London & Quadrant Housing Trust (202445604)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202445604

London & Quadrant Housing Trust (L&Q)

30 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

The complaint is about the landlord’s communications with the resident in relation to building safety.

Background

The resident is a leaseholder. He purchased the lease of the property in 2017. The property is a flat within a 4 storey block of flats built in 2007. The landlord is the freeholder of the building.
In January 2022 the landlord carried out a fire safety inspection of the external walls of the building to check whether it complied with government guidelines. The following year it arranged for a fire engineer to conduct a more detailed Fire Risk Appraisal of External Walls (FRAEW) survey. The engineer recommended that the landlord should carry out remediation work.
On 20 December 2024 the resident complained to the landlord that it had not kept him updated about its findings in relation to the fire safety status of the building. He said he not heard from it in over 2 years. He explained that he had made “a lot of attempts” to obtain an update but that the landlord was “refusing to even acknowledge” his enquiries.
The landlord issued its stage 1 response to the complaint on 7 January 2025. It said:
1. its inspection of the building identified “missing cavity barriers” and that “cladding material was classified as non-fire resistant”.
2. “interim measures were considered necessary” and residents would “be updated accordingly”.
3. its communication with the resident regarding the issue “should have been managed more effectively and delivered more swiftly”.
4. it was sorry for its delayed communication and had arranged to send the resident a £50 e-voucher in recognition of this.
The resident asked the landlord on 13 January 2025 to escalate his complaint as he did not consider it resolved. He said he was confused about “the actual status of the cladding and other fire safety defects” at the building. He set out a series of 9 questions relating specifically to his building, plus 5 questions regarding the landlord’s approach more generally to building remediation work. He suggested that there was a “conspiracy of silence” by the landlord. He said he suspected it was doing “nothing” about cladding in low rise buildings and “waiting it out” in the hope that something would change and it would not have to carry out the work.
The landlord issued its stage 2 response to the complaint on 10 February 2025. It said:
1. it was “unable to add anything” to the stage 1 response already provided.
2. a Building and Fire Safety Manager would respond to his “additional query”.
3. it was sorry that communications had “not always been easy and straightforward” and that this caused the resident “a lot of inconvenience and frustration”.
4. it had learnt lessons from this complaint case and had passed feedback on to the relevant managers.
Upon receiving the stage 2 response, the resident referred his complaint to us. He explained that he was “unable to sell or re-mortgage [his property] due to the fact [the building] has flammable cladding and cavity wall defects that mean it would fail an EWS1 inspection”. He said that although the landlord had acknowledged its poor communications in its complaint responses, it still had not told him of its plans in relation to the required remediation work. He is seeking for the landlord to “realise [it] cannot ignore leaseholders” and for it to update him on its intentions regarding the remediation work.

Assessment and findings

In response to the tragic events of Grenfell in June 2017, the government has introduced various measures to improve fire safety in the external walls of buildings, particularly those with cladding. We understand the difficulties social housing landlords have faced in navigating, resourcing and complying with the evolving guidance and legislation in this area. However, as we highlighted in our Spotlight report ‘Dealing with Cladding Complaints’, the situation is “infinitely worse” for any resident living in a home affected by the new regime.
The most common complaints we see are from leaseholders and shared owners in blocks of flats who have faced difficulties with re-mortgaging, staircasing or selling their home. This is because mortgage companies have been unwilling to lend money to them or prospective purchasers unless they can provide certification (an ESW1 form) to show the external walls comply with government guidance and legislation.
It is usually the responsibility of the freeholder of the building to obtain the ESW1 form, which can only be issued by a qualified expert in fire safety and external wall systems. However, in order to obtain this certification, the freeholder often has to carry out remediation work in order to bring the walls of the building up to the required standard. This has caused significant resourcing issues for many social housing landlords who own large numbers of potentially affected buildings. It has meant that thousands of leaseholders and shared owners across England are still living in buildings which do not have an ESW1 form. This limits their options if they wish to sell, staircase or re-mortgage and has led to many complaints.
In order to appropriately manage this difficult situation, most landlords have adopted a risk-based approach to prioritising their buildings for inspection and completing work. In doing so, the most common factors they consider are the height of the building, occupancy and known building materials. While we find this on balance to be a rational approach, we outlined in our Spotlight report ‘Dealing with Cladding Complaints’ that we expect landlords to:
1. ensure they have a robust and well-resourced strategy.
2. communicate effectively and proactively with affected residents.
3. address the individual circumstances presented in any complaints received and, where appropriate, exercise discretion as they would with other complaints.
In this case, the landlord accepted in its complaint responses that it had failed over the previous 2 years to communicate effectively or proactively with the resident. Based on the evidence we have seen, some of the key milestones it should reasonably have informed him and other residents about included:
1. that it carried out a fire safety inspection of the building in 2022.
2. that based on the findings of this inspection, it had put in place interim measures pending further investigations, including a temporary fire alarm system.
3. that it carried out a FRAEW survey in 2023 which confirmed remediation work was required. It should at this stage have been in a position to advise residents what the work entailed and its proposed next steps.
4. that it became aware in 2024 that it could no longer rely on the findings of the FRAEW survey due to issues with the company that carried it out. It therefore needed to arrange for an independent panel of fire engineers to review the survey. It would potentially then need to arrange for the building to be re-surveyed.
That the landlord did not proactively provide the resident with any of the above information before he submitted a formal complaint was a failing. It is noted that the landlord appropriately acknowledged its communications were poor and apologised for this in its stage 1 complaint response. It reasonably offered the resident a £50 e-voucher as compensation. However, it missed the opportunity to fully resolve the complaint as it did not include within its stage 1 response an update on the latest situation with the building.
For example, it referred in the stage 1 response to the 2022 inspection but did not mention the 2023 survey or setbacks in 2024 that rendered the survey unreliable. It confirmed that it had identified there were fire safety issues with the building. However, it provided no indication of whether it had accepted it should carry out remediation work and, if so, what this was or when this would be. Instead, it simply said that “residents will be updated accordingly”. Given the crux of the resident’s complaint was that it had not kept him updated, which it accepted, it was unreasonable that it did not include an update within its stage 1 response.
This led to the resident expressing frustration in his escalation request that the landlord had still not clarified what its findings and intentions were in relation to the building. The lack of information he had received from it up to that point led him to believe that it was intentionally not carrying out the work. While we are satisfied this was not the case, it is understandable why he reached this conclusion. The absence of information from the landlord had caused him uncertainty and distress.
The resident asked the landlord in his escalation request to respond to 14 questions, 9 of which related specifically to his building. The questions included whether the landlord had decided yet if it would carry out the remediation work. If it had decided it would carry out the work, he wanted to know what the work entailed, how it would communicate this to residents, and the likely timeframes and costs involved. These were all reasonable questions. It was unreasonable that the landlord had not already proactively provided the resident with the information he sought and that it took for him to escalate his complaint in order to obtain it.
In its stage 2 response the landlord failed to recognise that it had not resolved the complaint at stage 1. Instead, it said it had nothing to add to the stage 1 response. It did not answer any of the resident’s 14 questions. It said, “there is an open additional query… and one of our Building and Fire Safety Managers will be in touch with you and [will] be the point of contact should you have any questions”. It appears to have meant by this, that it would respond to the 14 questions separately, although its wording was not clear.
The lack of clarity in the stage 2 response led to the resident spending further time and trouble in following up with the landlord. Upon receiving the stage 2 response, he replied to the landlord the same day. He said it was “astounding” it had answered none of his questions. He asked it to clarify the name, email address and date by which he would hear from a Building and Fire Safety Manager. He outlined his concern that the landlord had told him many times that “someone will be in touch”, but that this “just never happens”. He also on the same day referred his complaint to us. In doing so, he outlined his frustration that the landlord had still not told him of its intentions in relation to his building.
The landlord subsequently responded by email 3 days later to the resident’s questions. It was a detailed response that explained why it needed to review the 2023 FRAEW survey and potentially re-survey the building. It said it would write to all residents once it had done this and determined the full scope of any remediation work required. It advised that the timeframe between the inspection and it carrying out any work would likely be prolonged due to a range of factors. This included that it had hundreds of affected buildings requiring inspection and work. It explained that it carried out inspections and any required work in risk order. It provided a link to its website which provided more general information about its building safety inspection programme.
We are satisfied that the landlord’s explanation about why it had not yet carried out any remediation work to the building, and its intended next steps, was reasonable. However, that it was not provided until almost 2 months after the resident made his complaint was unreasonable. Had it provided the information sooner, it would have saved the resident the additional time and trouble of escalating his complaint and then chasing a further response once the internal complaints process had completed.
Overall, we find there was service failure in the landlord’s communications with the resident in relation to building safety. It did not communicate effectively or proactively with him about actions it had taken or proposed to take to ensure his building met fire safety requirements. It acknowledged this in its complaint responses. However, it missed the opportunity to provide reasonable redress as it did not provide the update the resident sought until after the complaints process was completed and the resident had referred it to us.
In line with our Remedies Guidance, we order the landlord to pay the resident £100 compensation for the distress caused by its service failure and for his time and trouble in chasing it for updates. This is in addition to the £50 e-voucher it has already offered him.
Although the landlord has now responded to the resident’s questions about his building specifically, it did not fully respond to 4 questions he asked about its approach to building remediation work more generally. It said it had asked colleagues for the information and would get back to the resident once it had received this. We do not know if it subsequently did so. We have therefore ordered it to review its responses to the resident and ensure it has answered all his questions about building safety.
The landlord has explained to the resident that it is “carrying out one of the largest building safety inspection and remediation programmes in the country”. We note from its website that as of May 2025, it has inspected 1,800 out of 2,200 buildings. So far it has identified that 220 buildings required remediation work. It has completed the work to 63 of them and is working on site at another 47 buildings.
We recognise the scale and complexity of the task ahead of the landlord to complete all of this work. However, it is important that it does not lose sight of the impact that continued delay, however understandable, has on residents. It is vital that it prioritises communication and provides appropriate and timely updates to all those affected on a regular basis. Failure to do so will likely result in it receiving further complaints from dissatisfied residents, such as in this case. We have recommended that the landlord adheres to the commitment made in its complaint responses to keep residents in the building updated about the fire safety work. If it does not, the resident may raise a new complaint.

Determination

In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was service failure in the landlord’s communications with the resident in relation to building safety.

Orders

Within 4 weeks of the date of this report, the landlord should:
1. apologise to the resident for the service failure identified in this report. The apology should follow the best practice set out in the Ombudsman’s Remedies Guidance.
2. pay the resident £100 compensation for the distress caused by the service failure in its communications and his time and trouble in chasing it for updates.
3. ensure it has responded fully to all of the 14 questions raised by the resident in his escalation request email of 13 January 2025, including any follow up questions.

Recommendations

We recommend that the landlord adheres to the commitment it made in its complaint responses to keep residents in the building updated about the fire safety work. In line with our Spotlight report ‘Dealing with Cladding Complaints’, this should be at least once every 3 months, even when there is little or no change.