Southwark Council (202121360)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202121360

Southwark Council

21 April 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 of faulty internal doors in his property.

Background

  1. The resident is a secure tenant of the landlord. The resident has vulnerable family members living in the property; namely, the resident has disabled children.
  2. The resident raised a complaint in July 2021. The resident said that the internal doors in his property had swelled and become stuck. This led to the resident and the children becoming trapped in rooms as the doors were unable to be opened. Subsequently, the resident had to break and damage the doors to free people from the rooms. The resident stated that this experience had left his children distressed and significantly affected. Moreover, the doors being broken were an increased fire risk to his disabled children. He said that he had been reporting these issues since the beginning of his tenancy in May 2020 and nothing had been done by the landlord. The resident requested the landlord attend the property to view the issues but the landlord declined.
  3. In the landlord’s final complaint response in September 2021, it stated that it had considered the resident’s request; however, after reviewing the evidence provided and its policies, it could not find an obligation to repair the doors. Therefore, the landlord declined the resident’s request for the doors to be replaced.
  4. The resident remains unhappy with the landlord’s response. The resident would like the landlord to repair the doors as he believes the issues have arisen as a result of the landlord’s poor workmanship.

Assessment and findings

Policies and Procedures

  1. The landlord’s repairs guide states that internal doors are a resident’s responsibility to repair.

Assessment

  1. In accordance with the landlord’s repairs guide, a resident would be responsible for the repair and maintenance of internal doors within a property. As such, the landlord’s initial advice on 9 August 2021 was in accordance with this obligation.
  2. The resident raised that he had vulnerable family members in the property who have become distressed due to the doors becoming stuck. Whilst this Service appreciates that the doors becoming stuck and people becoming trapped in rooms would be distressing to the resident and his family, the landlord would not be obligated to replace the doors on this basis as the resident would ultimately be responsible to do so.
  3. Nevertheless, the landlord has a responsibility to ensure that the property is free from hazards under the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS) and a repair duty under Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. In this case, there is a health and safety concern regarding the swelling of the doors and the risk that this could be caused by a structural issue of the building, which would pose a health and safety concern in the property.
  4. The landlord’s initial response at the beginning of July 2021 asked the resident to provide photographic evidence so that it could better determine whether it had repair responsibility and to assess the extent of the damage. 
  5. However, once the resident raised that the issue was causing health and safety concerns in the property – as people were getting stuck in rooms, the doors had swelled, the doors were no longer opening or closing, and there was a potential fire hazard in regard to the door – the landlord should have attended to investigate further to establish if there was a structural concern that risked the health and safety of the inhabitants, as this could not be determined from photographs. The landlord failed to do this despite the resident requesting this on multiple occasions throughout the complaint process. This failure to investigate meant that the landlord, the resident and this Service remain unaware if the property is free from hazards under the HHRS. In short, the landlord should have attended to establish if there was a repair responsibility, although it is not generally responsible for repairs to internal doors.
  1. It is acknowledged that the landlord provided this Service with its ‘void checklist’ from May 2020, which shows that the property was deemed fit for habitation and compliant with the HHSRS and Decent Home Standards (DHS). However, this cannot be relied upon as confirmation that the property was free from hazards later, at the time of the complaint as structural concerns can occur and become worse over time. Therefore, the landlord should have attended the resident’s property to assess a developed structural concern had arisen.
  2. In conclusion, the landlord did act within its obligations to inform the resident that the internal doors were the resident’s responsibility to replace as per its repair’s guidance. However, the landlord should have attended the property and completed an inspection to assess if there was any health and safety risk in the property, as per its obligations under the HHSRS, to ensure it had no repair obligation. The landlord also needs to be aware and conscious of the vulnerabilities in the resident’s property and the age of those that are vulnerable. The landlord should have taken this into account when handling the resident’s reports.
  3. In light of the above identified failings, the landlord should attend the property to assess whether it has a repairs responsibility in regard to the HHSRS and the DHS. It should also pay the resident compensation for the failure to attend the property and establish if there was a repair obligation and in recognition of the error it made, which would have had a worse impact on the family because of their children’s vulnerabilities.
  4. The landlord should pay the resident £350 compensation to the resident in recognition of the distress and inconvenience caused by its failure to attend and establish if it has a repair obligation. This compensation is in line with the Ombudsman’s Remedies guidance (published on our website). The guidance suggests that the Ombudsman may award between £250 to £700 for cases where the Ombudsman has found considerable service failure or maladministration by the landlord, but there may be no permanent impact on the resident. Examples could include:
    1. Misdirection – giving contradictory, inadequate or incorrect information about a complainant’s rights
    2. Failure over a considerable period of time to act in accordance with policy – for example to address repairs; to make adequate adjustments.

 

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in respect of the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of faulty internal doors in his property.

Orders

  1. The Ombudsman orders the landlord to:
    1. Attend the resident’s property to assess the doors and establish if it has a repairs responsibility in line with the HHSRS and the DHS. The landlord should report the findings of this inspection to the resident and this Service. If the inspection identifies that any repairs are required which fall under the landlord’s responsibilities, the landlord should arrange the repairs in line with the timescales given in its repairs policy. 
    2. Pay the resident £350 compensation for not attending his property to assess if it had any repair obligation and not providing adequate support in consideration of the vulnerabilities in the household.
  2. These actions should be completed within four weeks.