Nottingham City Homes Registered Provider Limited (202200629)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202200629

Nottingham City Homes Registered Provider Limited

18 October 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 response to the resident’s reports of lift breakdowns.

Background

2. The resident, who is a secure tenant, lives in an apartment within a residential building. Below the apartments is a shopping centre, in which the residents gain access to the lifts that take them to the apartments.
3. The resident raised a complaint with the landlord on 28 February 2022, in which he advised that the lifts were constantly out of order, and that it was almost a daily occurrence.
4. The landlord’s stage one response (10 March 2022) offered several explanations for the lift breakdowns and advised that the issues had been resolved. However, the resident called the same day to escalate the complaint as there were further issues with the lifts and he did not feel as though it had been resolved.
5. The landlord provided its final response on 5 April 2022, in which it outlined all of its visits throughout March 2022. It advised that some of the breakdowns were out of its control and down to user misuse. However, it identified that 13 of the visits were due to breakdowns, eight of which were related to “lift four” in particular. The root cause of the issue with this lift was due to the governor rope, which the landlord advised had now been replaced.
6. The resident contacted this Service as he advised that there were continued lift breakdowns each week. The outcome sought by the resident was for the landlord to complete the works to the lift to prevent them from regularly breaking down, and for it to provide alternative access to the apartments should all lifts breakdown in the future.

Assessment and findings

The landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of lift breakdowns

7. Following reports of repair issues from the resident, the landlord has a responsibility to address issues within a reasonable timeframe. Given that there is no evidence that all lifts were out of use at the same time, the repair issue would not have been classed as an emergency, and therefore not required to have been completed within 24 hours. Nonetheless, the majority of visits regarding lift breakdowns were carried out within this timeframe. Additionally, when the resident called the landlord on 28 February 2022 to raise the complaint, the landlord was already in process of addressing/repairing the lifts.
8. In this way, the landlord had shown an awareness of the condition of the lifts and their operational issues. The landlord had also shown that it was being proactive about the issue rather than waiting for a complaint or for a resident to raise the issue. It is positive for the landlord to be proactive in terms of repairs as it shows a commitment to providing the required level of standard promised to its residents. Additionally, being proactive means that, generally, repair issues are resolved within a quicker time and minimises any unnecessary involvement by residents in having to chase the repairs.
9. The evidence provided shows that contractors attended the premises on multiple occasions to repair the lifts, but with certain lifts, the breakdowns persisted. This led to the resident seeking the outcome that the lifts would be repaired to the point whereby there were no longer continued breakdowns. Whilst it was reasonable for the resident to seek this, due to the inconvenience that lift breakdowns caused, the landlord noted in its final response that the lifts being out of use was the result of several different causes. These causes included user error such as people holding doors open and repeated button pressing, and planned works. It would be unfair for this Service to criticise the landlord for issues caused by external parties.
10. It was appropriate that the landlord attempted to give the resident an insight into the frequency in which the lifts were used, to explain why there were occasions in which they were down. This was reasonable given the number of variables that could contribute to lift breakdowns. This also would have reminded the resident that matters were sometimes outside of the landlord’s control.
11. However, whilst it was important for the landlord to address the unforeseen breakdowns when they happened, it was also important that the landlord identified where there was a trend in breakdowns and sought to identify the cause in order to prevent breakdowns where it could. The landlord was successful in doing this by identifying several issues that had caused reoccurring breakdowns. For example, it advised that due to a number of issues with lift number four specifically, the lift was isolated in order to find the root cause. The landlord identified the root cause and confirmed in an email, dated 22 March 2022, that it was due to the installation of an 8mm overspeed governor rope that had been installed on 16 February 2022. The landlord noted that this is when the repeated breakdowns of this lift began. The Ombudsman is aware that this rope was replaced with the correct one in late March 2022. This was appropriate.
12. Another reason for some of the breakdowns that was identified by the landlord was an issue with the fire alarm system. Once triggered, it had caused lifts to stop (as it should have), but did not bring them back into service once the fire drill had ended. The landlord identified this and had the issue repaired within three days. It explained that it had taken this amount of time to repair as the cause of the breakdown had been difficult to find and required support from the manufacturer to identify. However, as it was not classed as an emergency repair due to other lifts being operational at the time, three days was a reasonable timeframe for this repair. It is noted that, following this, the landlord also confirmed that it was conducting a full review of this incident to ensure that it did not happen again.
13. Additionally, in its stage one response, the landlord offered a history of its attempts to repair recent breakdowns prior to the resident’s complaint. It gave detailed breakdown and response times. This was appropriate as it showed transparency from the landlord, which allowed the resident an insight to how the landlord was dealing with the issues. It was also appropriate as the resident’s complaint was not about one specific breakdown, but the consistent occurrence of issues. By highlighting its efforts prior to the complaint, the landlord showed that it had been attempting to maintain the operation of the lifts in the building, and that it was aware of the inconvenience being caused.
14. The landlord also noted in its final response that it had discussed its findings throughout the handling of the issues with its lift contractor. This was to ensure that the standard of its monthly servicing regime ensured that the lifts were available to the residents. This was in line with this Service’s dispute resolution principles, which encourages the landlord to “demonstrate improvements in service delivery as a result of lessons learned from complaints”.
15. Part of the resident’s complaint outlined his concern for any disabled and elderly residents during lift breakdowns. The landlord acknowledged this and advised in its stage one response that it had kept all residents informed of which lifts were in use. It also said that it had asked any residents who were experiencing difficulties to contact it so that it could offer help. Additionally, a note on 26 February 2022 confirmed that it had informed emergency services of the status of lifts in the event of an emergency. The landlord not only acknowledged the resident’s concern for vulnerable people in its stage one response, but it showed that it had already attempted to minimise inconvenience on vulnerable people. This highlighted that the safety of its residents was at the forefront of its concerns.
16. Whilst the persistent breakdown of the lifts was understandably frustrating, the purpose of this report is to investigate the landlord’s response to the issues. The landlord showed that it was proactive in its efforts to determine the root cause for repeated failures, and once identified, put fixes into place within reasonable timeframes. Additionally, it showed concern for its residents by keeping them updated and encouraging them to reach out for help if needed. The landlord offered detailed explanations for the causes of the issues and kept the resident informed. Additionally, it acknowledged the inconvenience caused and offered a sincere apology. There is no evidence to suggest that the lift breakdowns were the cause of the landlord, and there had been no maladministration in its response and handling of the issues following the resident’s complaint.

Determination

17. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was no maladministration by the landlord in its response to the resident’s reports of lift breakdowns.

Recommendations

18. The resident raised concerns about the security personnel in the shopping centre refusing access to the stairwell at certain times. Whilst this issue was not brought to the landlord as a complaint, it may wish to consider addressing this with the security provider, in order to facilitate ease of entry to the premises in the event of future lift issues.