Peabody Trust (202415967)

Decision
Case ID	202415967
Decision type	Investigation
Landlord	Peabody Trust
Landlord type	Housing Association
Occupancy	Assured Tenancy
Date	18 June 2026

Background

The property is a 1-bed flat on the first floor of a block. In November 2023 the resident reported that the trades button on the intercom was no longer operational from 7am to 7pm, and that this was causing problems with deliveries and tradespeople being able to enter the building. After an initial repair in December 2023, the resident reported that the filler on 2 communal stairs was crumbling, which she said was a health and safety risk. We have not seen evidence that this was completed. The trades button was replaced in August 2024.

What the complaint is about

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of repairs, including to:
1. an intercom
2. communal stairs.
We have also considered the landlord’s complaint handling.

Our decision (determination)

There was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of reports of repairs, including to:
1. an intercom
2. communal stairs.
There was maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling.

We have made orders for the landlord to put things right.

Summary of reasons

The landlord’s handling of reports of repairs (intercom and communal stairs)

The landlord did not acknowledge the delays in both repairs being completed, nor did it give updates on jobs raised when responding at stage 2. It did not address the resident’s concerns that the condition of the stairs was a health and safety risk.

The landlord’s handling of the complaint

The landlord did not pick up on the resident’s first report of the trades button in November 2023, meaning that it incorrectly refused to log a complaint the following month, and missed its timescale to respond at stage 1 for this one repair. Its offer of compensation was insufficient given the total delays in the complaint progressing, the failures we identified and the impact on the resident.

Putting things right

Where we find service failure, maladministration or severe maladministration we can make orders for the landlord to put things right. We have the discretion to make recommendations in all other cases within our jurisdiction.

Orders

Landlords must comply with our orders in the manner and timescales we specify. The landlord must provide documentary evidence of compliance with our orders by the due date set.

Order	What the landlord must do	Due date
1	Apology order The landlord must apologise in writing to the resident for the failures identified in this report. The landlord must ensure: The apology is specific to the failures identified in this decision, meaningful and empathetic. It has due regard to our apologies guidance.	No later than 16 July 2026
2	Compensation order The landlord must pay the resident a total of £300 compensation, made up of: • £200 for the impact of the landlord’s handling of repairs including the intercom and the communal stairs. • £100 for the impact of the landlord’s complaint handling. This is inclusive of what the landlord offered during its process, and if the landlord has paid £50 already it may wish to deduct this from the total. This must be paid directly to the resident by the due date. The landlord must provide documentary evidence of payment by the due date.	No later than 16 July 2026
3	Inspection order The landlord must arrange an inspection of the condition of the communal stairs in question. It must take all reasonable steps to ensure the inspection is completed by the due date. The inspection must be completed by someone suitably qualified to complete an inspection of the type needed. What the inspection must achieve The landlord must ensure that the surveyor: Inspects the condition of the communal stairs that were raised as part of this complaint, and produces a written report with photographs explaining whether further works are required to make good the damaged stairs, including the treads at the edge of each step. The survey report must set out: Whether the condition of the affected stairs represents a trip hazard. Whether the landlord is responsible to repair or resolve the issue together with reasons where it is not responsible (if applicable) A full scope of works to achieve a lasting and effective resolution to the issue. The likely timescales to commence and complete the work.	No later than 30 July 2026
4	Landlord taking a specific action order– building risk assessment The landlord must consider whether the building risk assessment for the communal areas needs to be updated given the concerns over whether the stairs constitute a trip hazard. If it does decide that the building risk assessment needs to be updated, it must be completed with a copy being provided to us by the due date. If it decides that it is not necessary to update the risk assessment, it must explain the reasons why to the resident in writing, and provide a copy of this explanation to us.	No later than 13 August 2026
5	Case Review order The landlord is to complete a case review both of its handling of these repairs, and of the complaint in general. The review must be completed by a senior member of its staff and a copy must be provided to us. The review should include an assessment of the delays in both the works being completed, and the complaint progressing through the landlord’s procedure. It should also include its communication and its oversight of the repairs. The review should also aim to identify improvements in relation to processes and staff training where necessary.	No later than 16 July 2026

Our investigation

The complaint procedure

Date	What happened
2 December 2023	The resident raised two separate complaints, one about the intercom trades button no longer being operational from 7am-7pm, and the other about the condition of the communal stairs.
8 December 2023	The landlord responded to say that it could not log either of these complaints, as they both related to first time requests for repairs. It said that repairs had been raised for both of these issues, and that it would aim to complete these within 28 days.
12 January 2024	The resident submitted another complaint, and said that: The trades button had been raised as a repair on 17 November 2023, prior to the landlord’s later response that said this was a first time service request, and that this repair was still outstanding. The communal stairs represented a trip hazard and a health and safety issue. The resident acknowledged that a repair had been done to the communal stairs, but said this was not of good quality, with the filler already crumbling. She was seeking compensation, along with a risk assessment of the building, and for the caretaker to proactively report communal repairs to the landlord in future.
26 January 2024	The landlord issued its stage 1 response. It said that: It reiterated that its timescale to complete non-urgent repairs was 28 calendar days. Repairs were completed to both the intercom trades button and stairs on 15 December 2023. The notes from the intercom job stated that the trades button was set from 8am to 3pm, and not 7am to 7pm. As the resident had reported both of these repairs were still ongoing, the landlord raised new jobs for these to be done, and also said it would ask the contractor for the stairs repair to provide a report to explain what it had done. It said the new intercom job was raised as an emergency and that the stairs job was appointed for 13 February 2024.
February to March 2024	The resident contacted the landlord on 5 February and said that: The repair to the communal stairs had not been resolved. She wanted to know why the trades button had been set from 8am-3pm rather than 7am-7pm. The resident contacted the landlord again on 6 March 2024, this time saying that she wanted the complaint to be escalated to stage 2. She said that: She was unhappy that she had not received a response to the earlier email on 5 February. Both repairs were still outstanding, and the stairs had deteriorated further.
24 April 2024	The landlord issued its stage 2 response. It said that: The contractor who had attended to the trades button on 15 December 2023 had not been told that it was to be set to 7am-7pm, and so set it to 8am-3pm. Another job had been raised for this contractor to set it to 7am-7pm. It acknowledged that the resident had reported that the filler in the stairs was crumbling. It had raised a recall job for the contractor to make this good. It maintained that both of the repairs had, thus far, been responded to within the landlord’s timescales. It apologised for not responding to the resident’s requests for a building risk assessment, and for the caretaker to report communal repairs in its stage 1 response. It said that caretakers do not actively inspect for repairs, but if brought to their attention they will do this. It acknowledged delays in the complaint progressing at stage 2 and offered £50 compensation for this.
Referral to the Ombudsman	The resident said that the trades button was never changed back to 7am-7pm, and that no further works were done to make good the communal stairs, and that she was seeking that these repairs be completed. She also remained unhappy that the landlord had not commented on her concerns that the stairs constituted a health and safety risk, nor her request for a risk assessment of the building.

What we found and why

The circumstances of this complaint are well known by the parties involved, so it is not necessary to detail everything that’s happened or comment on all the information we’ve reviewed. We’ve only included the key information that forms the basis of our decision of whether the landlord is responsible for maladministration.

Complaint

The landlord’s handling of reports of repairs, including to:

an intercom
communal stairs.

Finding

Maladministration

What we have not considered

We are aware that the resident raised more recent complaints about the intercom, including a report that the trades button was disconnected completely in late 2025. We cannot consider events linked to other formal complaints as part of this investigation, and these would need to have exhausted the landlord’s process before they could be separately referred to us for investigation. For this case, we will consider events from the resident’s first report of repairs on 17 November 2023, to the landlord replacing the trades button on 23 August 2024.

What we have considered

The landlord accepted repair responsibility (as set out in the tenancy agreement) for the maintenance of communal parts of the building.
Its repairs policy explains that it will attend to and complete emergency repairs within 24 hours, and more routine works will be completed within 28 calendar days.
The resident sent us evidence that the trades button repair was raised with the landlord via webform on 17 November 2023, and that she received an automatic acknowledgement of this. Even though the landlord missed this when declining the complaint, it still met its timescales to complete this first repair on 15 December. However, it also meant the landlord missed the resident explaining that she wanted the trades button to be set back to 7am-7pm. The buzzer being set to a different time contributed to the delays in this being resolved.
The landlord did log the emergency repair for the intercom that it referred to in its stage 1 response, but we cannot see that this job was completed, nor that the resident was updated on the outcome of this. At stage 2 the landlord missed an opportunity to resolve the complaint as it did not clarify if this was attended to.
Repairs can require follow up appointments, parts and quotes. This was the case here, as notes from May 2024 state that an upgrade was required to the intercom system. However, good customer service requires it to keep in contact and provide updates on the progress of the work, and the reasons for delays. There was no evidence that the landlord did so outside of its stage 1 and stage 2 responses. Even in its responses it was not clear in the follow-on steps. This poor communication continued for several months after the end of the complaints process.
We can see that the landlord completed works to replace the trades button on 23 August 2024, and there is no evidence that the resident continued to report problems with this for the remainder of 2024. In total, it took just over 9 months for this repair to be completed, which is significantly outside of the landlord’s timescales for routine works.
Much like with the trades button repair, we can see that the repair to the communal stairs that the landlord referenced in its stage 1 response was raised, but it is not clear if this was attended to, and again the landlord did not demonstrate learning by failing to clarify whether this repair was done in its stage 2 response.
The issues with communication continued after the complaints process had been exhausted. Another job for cracks in the communal stairwell, with a different reference number, was logged by the landlord in June 2024, and then the recall the landlord referred to in its stage 2 response was cancelled soon after. There is no evidence that it contacted the resident to explain whether this meant that the repairs had been completed, and the resident continued to report that this was outstanding. Therefore we cannot say that this repair was ever completed, and so have made the above inspection order to assess the condition of the stairs.
The resident repeatedly highlighted her concerns that the stairs repair constituted a health and safety risk, but neither the stage 1 or stage 2 responses offered its position on the risk this posed. Similarly, while the stage 2 response did respond to the resident’s request for a caretaker to proactively report communal repairs, it did not address the request for a risk assessment of the building. For this reason we have made an order for the landlord to consider whether this risk assessment would be necessary given the concerns over the stairs.
In addition to the learning, inspection and risk assessment orders, and in line with our compensation guidance we have ordered £200 compensation, to reflect both the delays in the repairs being completed, and the lack of communication regarding the progress of these works.

Complaint	The handling of the complaint
Finding	Maladministration

The Code in place (at the time of the complaint being considered at stage 1) required landlords to issue a stage 1 response within 10 working days of a complaint being logged, and to issue a stage 2 response within 20 working days of a complaint being escalated. Later during the landlord’s consideration at stage 2 our Code had been updated to give landlords an additional 5 working days to acknowledge a complaint at stage 2.
The Code that was in place in early 2024 also made clear that if all or part of a complaint was not resolved to the resident’s satisfaction at stage 1, then it must be progressed to stage 2 of the landlord’s procedure.
The landlord’s complaints policy makes clear that first time repair requests will not be logged as a complaint, but that if these requests are not dealt with they can become complaints later.
The landlord correctly applied the above policy in refusing to log a complaint in December 2023 about the communal stairs, as we cannot see that this had been raised by the resident previously. Once the resident raised the complaint of 12 January 2024 the landlord responded within the timescales set out in the Code.
However, as stated already we have seen that the trades button repair was raised via webform on 17 November 2023. The landlord’s position was that it never received this, but it could have asked the resident to provide this evidence while it was considering the complaint. It missed the chance to log the complaint about this repair appropriately which meant that it took a total of 36 working days (from 2 December 2023) for the resident to receive a stage 1 response.
While the resident’s email of 6 March 2024 said explicitly that she wanted the complaint to be escalated to stage 2, the earlier email of 5 February also clearly expressed dissatisfaction with the progress of both repairs, and so we would view this as the request to escalate the complaint. The landlord not acknowledging this meant that it took a total of 56 working days for the complaint to complete stage 2. Furthermore, despite her explicit request for the landlord to address the health and safety concerns it failed to do so.
The landlord missed the opportunity to identify the above failing that caused delays at stage 1. That, and the fact that the delays at stage 2 totalled roughly 6 weeks means that its offer of £50 compensation was an insufficient form of redress. As such, in addition to the learning order we have ordered that this be increased to £100 in line with our compensation guidance for instances where there was a considerable delay in the landlord’s responses.

Learning

We have asked the landlord to complete a learning review. The landlord failed to retain an oversight over its contractors and procedures to ensure that it could meet its repair timescales. In particular when following up on any required further works, and then updating residents on the progress of these repairs. The landlord needs to know why these events occurred to avoid repeating similar failures in future.

Knowledge information management (record keeping)

The landlord was unable to find the webform from 17 November 2023 that the resident was later able to send over to us. Additionally, in several of the repairs records it was unclear from the notes whether the repair had been completed, and if not, what was required as follow-on works.

Communication

Outside of its communication directly relating to the progress of the complaint, it is clear that the landlord did not keep the resident updated on the progress of repairs. The landlord needs to ensure that it has an effective system in place to keep residents regularly updated on the status of repairs to manage expectations.