Southwark Council (202325237)

Decision
Case ID	202325237
Decision type	Investigation
Landlord	Southwark Council
Landlord type	Local Authority / ALMO or TMO
Occupancy	Secure Tenancy
Date	28 November 2025

Background

The resident lives in a 2-bedroom flat in a high-rise building. She reported repeated loss of secondary water supply to her home over a period of around two years. The issue persisted despite multiple reports and interventions. The resident has disclosed vulnerabilities, including a musculoskeletal condition.

What the complaint is about

The landlord’s response to the loss of secondary water supply.
The associated complaint handling.

Our decision (determination)

We have found that:

a) There was maladministration in the landlord’s response to the loss of secondary water.

b) There was maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling.

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

Summary of reasons

The landlord’s response to the loss of water supply

The landlord acknowledged that it did not take appropriate action to resolve the issue and failed to monitor the progress of works by its contractors effectively, which contributed to delays in the repair works. It did not set an action plan at stage 2 of the complaint process and post its complaint procedure. The landlord did not fully resolve the repair until March 2025, more than two years after the first report of secondary water loss in February 2023. During this period, the resident repeatedly reported intermittent water supply problems which had a significant impact on the resident as a vulnerable person.

The landlord’s complaint handling.

The landlord failed to act in accordance with its complaint handling policy. Despite intervention from this Service there was a delay before it issued its final stage 2 complaint response.

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.

Order	What the landlord must do	Due date
1	Apology order The landlord must apologise in writing to the resident for the failures identified in this report. The landlord must ensure: The head of service provides an apology in writing regarding the delay in the repair and the lack of effective monitoring and updates to the resident. The complaint handling failings identified at stage 2. The apology is specific to the failures identified in this decision, meaningful and empathetic. It has due regard to our apologies guidance.	No later than 14 January 2026
2	Compensation order The landlord must pay the resident £1500 made up as follows: £1400 for the maladministration identified in relation to the landlord’s response to the substantive repair issue. £100 for the maladministration identified due to the complaint handling failures. This must be paid directly to the resident by the due date. The landlord must provide documentary evidence of payment by the due date. The landlord may deduct from the total figure any payments it has already paid.	No later than 14 January 2026
	Case Review Order The landlord must review its response to the resident’s repair request in view of the failures it identified post complaint procedure, and the issues we have identified in this report. This must consider the delays in repair, its management of contractors and its failure to monitor the progress of works to completion. The review must set out the lessons it has learnt and how it will implement its learning to improve service delivery. The landlord must provide the results of its case review to the resident and this Service.	No later than 18 February 2026

Our investigation

The complaint procedure

Date	What happened
07/02/2023	The resident reported to the landlord the first instance of no secondary water.
10/04/2023	The resident complained of secondary water supply between 4 April 2023 and 10 April 2023. She said: The first shutdown was an emergency and the second planned. The flat above had work done and contractors failed to open a valve. Only drinking water in the kitchen was available. She suffered with a muscular skeletal condition which made it difficult to fill buckets with water to flush and had resulted in sore wrists. She had to boil the kettle to wash dishes. The resident reported the issue to the landlord daily. The resident asked for compensation for time and inconvenience.
27/04/2023	The landlord issued its stage 1 response, in which it offered compensation of £50 in total comprising of £15 for loss of water for 5 days at £3 per day and £35 for electricity.
01/05/2023	The resident submitted an online complaint in which she complained that: Her flat and those below had only drinking water from 27 April 2023, 2 hours after the previous job had closed on this date. She had made calls to the repairs service every day for 5 days, totalling around 4 hours, until the water resumed. Heating and plumber engineers attended before they resolved the issue. She sought compensation for the water loss, utilities, phone calls, and inconvenience due to strain on weak wrists caused by filling buckets for use in the bathroom.
15/05/2023	The resident complained of loss of secondary water supply from 12 May 2023 to the date of complaint. She said: A plumber attended and changed the valve to the communal break tank, but the same issue occurred the day after. The resident spoke to the contractors on site who were not aware of the water supply issues. The resident established the break tank was empty. The repairs team told the resident that the plumber had passed a job to a heating engineer and that there was a repeated problem with engineers referring jobs back and forth. An engineer manually filled the tank and the water supply resumed. The engineer told the resident a different contractor had switched off the water supply during renovation works to the flat above. She did not receive prior notice of planned works. The resident wished for the landlord to notify her in future and that she wished for contractors to reinstate water when works were complete. She requested the contact details of the person overseeing the works to the flat above to report further issues, if necessary. She asked for a financial remedy for the persistent calls and inconvenience.
19/06/2023	The landlord issued a complaint acknowledgment in which it said a contractor re-instated the water on 28 April 2023 and on 12 May 2023 it replaced the ball valve in the breaker tank. It offered compensation comprising of £3 per day from 27 April 2023 to 12 May 2023 (16 days), plus £5 per week for time and inconvenience, which totals £58.
23/06/2023	The resident escalated the complaint to stage 2. On 26/06/2023 the landlord acknowledged the request. It apologised for the delay in the complaint being progressed to stage 2 due to increased contact from residents.
20/10/2023	The resident said she had no secondary water from 11 October 2023. She said the repairs team informed her that one contractor had completed a repair and had informed the landlord that another contractor needed to complete the resolution works. However, despite the resident’s chasing, the issue remained unresolved.
03/11/2023	The landlord issued a further stage 1 response in which it upheld the complaint and said: The issue was due to the breaker tank in the flat above. There was access issues and multiple call outs from various contractors before a resolution. The resident had no secondary water between 10 October 2023 and 23 October 2023. It acknowledged there were multiple call outs from contractors to investigate and remedy the issue which did not meet its standards. It offered £100 in total, comprising of £50 for loss of water, £30 for time and trouble and £20 for inconvenience.
Referral to the Ombudsman	The resident referred the complaint to us on 26 November 2023. The resident confirmed that she had not received a Stage 2 response. We contacted the landlord to request action on 18 December 2023.
12/01/2024	The landlord issued its Stage 2 response, which it incorrectly dated 10 April 2023. It provided the following response: The landlord set out the history of complaints made by the resident in April 2023 and October 2023 and provided a summary of the repairs and the compensation that it had awarded. It acknowledged it had made errors that it should have corrected in its Stage 1 decision. It apologised for the inconvenience caused and delays in its response which it said was due to workload. It stated that an additional award for compensation was fair, but it would consider a further award upon the completion of outstanding repair works. It said it would monitor the repair and provide updates to the resident.

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.

Complaint	The landlord’s response to the loss of water supply.
Finding	Maladministration

We contacted the resident who informed us that she was aware of a group legal action involving some residents from the building in connection with the water supply issues. The landlord has not provided any evidence of any such action involving the resident that prevents the Ombudsman from investigating under the Scheme, as such, we have progressed with our investigation.
We note the resident has said she had suffered injury because of a pre-existing health condition. It is beyond the remit of this Service to determine whether there was a direct link between the landlord’s actions or inaction and the resident’s health. The resident may wish to seek independent advice on making a personal injury claim if she considers the landlord actions affected her health. While we cannot consider the effect on health, we can consider any general distress and inconvenience the resident experienced because of any failures by the landlord.
The landlord’s repairs policy states that it will respond to a total or a partial loss of heating or hot water:
1. Between 1 October and 31 March within 24 hours.
2. Between 1 April and 30 September within 3 working days.
The resident’s occupancy agreement and the landlord’s repairs policy obliges the landlord to ensure water supply to the property is in working order and remedy any water supply defect.
The resident reported no secondary water supply to the repairs team in February, April May and October 2023. Over this period, the resident reported a total loss of secondary water for a minimum of 5 days and a maximum of 16 days. However, the resident has also told us that the problems with secondary water loss was intermittent for a period of two years, with only sufficient water to flush the toilet once a day. The resident said this continued until the landlord fully resolved the issue in March 2025.
The work log reflects that the landlord provided an initial response to each repair request made by the resident within the timescales it set out in its policy. However, its repairs were temporary, and it failed to fully resolve the issues. The water supply issue persisted for an unreasonable length of time. The landlord has also not demonstrated that it had given due regard to what the resident had said about the impact the water loss had on her because of her vulnerability.
The landlord was completing void works to the flat above, where the break tank that supplied water to the resident and flats below was located. We will refer to this as flat A. The landlord’s records show flat A was undergoing renovation between April and June 2023. During this period, the resident said there were issues with the contractors leaving the water shut off, or failing to ensure the break tank was full before leaving site. The landlord’s work log record reflects what the resident has told us. The resident also said different contractors had advised her to re-report matters to the repairs team so that another contractor could attend rather than raising those repairs internally. This placed an unreasonable burden on the resident to chase for updates and to take action to speak directly to the contractors to resolve matters.
The landlord’s communication with the resident was poor. The landlord failed to notify the residents of planned works that could affect water supply and it did not provide a point of contact during the works. It is not evident that the landlord notified contractors that flat A housed the break tank that supplied water to the flats below it. This information could have ensured contractors were more likely to reinstate the water supply quickly and minimise disruption to other residents. Its failure to notify residents of a possible interrupted water supply would have enabled residents to plan around it. It would have also allowed the landlord to manage their subsequent dissatisfaction.
In its first stage 1 response in April 2023, the landlord admitted to delayed action to remedy the repair issue. It offered compensation but did not set a plan for how it would put things right. In its further untitled complaint response in June 2023 the landlord offered compensation for the period of secondary water loss between April and May 2023 in recognition of the inconvenience, but it did not address the other concerns raised by the resident. We appreciate at this point the landlord suspected that the interrupted supply was due to the void works to flat A.
The problem returned in October 2023. The resident complained to the landlord but also contacted her local resident’s association. The Chair of the resident’s association asked the landlord to investigate and act to rectify the issue. In her complaint, the resident said contractors had disagreed about who was responsible for the repairs, one said they had fixed the booster pump, and it was not responsible for further repair work. Another said they did not deal with cold water supply, and the plumber said they only handled single-property issues and could not fix a problem affecting several flats. The lack of clarity between the contractors, and the landlord’s failure to manage its contractor or monitor the repair until its completion is evident.
Emails from the landlord show that on 11 October 2023 the tank ran dry because the booster pump was air locked. A contractor accessed flat A and reported the tanks were refilling but this did not resolve the issue. Internal emails show the landlord had shut down the communal roof tanks in October, but it did not confirm if it had suspected this was the cause of the water supply problem. On 19 October, contractors could not access flat A. The landlord raised a job on 20 October, and a plumber attended at 11pm but could not access flat A out of hours.
The landlord’s repairs team confirmed the ball valve was operating but it believed there was a blockage in the down pipe feeding the communal break tank because itwas emptying faster than it refilled. The repairs emails noted that a contractor should check the roof tanks as it believed that shutting them off in the week might have caused the blockage, but it is unclear whether it further explored this. It recommended replacing the tanks with communal pressure-reducing valves as it had installed in other blocks. Again, it is unclear whether it took further action to progress this. An engineer attended on 23 October and confirmed there was a blockage which it cleared, and the water resumed. We would expect the landlord to set an action plan to explore the issues given it had recognised the issues were recurring, but it did not note any follow up action.
It is essential that the landlord effectively manages its third-party operatives to provide an effective service delivery. In this case, this has not happened. In addition to this failure, the landlord has acknowledged after the final complaint response that it did not monitor the progress of works until its conclusion. It is essential that landlords keep accurate records so that they can monitor and progress repairs to reduce any ongoing impact on residents.
In its stage 2 response in January 2024, the landlord summarised the compensation offered in its stage 1 response in April 2023 of £50 made up of £3 per day for loss of water and £35 for the additional use of electricity and the inconvenience caused. It also said the compensation offered at stage 1 in November 2023 was reasonable. This was £100 made up of £50 for water loss, £30 for time and trouble and £20 for inconvenience. It also gave an apology for inconvenience.
The landlord incorrectly stated that it had resolved the water supply issue on 16 December 2023. However, this related to a separate repair issue involving the communal boilers in the plant room. It then contradicted its conclusion by stating that further compensation was fair which it would arrange once it had resolved the outstanding repair. It also said it would monitor progress and keep the resident updated until it resolved the issue. In these circumstances, we would expect the landlord to provide an action plan and a timescale for repair, which it failed to do.

Post complaint procedure

We can only consider a complaint that has exhausted the landlord’s internal complaints process. The resident reported to the landlord another instance of loss of water in July 2024. She did not log this with the landlord as a new complaint. To ensure fairness and to help progress the case to a resolution, we have considered events that happened after the final complaint response. We note the landlord accepted its failure in its stage 2 response and said it would look at further compensation once the repairs were complete. In its recent contact with us, the landlord confirmed it believes compensation is still due on this case.
The resident informed us that the repair is now complete but that she had experienced ongoing problems with the secondary water supply for months. There was a period of around 2 years after the original reports, and about 13 months after the final complaint response before the landlord fully resolved the issue. We asked the landlord to confirm the date the work finished, but it has not provided this information. Therefore, for the purposes of this investigation, we have relied on the resident’s statement that the repairs took place in March 2025, and this resolved the issues she had been experiencing.
On 5 November 2024 the landlord provided us with the following information:
1. The intermittent secondary water supply issue was unresolved.
2. There was a blockage in the inlet pipework which resulted in the break tank from draining quickly but refilling very slowly. This gave the impression of no secondary water, which would be more noticeable at busy periods of usage, such as morning and evening.
3. Following its stage 2 response, it failed to ensure it closely monitored repairs or that it had taken proactive action to gain access to flat A so that it could provide an adequate remedy and offer to put things right.
4. It considered it fair to compensate the resident upon the completion of the outstanding works.
5. It would report the matter to its head of service to investigate.
6. It had learnt from the failures it had identified and recommended action to monitor work orders to ensure no closure before resolution.
7. It would monitor and update the resident about the repairs.
We acknowledge that the landlord had told the resident in its stage 2 response in January 2024 that it would monitor progress and update the resident until it resolved the repair. However, in its contact with us 10 months later it admitted to continued failure. It had not demonstrated that it had monitored progress or that it kept the resident updated. It failed to learn sufficient lessons from its service failure despite acknowledging the issues with the communal break tank, and its failure to monitor the repair to its conclusion. Further, in its information to us, the landlord did not provide an appropriate redress. It failed to propose relevant actions or timescales to put things right. A further 4 months followed before it completed the repair work. The landlord has not demonstrated that it had learnt sufficient lessons and the delays continued despite its promise to monitor progress and update the resident.
The landlord’s compensation policy sets out, amongst other things, that it will consider the impact of delay and distress, time and trouble, incurred costs (such as utilities) and loss of heating and hot water until the resolution of an issue, with the loss of hot water over a 24-hour period, calculated at £3 per day to include reasonable cost incurred due to additional electricity usage.
To date, it has offered a total of £208 in compensation to the resident for the known water outages. The landlord’s compensation offer was reflective of the daily rate the specific periods of the resident’s report of total loss of secondary water supply, but it does not acknowledge what the resident has said about the intermittent water supply issues that continued outside of these periods.
The landlord acknowledged in its final stage 2 response that the issue was unresolved. The resident has told us that she experienced intermittent water supply issues continually which affected her from the time of her first report to the repairs team in February 2023 to when the landlord resolved the repairs in March 2025.
The resident told the landlord that she had a vulnerability. The landlord does not acknowledge this in its approach to putting things right in view of the resident’s needs. There is no evidence that the landlord risk assessed the case in consideration of the resident’s needs. At the end of its complaint procedure, it did not offer any redress that appropriately acknowledged the distress and inconvenience caused to the resident because of the delayed repair works. We expect landlords should offer a reasonable standard of service to residents, particularly those who have disclosed a vulnerability. Its failure to do so is of concern.
Overall, the landlord acknowledged following its internal complaint procedure that when the stage 2 response was issued it had not set an action to put the issue right. It also acknowledged it had not resolved the substantive repair in November 2024 which suggests it had not acted on the learning identified following its final complaint response. Further, it did not demonstrate it took action to progress and monitor the repair or update the resident.
Therefore, we find maladministration in the landlord handling of the reports of loss of water. While the landlord acknowledged a fault in its service and offered some compensation, it had not done enough to put things right. For the following reasons the landlord has not demonstrated it has acted in line with our dispute resolution principles – to be fair, put things right and learn from outcomes:
1. It did not offer a sufficient financial remedy in recognition of the resident’s distress, inconvenience, time, and effort over the period of the complaint to put things right.
2. It failed to acknowledge the resident’s reports about the impact on her due to the intermittent issues that continued for a prolonged period, including how her health conditions made this harder for her.
3. It said it would provide a financial remedy upon the completion of works, but it has not done so.
4. It failed to effectively manage the actions of its contractors.
5. It has not kept the resident updated as it had resolved to do in its final stage 2 response, nor has it demonstrated that it has progressed the learning it proposed in its further contact with this Service.
We have considered the landlord’s compensation policy and our remedies policy. We recognise that it is difficult to quantify the extent of the loss of water, but the evidence points to it being intermittent for a protracted period as well as completely out of service for short periods. During this time, there was a clear detriment to the vulnerable resident, who reported health implications and significant inconvenience in her attempts to use essential facilities. We, therefore, make a compensation order for the total of £1400 made up of the following:
1. £500 per annum for a two-year period for the injustice to the resident on account of the delay in service delivery and the repeated failures by the landlord to address the issues and put things right.
2. £250 in recognition of the distress, frustration and inconvenience caused to the resident over the period of persistent and intermittent water loss during busy periods.
3. £50 in recognition of the time, effort and the length of time taken by the resident to make phone calls, speak to contractors and take time to follow up on the repairs when the landlord did not provide resolution or any update.
4. £100 for unquantified costs incurred for the increase in use of electricity over the period of disrepair.
We have made a case review order for the landlord to consider its actions in response to the resident reports of intermittent secondary water supply. It must share this with the resident and this Service. The case review must consider the issues we have identified in this report – the delays in repair, the management of its contractors, it’s failure to monitor and progress the repair, its failure to update the resident, and failure to demonstrate that it considered the resident’s vulnerability. The review should set out how it will implement the lessons learnt to improve its future service delivery.
We have also made an order for the landlord to provide a written apology to the resident for the failures identified in this report that acknowledges the adverse impact on the resident due to the delay in repairs. This should seek to assure the resident about the steps the landlord has taken to prevent a recurrence of the issues.

Complaint	The handling of the complaint
Finding	Maladministration

The landlord was operating under its complaints policy dated 01 March 2021 at the time of the complaint handling. The landlord has since updated its policy in April 2024 to align with the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code).
The landlord’s complaint policy included an ‘early resolution’ stage. If the resident remained dissatisfied, they could request that the landlord consider it under its formal complaints process. It operated a two-stage formal process – the complaint phase and the review phase. It stated it would acknowledge a complaint within 3 working days and provide a full response to the complaint phase and the review phase in 15 and 25 working days, respectively.
The landlord acknowledged the first stage 1 complaint on 12 April 2023 and provided the final response in 13 working days, within the timescale it set out in its policy.
The resident submitted two further complaints about the substantive issue on 1 and 15 May 2023, which the landlord did not acknowledge or escalate to stage 2. The landlord responded in an untitled email response on 19 June 2023, 32 days after the first submission. Therefore, it did not meet the timescale set out in its policy. It offered compensation for the delay and inconvenience due to the loss of water between 27 April 2023 and 12 May 2023. The response did not provide information about its findings, and it did not set a plan of action to put things right.
The resident escalated her complaint on 23 June 2023. The landlordacknowledged this in 3 working days, but it only provided its stage 2 response after intervention from this Service, 142 working days after, on 12 January 2024. This followed the resident’scontact with us in November 2023 and fell excessively beyond its own timescale.
The landlord acknowledged the resident’s further complaint of 19 October 2023 on the following day. However, it missed an opportunity to escalate her complaint to stage 2. Rather, the landlord provided a further stage 1 response. The response fell one day outside of its timescale.
In November 2024, the landlord provided further information to us. It acknowledged delays in issuing a timely response to the resident. However, it did not offer any redress for those delays. The landlord also confirmed that it had incorrectly offered compensation in October for inconvenience rather than time and trouble. The landlord said it would be happy to compensate the resident for the complaint handling failures from February 2023 but did not propose any further financial redress.
The landlord’s handling of the complaint was inadequate. It did not offer the resident a reasonable remedy that reflected the resident’s time and effort. It missed opportunities to escalate the complaint to stage 2. The landlord did identify its failings in its stage 2 response, but it did not take reasonable steps to put things right. Further, the landlord did not acknowledge how the delays in complaint handling affected the progression of the substantive repair issue, which led to further demands on its service. This approach was not consistent with good complaint-handling practice.
Therefore, we have found maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling.
We have made an order for compensation to reflect the time and effort the resident incurred when pursuing their complaint due to the delays in complaint handling.
Further, we have made an order for the landlord to provide a written apology to the resident that sincerely acknowledges the impact because of their time and trouble to repeatedly pursue the matter.

Learning

Knowledge information management (record keeping)

The landlord’s repairs records were unclear. It was difficult to work out whether specific jobs were complete. There was a lack of clarity about which contractor was responsible for specific repair areas, such as the communal break tanks and this resulted in unnecessary confusion and delays. The landlord stated that it would monitor this issue. Our Spotlight report ‘On the record’ published in May 2023 highlights the importance of accurate record keeping and explains how maintaining up to date records supports efficient and effective services and improves communication with residents.

Communication

The landlord did not notify residents in advance of planned works. There were also delays in its communication with the resident during the complaint process. It is not clear that the landlord provided updates on the substantive repair issue after the complaint procedure, despite stating that it would do so.
The landlord’s communication with its contractors about the impact of works on other residents’ water supply was inadequate. It would be reasonable for the landlord to ensure contractors are aware of this when completing works on flats where a communal break tank is located.
The landlord should be mindful of the importance of effective communication in the landlord tenant relationship is vital to maintain a good relationship of trust.