Southern Housing Group Limited (202017178)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202017178

Southern Housing Group Limited

7 October 2022

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

This complaint is about the landlord’s handling of:
1. the resident’s reports of a leak through her living room ceiling;
2. concerns raised by the resident about estate services.

Background and summary of events

Background

The resident is an assured non-shorthold tenant whose tenancy agreement began on 24 June 2013 and describes the property as a two-bedroom first floor flat.
The tenancy agreement shows that:
1. the landlord is obliged to keep in good repair the exterior and structure of the property, including the roof and internal walls and ceilings
2. the landlord is obliged to take reasonable care to keep the common entrance, halls, stairways, lifts, passageways, rubbish chutes and any other common parts in reasonable repair and fit for use
3. there are communal grounds to be maintained by the landlord and paid for by the resident through service charges.
The landlord has a responsive repairs policy that shows that it defines an emergency repair as one that is causing a health and safety risk and it will make these safe within 24 hours; it aims to finish other routine repairs right first time.
The landlord has a ‘services charges explained’ booklet that shows that it can charge tenants, through their rent, a proportion of costs incurred for shared facilities services such as estate gardening and rubbish removal (it explains that the local authority will pass on costs where more bin collections than usual are required from a block or estate). It sets out that it estimates a charge over a 12 month period and decides if there has been a surplus or a deficit once it knows how much services have actually cost; it then amends the following year’s charge according to the surplus or deficit and sends the service charge bill in March of each year.
The landlord’s service charges booklet shows that tenants can raise concerns about contractors if they are dissatisfied with the service received and that the landlord will work with the contractors to improve performance.
The landlord has a complaints policy that sets out a two-stage process where responses will be issued within 10 working days (at stage one) and 20 working days (at stage two) respectively; it adds that compensation reviews will also be completed within 10 working days.
The landlord has a compensation policy that shows that it can consider compensation payments where there has been service failure that caused loss of a room, financial loss to a resident or inconvenience. It adds that ‘any goodwill or compensation payment will first be paid to reduce… debt and the remainder, if any, paid to the customer directly’.
The landlord is a housing association that took on the resident’s original landlord as a subsidiary from 1 April 2020.

Summary of Events

The evidence provided by the resident shows that in June 2014 two watermarks on the ceiling were reported, photos of which have also been provided. These were also detailed on the developers snagging list. A contractor visited the property on 14 August 2014 and again in November 2014 to investigate the leak.
In July 2015, the resident reported to the landlord that the watermark on the ceiling had re-appeared on the living room ceiling. The landlord’s note from the report indicate that this problem had previously occurred, and it was ‘remedied’ by sealing the ceiling, but the resident raised concerns that the root cause was not identified. A stain block was applied to the ceiling however the area was not repainted.
In August 2015 the resident contacted the landlord to request all open jobs and to query whether the ceiling would be redecorated. I note that the landlord only provided a response on 30 September 2015 after she had sent two follow up emails. The landlord confirmed that it would ask its contractors to make good the ceiling and the contractor would contact the resident to arrange the appointment.
In October 2015 further contact was made to the landlord to raise concerns about the works raised as the contractor had advised the resident that it had only been authorised to seal the sealing, and no arrangement was made to redecorate. Further communication took place between the resident and the landlord regarding the contractor visit. On 19 May 2016, the resident reported the stain reappearing.
The landlord holds copies of photographs recorded as taken in June 2016 showing water marking to a ceiling and it wrote to the resident on 5 August 2016 to advise that it would investigate the roof above her property.
The resident made a report to the landlord (with a photograph) on 18 September 2016 that the living room ceiling condition had worsened and there was now a hole in the plasterboard. She indicated works had previously been done at the 12-month defect period and during the latter part of 2015 but had re-appeared from May 2016.
The landlord replied on 29 September 2016 – it advised that the roof was under warranty and it would explore this recourse before further action via the National House Building Council (NHBC).
The landlord wrote to the resident in November 2016 to enquire whether any leaks had been noticed since a section of the ceiling had been opened up.
The resident made a report on 24 January 2017 that two further leaks had appeared in the living room, separate to that which the landlord was already aware of. The landlord responded that week to advise that it was pursuing the suppliers of the roofing product to access the guarantee and that if it was not successful that week, it would pursue another avenue.
The resident made a report in early February 2017 that there was water staining to the bathroom ceiling which had dried out but she asked what the landlord’s plan was for resolution. She also raised concerns about loss of heat through the living room ceiling hole. The landlord replied to advise that it was liaising with the roofing product manufacturer because the fitters had been unresponsive and it told the resident that heat loss should be minimal as the roof void was a ‘warm void’.
The landlord attended with the roofing product manufacturer and installer in February 2017 – it later advised that no workmanship fault was found and it suspected that the staining was being caused by ‘water vapour in the void between the ceiling plasterboard and the roof insulation condensing on metal sections of the roof structure and then falling into the plasterboard’. It proposed applying a sealing material between metal cappings on the roof and installing vents to the living room and bedroom ceilings to assist with cross ventilation.
The landlord holds copies of photographs taken in April 2017 showing that a section of ceiling had been removed.
The resident made a report to the landlord in July 2017 showing the hole in her ceiling had been filled in by that point but she was chasing re-decoration works. She added in September 2017 that another area of the living room ceiling (that had previously been stain blocked) had fallen away and stain marks were returning.
Email exchanges between the landlord and resident show there were further inspections in December 2017-January 2018 to investigate the possibility of a leak in the ducting of the heat recovery system and a job was raised in January 2018 to cut away a section of a cupboard ceiling for an inspection.
A surveyor inspection was organised for April 2018 – this led to recommendations for more investigation through the original manufacturer and builder, further intrusive investigations by exposing more of the void space and a check on whether the vapor control layer was fully tested.
The resident made a report in May 2018 that the water staining to her ceiling had worsened. The landlord updated the resident in May-June 2018, checking that the worsening leak was not due to rainfall and indicating that it would need to pursue the NHBC warranty route. There was some discussion between landlord and resident as to whether the problem could be due to a pipework leak.
The landlord submitted a claim to the NHBC on 23 July 2018, providing the report from the April 2018 surveyor inspection.
The landlord was informed in August 2018, by the company that provided the warranty for new homes, that it was unlikely to be covered through that recourse as there did not seem to be a structural defect.
The landlord’s internal records from September 2018 show that it was considering a thermal imaging inspection of the roof and liaised again with the surveyor who had attended in April 2018.
A new inspection was organised for late October 2018 that included a thermographic assessment – this showed water ingress due to either a defect in the roof membrane along the edge of an external wall or thermal bridging in the roof space due to lack of insulation. It recommended a dye test and, if no leak was found, replacement of insulation to reduce thermal bridging.
The landlord passed on the thermographic assessment outcome to the NHBC on 19 December 2018 and made a claim in January 2019 through the company that held the new build warranty. However, the landlord advised the resident in February 2019 that the claim had been rejected as the warranty holder said the problem was condensation-related.
The landlord advised the resident in March 2019 that it was having to look into conducting the dye test itself.
The resident wrote to the landlord on 25 March 2019. She said that she would now reduce her rent payments by £20 per week given the delays in remedying the leak and that she had already stopped paying £2.70 per week (from October 2018) due to concerns about the grounds maintenance contractor and £0.06 per week (from January 2019) as the landlord had not renewed a contract with the local authority for removal of garden waste.
The landlord attended the resident’s property on 14 June 2019 – it recorded that plasterboard had been cut away and reinstated but that the whole ceiling would need to be brought down to rectify a fault with insulation installation. The surveyor detailed that there was no continuous vaper control layer and ruled out a problem with water ingress due to rainfall.
The resident wrote to the landlord on 16 June 2019 – she reiterated why she had reduced her rent payments and said that gardeners did not have enough time on the estate (so they did not weed or shape shrubs) and cleaning standards were insufficient (cobwebs in stairwells). She added that she had reported this since June 2017.
The landlord replied to the resident on 10 July 2019 – it said it would meet with the grounds maintenance contractor and was in the process of procuring new garden and grounds maintenance contracts. Internal emails show that it raised concern with its contractor on the same date that garden works were not being satisfactorily completed.
The landlord received a schedule of works from its contractor on 18 July 2019 for the works to take down the plasterboard to the living room and kitchen ceilings, fit insulation and insulation tape and reinstate plasterboard.
The resident chased the landlord on 26 July 2019 regarding the garden waste and garden maintenance issues, confirming she was still paying reduced rent. The landlord responded on 29 July 2019 – it passed on apologies from its grounds maintenance contractor, said an invoice would not be passed on for services that month and offered an estate walkabout. It added that the garden waste bin had been on site on a trial basis but the contract for it had expired, residents were not being charged and the new estate contract would require the grounds maintenance contractor to remove waste. It asked the resident to confirm if she would now pay the rent arrears.
The resident wrote to the landlord on 4 August 2019 – she queried why the landlord had not noticed the poor estate management before, submitted photographs that she said showed estate standards were still not being met and provided a service charge bill that showed an amount of £0.06 per week being charged for a communal bin. She added that she was looking for the landlord to write off the amounts she had deducted for the poor estate service since October 2018 and the ceiling disrepair since March 2019.
The landlord responded on 5 August 2019 – it reiterated an offer for an estate walkabout, said it would share the service standards and specification for the new grounds maintenance contractor as soon as possible and advised that the garden waste subscription had been ended part way through the financial year so it was still on the resident’s service charge bill but it would arrange for garden waste to be removed accordingly. It added that it could not write off rent arrears.
The resident wrote to the landlord on 8 August 2019. She said that she did not have time for a walkabout and that the landlord should have sufficient information from her to improve estate standards performance, queried why the garden bin collection charge had been incurred for 2019/20 when the contract expired in December 2018 and asked who could approve her rent write off.
The landlord made a claim on 16 September 2019 through the new build warranty – the claim form showed that damage had been evident since June 2016; the landlord advised the resident that it was awaiting the outcome of this claim before progressing works that it now had a quote for.
The landlord received a decision on 21 October 2019 that its warranty claim had been rejected as the insurance underwriter was of the view that the vapor control layer was not part of the structure of the building or a waterproofing element so was not covered. The landlord advised the resident of this outcome on 25 October 2019 and said that it would now progress works.
The landlord sought advice from a development consultant during November 2019 as to whether there was still an option to pursue a latent defect claim.
The resident advised the landlord on 22 November 2019 that she had received details of the new grounds maintenance contractor, asked how standards would be monitored and confirmed she would reinstate payments for the service.
The landlord’s contractor met with the resident at the property on 26 November 2019 to discuss the proposed works and subsequently advised that works would proceed in January 2020 as agreed with the resident.
The landlord submitted an appeal against the new home warranty decision on 2 January 2020; this was rejected later that month as the policy cover was not triggered because the vapor control layer was not part of the structure or waterproofing element of the building.
The landlord received a report from its contractor on 8 January 2020, advising that it had begun stripping the ceiling and was concerned about potential water ingress through the roof by the far corner of the living room. A survey report from 9 January 2020 concluded that the problem experienced by the resident was not due to condensation but that there were roofing faults so the roof should be stripped and any saturated ply decking removed.
The landlord received a quote for the roofing works on 27 January 2020 which it authorised on 10 February 2020.
The landlord’s contractors erected scaffolding in late February 2020 and had completed roofing works by mid-March 2020.
The resident was away from the property when the pandemic-related lockdown began in March 2020; she returned from abroad in mid-June 2020 and internal remedial works re-commenced on 1 July 2020.
The landlord’s contractors completed internal remedial works on 7 July 2020; the resident confirmed on 12 July 2020 that her ceiling was back to its original state and she would start making full rent payment (by stopping the deductions of £20 per week she had been making). She made a request on 17 July 2020 for her windows to be cleaned due to dust created by the works.
The landlord and resident had a telephone discussion on 30 July 2020 to discuss compensation given the delays in resolving the leak and related remedial works. The service charges related to estate services and garden waste bin collections were also discussed.
The landlord wrote to the resident on 20 August 2020, advising that:
1. the leak had been difficult to diagnose as it was not apparent when it rained
2. it was pleased that works were completed and awarded £4780 compensation for loss of the use of the living room from June 2016 to July 2020 (at £20 per week and included an additional £500 for inconvenience)
3. the resident was charged £6.65 per week for grounds maintenance and tree works costs and was not being charged for a green waste bin replacement fund
4. since the new cleaning contract began, only communal windows were included in the cleaning regime so the charge from April 2020 was removed and it had asked its cleaning contractor to clean the resident’s windows by way of an apology.
The resident asked the landlord on 28 August 2020 for a copy of its compensation policy and raised concern on 8 September 2020 that the landlord’s contractor was not planning to clean all her windows.
The landlord forwarded the compensation policy to the resident on 11 September 2020 and explained that there was difficulty in its contractor cleaning the balcony windows without access through the property.
The resident wrote to the landlord on 26 September 2020 – she queried why it was arranging an offset of compensation against her rent account given she was only in arrears because she had stopped paying full rent due to the landlord’s failings. She added that it had not grasped the garden waste query.
The landlord wrote to the resident on 23 October 2020, following a telephone conversation the previous week. It confirmed that the £4780 compensation would first be offset against the resident’s unpaid rent before the balancing amount was paid to her. It added that her windows had now been cleaned as an apology (after discussing some access concerns) and reiterated that the green bin charge had been removed as it had explained in August 2020.
The resident wrote to the landlord on 1 November 2020 – she disputed some of the landlord’s comments, noting that the windows had to be cleaned as they were filthy after the works, she had not refused access for the cleaning and reiterated that her concern was about a garden bin subscription of £0.06 per week that she believed she was still being charged.
The landlord replied to the resident on 2 December 2020 – it apologised for any misunderstanding on the window cleaning issue and explained that the £0.06 per week charge was a replacement provision cost for communal bins. The resident queried this on the same day, advising that the only communal bin was the garden waste bin.
The resident chased progress with the landlord on a couple of occasions in mid-December 2020.
The landlord wrote to the resident further on 28 January 2021 – it advised that a service charge adjustment would be made for the garden waste collection from 2018 as the local authority had not provided the service since then.
The resident and landlord exchanged emails in early February 2021, agreeing that the total credit for the ground maintenance rebate would be £167.41 and that the £0.06 per week charge from 2021/22 service charge would be removed. The resident subsequently added that she was also seeking for the £4780 compensation to not be offset against the remaining rent arrears of around £1500 for the ceiling issue.
The landlord wrote to the resident on 24 February 2021 – it advised that it would arrange £167.41 compensation to be offset against her rent account.
The resident approached this Service in March 2021, advising that the landlord delayed until 2018 in appointing a qualified surveyor, until July 2020 in completing surveyor recommendations and over several years in answering estate standard enquiries. She requested that compensation be increased to recognise stress and inconvenience over a lengthy period and heat loss through the hole in her ceiling.
The resident approached this Service again in June 2021 to reiterate that she was seeking for the landlord to:
1. evidence that it had removed the weekly charge for the garden waste collection service
2. not deduct rent arrears from the £4780 compensation award and increase the compensation to recognise inconvenience and distress, that the problem began in 2014 and that there was heat loss through the ceiling
3. award compensation for the time and trouble she took in dealing with the estate standards (which it did not resolve between 2016-2019) and garden waste collection (which it did not resolve between 2019-2021) issues.

Assessment and findings

The Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles are:

Be fair
Put things right
Learn from outcomes

This Service will apply these principles when considering whether any redress is appropriate and proportionate for any maladministration or service failure identified.

Leak

The resident has reported that she experienced a problem with a leak affecting her living room ceiling from the start of her tenancy in 2013. However, the earliest evidence seen by this Service is from 2014 regarding water staining to the ceiling and an assurance from the landlord that it would investigate the roof.
The repair would not have met the landlord’s criteria for an emergency as there was no indication from the reports that there was a health and safety risk. However, the landlord’s repairs policy sets out that it will complete routine repairs right first time and it is not disputed that external works were not completed until March 2020. This was almost six years after the resident’s 2014 reports which represented a substantial delay and was therefore inappropriate.
In mitigation, the landlord received contradictory reports from surveyors and contractors as to the cause of the leak into the resident’s property with the diagnosis ranging from condensation (February 2017 and June 2019) to thermal bridging (October 2018) to a fault with the roof membrane allowing water ingress (January 2020). It was also reasonable that the landlord explored opportunities to make a claim through the new build warranty process given inspection reports indicated that the leak was potentially due to a building fault. It was therefore inevitable that there would be some delay in completing the repair given the complexity of diagnosing the problem and the landlord’s attempt to resolve it through a warranty claim.
Further, there were delays between March 2020 and July 2020 in the landlord putting right the internal remedial works after external roofing works were completed but this was attributable to the pandemic as the resident was unable to return to the property from abroad. The landlord acted promptly to complete the internal living room ceiling works in early July 2020 once it was aware that the resident had returned and access was possible.
Nevertheless, there were periods of unnecessary delay when the landlord’s efforts to remedy the leak failed (2014 to mid-2017), it conducted multiple inspections without obtaining a diagnosis (2018 to mid-2019) and it delayed in following up on inspection outcomes (mid-2019 to early 2020). It therefore contributed to delays during the four-year period when the leak remained a problem; although the landlord maintained regular communications with the resident, this delay will have caused inevitable distress and inconvenience to her and she was left with water staining and holes in her living room ceiling for longer than necessary.
The landlord reviewed the matter once works were complete and discussed a resolution with the resident – it apologised for its failings, explained the difficulties it had experienced with diagnosis, arranged to clean the resident’s windows and awarded £4780 compensation. It said that the compensation was made up of £4280 for loss of use of the living room and £500 for the resident’s inconvenience of pursuing the complaint.
The landlord’s compensation award was significant and in accordance with the Ombudsman’s Remedies Guidance as an appropriate level of compensation for maladministration ‘that has had a severe long-term impact’. The resident was left with gaps in her living room ceiling for an extended period albeit it is not clear that the room was beyond use – therefore, the landlord’s decision to award £20 per week for the full 214-week period, despite the mitigating factors and pandemic-related delay mentioned previously, was resolution-focused and demonstrated that it was willing to use its discretion given the likely distress caused to the resident.
It is noted however that the landlord only considered the issued from mid-2016 when in fact the resident had raised concerns since 2014. It would have been reasonable for the landlord to take into account the entirety of the time that the resident has raised concerns about the staining to the ceiling.
The resident has requested the landlord reimburse her for heating costs but it explained to her that heat loss was likely to have been minimal due to the building design and there is no evidence of increased expenses having been incurred. The landlord’s decision not to award specific compensation in recognition of this was therefore reasonable.
The landlord decided to offset the compensation award against rent arrears owed by the resident. This was in line with its compensation policy that shows that it will reduce tenant debts before paying the resident the compensation balance. There was no dispute over the accuracy of the rent arrears as the resident had confirmed that she had reduced rent payments due to her dissatisfaction with the landlord’s services. The landlord’s actions in this regard were therefore appropriate.
In summary, the landlord contributed to unreasonable delays in completing repairs to remedy a leak into the resident’s property between August 2014 and March 2020. Whilst it offered appropriate redress from 2016, the landlord should have considered redress from 2014. As such, the Service has considered an additional compensation of £1840 in line with the landlord’s own calculation of £20 per week for 92 weeks from 14 August 2014 when the first contractors visited the property regarding the ceiling leak until to 19 May 2016 when the stain reappeared. Thereafter the landlord considered compensation as per the investigation.

Estate services

The resident has advised that she partly reduced the payments she was making towards her service charge liability as she was dissatisfied with the quality of grounds maintenance work and did not believe that she (or the landlord) was receiving the local authority garden bin collection service – she has advised that she amended her payments from October 2018 and January 2019 respectively.
The resident notified the landlord of this at least as early as March 2019 but there is no evidence that the landlord investigated the resident’s concerns at this time. Although the resident was obliged to continue paying the service charge in accordance with her tenancy agreement and the landlord’s service charge guidance shows that any surplus will be credited against the following year’s charges, it was inappropriate that the landlord had failed to investigate the grounds maintenance and garden bin issues prior to the resident reiterating her concerns in June 2019.
When the resident repeated her concerns in June 2019, the landlord responded over the following two months by:
1. passing concerns about performance to its grounds maintenance contractor
2. apologising to the resident and asking her to join it on an estate walkabout
3. advising that a charge would not be passed on for the July 2019 grounds maintenance work
4. confirming that the local authority was not collecting the garden waste so residents were not being charged.

These were all reasonable actions on the part of the landlord to address the resident’s ongoing concerns about grounds maintenance and paying for the garden waste bin collection.

However, there is no evidence that the landlord considered how it had monitored grounds maintenance performance since the resident reported a drop in the service. It would have been reasonable for the landlord to have checked how it had reviewed the quality of grounds maintenance from October 2018 to June 2019 and consider whether additional monitoring was needed from July 2019 onwards; its failure to do so meant that it was unable to fully respond to the resident’s concerns up to November 2019 (when a new contractor was appointed). This effectively meant that, apart from passing on performance concerns and offering an estate walkabout in July 2019, there was no action by the landlord to investigate the resident’s grounds maintenance concerns from March 2019 to November 2019.
Further, the landlord’s assurance about the lack of charge for the garden waste bin collection was questioned by the resident when she provided a bill in August 2019 indicating the charge was still being incurred. The landlord subsequently said that this was because the garden waste collection contract had ended part way through the year and it would arrange for collections by its contractor instead. This contradicted the previous assurance it had given that residents were not being charged for the service. In addition, the local authority collection arrangement had ended in December 2018 so the landlord’s explanation was contrary to its service charge guidance that sets out that new charges are billed in the March before they are payable so it is of concern that charges remained on the 2019/20 bill.
When the landlord reviewed the resident’s concerns through its complaint responses in August-October 2020, it continued to advise that she was not incurring a charge for the garden waste bin collection service. However, it again offered contradictory advice in December 2020 when it said that there was a charge and it was for a replacement communal bin before eventually confirming in January-February 2021 that it would need to remove the charges dating back to 2018 (and for the coming 2021/22 year). Overall, there was therefore a delay of almost two years in the landlord offering clarity on the validity of the garden waste collection charge.
By February 2021, the landlord had agreed to credit an amount of £167.41 to the resident’s rent account – this was to account for the grounds maintenance charges from October 2018 to November 2019 and the garden waste bin collection charge from January 2019 to April 2021. It was reasonable for the landlord to agree to what was effectively a write off of the disputed charges given it could not evidence that the related services had been delivered.
However, it was unreasonable that the landlord failed to offer an explanation as to why it had not fully investigated the resident’s concerns up to that point and that it failed to award compensation in recognition of the time and trouble that she had experienced in chasing a resolution over almost two years.
In summary, the landlord did not sufficiently investigate the resident’s concerns about the performance of its grounds maintenance contractors between March-November 2019 and failed to confirm until February 2021 that it would waive a charge for garden waste bin collections that had stopped in December 2018. Although it effectively wrote off the related service charges, the landlord should also have awarded compensation to recognise the unnecessary time and trouble caused to the resident in chasing a resolution to these matters.

Determination

In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of a leak through her living room ceiling.
In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in its handling of concerns raised by the resident about estate services.

Reasons

The landlord contributed to delays in resolving a leak into the resident’s living room between 2014 and 2020, during which time she was often left with holes in her living room ceiling. The landlord has accepted and apologised for these service failures from 2016 to 2020, however, it failed to consider that the residents reports began in 2014.
The landlord failed to offer sufficient redress for the service failures in its handling of the resident’s concerns about estate services.

Orders

The landlord is ordered to compensate the resident an additional £1840 to cover the period from the first contractor visit in August 2014 to May 2016 that was not considered in its original compensation offer. This is in line with the landlord’s compensation policy and the compensation calculation that it had used for the period from 2016 onwards.

The landlord to write to the resident to:

apologise for the service failure identified in this report;

if it has not already done so, demonstrate that there was no garden waste bin collection charge for 2021/22.

The landlord to pay the resident compensation of £100 in recognition of the time and trouble caused to her by the service failure in its handling of her concerns about estate services.

The landlord should confirm compliance with these orders to this Service within four weeks of the date of this report.

If it has not already done so, the landlord to process the compensation awards of £4780 and £167.41 that it offered through its complaint responses.

Recommendations

The landlord to review its handling of this roof repair and create an action plan to show how it will improve its handling of repairs where there is potential for it to make a warranty claim.

The landlord should confirm its intentions in regard to these recommendations to this Service within four weeks of the date of this report.