Midland Heart Limited (202311497)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202311497

Midland Heart Limited

21 February 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. This complaint is about the landlord’s handling of reports about drainage issues and subsequent repairs in the resident’s property.

Background

  1. The resident holds an assured tenancy.
  2. The property is a 2-bedroom house. The resident has a young child living at the property.
  3. The resident contacted the landlord on 6 December 2022 due to slow draining water and smells from her kitchen. The landlord attended on the same day to resolve the issue. The resident reported a reoccurrence of the drainage problem on 9 February 2023 and a sewage leak in her bathroom on 5 March 2023. The landlord attended on 6 March 2023 to unblock a manhole in the back garden. The resident reported further drainage issues on 4 April 2023 and 24 April 2023. The landlord attended to resolve blockages on both occasions.
  4. The resident contacted the landlord on 24 April 2023 to raise a formal complaint about its handling of the blockages. She said this was the fifth occasion she had reported this. She wanted an investigation carried out on the drain system to stop this from reoccurring.
  5. The landlord provided its stage 1 complaint response on 10 May 2023. It said it had performed a CCTV survey of the drainage system and found a main drain collapse. It had passed this to a surveyor to approve the works needed. It admitted that it made errors identifying the root cause of the drain issues and said, once it had completed works, it would offer her redress for its failings.
  6. The landlord attended on 5 July 2023 to perform a repair. The resident requested to escalate her complaint to stage 2 of the complaints process on 21 July 2023 as remedial repairs to her bathroom remained outstanding. The landlord completed repairs to the resident’s bathroom flooring on 1 August 2023.
  7. The landlord provided its stage 2 complaint response on 15 August 2023. It offered the resident £840 compensation for its failures, consisting of £705 for inconvenience, impact and delays, £100 contribution for damaged items and a £35 decoration voucher for a bathroom repaint.
  8. Following the stage 2 complaint response, the resident reported new blockages on 12 September 2023, 27 September 2023, 28 November 2023, 4 December 2023, 27 December 2023, and 1 January 2024. The resident contacted the Ombudsman on 22 January 2024 to ask us to consider her complaint. She said the problem had been ongoing for over a year and that the landlord had still not identified the root cause. She told the Ombudsman that the landlord completed more works in February 2024 but that she continued to experience blockages and sewage leaks later in 2024.

Assessment and findings

  1. The landlord’s repair policy says that it will attend to emergency repairs within 24 hours of a resident report. It describes emergency repairs as those which risk more damage to the resident or the property. For non-emergency repairs, it says it will attempt to carry these out within 28 days of  a resident’s report.
  2. The resident reported various blockages and drainage issues on at least 6 occasions in the period covered by this complaint. The resident reported these on 6 December 2022, 9 February 2023, 5 March 2023, 4 April 2023, 24 April 2023, and 9 June 2023. The landlord responded to these appropriately, attending within the 24-hour timescales stated in its repairs policy. This was fair from the landlord and it appropriately followed its repairs policy.
  3. However, blockages were ongoing for 4 and a half months before it took reasonable steps towards investigating the root cause of the drainage issues. It only undertook a full survey after the fourth report. The landlord was right to first attempt remedial repairs. However, it should have recognised the frequency of callouts for the same issue earlier than it did and performed a survey of the drainage system. This was a service failure.
  4. The landlord did eventually commission a CCTV survey of the drains. It organised a specialist contractor to perform this on 9 May 2023. It has failed to provide a copy of the related report to the Ombudsman. However, its stage 1 complaint response said that this survey found that ‘the main drain system has collapsed’. It also said that it passed this information to its surveyor to approve works.
  5. It provided this information to the resident on 10 May 2023 but failed to perform related follow-on works until 11 July 2023. This was a 2-month delay and outside of the timescales in the landlord’s repairs policy. The landlord took 7 months, from the first report, to conduct works. The landlord also agreed to replace flooring damaged by sewage escape. It did this on 2 August 2023, around 8 months from the resident first reporting blockages albeit it is not clear when it was decided that the floor renewal was necessary. Ultimately, the time taken for the landlord to complete repairs was outside of the timescales it set in its repairs policy.
  6. The contractor who performed the follow-on works disputed that the drain had collapsed. The contractor came out to jet-wash and unblock the drain. The landlord’s records state that it moved plastic back into place, although it is not clear exactly what plastic this was or where the contractor moved this from and to. These repairs failed to resolve the resident’s drainage problems.
  7. Following the conclusion of the complaint, and after new reports of drainage problems, the landlord undertook a second CCTV survey on 8 February 2024. This survey again mentioned the cause as a collapsed drain. Both surveys therefore identified a collapsed drain as the root cause of the resident’s drainage issues. These surveys were approximately 9 months apart and it is unclear why the landlord did not rectify this fault during that period.
  8. The landlord’s failure to ensure that contractors completed the correct works following the initial survey resulted in the problem continuing for a significant period of time. Given contractors’ apparent disagreement over which works were needed following the initial May 2023 survey, it would have been appropriate for the landlord to post-inspect any works to ensure they successfully resolved the drainage problems. The landlord’s failure to do so meant there was an unreasonable delay in reaching a resolution, during which time the resident experienced multiple sewage leaks. This will have caused distress and inconvenience to her.
  9. The resident reported to the landlord that sewage damaged her flooring and items in her bathroom. The landlord asked the resident for receipts for the damaged items, but she said she was not able to provide any. The landlord acknowledged this, providing the resident with £100 compensation. It also replaced her damaged flooring. This was a reasonable and resolution-focused response from the landlord to address the reported damages.
  10. The landlord recognised failings through the complaints process. In addition to the above £100, it offered compensation of £705 for the inconvenience, impact and delays caused by its failures and a £35 decoration voucher for a bathroom repaint. This was a proportionate compensation award within the range that the Ombudsman would recommend where there has been a failure that had a significant impact on a resident. Had the landlord rectified the drainage fault at the same time, this would have been a reasonable offer of redress.
  11. However, the resident continued to report blockages and drainage issues – this is reflected in the landlord’s repairs records. The landlord’s failure to ensure it completed the correct works resulted in the resident experiencing more toilet blockage problems, causing her additional distress and inconvenience. This also indicated that it failed to learn lessons from the earlier failings that it identified through its complaint investigation. The landlord’s failure to properly put things right and learn from outcomes represented maladministration.
  12. Given the landlord’s failures extended at least until it completed a second CCTV survey in February 2024, it should increase its compensation offer to a total of £1,300. This is inclusive of its previous offer of £840. This is in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance which recommends figures in this range where there have been a series of significant failures which demonstrate ‘a failure to provide a service, put things right and learn from outcomes’.
  13. As the resident reported that the problem was ongoing later into 2024, the landlord should also arrange a new survey of the entire system. It should then also complete a review of its actions from February 2024 onwards to see if there are further failings and make a compensation offer for this if appropriate.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of reports about drainage issues and subsequent repairs in the resident’s property.

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks of the date of this letter, the landlord must:
    1. Pay the resident £1,300 compensation, inclusive of the £840 compensation it offered in its stage 2 complaint response.
    2. Arrange a new survey of the drainage system. Within 2 weeks of it completing the survey, the landlord should write to the resident and the Ombudsman to provide a copy of the report, including a schedule of any works it finds to be necessary (with timescales for completion).
    3. Perform a review of its actions from February 2024 onwards to see if there were further failings and, if so, make a compensation offer to the resident for this.
    4. Write to the resident to apologise for the service failures identified in this report, provide the outcome of its review and explain its decision for any new compensation awards.
    5. Provide evidence to the Ombudsman that it has done so.