London & Quadrant Housing Trust (L&Q) (202310405)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202310405

London & Quadrant Housing Trust (L&Q)

14 November 2024

 

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 repairs required to the resident’s bathroom extractor fan and ventilation system.
  2. The Ombudsman has also considered the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

  1. The resident is a secure tenant with the landlord, a housing association, and lives in a 1-bedroom flat on floor 15 of a high-rise block.
  2. The resident reported that his bathroom extractor fan was not working in February 2020 and again in June 2021. In July 2021 the resident raised a complaint with the landlord as the issue had not been fixed. The landlord responded at stage 1 on 13 August 2021 and advised that a contractor had attended the block and found that new drive belts were required. This work was planned for 6 September 2021 and the landlord offered £230 in compensation for the distress, inconvenience, time, effort and delay in repair.
  3. The resident continued to raise concerns that the issue had not been fixed and after this Service contacted the landlord on 22 June 2023, it issued its stage 2 complaint response on 13 July 2023. The stage 2 response said:
    1. The resident had first reported the bathroom ventilation issue in February 2020, but its contractor did not address this at the time.
    2. After follow on works to the ventilation system were completed on 6 September 2020 the contractor could not locate a switch to turn the system back on. It took until 22 November 2021 for the landlord to locate the switch, however, when the system was turned on it was found further works were required.
    3. After investigation it was discovered that the whole ventilation system in the block would need replacing. Despite the resident making further reports about the extractor fan and ventilation system not working in his flat, no works had taken place. This was because all works were cancelled due to the planned work to fix the ventilation system in the entire block.
    4. The landlord would tell the resident a timeframe for completion of the planned works once this was known, and the resident would be kept updated on the situation. As a interim solution the landlord would meet with the resident and its contractor at the resident’s home on 19 July 2023 to investigate a temporary system for his property.
    5. Compensation of £3,560 would be offered broken down as:
      1. £2,460 for the distress and inconvenience caused.
      2. £410 for the delays in conducting a repair.
      3. £240 for the delay in issuing a stage 2 response.
      4. £200 for time and effort taken by the resident.
      5. £200 for the stage 1 complaint handling errors.
      6. £50 for a lack of communication.
  4. The Ombudsman understands that as of the date of this report, no planned works have taken place to replace the ventilation system. The resident is still reporting issues with his bathroom extractor fan and is unhappy that this issue has yet to be resolved.

Assessment and findings

Scope of Complaint

  1. The scope of this investigation is focussed on the issues raised during the resident’s formal complaint. This is because under paragraph 42.a. of the Scheme the Ombudsman may not consider complaint which are made prior to having exhausted the landlord’s complaint procedure. The resident has explained that he has had issues with the heating system at his flat and that there are issues with antisocial behaviour (ASB). However, these issues were not raised as a formal complaint and have yet to exhaust the landlord’s complaint procedure. The landlord needs to be given a fair opportunity to investigate and respond to any reported dissatisfaction with its actions prior to the involvement of this Service. Therefore, should the resident remain unhappy with these issues, he should continue to use the landlord’s complaint procedure.
  2. The Ombudsman understands that the resident also has some concerns about the landlord’s handling of the ventilation system after the stage 2 complaint response was issued on 19 July 2023. However, this complaint relates to the replacement of the block’s entire ventilation system as a ‘planned work’, rather than the complaint the resident raised about an individual repair to his property. As this is a new complaint, the landlord needs to be given a fair opportunity to investigate and respond to this prior to the involvement of this Service. Therefore, if the resident is unhappy with the landlord’s handling of this planned work since 19 July 2023, he should raise a new formal complaint.

Bathroom extractor fan

  1. The resident first reported issues at his property, which included the need for a repair to the extractor fan in the bathroom on 5 February 2020. Despite the landlord attending the resident’s property it did not carry out any work to the extractor fan at this time. Following this, the resident made a further report on 9 June 2021 about the extractor fan and the landlord attended on 21 June 2021.
  2. As the landlord rightly acknowledged in its stage 2 complaint response, this initial delay in dealing with the resident’s concerns about the extractor fan was unreasonable. The landlord failed to address the issues with ventilation in the bathroom at the first instance which was not in line with its repair policy that says the landlord will, “aim to complete the repair at the earliest mutually convenient appointment.” This caused the resident some frustration and distress.
  3. The landlord delayed the repair further between 21 June and 22 November 2021. It took the landlord 11 weeks to complete the appropriate follow on work after the 21 June 2021 appointment, and then a further 11 weeks to locate a switch to turn the ventilation system back on. This total delay of 22 weeks was unreasonable and not in line with its repair policy. The landlord also failed to communicate with the resident during this period to explain the reasons for the delay which increased the resident’s frustration and distress.
  4. The resident reported further issues with the extractor fan on 18 May 2022 and 27 February 2023. On both occasions the landlord did not carry out work to fix the extractor fan issue. It was not until the landlord’s stage 2 complaint response dated 13 July 2023 that the resident was told the reason for this. The landlord told the resident that there was a problem with the whole ventilation system in the block and that it was likely this system would need to be replaced in its entirety. The lack of communication around the issue left the resident with a feeling that the landlord was not taking the issue seriously and increased his frustration and distress.
  5. In the landlord’s stage 2 complaint response as part of the resolution to the complaint it said that it would attend the resident’s property on 19 July 2023 to investigate installing a temporary system in the resident’s property to resolve the issue. However, the landlord has been unable to evidence that this meeting took place or that any interim measures have been installed at the resident’s property. This does not align with its repairs policy which says that it will, “constantly seek solutions to problems by taking both ownership and responsibility”. Despite the offer from the landlord to seek an interim solution it failed to take ownership or responsibility and follow through with this action. This was unreasonable and increased the resident’s frustration and distress.
  6. It is important to acknowledge when the landlord recognises its failings and attempts to put things right. In the landlord’s stage 2 complaint response it appropriately acknowledged the failings in its service and explained the actions it would take to resolve the issue by carrying out planned works. In addition to this it offered the resident a total of £3,120 in compensation for the delays and lack of communication, the distress and inconvenience caused, and the time and trouble taken by the resident. This total figure is in line with this Service’s guidance on remedies which recommends payments of £1,000 or more are considered where there has been a severe long-term impact.
  7. The Ombudsman did consider whether the landlord’s offer to resolve the complaint at stage 2 was reasonable redress. However, part of that resolution was to meet with the resident on 19 July 2023 and the landlord has failed to provide any evidence to show that this took place. Therefore, taking all the circumstances into account, the Ombudsman considers the landlord’s actions amount to a service failure. This is because there were significant failures by the landlord that were suitably addressed via its compensation offer, but this offer does not reflect the detriment caused to the resident by its failure to meet the resident as per its stage 2 complaint response. To remedy this service failure the landlord should make a payment of £100 in addition to the £3,120 it already offered.

Complaint handling

  1. The landlord operates a 2-stage complaint procedure. It says that it will respond at stage 1 of its process within 10 working days after receiving the complaint, and stage 2 within 20 working days of the request to escalate.
  2. In this instance, the landlord responded at stage 1 within the timescales set out in its procedure. However, it took the landlord roughly 2 years to provide a stage 2 complaint response and only provided this response after this Service’s intervention. This was unreasonable and had a significant impact on the resident’s ability to escalate his complaint to the Ombudsman sooner.
  3. In its stage 2 response the landlord offered £440 in total for the failures in its complaint handling. This Service’s guide on remedies says that where there was an adverse but not permanent impact that affected the resident a payment of between £100 to £600 is proportionate. The landlord’s offer falls within this range, and it advised the resident it would use the findings from the complaint investigation to ensure similar failures do not happen again. The landlord also apologised to the resident for the failure. Therefore, taking all the circumstances into account the Ombudsman considers that this offer was reasonable redress.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was service failure in the landlord’s handling of the repairs required to the resident’s bathroom extractor fan and ventilation system.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 53.b. of the Scheme, there was reasonable redress in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks of the date of this report the landlord is ordered to:
    1. Write an apology to the resident for the failures identified in this report.
    2. Pay the resident £100 in addition to the £3,120 already offered (if it has not already been paid) in relation to the failures identified in the handling of repairs.
    3. Write to the resident with a full explanation of the planned works to the ventilation system and when these are likely to take place. If this is not possible, then the landlord should provide an action plan to the resident that specifies what action it will take to fix the ventilation issue, when it will take this action and how often it will update the resident about this.

Recommendation

  1. It is recommended that the landlord pay the resident £440 for the failures in its complaint handling, if it has not already done so.