Peabody Trust (202210669)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202210669

Peabody Trust

27 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. This complaint is about the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of a gas leak, and her concerns about its cause.

Background

  1. The resident is a tenant of the landlord.
  2. The resident first raised an issue with gas in the property in April 2022, when she reported a gas leak to an emergency contractor. The emergency contractor attended the same day, made it safe and capped the gas. The following day the resident raised a complaint with the landlord stating she had no gas, and the pipe to her cooker had been damaged. She felt the damage was caused when the landlord refitted her kitchen in November 2021. She stated that she had smelt gas at the time of the refit, but the engineers had told her there were no problems. She said she had also raised issues about smelling gas when she had her annual gas check in January 2022. She said the engineer had found no leak and reassured her it was safe.
  3. In May 2022, contractors checked the pipework and ordered a part, which it fitted several days later. The repair records state things were left safe and working. In May 2022, the landlord responded to the resident’s complaint. It explained that it could not find any evidence that its contractor damaged the pipe when the kitchen was refitted, or that the annual gas check was done incorrectly. It concluded the leak must have happened after the annual gas check. It offered the resident £50 for stress and inconvenience. The resident escalated her complaint the same day. She disputed that the leak happened after the annual gas check.
  4. As part of its investigation of the escalated complaint the landlord sought information from the contractor who responded to the resident’s report in April. The contractor confirmed that a leak had been found on the pipework behind the cooker. The contractor did not say what they believed caused the leak. However, the report it did from its emergency visit stated that the pipe was unsecure and damaged but again, did not say what it believed caused the leak.
  5. The landlord provided its final response in June 2022, where it maintained the same position set out in stage one. However, it offered more compensation, £118, to cover the loss of heating and hot water – and issue the resident brought up in her stage two escalation.
  6. The resident brought her complaint to this Service because she was dissatisfied with the landlord’s conclusions about the gas leak.   

Assessment and findings

  1. Landlords are expected to respond to repair reports within relevant and appropriate time frames. Landlords are held to be responsible for such repairs from the time the matter is reported to it.
  2. When the resident raised an emergency repair, an engineer visited the same day, made the leak safe and capped the meter. This was a prompt response, and no complaint has been made about the landlord’s handling of this report by the resident.
  3. The discovery of the gas leak, following the resident’s report in April 2022, understandably led to her concern that the problem had been present at earlier occasions when she had smelt gas the previous November and January. However, following its work on the pipe, and its subsequent investigation of the resident’s concerns, the landlord was unable to find any evidence indicating when or how the leak had occurred. Nothing in the evidence provided for this investigation shows any specific information the landlord overlooked or ignored, or which would otherwise cast doubt on its conclusions.
  4. In general, a gas leak, in itself, is not evidence of a service failure by a landlord unless there is meaningful evidence that the landlord’s actions, or inaction, led to the leak. No such evidence has been seen in this case.
  5. In her complaint to the Ombudsman the resident explained that she was concerned that the landlord relied on the contractors’ reports, rather than her own experience. When investigating a repair issue, landlords should always take full account of their tenants’ comments and views, but they are also entitled to rely on the technical and professional opinions of their contractors and operatives. There are some occasions when evidence shows such professional opinions are not reliable, and that a landlord should seek further verification. However, no evidence has been provided in this case which indicates the landlord should not have accepted the information it received from its contractors.
  6. The resident provided photos of the gas pipework behind the cooker, which she explained showed damage to the pipe. She believed that the landlord ignored the photos. This Service attaches minimal weight to photographs in assessing cases, as we are not technically proficient with photographic evidence, and are unable to ascertain that the photographs depict what they are purported to show. As such, we would not usually refer to these when investigating complaints.
  7. Overall, the landlord’s complaint findings were based on the information it had available. In the absence of any other evidence, its findings were reasonable.

Determination (decision)

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was no maladministration in respect of the complaint.