Southern Housing Group Limited (202115817)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202115817

Southern Housing Group Limited

20 July 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

  1. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports about a leak.
  2. The landlord’s associated complaints handling has also been investigated.

Background

  1. The resident, a secure tenant of the landlord, reported a leak from her radiator on 25 May 2021. The landlord’s contractor attended that day, and again on 27 May 2021, to take remedial action. The resident complained to the landlord on 1 June 2021. She said that the radiator had been leaking in the living room for two weeks and that this had damaged the flooring and rug. She requested compensation in order to replace these items. The resident subsequently calculated that a sum of £6060.40 would cover the cost of replacing the flooring and carpet, but also to recognise the stress and inconvenience she had experienced.  On 2 June 2021, the contractor attended to replace the leaking section of pipework on the radiator in order to permanently fix the issue.
  2. The landlord’s final response was issued on 8 September 2021, in which it concluded that the leak was not caused by its contractor, and that the leak had been attended to within its contractual timeframes. Therefore, it confirmed that it would not pay compensation to replace the damaged items. However, the landlord acknowledged that its final response was delayed and offered £75 compensation in recognition of this.
  3. Following the landlord’s final response, both parties agreed to allow this Service to attempt to mediate the dispute. The landlord offered a total sum of £305 following this mediation process. £230 of this was in regard to a failing in a separate issue that did not exhaust the landlord’s internal complaints procedure, with the remaining £75 reflecting the compensation previously offered during the complaints process.

Assessment and findings

Policies & Procedures

  1. Section 7.2.3 of the landlord’s Complaints Policy 2021 states that if it is not possible to notify the resident of a decision within 10 working days, ‘[the landlord] will notify [the resident] and confirm when [it] will provide the response, and this will not exceed a further 10 working days’.
  2. The landlord’s compensation policy states that a payment of £25 can be made for ‘poor service, failure to follow policy/procedure or act in a reasonable manner’.
  3. Section 3.1 of the landlord’s Responsive Repairs policy states that an emergency repair is to be attended within ’24 hours of [the landlord] being notified’. The landlord’s Repair Responsibilities Procedure states that emergency repairs ‘will be completed (or made safe)’.

Scope of Investigation

  1. The landlord identified a separate issue relating to the property heating system as it progressed down the complaints process. The mediation process that followed the complaint process incorporated this separate issue, with the additional compensation offered reflecting the landlord’s acknowledged service failures regarding the heating system. The heating issue was not part of the resident’s original complaint and there is no evidence of it having progressed through the landlord’s internal complaints procedure. As such, this Service is unable to investigate this issue here as the landlord needs to be given the opportunity to formally respond. It should also be noted that this was confirmed by the landlord to have not caused or had any effect on the radiator leak.

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports about a leak

  1. On 1 June 2021 the resident issued her formal complaint, in which she stated that the radiator in her living room had been leaking for two weeks. She also said that the landlord had been made aware of the problem. The landlord conducted an investigation in order to determine when the first report of the leak was made. In an email dated 11 August 2021, the contractor informed the landlord that ‘the uncontainable leak was reported on [25 May 2021] at 10:30[am]’. The landlord was entitled to rely on the contemporaneous records retained by its contractor in this regard and the resident has not provided any evidence to contradict the contractor information. As such, it was appropriate for the landlord to confirm that the first report of the leak had been made on 25 May 2021.
  2. The contractor said that once the leak had been reported, a repair was raised to be attended within two hours, in accordance with the landlord’s response timescales for emergency repairs. The contractor confirmed that its agent arrived at the property at 11:23am on 25 May 2021. This was appropriate as the leak had been described by the contractor as ‘uncontainable’. This description suggests that the leak should have been (and was) attended as an emergency. Section 3.1 of the landlord’s Responsive Repairs policy states that an emergency repair is to be attended within ‘24 hours of [the landlord] being notified’. The landlord succeeded in doing this and managed to stop the leak and put in a temporary fix.
  3. The contractor confirmed that following the temporary fix, the resident was using a plastic box to collect any excess water. The landlord’s Repair Responsibilities Procedure states that emergency repairs ‘will be completed (or made safe)’. Given the nature of the leak, a new part was required to permanently repair the radiator, therefore, installing a temporary fix in the meantime was in line with the landlord’s policies. It is clear that following the initial report of the leak, the contractor treated the issue with urgency and attended within a reasonable timeframe.
  4. It is noted throughout the correspondence between the landlord and its contractor that another call was made regarding the leak on 27 May 2021. The contractor stated that it also attended on the same day to address the issue. However, the landlord has not provided repair logs or contractor notes, and therefore this Service was unable to determine what actions were required and carried out during the contractor’s visit on 27 May 2021.
  5. The landlord is expected to keep robust records of its repair works. When there is a disagreement in the accounts of the resident and the Landlord with regard to the condition of the property, the onus would be on the landlord to provide documentary evidence showing how it satisfied itself that the repair work had been completed to a satisfactory standard. Whilst the lack of records here suggests a concern with the landlord’s overall record keeping, there is no evidence of any additional landlord service failure associated with the contractor’s actions on 27 May 2021. 
  6. During a call with the resident on 1 June 2021, the landlord explained that somebody would be attending within four hours to shut off the water. However, after nobody arrived, the resident called later in the day to inform the landlord that she had been waiting to no avail. The contractor in the meantime had advised the landlord that it would be attending the following day to fix the pipework on the radiator, and advised that if it was uncontainable, the resident should raise an emergency appointment.
  7. Although the delay from 1 to 2 June 2021 was not significant, the landlord had communicated to the resident that the contractor would be attending on 1 June 2021. It was unfair to the resident that this information was not verified with the contractor, as the resident had been left waiting in anticipation of the contractor’s arrival. The landlord, in this instance, failed to manage the resident’s expectations adequately. Managing the resident’s expectations is important as it helps the resident to understand what timeframes she could expect for the implementation of solutions to her issue.
  8. As well as managing expectations, the landlord should strive to commit to promises made to the resident. Failure to fulfil these promises may be detrimental to the landlord/tenant relationship, due to fractured trust between the two parties. In addition, the landlord’s compensation policy provides for compensation payments up to £25 for missed appointments. Having identified the failure to attend, offering compensation up to this amount would have been both reasonable and appropriate.
  9. Following this interaction, the landlord tried to call the out of hours team on behalf of the resident in order to attempt to have somebody attend. However, the landlord was placed in a queue, and due to work commitments, the agent was unable to stay on the line. The agent offered to transfer the resident through but the resident refused. The agent advised the resident that she must contact the team if the leak was worsening. The landlord showed that it had attempted to manage the situation for the resident. Additionally, the proposal to transfer the resident through to the out of hours team was not unreasonable.
  10. The contractor attended the property on 2 June 2021, as scheduled, and permanently fixed the leak to the radiator. An email from the contractor to the landlord on 2 June 2021 confirmed that its staff were on-site fixing the issue. It was not disputed that the permanent repair was successful in stopping the leak This was reinforced by a further email from the contractor to the landlord on 15 June 2021 that the leak had been repaired.
  11. Following the repair of the leak, the resident maintained that she wanted compensation for damage caused to her flooring, and to a rug located in her living room. A surveyor attended on 5 August 2021 and assessed the damage, however they could not determine whether the damage was from the leak or whether it had happened over a period of time. Additionally, a surveyor had noted that the amount of water that had caused the damage in the living room was not, in their view, consistent with a radiator leak.
  12. It would have been appropriate at this stage, for the landlord to refer the resident to its insurers, and to provide contact information for her to do so. This would have provided an impartial view as to who whether the landlord was responsible for the leak, and whether it should have paid compensation. Additionally, having determined that it was not responsible for the leak and the damage, it would have been appropriate for the landlord to direct the resident to her contents insurance provider. Signposting the resident appropriately here would have enabled her to make an informed decision, from an insurance claim perspective; it would also have conveyed a sense of empathy for her in the stressful situation.
  13. It is evident that the landlord and its contractor attended the repair issue within appropriate timeframes as set out within the landlord’s repairs policy. Following two emergency visits within the week, one of which was attended in less than one hour, the landlord showed that it had treated the issue with urgency, and had permanently fixed the issue within five working days.
  14. The landlord’s decision to not offer to cover the costs for the damages to the flooring and rug was also reasonable. It had investigated the resident’s request and had not identified that it was responsible for any damage and that it therefore had no obligation to reimburse the associated financial losses. The Ombudsman does not have the authority to make a decision, on the balance of probability, about the accuracy of the landlord’s conclusion here. Such a decision would be more appropriately made through a court of law, or through an appropriate insurance claim process.
  15. Whilst the landlord’s overall response was timely and its decision to not offer costs for damaged items, it remains that the landlord did not offer compensation for the missed appointment. As a result, this investigation has made an overall finding of service failure, with the full amount allowable under the compensation policy (£25) to be paid in this regard. This compensation amount has been increased in the order below to reflect the additional failure to not signpost the resident to her contents insurance provider at an early stage in the complaints process.

Complaints handling

  1. There was a failure in the landlord’s record keeping that manifested in a delay in providing its final response to the resident (8 September 2021). Section 7.2.3 of the landlord’s Complaints Policy 2021 states that if it is not possible to notify the resident of a decision within 10 working days, ‘[the landlord] will notify [the resident] and confirm when [it] will provide the response, and this will not exceed a further 10 working days’. The landlord did notify the resident of the extension, which would have taken the due date to 24 August 2021. However, the landlord failed to notify that it would be later than this.
  2. The landlord acknowledged this in the final response in which it offered its ‘sincerest apologies’ for the delay, and advised that there had been an error in reporting. This meant that it had not been notified that the response was due. Subsequently, the landlord offered the resident a total of £75 for the delay in final response. The landlord’s compensation policy states that a payment of £25 can be made for ‘poor service, failure to follow policy/procedure or act in a reasonable manner’. The delay was not overly significant and amounted to ten working days beyond the approved extension period. Therefore, the landlord exercised reasonable discretion in offering a total of £75 in order to remedy the delay.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure in relation to the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports about a leak.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 55(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord has made an offer of redress prior to investigation which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, resolved the complaints handling failures reasonably.

Orders and Recommendations

Order

  1. The landlord to pay the resident £50 in compensation to reflect the service failures identified.
  2. The landlord to evidence compliance with this order to this Service within 28 days of this report.