Newlon Housing Trust (202125203)

Back to Top

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202125203

Newlon Housing Trust

20 June 2022


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 the resident’s reports about a leak in the property.

Background

  1. The resident is a shared-ownership leaseholder with the landlord at the property.
  2. On 21 May 2021, the resident called the landlord to report a leak in the property. The resident was told that the landlord was not responsible for the repairs and that the resident would have to liaise with the flat above. On 24 May 2021, the resident contacted again and explained that she had attempted to contact the landlord multiple times to report the leak. The advice was given for the resident to find her own plumber to identify the source of the leak. Both the resident and the flat above booked their own plumbers but were unable to find the source of the leak. The resident told the landlord that she was ‘scared and worried’ and that she believed it was the landlord’s responsibility to fix as she believed it to be an emergency. On 25 May 2021 the landlord instructed an agent to attend the property to identify whether the source of the leak was from a specific property in the adjacent building.
  3. On 27 May the leak was identified and stopped. However, contractors advised that a drain needed replacing as the leak could happen again. The landlord asked the resident to ‘kindly liaise’ with the neighbour from whom the leak had originated in order to have the issue resolved permanently. The landlord advised that the resident was responsible for any internal repairs and therefore it was unable to arrange for a contractor to repair walls, ceiling or carpet. The resident insisted that the landlord was responsible for the repairs as the leak came from outside of the property. The resident also said that the landlord had been negligent as it had taken too long to identify the source of the leak. At this point, on 4 June 2021, the complaint was escalated to stage one by the landlord. The formal response was issued on 29 June 2021, in which the landlord confirmed that it was reviewing the resident’s request for the internal repairs to be completed by the landlord.
  4. The resident requested escalation to stage two on 9 July 2021. The landlord responded on 12 August and noted that the damage to the walls and ceilings was to be covered by insurers but that it had requested a surveyor to review the damage to the carpet and internal decorations. It agreed that there was a lack of urgency in identifying the cause of the leak, and that its responses to the resident were ‘non-existent or very limited’. The landlord acknowledged that the response did not consider the stress and anxiety of the situation and again offered an apology. It also offered a total of £200 compensation. The landlord confirmed that the repairs were now complete aside from a mould wash and decorative repairs which it was organising at the time of writing the response.
  5. The resident confirmed in an email to this Service on 23 March 2022 that the work had been completed but that she was not satisfied with the compensation offer; instead she sought a payment of £10,000 to be awarded due to the ‘psychological damage’ caused.

Assessment and findings

Policies & Procedures

  1. Section 3(3) of the Lease Agreement states that it is the leaseholder’s duty ‘To keep the interior of the premises… clean and in good substantial repair’.
  2. Section 5(3)(a) of the Lease Agreement states that the landlord is responsible for the ‘main structure of the building and all external parts thereof’.
  3. Section 2 of the landlord’s Complaints Procedure states that there are multiple factors to be considered when formulating a remedy, such as ‘number of different failures’ and the ‘cumulative impact on [the] resident’.
  4. Section 3.3.1 of the landlord’s Compensation Policy states that £10-25 per week is payable for delays in repairs. It states that a failure of service warrants an offer of £25. It is also stated that in the event of loss or damage to a property, or damage to the resident’s belongings, the resident is to be referred to claim from their own home insurance. In exceptional circumstances, the landlord may consider paying the cost of cleaning, repairing or replacing damaged items such as flooring.
  5. Section 3.4.1 of the landlord’s Compensation Policy states that awards of £50-£250 can be paid for service failures that had a short duration and have not significantly affected the overall outcome for the complainant.

Scope of Investigation

  1. The resident has said that the landlord’s handling of the reports about the leak in the property has impacted her mental health and caused ‘psychological damage’. This Service cannot draw conclusions on the causation of, or liability for, impacts on health and wellbeing in relation to a member landlord’s acts or omissions. This would be more usually dealt with as a personal injury claim through the courts. The courts can call on medical experts and make legally binding judgements. Nonetheless, consideration has been given to the general distress and inconvenience which the situation may have caused the resident. This is in accordance with paragraph 39(i) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme which says that the Ombudsman will not investigate complaints which concern maters where the Ombudsman considers it quicker, fairer, more reasonable or more effective to seek a remedy through the courts, a designated person, other tribunal or procedure.

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports about a leak in the property

  1. The resident’s first report of the leak was given to the landlord on 21 May 2021. The landlord advised the resident that it was not responsible for repairs and that the resident would need to liaise with the flat above in order to stop the leak. The landlord tried to make contact with the flat above but could not get through, and therefore left a voicemail informing the occupants of the situation. Although the landlord had told the resident that it was not its responsibility to fix the leak, it did make attempts to resolve the situation, albeit unsuccessfully.
  2. Although the landlord helped by attempting to contact the property above on the resident’s behalf, it was not good practise to have assumed that that is where the leak had originated from. The landlord would be expected to investigate the leak itself in order to determine the source. This is because although section 3(3) of the Lease Agreement states that it is the leaseholder’s duty to ‘keep the interior of the premises… clean and in good substantial repair’, the landlord is still liable for certain repair responsibilities as section 5(3)(a) of the Lease Agreement states that the landlord is responsible for the ‘main structure of the building and all external parts thereof’. Therefore, in these circumstances there was reasonable expectation for the landlord to take sufficient action so as to identify the cause of the leak and, in doing so, be able to identify repair responsibility for any identified remedial actions.
  3. On 24 May 2021, the resident notified the landlord that herself and the occupants of the property above had hired their own plumbers as advised by the landlord. However, the resident’s plumber was unable to find the source of the leak within the property, and no leak was found in the property above either. On the same day an emergency job was raised by the landlord for a visit to the property. The landlord’s contractor identified that the leak could have been coming from a separate building.
  4. The emergency visit could have been conducted on the day that the leak was reported. As stated above, the landlord had a responsibility to determine whether there was anything that it was obliged to do in order to identify the source and stop the leak. Its failure to do so conveyed a lack of urgency to the resident, and as the resident wrote herself, it made her feel that the landlord had not shown any ‘concern or responsibility’. She and the other resident within the building had also presumably incurred costs in instructing a private contractor to attend in their attempts to identify the root cause of the issue.
  5. On 27 May 2021 the landlord confirmed that a job had been raised for contractors to attend and investigate the leak, and to identify the property that the leak was coming from. The source of the leak was confirmed as having originated from the adjacent building, and a temporary fix was put in place. This was a reasonable action by the landlord as it was not the landlord’s responsibility to fix the leak as it came from a different building. The landlord was right to put a temporary fix in place so as to prevent any further damage, but also to advise the resident to liaise with the occupant of the building in order to ensure that a more permanent fix was installed. However, the original failure to send contractors sooner to identify the building and source of the leak amounts to a service failure. This was acknowledged by the landlord in its stage one response (29 June 2021). The landlord identified that ‘The urgency in identifying the connected properties for inspection should have been prioritised a lot sooner, to prevent any further damage from happening’. The landlord offered an apology for this.
  6. The landlord also acknowledged in the stage one response that while the source of the leak had been identified, the internal damage caused was still outstanding at that point. It noted that the resident had requested for the internal repairs to be completed by the landlord and advised that it was reviewing this request. In an email dated 4 June 2021, the landlord advised the resident that she was responsible for internal repairs and that any damages to contents or carpets would need to be claimed via home contents insurance.
  7. Although this is in line with the landlord’s Compensation Policy, section 3.3.1 of the policy also states that ‘in exceptional circumstances, the [landlord] may consider paying the cost of cleaning, repairing or replacing damaged items such as flooring’. Given the landlord’s admittance of service failure that may have led to further damage, it would have amounted to a reasonable exercise of discretion had the landlord chosen to cover these repairs itself. As for the damage to the wall and ceiling, the landlord acknowledged in its final response (12 August 2021) that these were to be covered by its insurers. The contact details of the insurer had been provided to the resident on 1 June 2021.
  8. The landlord’s final response acknowledged that the majority of the repairs had been completed aside from a mould wash and decorative repairs. The landlord assured the resident that these were being organised. The completion of the work was later confirmed by the resident in a call to this Service on 23 March 2022. The final response also acknowledged that the stage one response had not taken into account the stress and anxiety the situation had caused. The landlord offered a total of £200 compensation in recognition of the poor communication, the delayed response to the repair and also for the inconvenience caused.
  9. Although this is in line with section 3.4.1 of the landlord’s Compensation Policy, which states that awards of £50-£250 can be awarded for service failures that had a short duration, it is the opinion of this Service that this does not fully reflect the service failure and subsequent effects it had on the resident. The resident reported that she had lost use of the room due to a leak that was described by the landlord as ‘uncontrollable’ and as a result, was forced to sleep in the lounge for several days. The landlord then failed to urgently address the situation which as the landlord identified itself, potentially led to further damage occurring.
  10. Additionally, the resident expressed extreme worry that the ceiling would collapse due to the leak. It would have been appropriate for the landlord to reassure the resident that she was safe, but this was not addressed in any of the correspondence with the resident until the final response. This is indicative of the acknowledged communication issues identified by the landlord. This is further emphasised in the final response as the landlord stated that ‘[the resident was] emailing [the landlord] on a daily basis for updates and the responses appear to be either non-existent or very limited’.
  11. It should be noted that the landlord agreed to carry out the redecoration works, although there was no evidence to suggest it was required to. Whilst this was commendable, its initial failure to take prompt and effective action, and its poor communication with the resident led to avoidable damage to the property which caused the resident and her family stress and anxiety. This warrants, in the Ombudsman’s view, a payment of additional compensation.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports about a leak in the property.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

  1. The landlord is ordered to pay the resident a total of £300 compensation to reflect the overall failures on the case. Any compensation already paid to be subtracted from this figure.
  2. The landlord to evidence compliance to this Service with this order within 28 days of this report.