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Places for People Group Limited (202222037)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202222037

Places for People Group Limited

22 January 2025


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 the landlord’s handling of heating and hot water repairs.
  2. The Ombudsman has also investigated the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

  1. The resident has held a secure tenancy at the property since 26 July 1998. However, the landlord is unable to provide a copy of the tenancy agreement. The property is a studio fifth floor flat. The resident is vulnerable due to diagnoses which include chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and arthritis. The landlord’s records show that he has arthritis.
  2. At the time of the complaint, the heating and hot water in the property was provided by a communal boiler with an individual immersion heater for back-up hot water.
  3. In the 2 years prior to the complaint, the resident reported a lack of heating and/or hot water to the landlord 16 times.
  4. The resident contacted this Service for assistance and we logged a complaint with the landlord on 16 December 2022. The resident said that the landlord:
    1. Had not responded effectively to his reports that the heating and hot water were not functioning correctly.
    2. Had not communicated well.
    3. Had not responded to a formal complaint he had made in writing.
    4. Had advised him that hot water could not be hot due to health and safety reasons.
  5. The landlord acknowledged receipt of the complaint on 16 December 2022 and responded on 19 January 2023. It upheld the resident’s complaint and said it was confident that work carried out on 6 January 2023 had fixed the issue with the heating and hot water.
  6. The resident contacted us again and said that he would like the landlord to escalate the complaint to stage 2 of the process. He wanted the landlord to conduct a further inspection and repairs of the communal heating system and said that a gas engineer had left a booster button on following a visit which resulted in unaffordable heating bills. We requested the stage 2 escalation on 14 April 2023.
  7. The landlord provided a stage 2 complaint response on 5 June 2023. It upheld the resident’s complaint. It said that it had spoken to him on 31 May 2023 and confirmed there was an improvement in his hot water supply. It offered the following resolutions:
    1. It would fit a new radiator in his hall as requested.
    2. It had checked the utility bills he had sent and as all fuel costs had increased recently the full increase was not due to the booster being left on. However, its money advice team had called him to offer budgeting advice. It would also give him £79 in vouchers to help with the increased cost.
    3. It offered a further £150 compensation as an apology for the distress and inconvenience caused while he was waiting for it to resolve the issue with the hot water.
  8. The resident has reported that the heating and hot water issues continued after the stage 2 complaint response. The resident has advised us that the landlord fitted a replacement boiler in December 2023 which resolved the problem. He also told us about further issues he is experiencing. However, as these were not included in the original complaint the landlord has not had an opportunity to formally respond to them. Therefore, they have not been considered as part of this investigation, but a related recommendation has been made below.

Assessment and findings

Heating and hot water

  1. The landlord’s responsive repairs policy says that it will respond to emergency repairs within 24 hours. A lack of heating and/or hot water is classed as an emergency repair. There is evidence that a contractor attended within reasonable timeframes each time the resident reported an issue. Operatives fitted various parts to try to rectify the issue and noted that they left the heating and hot water functioning each time. However, these actions did not resolve the problem long term.
  2. In March 2022, the landlord’s repairs system flagged that the resident had reported issues with the heating and hot water multiple times. The flag said that the contractor should fix the repair first time or escalate it. However, they did not fully fix the issue which raised further flags.
  3. While it is positive that the landlord’s system flagged a potential ongoing issue with heating and hot water, we would then expect it to take appropriate action on receiving the alert. However, we have seen no evidence that this was then escalated. Had this flag been actioned appropriately, the issue may have been resolved sooner. However, the issue continued, meaning that the resident had intermittent problems with heating and hot water over a period of 3 years which was unacceptable. This caused him distress and inconvenience, particularly considering his vulnerabilities, some of which are affected by cold conditions and a lack of hot water.
  4. The landlord upheld the resident’s complaint and confirmed that there were ongoing issues with heating and hot water in the property in both the stage 1 and stage 2 complaint responses. It awarded £150 compensation to reflect the distress and inconvenience this would have caused the resident. However, it did not consider the time and trouble that he took repeatedly reporting the issues.
  5. The Ombudsman’s Spotlight report on Knowledge and Information Management states that recording vulnerabilities is the first step in providing a sensitive and responsive service. It says that landlords must keep information on vulnerabilities up to date, accessible, and that it should share and use this information appropriately.
  6. There is evidence that the resident told the landlord about his vulnerabilities because it noted them in some of the repair logs. However, the landlord told us that the resident’s only vulnerability was arthritis. It has therefore not updated all its systems to reflect the information he shared with it. It should have considered how he would be affected by a lack of heating and/or hot water, taking into account his specific vulnerabilities, when it responded to the repair calls, and when it awarded compensation. However, it did not. This failing caused the resident further distress.
  7. Due to the failings identified there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling heating and hot water repairs. We have therefore made an order for it to pay a total of £500 compensation to reflect the distress, inconvenience, time, and trouble caused to the resident due to these failings. This is in accordance with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance.

Complaint handling

  1. The Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code) says that “landlords must address all points raised in the complaint definition and provide clear reasons for any decisions, referencing the relevant policy, law and good practice where appropriate”.
  2. The stage 1 complaint had 4 complaint points but the landlord failed to address 3 of them. It did not provide a response about its communication, the lack of a previous complaint response, or the resident’s report that it had said that hot water could not be too hot due to health and safety reasons. This failure to follow the Code meant that it did not conduct a full investigation and provide answers to all the issues he raised. It lost a valuable opportunity to either demonstrate that it had handled these issues effectively or apologise and improve its processes in the future. This caused distress and inconvenience to the resident because all his concerns were not addressed, and he had to take time and trouble escalating the complaint.
  3. The landlord’s complaint policy said that it would respond to stage 2 complaints within 20 working days. This is compliant with the Code. However, the Code also says that landlords must decide whether an extension to this timescale is needed and then inform the resident of the expected timescale for a response. Any reasons for an extension to this timeframe must be clearly explained to the resident.
  4. The landlord took 32 working days to respond to the stage 2 complaint in this case. We have seen no evidence that it contacted the resident to advise him that it needed to extend the timeframe given in its policy, or to give reasons for this. This failure to comply with the Code and its policy caused the resident inconvenience and delayed his access to an investigation by this Service.
  5. Due to the failings identified there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the complaint. We have therefore made an order for it to pay £100 compensation to reflect the time, trouble, distress, and inconvenience this caused to the resident. This is in accordance with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance.

Determination (decision)

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme there was maladministration in the landlord’s:
    1. Handling of heating and hot water repairs.
    2. Complaint handling.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

  1. The landlord must apologise to the resident in writing for the failings identified within 4 weeks of the date of this report.
  2. The Ombudsman orders the landlord to pay compensation of £600, comprising:
    1. £500 for the time, trouble, distress, and inconvenience caused by the failures in its handling the heating and hot water repairs.
    2. £100 for the distress and inconvenience caused by its complaint handling failures.
  3. This replaces the landlord’s previous offer of £150 but is in addition to the fuel vouchers provided at stage 2. Therefore, it must pay the resident directly £450 within 4 weeks of the date of this report.
  4. The landlord must contact the resident to discuss all his vulnerabilities. It must then ensure it updates all its systems to reflect these so that it can make any necessary reasonable adjustments to the services it provides him. It must complete this within 4 weeks of the date of this report.
  5. A manager must undertake a review of this case to investigate and ensure that the same failings do not occur again. It must provide a written update on this review to the Ombudsman within 12 weeks of the date of this report. This to include as a minimum:
    1. Why the number of calls logged concerning the heating and hot water were not escalated and the reasons why the issue was not resolved sooner.
    2. Whether any further training is required for complaints handling staff to ensure that all issues raised in a complaint are addressed in its responses.
  6. Proof of compliance with these orders must be provided within the deadlines above.

Recommendations

  1. The landlord should contact the resident to discuss his current concerns about:
    1. Charges for heating and hot water.
    2. His ability to wash his clothes and bedding due to the number of stairs he says he needs to negotiate to access a washing machine.
    3. Assessing suitability of his current accommodation due to his medical needs including his need for a hip replacement.