Paragon Asra Housing Limited (202008126)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202008126

Paragon Asra Housing Limited

17 August 2021

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 was about:
   1. The landlord’s response to the resident’s report of a leak into her property.
   2. The landlord’s complaint handling.

Background and summary of events

2. The resident occupied a two-bedroomed maisonette on the ground floor in a block of flats, under an assured tenancy with the landlord. The bedrooms had an en-suite shower and an en-suite bathroom respectively. The tenancy began on 6 October 2008. The resident had health vulnerabilities and had the assistance of a support worker.

Legal and policy framework

3. The tenancy agreement included the following obligations of the landlord:
   1. To keep in good repair the structure and exterior of the building including drains, external pipes, the roof, and to keep in good repair and working order any installations provided by the landlord for the supply for water, gas and electricity including baths, waste pipes, water pipes, and electric wiring.
4. Section 9a of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 implied into the tenancy agreement the obligation that the property was fit for human habitation during the term of the tenancy in relation to repair and freedom from damp.
5. The Housing Act 2004 gives duties and powers to the local authority to inspect the condition of a property in order to identify whether a hazard may exist in a property.  Section 2 of that act defines a  “hazard” as “any risk of harm to the health or safety of an actual or potential occupier of a dwelling which arises from a deficiency in the dwelling …arising as a result of the construction of any building, an absence of maintenance or repair, or otherwise.”
6. The landlord’s maintenance policy sets out that it is committed to maintaining its homes to a high standard. “Maintaining high quality, secure homes can improve the lives of our customers and achieve high levels of customer satisfaction”.
7. Emergency repairs would be responded to within 4 hours and rectified within 24 hours and included total loss of power or lighting.
8. Non-emergency repairs work were to be completed within 15 working days and would include dripping or leaking taps or shower units. Some repairs could be carried out as part of a planned programme. If the repair fell into this category, the landlord would advise when the repair was planned for and what would happen next.
9. Typically, variable priority repairs were those which required multiple visits, requiring multi–trade skills or a number of special order parts. If the landlord needed to carry out extensive repairs, it would discuss what works it intended to do, agree timescales and project manage the work through to completion.
10. The landlord’s then complaints policy set out that when the landlord received a complaint, it aimed to send out a full response within 10 working days. If the complaint was particularly complex, it could take longer. If the complaint was not resolved after stage one, the tenant would have 28 days in which to respond. If the problem had not been resolved, and the tenant gave reasons, a senior manager would look at the problem again and would work together with the complainant to arrive at an appropriate outcome. It would aim to respond to complaints at stage two within 10 working days.
11. Under the compensation policy, the landlord may pay discretionary compensation according to the following guidelines:
    1. A succession of service failures and/or if the problem was not resolved within a reasonable timescale, compensation would range from £20 to £100.
    2. Serious or prolonged service failure or loss of facilities resulting in severe stress, disruption, inconvenience was limited to a maximum of £500.
    3. If a room was not habitable because of disrepair, major works or improvements, compensation would be paid after seven days of continued loss of use. Under the guidelines, the landlord could pay a weekly amount of £50 for a kitchen or bathroom.

Chronology

12. On 31 January 2020, the landlord’s contractor wrote to the resident stating that  bathroom and shower room refurbishment works would commence on 28 February 2020.
13. On 7 February 2020, the resident reported a leak into her bathroom. According to the landlord, it attended as an emergency. The landlord disconnected the two extractor fans to make them safe. Its operatives noted a suspected roof leak where water was running down the soil stack. There was a further leak on 14 February 2020. A hole was made in the ceiling and plaster removed.
14. The leak got worse, and went through the ceiling to the floor below, affecting the kitchen and lounge area. On 3 or 4 March 2020 (there are discrepancies in the landlord’s records), holes were made in the bathroom ceiling to enable any trapped water to be removed, and the lights in both bathrooms were disconnected to make them safe.
15. On 13 March 2020, the Environmental Health department of the local authority wrote to the landlord noting the following defects in the property:
    1. There had been significant leakage into the flat from above. This would appear to have been as a result of a leakage to the bath or associated fittings in the upper flat. This had stopped, but only through the good grace of the upper tenant who was not currently using the bath. As a result of the leakage, the lighting and extractor fans had been isolated in both the shower room and bathroom. There were holes to the ceilings and loose fragments of plasterboard. Despite several attempts this matter had not been resolved for some time.
    2. There were further signs of leakage to the ceiling of the ground–floor kitchen area, supposedly from the same source.
    3. There were leakages in other parts of the building, including into the upstairs entrance hall and water penetration into the main staircase area.
16. On 18 May 2020 or 20 May 2020 (there was a discrepancy in the landlord’s records), the lights in the bathrooms were reinstated following a permanent fix of the leak above.
17. On 7 June 2020, the resident made a formal complaint to the landlord as follows:-
    1. She had reported a leak on 7 February 2020 from the air vent in the bathroom into the main bedroom. It took two months to identify the source of the leak.
    2. The leak got worse and penetrated into the kitchen area on the floor below.
    3. It escalated to a degree until the bathroom ceiling fell onto the resident’s head as she was showering.
    4. Once the lights were disconnected, she could only bathe in the dark. Debris fell on her head. The resident was very concerned. At the time of writing, the holes in the ceilings had not been repaired.
    5. The bathroom upgrade was postponed.
    6. The resident reported that her health deteriorated due to the disrepair and due to the lack of communication from the landlord and its contractors. The resident reported that she felt unsafe.
    7. The water ingress from the bathroom of the property upstairs was still continuing.
18. The repairs and redecoration to the bathroom ceiling were completed on 10 July 2020.
19. According to the landlord’s records, it discussed compensation with the resident on 21 August 2020.
20. The landlord wrote to the resident on 26 August 2020 with its stage one complaint response as follows:
    1. It described her complaint as a history of repairs in the property, and that the block was neglected. She was seeking the following outcomes:
       1. Repair the leak affecting her property and communal areas in the block.
       2. Refurbishment of the bathroom and shower rooms.
       3. Regular maintenance of communal areas.
       4. Compensation for the delays and lack of communication
21. It stated that:
    1. The leak to the resident’s property was repaired on 3 April 2020.
    2. It would bring the renewal of bathroom and shower rooms forward.
    3. It offered £300 as full and final payment.
22. On 14 September 2020, the resident responded to the landlord’s stage one response as follows:
    1. The landlord had combined her two complaints about the leak and the block maintenance and she did not want the landlord to do so.
    2. She was willing to accept £3,500 and a write–off of her arrears for her distress and inconvenience, and loss of use of her two bathrooms and electricity.
    3. It was incorrect to have stated that the leak was repaired on 3 April 2020.
    4. She suffered a health crisis during the period of disrepair.
23. On 22 September 2020, the kitchen ceiling, which has also suffered water damage, was redecorated.
24. On 23 October 2020, the resident chased the stage 2 response.
25. The landlord contacted the resident on 27 October 2020 and informed her that she should be receiving a response to her complaint by 29 October 2020.
26. Both the bathroom and shower rooms were refurbished on 30 October 2020.
27. The resident chased a stage two response on 2 November 2020.
28. This service wrote to the landlord on 4 January 2021 and 13 January 2021 asking the landlord to respond to provide a stage two response to the resident’s complaint. It had also written to the landlord on previous occasions regarding the lack of response to her other complaints.
29. The landlord wrote to the resident on 15 January 2021 with its stage two response.
    1. It summarised her complaint as:
       1. the delays in undertaking repairs to the bathrooms following a leak from the property above
       2. the impact that the delays had on the resident, in terms of inconvenience and stress
       3. the poor communication regarding the repairs.
    2. It accepted that the completion of the repairs took longer than it would have normally expected and apologised.
    3. It accepted that not having a light in the bathroom and holes in the bathroom ceiling caused the resident inconvenience and disruption.
    4. It attributed the delays to the national lockdown which began on 23 March 2020. It only carried out emergency repairs in March to June 2020, and as a result had a backlog of repairs to complete.
    5. In September 2020, it had made changes its systems so that this would improve its customer service. It stated that the resident had accepted that all the repairs in her property had been completed. It had retained scaffolding in place in order to ensure that the roof was not leaking. It would keep the resident updated.
    6. It made the following offer of compensation:
       4. £500 in relation to the inconvenience, disruption and distress she suffered.
       5. It would write off the rent arrears to the date of the letter, in the amount of  £836.54.
       6. It would pay the equivalent of 15% of the rent for 34 weeks for the period 7 February 2020 to 22 September 2020, and amounting to £677.53
       7. The total compensation would amount to £2,014.07
30. The parties engaged in mediation following referral of the complaint to the Housing Ombudsman Service. The landlord increased its offer by £199.73. The resident declined the offer. The resident reduced the amount she would accept, and a further attempt to mediate was made in June 2021 but was not successful.

Assessment and findings

The landlord’s response to the resident’s report of a leak into her property.

31. While there were other ongoing issues in the property, and in the block as a whole, that were dealt with as a separate complaint, there is no evidence that the repairs were not completed by mid-May and the areas of water damage were redecorated by 22 September 2020. The period of compensation was therefore correct.
32. Clearly, the disrepair caused the resident a great deal of distress. The distress may have been exacerbated by other factors in the resident’s block but they do not form part of this complaint, and are not covered by this report. The landlord was in breach of its repairing obligations and own policies, both in terms of timescales and communication; and the matter was serious, as evidenced by observations of the local authority on 13 March 2020. However, in broad terms, this was not disputed, and in recognition of its failures, the landlord made an offer of compensation.
33. In the Ombudsman’s view the offer of compensation was reasonable. The Ombudsman cannot assess the extent to which a landlord’s service failure or maladministration has contributed to or exacerbated a resident’s physical and /or mental health, and it therefore cannot directly quantify this. However, the Ombudsman recognises that a resident’s circumstances mean that she was more affected by landlords’ actions or inactions than others. The Ombudsman therefore, in considering the amount of compensation, has borne in mind the vulnerability and ill-health of the resident. In addition, there was the factor that the leak to the bathrooms delayed the planned refurbishment works, which caused further inconvenience and disruption to the resident. 
34. The offer was in three parts. The £500 in recognition of the inconvenience, disruption and distress caused was in line with, and the maximum payable under, the landlord’s complaints policy in respect of general compensation. The resident effectively was unable to use the bathrooms (although she did, with discomfort) between 3 March 2020 and 20 May 2020, a period of approximately 10 weeks, when there was no electricity in the bathrooms. According to the landlord’s policy, it would pay £50 a week for the loss of a room, which would equate to £500. However, appropriately, the landlord also accepted that the use of the bathrooms overall was affected for the period to 10 July 2020 and to her downstairs rooms to 22 September 2020. A broad calculation of 15% of the rent over the entire period, added to writing off the arrears, the additional sums of £500 and £199.73, bringing the total amount to £2,213.80, was fair.
35. When considering disputes about the level of compensation, the Ombudsman not only takes into account the landlord’s own compensation policy, but also this Service’s own Remedies Guidance which provides guidance on orders and recommendations the Ombudsman may make. The compensation offered by the landlord falls within the range of compensation that the Ombudsman would consider where there have been findings of maladministration/severe maladministration. Remedies in that range will be appropriate when there has been a significant and serious long-term effect on the complainant, including physical or emotional impact, or both. In the Ombudsman’s view, the amount of compensation offered takes into account the delays, the lack of communication, the inevitable impact on the refurbishment, and the distress and inconvenience to the resident.
36. The landlord has effectively offered a total of £2,213.80, being the amount offered at the conclusion after mediation but would set off a portion of that amount against the resident’s rent arrears. Considering the landlord’s own policy, and the Ombudsman’s own guidelines, the Ombudsman considers that the offer made by the landlord is fair in the circumstances.

The landlord’s complaint handling.

37. The delay in the landlord’s first response from 7 June 2020 to 26 August was inappropriate. Not only was the delay significantly outside the landlord’s own polices, and what the Ombudsman would expect, but it contained an error stating that the repairs had taken place on 3 April 2020, when it was not disputed the electricity supply in the bathrooms had not been reinstated at that time.
38. The delay to the landlord’s stage two response was even more significant, from 14 September 2020 when the resident effectively requested her complaint be escalated, to 15 January 2021. This was a delay of four months, despite the resident chasing the landlord and this service writing to the landlord in the meantime. The landlord provided no explanation for its delay or updates to the resident, only assurances it did not adhere to.
39. The second response was appropriately detailed. However, it attributed the delay to lockdown which did not explain the delay from 7 February 2020 to 23 March 2020. Moreover, the landlord stated that only emergency repairs were carried out during lockdown. While the landlord’s repairs policy stated that only a total loss of electrics would be deemed to be an emergency, the Ombudsman would expect that re–instating the electricity supply in a bathroom, where light would be very limited or even non-existent, and a person needs to be safe, could also be deemed to be an emergency.  
40. However, it is recognised that the final response to the resident’s complaint was reasonable overall and as stated, the offer of compensation was reasonable. The landlord’s complaints handling was poor in terms of its initial delays and communication and it did not offer an apology or any remedy for this.

Determination (decision)

41. In accordance with paragraph 55 of the Housing Ombudsman’s scheme, there was in the Ombudsman’s opinion, reasonable redress offered by the landlord in relation to the repairs to the leak.
42. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman’s Scheme, there was service failure in relation to the landlord’s complaint handling.

Reasons

43. While there were failures in the landlord’s service, the compensation offered by the landlord was fair and reasonable, in accordance with the landlord’s own policies, and with the principles of the Housing Ombudsman’s scheme. In the view of the Ombudsman, the offer took into account the distress and inconvenience caused to the resident and her overall circumstances.
44. There were significant and unexplained delays in the complaint responses.  The delays in the complaints process caused the resident additional distress and frustration. Moreover, the evidence provided by the landlord to this service was incomplete which delayed this investigation, adding to the overall delay. This was unhelpful to the landlord and resident relationship. The landlord offered reasonable redress in respect of the complaint about the leak, however, it did not offer any explanation, remedy or redress for the delays in responding to the resident’s complaint and her attempts to pursue this.

Orders

45. The Ombudsman orders the landlord to:
    1. Pay the resident £100 in relation to the poor complaint handling.
    2. Confirm compliance with the order to the Ombudsman within 28 days.

Recommendations

46. The Ombudsman makes the following recommendations:
47. The landlord pay the outstanding amount of the compensation £2,213.80 to the resident within 28 days.
48. The Ombudsman notes that since this matter exhausted the landlord’s complaints procedure, and during the second mediation, the landlord informed the resident that it may be seeking possession of the property due to the arrears. The Ombudsman has recommended that the landlord pay the final offer of compensation that it made, which includes offsetting arrears by an amount £836.54. It is also recommended that the landlord writes to the resident to confirm its position on her rent account and any remaining arrears, and makes its position clear to the resident whether or not it is in fact seeking possession.
49. The landlord should ensure that it complies with its own complaints procedures and ensures it follows up complaints in a timely way. It should also ensure that all staff handling and dealing with complaints are aware of the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code.
50. The landlord review its record-keeping so that it maintains a clear document trail for the purposes of its own management and for the Ombudsman Service.