Southern Housing (202433087)

Background

1. The resident is an assured tenant of a 2-bedroom house since July 2009. The landlord has not recorded any vulnerabilities, however the evidence shows that it was aware she has crohn’s disease and ankylosing spondylitis.

What the complaint is about

2. The complaint is about the landlord’s:
   1. Response to repairs to the hot water system.
   2. Complaint handling.

Our decision (determination)

3. There was service failure in the landlord’s response to the repairs to the hot water system.
4. There was reasonable redress in the landlord’s complaint handling.

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

Summary of reasons

5. The landlord did not log and share the information provided by the resident about her individual needs. There were unreasonable delays with a lasting repair.
6. The resident had to submit her complaint twice before it was picked up.

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.

Recommendations

Our recommendations are not binding, and a landlord may decide not to follow them.

Our investigation

The complaint procedure

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.

7. The tenancy agreement states that the landlord is responsible for keeping water heating systems in good repair.
8. The landlord’s repairs policy defines an emergency repair as anything posing an immediate risk to health, safety and security. The landlord must make emergency repairs safe within 6 hours and book follow-up work promptly. The policy does not specify loss of hot water as an emergency. At the time of the complaint, there was no set completion timescale for non-emergency repairs. The landlord aimed to finish repairs in one visit and “take as little time as possible.”
9. The resident reported loss of hot water on 18 September 2024. A contractor attended 3 working days later, carried out some boiler repairs and recommended further work. The contractor attempted the repairs 5 working days later but could not remove the screws. They advised replacing the boiler. The timescales in which the landlord responded to the resident’s initial report and within which it attended to follow up works are reasonable.
10. The landlord booked an all-day appointment for 3 October 2024 to replace the boiler. The resident had to leave at 12pm for work. The engineer arrived at 12.27pm. The landlord failing to attend the appointment on time necessitating a rebooking was a failure. However, the appointment was quickly rescheduled.
11. The landlord booked another all-day appointment for 8 October 2024 and replaced the boiler. The resident raised concerns about the water temperature. During a post-inspection the next day, the landlord identified further works to the boiler. It was reasonable that the landlord carried out a post inspection the day after the boiler was installed. It booked the appointment for further works on 4 November 2024, 18 days later.
12. The resident took a day off work for the appointment, but no one came. When she called, the contractor said the operative was sick and the visit had been cancelled without notice. The landlord rebooked for 21 November 2024, 31 working days after it had raised the works.
13. On 21 November 2024, the operative was ill again, and the contractor cancelled the appointment. The resident had again taken time off work for the appointment. The contractor completed the repair on 18 December 2024, 51 days after the landlord raised the works. This is an unreasonable delay and had caused the resident to lose several days of annual leave. Whilst the initial timescale that the landlord sought to do follow up works on the new boiler was reasonable, repeated failures by the contractor extended it to an unreasonable period of time.
14. Disability is a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010. The landlord must consider how its decisions affect disabled or vulnerable residents and make reasonable adjustments where appropriate. The landlord’s vulnerable needs policy is in line with this. In this case, there’s no evidence the landlord considered the resident’s medical need for hot water when repairs were delayed. As this was an immediate risk to her health, it should have considered what reasonable actions it could take to facilitate repairs sooner. The policy also requires it to record known vulnerabilities. However, it wrongly stated the resident had none, despite evidence of her reporting them.
15. In the landlord’s final complaint response, it offered the resident £170. £50 was for complaint handling failures and the remainder for the boiler repair failures. The resident had heating in this time and her hot water was intermittent and of a low temperature.
16. The landlord failed to record and share the resident’s needs with the contractor, which could have helped prioritise the repair. There were unreasonable delays in providing a lasting fix, causing distress and inconvenience to the resident. We have found service failure. We have ordered an additional £100.

Post internal complaint procedure

17. The repairs policy has been updated to include a timescale of 20 working days for non-emergency repairs. The landlord has also introduced an equality, diversity and inclusion policy to meet the needs of protected groups. These are positive steps.

18. The landlord’s complaints policy states that it will acknowledge complaints within 5 working days. It will respond to stage 1 complaints within 10 working days from acknowledgement, which can be extended by 10 days for complex cases. It will respond to stage 2 complaints within 20 working days of acknowledgement, which can be extended by 20 working days for complex cases.
19. The resident submitted her stage 1 complaint on 24 September 2024. The landlord had until 1 October to acknowledge the complaint (5 working days). She resubmitted it on 30 September 2024 as she had not received a response. The landlord acknowledged the complaint within the required timescale.
20. The stage 1 response was 12 working days after acknowledgement. The landlord apologised for the 2-day delay citing a clerical error. It offered compensation of £10 and identified learning to prevent future delays. The stage 2 response was sent 21 days after acknowledgement. The landlord offered £50 compensation for the delay. This sum is in accordance with our remedies guidance for this type of failure and amounts to reasonable redress.

Learning

Knowledge information management (record keeping)

21. The Ombudsman’s Spotlight report on repairs highlights that contractors should be told about resident’s individual needs and act on them. The landlord should record relevant information and share it with partners so that they can respond appropriately.

Communication

22. The resident was affected by last minute appointment cancellations. One was not communicated to her at all. The landlord is responsible for the actions of its contractors. The contractor should have informed her promptly. It should have also considered how long she had waited and prioritised her appointment, either by sending another operative the same day or rebooking at her earliest convenience.

Complaint handling

23. In its stage 1 response the landlord did not uphold the complaint. However, it did offer compensation for its service falling below expected levels. If the landlord is offering compensation for service failures, this suggests that it is at least partially upholding the complaint. This should be made clear to avoid confusion.