Optivo (202202109)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202202109

Optivo

7 February 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:
   1. The landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of a defective underfloor heating system within the property.
   2. The handling of the associated complaint

Background

2. The resident is a leaseholder (shared ownership) of the property.
3. On 15 November 2021, the resident reported the loss of heating within his property. Following this, the landlord raised a job with one of its contractors who requested further information. The landlord contacted the resident on 24 November 2021 to request the further information and the resident responded with answers on the same day. On 26 November 2021, the resident called the landlord to request an update on the repairs as he still had no heating in the property. The resident also emailed the landlord on 26 November 2021 to chase the repairs.
4. The landlord arranged for a contractor to attend on 08 December 2021, who advised the resident the issue was the responsibility of a different contractor. The resident informed the landlord who referred the repair to the other contractor. A dispute of responsibility occurred as both contractors stated it was not responsible for the issue. The heating system was ultimately repaired on 20 December 2021.
5. The resident raised a complaint on 29 November 2021 following a lack of communication from the landlord, raised concerns about having no heating during the winter, and advised the landlord he had hired a private plumber to attend the property. The resident escalated the complaint on 22 December 2021. He stated that the landlord failed to address that the property had been uninhabitable, that he had paid for a private plumber, and that the compensation offered was inadequate as he had to stay elsewhere throughout the period and had a larger commute to work.
6. In the landlord’s response to the complaint, it apologised for the lack of communication and explained it was due to staff covering absence who were unaware of the processes. It advised that the dispute of responsibility had caused delays and offered a total of £50 in compensation in the stage one response. Following the escalation, the landlord referred it to a review panel. The report following the review panel apologised for the loss of heating for seven weeks, and for the lack of communication. It stated it would learn from the miscommunication and improve this going forward. It offered an increased total compensation of £392.52 which was made up £190.52 for the loss of heating, £100 for poor service and £102 for the cost of the private plumber.
7. The resident remained dissatisfied with the landlord’s response and escalated his complaint to this Service on 06 May 2022. The resident is seeking further compensation for his additional expenses, such as travel costs, throughout the period to be covered.

Assessment and findings

Policies and Procedures

8. The repairs policy states that loss of heating between October and April would be treated as an emergency repair for all residents.
9. The compensation policy states that the landlord should provide alternative heating, that it will pay £2.00 a day towards higher energy costs due to this and that it would refund 10% of net rent each day/week for loss of heating.
10. The landlord’s complaints policy states that its stage one response will be sent within 10 working days, and that its stage two response will be sent within 20 working days from the review panel being held. This is provided the complaint cannot be resolved at the landlord’s informal complaint stage.

The landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of a defective underfloor heating system within the property

11. The resident reported the loss of heating on 15 November 2021, and the landlord raised the relevant work order marked as ‘urgent,’ which was in line with the landlord’s repairs policy for loss of heating during winter. Whilst the landlord’s repairs policy does not give a specific timescale for emergency repairs, best practice is for emergency repairs to be attended to within 24 hours. In this case however, the landlord took 44 days in total to resolve the loss of heating in the resident’s property, and therefore given the urgency of the repair, the timeframe was not appropriate.
12. Similarly, the contractor had requested that the landlord obtain further information from the resident regarding the heating. However, due to staff absences, this was not communicated to the resident until 24 November 2021. The landlord should have ensured that any covering staff were appropriately trained to deal with emergency repairs.
13. Further delays were caused as there was a dispute between contractors about the responsibility of one of the parts in the heating system in the resident’s property. The landlord’s internal processes (including escalation where required) should avoid any such a protracted dispute of responsibility.
14. Whilst the landlord has provided evidence to show it considered providing the resident with alternative heating, this did not happen. The landlord’s compensation policy states that alternative heating should be provided and that the landlord would assist with the extra energy costs at £2 per day. Therefore, it would have been appropriate for the landlord to provide this, especially given the ongoing delays and the timescale of repairs during winter months.
15. The resident hired a private plumber to investigate the loss of heating due to the lack of communication and remedial work carried out by the landlord. Whilst the landlord would not have been expected to automatically refund this cost, it was reasonable that it did so as part of its offer of redress, given the circumstances.
16. The landlord offered the resident a total of £392.52 in compensation. This was made up of £190.52 for the loss of heating, which is compliant with the landlord’s compensation policy which states it would refund 10% of net rent each day/week for loss of heating. Also, it included £102 for the cost of the private plumber and £100 for poor service (which is taken to mean the delayed communication and internal dispute around repair responsibilities).
17. The landlord has acknowledged that its service was less that it should have been, and stated it had learnt from the delays caused by internal disputes of responsibility and that going forward it would take ownership of any issues. Therefore, the actions it has taken to remedy the issues were, with one exception, reasonable and appropriate. The exception being its failure to address that the resident was not provided alternative heating.
18. The Ombudsman’s remedies guidance suggests awards of between £50-£250 where there has been service failure which had an impact on the complainant but was of short duration and may not have significantly affected the overall outcome for the complainant. In this case, failing to provide the resident with alternative heating did not affect the outcome of the complaint as the landlord ultimately resolved the issue, but it did have an impact on the resident and compensation is due in view of this.

The handling of the associated complaint

19. The resident raised a complaint on 29 November 2021. It has not been disputed that this was logged and acknowledged informally on 30 November 2021.
20. The landlord acknowledged the resident’s formal complaint on 7 December 2021 with the landlord’s stage 1 response provided on 16 December 2021. This is in line with the landlord’s complaint procedure.
21. However, in line with the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code, the Ombudsman expects landlords to respond to the complaint within 10 working days of the complaint being logged. It further notes that this should not exceed a further 10 days without good reason. In this instance, the Ombudsman would consider the date of 29 November 2021 to be the complaint date, irrespective of the landlord’s consideration of this to be an informal complaint or formal complaint, a formal response should have been provided within 10 working days of this date. Therefore this was a total of 13 working days, which is slightly outside of the timescales expected by the Ombudsman, however overall it would not have a significant impact on the overall complaint.
22. The resident requested for his complaint to be escalated on 22 December 2021, in line with the landlord’s procedure, the landlord requested for a “Request to Review” form to be completed. The landlord’s acknowledged receipt on the day of the receiving the completed form on 14 January 2022, which was a total of 14 working days subsequent to the escalation. It would have been appropriate for the landlord to acknowledge the complaint escalation within five working days as suggested within the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code. This contributed to the inconvenience caused to the resident.
23. The landlord’s stage two response consisted of a review panel. The review panel took place on 23 February 2022 and the resident was informed of the panel’s decision on 07 March 2022. In total, this was 50 working days following the escalation. Whilst the landlord’s complaints policy states that following the review, the panel’s decision will be provided within no more than 20 working days, the appropriate timescale for a stage two response as provided by this Service is within 20 working days from the date of escalation and, as such, the timescale of the stage two response was not reasonable.
24. The resident regularly raised concerns about being impacted by additional travel costs due to the loss of heating. Whilst the landlord did address this briefly in the review panel response, and stated it would not be refunding additional expenses due to travelling, it should have provided reasoning for this in order to justify its decision. The property had not been deemed uninhabitable by an expert, independent surveyor. Therefore the landlord is not automatically expected to cover costs that the resident incurred in choosing to stay elsewhere. Any such claim is a claim for damages and would need a determination of liability following legal action by the resident.
25. As the landlord failed to comply to its obligations as set out in its complaints policy, and the Complaint Handling Code provided by this Service, this does constitute a service failure. The Ombudsman’s remedies guidance suggests awards of between £50-£250 where there has been service failure which had an impact on the complainant but was of short duration and may not have significantly affected the overall outcome for the complainant. Whilst the complaint handling timescales in this case were inappropriate, this did not have an impact on the overall outcome of the complaint as the landlord ultimately resolved the issue.

Determination

26. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in way the landlord responded to the resident’s reports of a defective underfloor heating system within the property.
27. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in way the landlord handled the associated complaint.

Orders

28. The landlord should pay the resident a total of £530.52 which is inclusive of the £392.52 previously offered if it has not yet been paid. This is made up of:
    1. £190.52 for the loss of heating (as previously offered).
    2. £102 for the costs of the private plumber (as previously offered).
    3. £100 for poor service (as previously offered).
    4. £88 for failing to acknowledge that the resident was not provided with alternative heating.
    5. £50 to acknowledge the poor complaint handling.
29. This should be paid within four weeks of receiving this letter.
30. The landlord should bring its complaints policy in line with the Complaint Handling Code as provided by this Service within four weeks of receiving this letter.

Recommendations

31. The landlord should ensure any time taken to arrange dates and times to review its initial decision should be taken into account when responding to a resident’s review request, to ensure it is in keeping with the stipulated timeframes within its policy and the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code.