North Tyneside Council (202215499)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202215499

North Tyneside Council

4 May 2023

 

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 several outstanding repairs to the property, including leaks from the bathroom and kitchen.

Background

  1. The resident occupies the property, owned by the landlord, with her son under a secure tenancy.
  2. The landlord carried out repairs in April 2019 following a leak in the resident’s bathroom. The bath was removed so that replastering and tiling could be done, and then replaced.
  3. The resident again reported a leak in the bathroom in October 2021. Work was completed a week later, however the resident reported to the landlord that it was leaking again in March 2022. Work remained ongoing for months afterwards to attempt to resolve both the leak itself and the subsequent damp in the rooms below.
  4. On 5 May 2022 the landlord responded to the resident’s initial concerns informally. It stated that responsive repairs had been carried out on five separate occasions since the leak, dating back to April 2019. Its plumbers did not find anything untoward with the tiles until the bath was removed, which created a far bigger job than the plumbers were capable of carrying out. A plasterer attended the same day to remove the full wall of tiles. The landlord agreed to retiling in full and offered £60 in decoration vouchers.
  5. The resident raised a formal complaint on the issue to the landlord on 24 June 2022. The landlord responded to this complaint on 15 July 2022. In its response, it reiterated that the loose tiling only became apparent when the bath was removed. It agreed to apply stain-block and salt neutralizer to get rid of stains and said it would attend before 22 July 2022 to complete the work.
  6. The resident responded to the landlord, unhappy with the response, on 21 July 2022. The landlord sent its final response on 25 August 2022, where it said it appreciated that being told the tiles could have fallen at any time caused concern. It confirmed that the repairs to the bathroom were complete and further works were ongoing to repair water damage downstairs. It apologised for the trouble caused and offered £100 to recognise this. The resident remained unhappy and referred her complaint to this Service.

Assessment and findings

Scope of the investigation

  1. Since she referred her complaint to the Ombudsman, the resident has raised further concerns with the tiling and damp patches in the living room. She has also raised a concern about problems with the boiler.
  2. The resident has also said that the issue with the leak is a continuation of the problem fixed in 2019. The landlord repaired the initial issue in 2019 without further report of a leak for 17 months. This Service has seen no evidence of any further leaking, or that the resident raised it as an ongoing issue, during that time. The landlord had no way of knowing whether it had resolved the underlying cause of the leak without further reports of it being made to it of any issues.
  3. Under paragraphs 42(a) and 42(c) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the Ombudsman may not consider complaints which, in our opinion, are made prior to having exhausted a landlord’s complaints procedure; or were not brought to the landlord as a complaint within six months of when they arose.
  4. In light of the above, this investigation focuses on the issues with the landlord had the opportunity to consider in its complaints procedure, and which were raised and addressed in its complaint responses in July and August 2022. The resident has the option to raise her new concerns to the landlord, and to make a complaint if she is unhappy with its reply to these.

The landlord’s handling of outstanding repairs to the property

  1. The landlord has an obligation to carry out repairs in line with the timescales set out in its repair policy. The resident first reported this incidence of leaking on 18 October 2021. The landlord’s job notes indicate the repair should have been carried out within three working days. A repair was carried out on 25 October 2021, which is slightly outside this timescale.
  2. The resident did not make any further contact with the landlord about the leak until 1 March 2022, when she reported that there were fresh water marks on the ceiling below. The landlord’s job notes again show that this should have had a three working day turnaround, however it was attended to on 9 March, slightly outside this timescale.
  3. A further issue was reported on 11 March, where the bath was removed, the bottom row of tiles was removed and replaced, and the bath was replaced and resealed. This was completed on 22 March which was within the 30-working day timescale set out for this type of job.
  4. A job was booked on 25 April to renew the bath panel, frame and skirting, which was completed on 7 June. At the same time, a job was booked to retile two full walls, which was completed on 15 May. Both were completed within the respective 30 and 45 working day timescales set out for these types of job.
  5. This retiling was completed after a problem with the original tiling, where the full wall of tiles fell down after the bath was removed. The resident raised concerns about what would have happened had they fallen on her or her son. Fortunately, no one was harmed when they did fall and this Service cannot comment on what could have happened, only on what did happen. The resident may wish to seek legal advice regarding whether she could pursue this natter further outside the complaints process.
  6. The resident stated that an operative, who attended the property to carry out work, advised that the tiles could have fallen down at any time due to broken plasterboard and another layer of tiles underneath. However, no expert reports have been provided to show that this issue was caused by poor workmanship carried out by the landlord previously. This Service is unable to decide whether the landlord could have been aware of the issues underneath the tiles until these fell off. As explained above, a plasterer attended to remove the full wall of tiles on the same day that this problem was discovered, so the landlord responded in a timely manner to make the bathroom safe.
  7. Further visits were carried out throughout July, and August 2022 to try to resolve the ongoing issues with damp downstairs. All these jobs were carried out within the expected timescales, which varied for different types of jobs.
  8. This issue has required many visits to get matters resolved, however it is important to note that issues with water leaks can be difficult to resolve and can cause consequential damage which is not always immediately evident.
  9. The Ombudsman has considered the actions the landlord has taken to resolve the resident’s complaint. As set out in the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code, stage one complaints should be responded to within 10 working days, and stage two complaints within 20 working days. The landlord responded to the stage one complaint on day 15, and the stage two complaint on day 24. Both responses were outside of the expected timescales. However, the landlord apologised, and offered the resident £100 compensation, as well as £90 in redecoration vouchers. And, from the evidence provided to this Service, remedial work continued throughout this period, so any short delays in responding to the complaint did not impact the handling of the repairs.
  10. The Ombudsman does not consider there to be maladministration by the landlord in its handling of outstanding repairs to the property. Overall, most of the jobs were completed within the timescales set out in the repairs policy, with just two taking a few days too long. The landlord has demonstrated, by carrying out many visits, a willingness to get matters resolved. And it has taken reasonable steps to put things right for the resident with its offers of compensation and redecoration vouchers.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was no maladministration by the landlord in respect of its handling of outstanding repairs to the property, including leaks from the bathroom and kitchen.

Recommendations

  1. The landlord should consider undertaking another post-inspection visit to the property, to ensure that it has fully investigated the damp patches in the downstairs rooms and taken steps to fix these.