his previous concerns about not being able to use his balcony and the potential impact the repairs may be having on his family’s health and safety.
  4. The landlord responded to the resident’s complaint on 28 May 2024. It said the roof was one of the main causes of the problems and it aimed to begin works on 30 May. It apologised to the resident for its “poor communication” and acknowledged this needed to improve. It offered him £500 compensation due to the issues and also £20 for its delayed complaint response. It said the resident would need to claim from his own insurance for any damage to his belongings.
  5. The resident was unhappy with the landlord’s response and asked it to revise its compensation offer on 30 May 2024. He said the offer did not reflect the impact the repairs were having on him. He said his doctor said the dirty water leaking onto his carpet from the roof “may have aggravated” his son’s eczema. He said his family were having to avoid that area of the living room and he had been unable to invite guests to his property. He chased the landlord for a response on 17 June.
  6. The landlord responded at stage 2 of its complaints process on 29 August 2024. It confirmed it had fixed the balcony leak. It offered him a further £220 in compensation. This included £20 for its delayed stage 2 response. It reiterated its previous advice on claiming for any damages to his carpet, and gave its insurance details. It apologised for cancelling his ceiling repairs and agreed to reschedule these. It acknowledged his new concerns of damp and mould (that he raised in June 2024) and agreed to inspect the property.
  7. The resident escalated his complaint to this Service in September 2024. In November 2024, he reported the impact of the leak had weakened his ceiling and he was worried it would collapse. He contacted the landlord, his local councillor and the council’s Environmental Health team. He provided images of a child’s paddling pool and buckets collecting large volumes of rainwater in his living room.
  8. The landlord confirmed it carried out temporary repairs to the resident’s roof between January and April 2025. The resident remains concerned as his roof is still leaking, and he said his loft insulation is mouldy. He wants the landlord to fix the leak, resolve the mould issues, and to fully compensate him for the loss of amenities and for the stress and inconvenience. The landlord told us it plans to do roof works on 27 July 2025, but the exact scale of the work is unclear.

Assessment and findings

Scope of the investigation

  1. The resident has raised concerns about the impact the issues may have had on his and his family’s health. The Ombudsman is unable to assess the cause of, or liability for, impacts on health and wellbeing. The resident may be able to make a personal injury claim if he considers that his health has been affected by the landlord’s actions or inaction. This is a legal process, and he may wish to seek legal advice if he wants to pursue this option. As this issue is more effectively resolved and remedied through the courts it will not be considered in this report. We will, however, consider any distress and inconvenience he may have been caused.
  2. The resident has included issues dating from January 2021 onwards. There is no evidence of these issues being raised with the landlord as a complaint until March 2024. We may not consider a complaint about issues which were not brought to the attention of the landlord as a formal complaint within a reasonable period which would normally be within 12 months of the matters arising. As such, this report will centre on the landlord’s handling of the repair issues in the months leading up to the resident’s complaint and its response to these issues.
  3. The repairs in this case continued, and worsened, beyond the landlord’s final complaint response in August 2024. We have taken these further delays into account when assessing an appropriate remedy for this complaint. However, the investigation does not include the landlord’s handling of any new issues that arose, such as the resident’s concerns of damp and mould. Whilst this issue may be closely linked, the resident is advised to make a new complaint if he is dissatisfied with the landlord’s handling of this, or any other new matters. This is because the landlord needs to be given an opportunity to investigate and respond to any reported dissatisfaction with its actions prior to our involvement.

The landlord’s handling of leaks affecting the resident’s balcony and living room ceiling.

  1. Landlords must ensure they carry out repairs within a reasonable timeframe and in accordance with their policy timescales. In this case the landlord’s policy says it will carry out certain repairs within the timescales prescribed under the government’s ‘Right to Repair’ scheme. Whilst these rules usually apply to local authorities, the landlord has adopted this framework within its policy. This says it will respond to a leaking roof within 7 working days.
  2. Repair works can be unavoidably delayed for various reasons. However, where works cannot be completed within planned timeframes we would expect landlords to keep residents fully updated throughout. They should also consider if there is anything they can do to mitigate any impact the delays would have upon the resident. This might include offering to decant the resident in some circumstances. We have not seen any evidence the landlord kept the resident fully updated during the delays, or considered any alternative solutions in this case. This represents a failure.
  3. The evidence shows the resident reported a leak from his balcony which was affecting the property below in August 2023. Its records are unclear when it first inspected the issue. However, it did not complete the initial repair until 17 January 2024, which was unreasonable as it was well outside of its 7 day policy timeframe.
  4. The works to the balcony on 17 January 2024 were unsuccessful and the resident reported the leak to the landlord again on 29 January. The records show the landlord created a job to repair the balcony however this job was “closed”. The resident reported the leak again in his complaint on 15 March. However when the landlord scheduled the repairs again on 27 March, it cancelled this job. There is no evidence of the landlord explaining why the work did not go ahead, which is a further failure.
  5. The resident reported a second leak coming from his living room ceiling on 4 April. The landlord’s records show it was aware of the severity of the situation, as the resident explained on 8 May that the leaks were affecting 2 of his neighbours. The resident complained to the landlord’s contractors on 8 May, who said they aimed to do the works on 30 May. However, there is no evidence of them doing the repairs on this date, nor any explanation why they did not take place.
  6. The landlord acknowledged within its complaint responses that its service had failed. Where a landlord says this, we will consider whether it remedied the complaint in line with its policy and our Dispute Resolution Principles; to be fair, put things right and learn from outcomes. In this case, the landlord repaired the resident’s balcony on 19 July 2024. However, it failed to adequately outline its plans to resolve the leaks in the living room ceiling with the urgency they required. It therefore did not put things right to resolve the complaint.
  7. It is evident this situation has been extremely distressing for the resident. He spent a lot of time and trouble chasing the repairs. This included on 1 August 2024 when he told the landlord “enough is enough”. He also chased the landlord on 22 September and asked when his roof would be fixed. He contacted the landlord again on 18 November, when he sent images of the problem. He said it was “Raining once again and here’s the latest, looks like the ceiling is going to drop anytime soon.”
  8. We found severe maladministration in this case. The landlord should have taken a proactive approach to dealing with the leaks. In particular the living room leak, to prevent it from becoming a serious safety hazard. Whilst the landlord has acknowledged its failings and made an offer of compensation, it failed to outline clear plans to resolve the issue through its complaints process which left the complaint unremedied. The compensation it offered was not proportionate to scale of its failures, the consequences of which extended well beyond its final complaint response.
  9. The landlord’s compensation policy says it will compensate residents on a discretionary basis where its failures caused distress and inconvenience. It says it will consider the household’s vulnerabilities and its communication with the resident. It also says it will compensate residents for being unable to use a room or outdoor space due to unplanned repairs. The landlord’s policy does not outline specific compensation amounts. As such, when determining an appropriate level of compensation to remedy the complaint we have considered the impact on the resident and his household (his 2 children were aged 6 and under at the time of the complaint), alongside our own remedies guidance.

The landlord’s handling of the complaint.

  1. Landlords must handle complaints in accordance with the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code) and their complaint policies. The Code says they must acknowledge stage 1 complaints within 5 working days and respond to them within 10 working days. The Code also says: ‘If all or part of the complaint is not resolved to the resident’s satisfaction at stage 1, it must be progressed to stage 2 of the landlord’s procedure. They must acknowledge escalated complaints within 5 working days and respond to them within 20 working days. The landlord’s policy complies with the Code.
  2. In this case the landlord’s responses to the resident’s complaint were delayed at both stage 1 and 2 of its complaints process. The resident complained to the landlord on 15 March 2024. It acknowledged the complaint on time on 18 March. However it did not respond to the complaint until 48 working days later, on 28 May. This was not in line with its policy timeframe, or the Code.
  3. The resident raised his dissatisfaction with the landlord’s initial response on 30 May 2024. However, the landlord did not acknowledge this until 8 August, which was 50 working days later. As this was well outside of its policy timescales it represents a failure. In the landlord’s final complaint response on 29 August it said the resident asked the landlord to escalate his complaint on 19 July. This was incorrect because the resident told the landlord on 30 May he was unhappy, so it should have accepted this correspondence as his escalation of the complaint, as per the Code.
  4. The resident was frustrated with the landlord’s delayed complaint responses. He raised his concerns with this Service on 22 May 2024. He spent time and effort chasing the landlord for a response to his escalation request, such as on 17 June, and 19 July. There is no evidence the landlord responded to these emails, which was unreasonable especially given the health and safety concerns he was raising. On 1 August he contacted the landlord to express his annoyance with the lack of response, he said he was being “ignored”.
  5. Given the failures identified, it was appropriate that the landlord apologised within its final complaint response. The landlord attempted to remedy its failings with regards to its complaint handling. However, the compensation it offered (which totalled £40) was not proportionate to the resident’s time and trouble chasing the complaint, its lack of communication and delayed responses. We found it failed to fully remedy its poor complaint handling.

Special Investigation

  1. The Ombudsman published a report in July 2023 about the landlord following a special wider investigation. It found multiple systemic failings that were impacting its residents. These included that the landlord was failing to take effective ownership and management of repairs leading to delays and poorly communicating with residents. The Ombudsman required the landlord to make changes including improvements to its handling of repairs, complaints and how it kept records. The failings identified by this complaint largely mirror those identified by the special investigation that are part of the ongoing improvement work ordered, for which this Service remains in liaison with the landlord. As such, and in view of the age of this complaint, we have not made any similar orders.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was severe maladministration in the landlord’s handling of leaks affecting the resident’s balcony and living room ceiling.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure in the landlord’s complaint handling.

Orders and recommendations

  1. Within 4 weeks from the date of this report the landlord is ordered to:
    1. Provide a written apology to the resident, from a senior member of staff, for the failures identified in this report.
    2. Pay the resident a total of £2,700 compensation. This amount includes the £740 it has already offered the resident, so it may deduct this amount if it has already been paid. This is made up as follows:
      1. £1,500 for the limited use of a living room and loss of outdoor space.
      2. £1,000 for the time and trouble and distress and inconvenience the resident likely incurred because of the landlord’s handling of the repair requests.
      3. £200 for its complaint handling.
  2. The evidence shows the roof repair is unresolved and this issue is affecting at least one other resident. The landlord said it plans to start works to the roof on 27 July 2025. Within 8 weeks from the date of this report the landlord must update the Ombudsman, the resident, and any other affected residents, setting out the current situation. It should fully explain what actions it will be taking, and when it estimates it will be able to complete all the work. It must also explain how it intends to keep the residents informed of its progress if its plans change.
  3. If the resident subsequently has any concerns about the landlord’s adherence to its plan to complete the work, or with its future communication with him about the repairs, he is entitled to make a new formal complaint to it. He then has the option of bringing his complaint back to the Ombudsman and asking for a new investigation.
  4. The landlord must provide the Ombudsman with evidence of complying with these orders by their respective deadlines.

Recommendations

  1. We recommend that once the repairs are completed, the landlord offers to assist the resident with making an insurance claim for any damage to his belongings.