Paragon Asra Housing Limited (202311128)

Back to Top

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202311128

Paragon Asra Housing Limited

17 December 2024


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. This complaint is about the landlord’s handling of a reported carbon monoxide leak and gas safety concerns.

Background

  1. The resident holds an assured tenancy. The property is a 2-bedroom ground-floor flat.
  2. The resident suffers from complex PTSD as well as several chronic pain ailments.
  3. The resident contacted the landlord on 23 October 2023 to report that her carbon monoxide detector was beeping. The landlord logged this at 14:24. The landlord arranged for an operative from the gas network to attend in order to cap the meter and make this safe at 19:30. The landlord’s contractor was due to perform a follow up appointment at 21:00 but reported to the landlord that they were unable to find the property or to get through on the contact number. Following this, the resident and her son went to A&E, fearing carbon monoxide poisoning. There was no evidence of poisoning, and she left the hospital on the same night.
  4. The landlord’s contractor was again due to attend on 24 October 2023 to complete the repair but reported back to the landlord they were unable to gain access. A manager from the landlord’s contractors then attended on 25 October 2023 to complete the repair. The cause of the alarm beeping was that a carbon monoxide detector had run out of battery. The landlord installed 2 new alarms and turned the boiler back on.
  5. The resident wrote to the landlord on 26 October 2023 to raise a complaint. She was unhappy contractors had not replaced the carbon monoxide detectors during previous gas safety inspections. She was also unhappy with contractors missing 2 appointments which she believed they did not attend as she was in the property at the time. She felt the landlord’s handling of the issue had jeopardised her health and safety. The landlord responded to the complaint on 14 November 2023. It upheld the complaint and offered £250 compensation. This consisted of £100 for failing to replace the expired detector, £100 for the impact of this, £20 for the missed appointment and £30 for the 2 days without hot water and heating.
  6. The resident responded to the landlord on 1 December 2023 saying she felt that it was negligent with the maintenance of the carbon monoxide detector. She was also unhappy with the time the landlord took to respond to her initial reports, the missed appointments and the compensation offer. Following no response to this e-mail, she escalated her complaint to stage 2 of the complaints process on 3 January 2024.
  7. The landlord provided its stage 2 complaint response on 7 February 2024. It increased its compensation offer to £500 due to the severe stress, disruption and inconvenience the resident suffered due to its failings. It said it had spoken with the engineer who had performed the gas safety check and reminded them of their responsibilities. It also said it had taken steps to avoid this situation reoccurring in the future.
  8. The landlord confirmed to the Ombudsman on 9 February 2024 that this complaint had now been through both stages of its complaints process, causing us to accept the case for investigation. The resident has told the Ombudsman that she was unhappy that the landlord did not deal with the reports of a leak urgently, and that it had not carried out the necessary procedures when completing the gas safety check. She said that one of the alarms in the property was 7 months out of date, with the alarm which caused the issue being 16 months out of date. She felt the landlord’s offer of compensation for this was insufficient.

Assessment and findings

  1. The landlord’s maintenance policy says that it will respond to emergency repairs within 4 hours in order to make these safe. It says it will then resolve these within 24 hours.
  2. In this instance, the landlord failed to respond to the resident’s report within 4 hours, instead taking around 5 hours. Although this was a shortcoming from the landlord, such a delay would not warrant a service failure finding. Whilst the resident’s additional wait may have caused concern, it may not always be possible for a landlord to organise a visit within such a tight timescale. As the landlord arranged for an operative from the gas network to complete a visit around 5 hours after the initial report it appears the landlord appropriately dealt with the report as an emergency.
  3. There were then follow-on appointments at 21:00 on 23 October 2023 and at 14:45 on 24 October 2023 where contractors from the landlord reported they were not able to access the property. For the first of these appointments, the contractor reported back to the landlord that they were ‘unable to find the property and unable to get through on the contact number’. The contractor however did not provide evidence of their attendance. Due to the lack of evidence of the visit, the landlord decided to treat this as a missed appointment – this was reasonable. The landlord offered the resident £20 for this missed appointment. As the appointment was subsequently arranged for the following day, this was a proportionate offer for the inconvenience of a missed appointment.
  4. For the failed appointment on 24 October 2023, the contractor took a photo of the resident’s front door as a record of their attendance. This evidence demonstrates that there was an attempt to keep to the appointment. Given this, the Ombudsman is unable to find any service failure in the landlord’s actions in regard to that appointment.
  5. The resident then rearranged the appointment, and a manager attended from the landlord’s contractor. The manager determined that there had not been a carbon monoxide leak. The problem was instead that a carbon monoxide detector had expired. They rectified this, replacing alarms and turning the resident’s heating back on. The landlord offered the resident £30 for the 2 days that she was without hot water and heating (as part of its stage 1 complaint response). Given the resident would have experienced inconvenience, and potential related costs, due to the lack of heating and hot water, it was appropriate for the landlord to award compensation specifically for this.
  6. The cause of the alarm going off was that the detector battery had expired. Upon inspection, this detector was out of date by 16 months, whilst a second one in the property was out of date by 7 months. A carbon monoxide alarm being out of date by such a long period was a significant error on the part of the landlord and its contractors. This should have been apparent when gas safety inspections were conducted (with the most recent check being in March 2023) and the landlord’s failure to manage this appropriately was of concern and will inevitably have caused the resident distress and uncertainty about the safety of her property.
  7. The landlord recognised its failings and apologised to the resident for this. It spoke to the relevant contractor who had performed the gas safety inspection and briefed its contractors as a whole about their responsibilities when dealing with carbon monoxide detectors. These were good actions from the landlord and demonstrated learning from this complaint. They ultimately represented reasonable steps for preventing the same situation arising again in the future.
  8. The landlord’s failings caused the resident a significant amount of distress and inconvenience, leading her to go to the hospital fearing carbon monoxide poisoning. The landlord recognised this and awarded a total of £500 compensation for the severe stress, disruption and inconvenience its failures caused. This was a reasonable offer of redress given the duration of this situation and the level of failings. The amount that the landlord offered is in a range that the Ombudsman would recommend for a failing that has adversely affected a resident.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 53b of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was reasonable redress in the landlord’s handling of a reported carbon monoxide leak and gas safety concerns.

Recommendations

  1. If it has not already paid this amount, the landlord should reoffer the resident the £500 compensation it proposed in its stage 2 complaint response. The Ombudsman’s reasonable redress finding is based on this amount being paid to the resident.