Notting Hill Genesis (NHG) (202122026)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202122026

Notting Hill Genesis

5 January 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 regarding how the landlord handled the resident’s reports of a leak into his property.
  2. This Service has also considered the landlord’s handling of the complaint.

Background

  1. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord, a housing association. The property is a flat within a communal building and the resident has lived there since 2018. The landlord does not own the freehold of the building.
  2. On 28 December 2021, the resident reported a leak from the ceiling of his property. The landlord raised an emergency repair, and an operative visited the same day. However, the operative was unable to inspect the property above the resident’s, which was suspected to be the source of the leak, as the operative did not have the correct personal protective equipment (PPE) and was refused access. A later appointment was arranged for 30 December 2021 where it was determined that a leak from the property above the resident’s had caused damage to the ceiling in the utility room, but the source of the leak was not located. A make safe repair was undertaken in the resident’s property.
  3. The landlord arranged for a plumber to visit the resident’s property as well as two properties above his to locate the source of the leak on 10 and 11 January 2022. The plumber fitted a new valve in the toilet cistern of one property and replaced a leaking valve in the hand basin of the other, which stopped the leak. The plumber returned on 20 January 2022 and confirmed the leak had not reoccurred. The landlord then raised follow-on work to repair damage in the resident’s property caused by the leak.
  4. The resident wrote to the landlord on 20 January 2022 to raise a complaint. In his complaint he advised that:
    1. The leak had caused “huge damage” to the property and had an adverse effect on his health and that of his family.
    2. He received a poor level of service and poor communication from the landlord when he first reported the leak.
    3. The work to repair the ceiling had yet to be completed and very little work had been done since the landlord inspected the ceiling on 6 January 2020.
    4. The repairs to the ceiling should have been considered urgent as there had been a risk of the ceiling collapsing.
    5. As a resolution to the complaint, the resident requested the landlord repair the ceiling immediately, pay compensation for the inconvenience, stress and damaged caused by the leak and improve its repair procedures.
  5. In its complaint responses, issued in January and April 2022, the landlord:
    1. Accepted there had been delays with its initial response to reports of the leak. It explained it had had difficulty gaining access to the other properties and that the resident’s Housing Officer had been on leave over the holiday period and had not received emails the resident sent until 4 January 2022.
    2. Noted that following the completion of the emergency repair, a surveyor had inspected his property on 6 January 2022 and arranged for a plumber to attend all three properties on 7 January 2022. However, there were further issues gaining access to the other two properties, which meant the plumber could not attend until 10 and 11 January 2022 to complete repairs. The overall length of time to repair the leak took 13 working days.
    3. Explained that once its plumber had confirmed the leak was repaired on 20 January 2020, it had arranged a further appointment with its contractor to repair the damage to the resident’s ceiling on 26 January 2022. However, due to the high cost of the quote it received, the landlord sourced an additional quote from a second contractor. The repair was then re-booked and completed on 9 and 14 February 2022. The overall length of time it took to complete the follow-on work was 20 working days, which it stated was in line with the landlord’s published timescale for routine repairs.
    4. Advised that, as the room affected by the leak had been a utility room, the resident was not eligible to be compensated for the loss of a room under the Right to Repair Scheme. 
    5. Offered the resident £100 compensation in regard to how it handled the repair, which it broke down as £50 for the inconvenience caused and £50 for the failed appointment on 28 December 2021.
    6. Apologised for the delay in providing stage two complaint response and offered an additional £30 compensation in recognition of the inconvenience this caused.
    7. Signposted the resident to make an insurance claim for any personal items that had been damaged by the leak.
    8. Informed the resident that it regularly reviewed its repair policies and procedures and stated that any lessons learned from his complaint would be fed back to its repairs team.
  6. In referring his complaint to this Service, the resident advised that he considered the landlord’s offer of compensation was insufficient and did not properly reflect the stress and inconvenience that the leak had caused.

Assessment and findings

Relevant policies and procedures

  1. Section A5 of the resident’s tenancy agreement relates to repairs and states that the landlord agrees to “carry out repairs as set out in section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 and the (the landlord’s) repairs policy…at any time”. The repairs policy states that it is responsible for repairing “the structure of the home including the roof, outside walls, doors, windows and windowsills.”
  2. The landlord’s repairs policy states it categorises its repairs as “Emergency” (attend and make safe within 24 hours) and “Routine” (complete within 20 working days). The landlord defines an emergency repair as a repair that presents “an immediate danger to a person’s safety, major damage to the property, flooding, major electrical fault, heating (during October to March only) or hot water failure, or the property is not secure.” As an example of what it considers an emergency repair, the landlord suggests “a heavy leak in the property where it is not possible to contain the water, or it is leaking between floors or properties.” The landlord also notes that while it aims to make safe an emergency repair within 24 hours that “sometimes we might need to come back to complete [or] carry out further work after it is made safe”.
  3. The landlord operates a two-stage complaints process in line with the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (which is available on our website). When a complaint is received, the landlord aims to provide a response at stage one within ten working days. If the complainant is dissatisfied with the response, they can request an escalation of the complaint to the next stage. The landlord will then undertake a review of the complaint and provide a stage two response within 20 working days. This will be the landlord’s final response to the complaint.
  4. The landlord’s compensation policy states it will consider offering financial redress “to make amends or to recognise distress or inconvenience caused because of a service failure.” The policy also recommends three payment tariffs for its compensation awards: “Low Impact” (up to £50), “Medium Impact” (up to £125) and “High Impact” (up to £250). The landlord recommends low impact awards for when “service standards haven’t been met, the issue has taken slightly longer than expected causing some inconvenience to the resident” and medium impact awards when “the service has markedly failed to meet service standards and this failure has caused inconvenience and distress that has not been manageable for the resident”.

Scope of investigation

  1. The resident described one of the outstanding issues of the complaint as his dissatisfaction with how the landlord’s insurance provider was progressing a claim he had submitted. The Ombudsman is unable to investigate the resident’s concerns regarding the conduct of the landlord’s insurance provider. This is because the Ombudsman can only investigate complaints about social landlords, who are members of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme. The insurer is not a member of the Scheme and therefore the Ombudsman cannot investigate complaints about its activities. The insurer is a separate organisation from the landlord and the landlord is not responsible for the insurer’s decisions regarding the resident’s claim.
  2. In raising his complaint with the landlord and bringing the complaint to this Service, the resident has described the effect on his and his family’s health caused by the leak. While the Ombudsman acknowledges the resident’s comments, it is beyond the remit of this Service to make a determination on whether there was a direct link between the landlord’s actions and the resident’s health and that of his family. The resident therefore may wish to seek independent advice on making a personal injury claim if he considers that his health has been affected by any action or lack thereof by the landlord.

How the landlord handled the resident’s reports of a leak into the property

  1. Once the landlord had been informed of the leak into the resident’s property, it had a duty to respond to the issue in line with the obligations set out in the tenancy agreement and its published policies and procedures. From the information seen by this Service overall, the landlord responded appropriately to the resident’s report. It raised an emergency repair, and an operative visited his property the same day. A make safe repair was initially completed and subsequently the leak was identified and repaired within the landlord’s published timescale of 20 working days for routine repairs. Once it had been confirmed that the leak had been successfully repaired, the landlord arranged for follow-on work to repair the damage to the ceiling. This was also completed within the 20 working days timescale.
  2. However, the landlord recognised that there were some issues with how it handled the repair. It accepted there had been poor communication over the holiday period and slight delays in completing the work. The landlord also accepted that the make-safe work did not go ahead on the day of the repair as it was unable to gain access to the property above. However, the landlord provided reasonable explanations for the issues it identified, and it is apparent that some issues with gaining access to properties above the resident’s would be outside of its control and exacerbated during the holiday period when staff levels were low. Records also indicate that, despite his Housing Officer being on leave, the landlord’s Contact Centre appropriately kept the resident updated regarding the fact it was having difficulty accessing the properties above. Despite this, it was appropriate for the landlord to apologise to the resident, offer compensation and explain the steps it had taken to improve its service. Its actions were in line with the Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles: to be fair, put things right and learn from outcomes.
  3. The landlord acted reasonably by acknowledging the resident’s concerns and offering an apology. It looked to put things right by ensuring the leak and the damage caused were repaired, offered compensation and provided appropriate information to the resident regarding how he could progress an insurance claim.
  4. The £50 compensation offered by the landlord in its Stage Two complaint response due to it being “unclear” if its operative had visited him while initially awaiting access to the properties above, was made in line with its low impact payment tariff. The payment level is broadly in line with the Ombudsman’s own remedies guidance (which is available on our website), which suggest payments of £50 to £100 for service failure of a short duration that did not affect the overall outcome of the complaint. In the circumstances, the landlord’s offer of compensation was reasonable.
  5. Once the leak had been resolved, there was also a slight delay in completing follow-on repairs to the resident’s property after the landlord rejected the initial quote for works from its original contractor. While this would undoubtedly have been frustrating for the resident, records indicate the landlord promptly obtained a further quote, which it accepted, and arranged for works to be carried out in February 2022. This meant that the follow-on repairs were ultimately completed within the 20-working day timeframe set out for non-emergency repairs.
  6. Despite determining there had not been any significant failings, in its Stage Two complaint response the landlord also acknowledged that the situation would have caused the resident distress and inconvenience. It therefore awarded a further £50 compensation as a goodwill gesture in recognition of this. In the Ombudsman’s opinion, this discretionary award was also a reasonable step for the landlord to take and showed it acknowledged the impact the situation had had on the resident.
  7. Overall, the landlord responded reasonably to the resident’s report of a leak. It responded promptly to the initial report and the initial failure to stop the leak the same day was due to an unavoidable delay, which the landlord appropriately explained during the resident’s initial contact and in its complaint responses. It nevertheless offered the resident an apology and compensation for the distress caused by the leak and for confusion over whether an operative had provided him with an update during the initial emergency callout. The landlord acknowledged that, while it had not identified any service failings, it could have handled some aspects of the case better. In the Ombudsman’s opinion, the apology and compensation offered represented reasonable redress in the circumstances.

The landlord’s complaint handling

  1. In its stage two complaint response, the landlord apologised for not providing the response within its 20-working day timescale. The resident had requested an escalation of the complaint on 28 January 2021 but its and the stage two response was not sent until 11 April 2022, 32 working days outside of its published target. This delay caused inconvenience to the resident, who then spent time and trouble in contacting this Service 17 March 2022 to request our assistance in receiving a further response from the landlord.
  2. While it was appropriate for the landlord to offer compensation for the delay in providing the response, it should also have considered the inconvenience the delay had caused the caused the resident. From the information seen, there is no evidence the landlord kept the resident updated regarding the fact it would not be able to provide its response within its target timeframe, or that it provided any reasons for the eventual delay. This was not appropriate. 
  3. Therefore, it is ordered that the landlord pay an additional £20 compensation for the time and trouble caused to the resident in the delay in providing the stage two complaint response. This is in addition to the £30 already offered by the landlord in its final complaint response, bringing the total to £50, which is at the upper end of its compensation tariff for “low impact” failings.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 53 (b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was reasonable redress offered by the landlord regarding how it handled it handled the resident’s reports of a leak into the property.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the resident regarding its complaint handling.

Order

  1. The landlord is ordered to pay the resident:
    1. £50 to reflect the inconvenience, time and trouble caused by the delay in issuing its stage two complaint response. This is an increase of the £30 offered by the landlord at the end of its complaint procedures.
  2. This payment should be made within four weeks of the date of this report and the landlord should update this Service when payment has been made.

Recommendation

  1. The landlord should also pay the resident the £100 it originally offered regarding the leak if it has not done so already.