Southwark Council (202202636)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202202636

Southwark Council

15 May 2023

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:
1. The landlord’s response to reports of drainage problems.
2. The landlord’s investigation of recurring heating faults.
3. The landlord’s complaint handling and timeliness in providing relevant compensation.

Background

The resident is a tenant of the landlord. They occupy a two-bedroom maisonette on the second floor with their son.
The landlord, a local authority, uses a third-party agent to manage resident affairs on the resident’s estate. This agent deals with routine and emergency repairs, as well as stage one complaints. For ease, and to reflect the retained responsibility, both entities are referred to as “the landlord” throughout this report.
On or around 13 March 2021, the landlord told us it was made aware by a different resident that there were issues with the communal drainage system in the estate. A backflow in the system was creating issues in nearby properties.
On 31 May 2021, the resident complained to the landlord about the drainage issue, stating it happened several times over the last three years. The landlord sent an engineer to inspect the drain. The resident reported that she was told the backflow was caused by the rainwater pipe being connected to the wastewater pipe.
On 16 June 2021, the landlord responded to the resident’s complaint. It acknowledged and apologised for a delay in repairing the drain. It did, however, state that the layout of the drainage pipes was normal, and therefore the reason quoted for the backflow was incorrect.
Based on the records provided by the landlord, there was minimal communication for the next 5 months until the resident made a further complaint on 30 November 2021. The issue of the drainage was raised again, and a fault with the heating was reported. The resident has told this Service that the heating issue was a recurring fault which had previously been fixed by the landlord. The resident requested that the landlord escalated the previous complaint, asking for compensation for the loss of heating and delays in repairing the drainage issue.
On 16 December 2021, the landlord progressed the complaint to stage two of its procedure. It also arranged an urgent fix to the heating system. On 17 December 2021 the heating fault was fixed, although it broke down again due to a different fault for a further six days. Between 24 December and 29 December 2021, the landlord asked the resident to clarify the complaint on a number of occasions. The resident was told this was needed to escalate the matter.
On 7 February 2022, the landlord wrote its final response to the resident. It apologised for the poor complaint handling and offered £100. The landlord also offered compensation for the issues with the drainage (£125) and the heating (£84). The resident contacted the landlord to request further compensation for missed appointments during the course of the repairs. On 29 April 2022, the resident sent a form to the landlord requesting compensation for seven missed appointments on:
1. 30 November 2021
2. 1 December 2021
3. 6 December 2021
4. 27 December 2021
5. 1 April 2022
6. 11 April 2022
7. 20 April 2022.
On 10 May 2022, the landlord wrote to the resident to apologise for the delay in issuing the compensation offered. It was paid on 24 May 2022. Due to the delay, the landlord paid a further £50 as a gesture of goodwill. The landlord also agreed to pay £150 to the resident in relation to three missed appointments. These were the appointments in April 2022 only and it sent reasons to the resident as to why the previous appointments were not considered missed.
The resident raised their complaint to the Ombudsman on 27 May 2022. They have told us that drainage issues persisted after the date of the final response and the heating issue reoccurred each winter. The landlord has advised us that it resolved the drainage issue on 17 May 2022. It also considers that it resolved the heating faults in April 2022.

Assessment and findings

Drainage in the estate

The landlord has a duty to maintain drainage and wastewater pipes in the property. According to the tenancy agreement, burst/damaged pipes which cause internal flooding would be considered a “Priority 1” repair meaning the landlord would expect to complete the repair within 24 hours. The landlord has not provided any job sheets or notes from the initial report, therefore it is not possible to say how this particular issue was categorised. Based on the evidence available, it is likely that it would have been considered a routine repair, rather than emergency. The timeframe for resolving a routine repair is 40 working days.
Based both on the resident’s reports, and the landlord’s investigation, it would appear to be agreed upon that the drainage issue is inconsistent and occurs occasionally, if not frequently. The landlord, despite three requests, has not provided any job sheets or surveys in respect of the drainage so it is difficult for the Ombudsman to state exactly what caused the issue. The landlord told the resident that it was caused by a fat and oil build-up and not by the layout of the drainage pipes. However, the landlord has also told the resident that it did not investigate any issues prior to May 2020, 12 months before the complaint was raised.
Where a repair is required due to occasional failures, it is good practice for the landlord to review any previous relevant repairs, not just those within the last 12 months. The resident reported that the issue reoccurred over a three-year period. It is not reasonable, or necessary, for a resident to make a complaint every time a failure occurs. That is the purpose of a service request. However, where a complaint is made that relates to an issue not being fixed, we would expect the landlord to ensure that there isn’t a systemic or inherent fault.
The landlord, based on its compensation policy, awarded £5 per week in respect of the drainage issue. It awarded the resident £125 in total based on the period between 8 June and 2 December 2021. During its investigation it told the resident that there was a fault with the drainage identified but not rectified during the first visit in March 2021. This fault was reattended in June, but still not fixed and therefore it said that this was the start of the disruption. The pipework was amended on 2 December 2021 to remove the fault by changing the angle of the drainage pipe to increase flow.
While the landlord has told the resident that the issue was rectified on 2 December 2021, it told this Service that the issue was not rectified until 17 May 2022. Evidence has also been provided that the issue was reoccurring as late as January 2023. Considering the conflicting information and the available evidence, it is likely that the issue was not resolved when the landlord said it was. The landlord is required to undertake further investigation into the issue.

Heating faults

The heating and hot water system in this block was communal. The Ombudsman published a Spotlight Report in February 2021 outlining our approach to complaints about heating and hot water, including “heat networks”, based on relevant legislation and good practice. This includes ensuring such systems are kept in reasonable repair and that residents are kept informed and updated in respect of works undertaken.
The resident has told us that there are heating issues every winter. The landlord has said that it attends heating outages within 24 hours, however it has no timescale for repairing such issues. It told us that it pays £3 per day for outages which last more than 24 hours, but as there is no timescale for repair it does not pay compensation for distress or inconvenience. There were two outages during this complaint for 22 days and 6 days respectively.
The tenancy agreement says that emergency repairs (which would include heating during colder months) must be completed within a “reasonable timeframe” after being diagnosed. What is reasonable will depend on the circumstances of each issue. However, where a repair cannot be completed, a landlord is expected to provide alternatives to ensure that access to basic facilities such as heating and hot water is maintained. This would include things like providing heaters to residents.
The landlord did provide an outline of how it intended to resolve the heating outages in December 2021, but this was two weeks after the issue was reported. Again, as the landlord has not provided any surveys or job sheets, it is difficult for the Ombudsman to say exactly what the issue was or whether the landlord’s timeframe for completing repairs was reasonable. However, we can see that the landlord did not properly consider whether the outage caused disruption or distress to the resident. While it compensated for the outage, which it said was expected to cover increased electricity bills, it would still be expected to consider general distress and inconvenience caused by the extended time taken to repair.

Complaint handling

The Housing Ombudsman Service explains its approach to complaint handling within the Complaint Handling Code. This serves as a good practice guide for landlords to consider when drafting its own complaints policies. It includes standards for things like communication, timescales, and how to approach compensation. It is based on the Ombudsman’s three principles:
1. Be fair.
2. Put things right.
3. Learn from outcomes.
The landlord’s, or more specifically the landlord’s agent’s, complaints policy, outlines their process for handling complaints. In addition, the main landlord has a corporate complaints policy which outline broad expectations of complaints but highlights that the complaint should be made to the agent in the first instance. There is a three-stage process for residents:
1. Stage one – which has a timeframe of 15 working days.
2. Stage two – which has a timeframe of 25 working days.
3. Stage three – a direct investigation by the landlord which has a timeframe of 20 working days.

These timeframes are not in keeping with the Complaint Handling Code. The landlord’s agent manages the communication for residents between stages and states they will transfer the complaint to the main landlord at the final stage.

The landlord received the original complaint on 31 May 2021. Unfortunately, there has been no original communications provided between the landlord and the resident. Based on the information available, stage one of the complaint was responded to 13 working days after it was received. This is in line with the landlord’s policy, but longer than the 10 days expected in the Complaint Handling Code. No copy of the stage one response has been provided to this Service, but it is understood an apology was provided.
We have no clear notes as to what took place between June and November 2021 when the resident asked to escalate their complaint to stage two. When the escalation was requested on 30 November 2021, the landlord did not immediately escalate the complaint. It appears efforts were ongoing to resolve the heating issues which were causing concern at the time, before responding to the complaint. However, the landlord said that it received this escalation on 16 December 2021. It isn’t clear why there is a difference in the dates, and it should have escalated the complaint while the cause was being investigated.
Between 16 December and 29 December 2021, the landlord wrote several emails to the resident asking them to “clarify their complaint”. Considering the information that had already been provided by the resident, this was not reasonable. The landlord should have been aware what the complaint was about and what the resident was requesting. The landlord wrote to the resident with its final response on 7 February 2022. It apologised for poor complaint handling at all stages and offered £100 compensation for distress and inconvenience, alongside the compensation for drainage and heating complaints. It said it would make payment within 4-6 weeks of receiving acceptance. The landlord also apologised for missed appointments (without specifying which ones) and asked the resident to provide evidence of the dates of the appointments.
The resident wrote to the landlord confirming the dates of appointments she considered to be missed. The landlord asked the resident to complete a form with details of these appointments. The resident sent this to the landlord on 29 April 2022 and confirmed that they had still not received the payment promised in the final response. The landlord apologised for the delay in sending the payment and offered a further £50 compensation as a result. This was good practice on the part of the landlord in recognising an ongoing error which was causing concern to the resident and increasing its compensation offer accordingly.
The landlord investigated the missed appointments identified by the resident and determined that only three were genuinely missed. It explained that, according to its records:
1. There was no appointment scheduled for the 30 November 2021.
2. It did attend on 1 December 2021, but this appointment was solely to deliver heaters.
3. It did attend the appointment on 6 December 2021 and flushed the heating system.
4. This appointment was not related to the resident’s property, but the estate. As such the engineer would not have attended the resident’s home.

The landlord paid a further £150 compensation in relation to the other three missed appointments which all took place in April 2022, after the complaint was resolved.

Based on the evidence available, the landlord did fail to properly manage the resident’s complaint and did not pay compensation offered in a reasonable timeframe. However, it made a payment of £150 in recognition of this failure which is in line with the Ombudsman’s guidance. The landlord should consider its retained responsibility for resident complaints where a third party is acting on its behalf and ensure it has sufficient oversight.

Determination

In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there has been maladministration in respect of the complaint about drainage issues. This is because the landlord did not fully investigate the drainage fault and did not provide information to the resident about when and how the fault would be resolved.
In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there has been maladministration in respect of the complaint about heating faults. This is because the landlord did not consider the distress and inconvenience caused to the resident by the faults.
In accordance with paragraph 53(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there has been reasonable redress in respect of the complaint about complaint handling. Although there were failures in the complaint handling, the landlord considered these and provided appropriate redress at the point of, and after, the final response.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

The landlord is hereby ordered to pay £200 compensation to the resident, in addition to the £509 already paid. This is made up of:
1. £100 for distress and inconvenience caused by the lack of information in respect of the drainage faults and disruption caused to the resident.
2. £100 for the distress and inconvenience for the failure of the landlord to consider the disruption and distress caused to the resident by the loss of heating and hot water.
The landlord is ordered to obtain a survey of the drainage in the resident’s block to establish if there are any remaining faults in the pipework. It should provide a copy of this survey to this Service and the resident and undertake any recommended repairs in a reasonable timeframe.
The landlord is ordered to provide the resident with the most recent surveys and reports in respect of the heating system and a breakdown of any outstanding repairs.
The landlord should provide evidence of compliance with the above orders within four weeks of the date of this report.

Recommendations

It is recommended that the landlord review its own and its agent’s complaint handling policy and compare it to the Complaint Handling Code. It should:
1. Ensure the policy allows for full investigation and reasonable discretion in determining adequate redress.
2. Ensure residents have clear guidance in respect of how their complaint is handled across the two organisations.
3. Ensure accurate record keeping and transparent communication with residents in relation to complaints.
4. Give the landlord sufficient oversight of complaint handling for all complaints and not just those escalated to it through the complaints process.
5. Complete and publish a self-assessment of its performance against the Complaint Handling Code.
The landlord should review its processes for:
1. Providing relevant reports and surveys to residents in respect of communal services.
2. Ensure contractors consider whether any inherent or recurring faults are present when inspecting reported faults.
3. Accurate record keeping.
The landlord should confirm to this Service whether it intends to comply with these recommendations.