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Southwark Council (202332723)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202332723

Southwark Council

30 September 2025

 

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:
    1. The landlord’s handling of repairs.
    2. The level of compensation offered by the landlord.
  2. The Ombudsman will also consider the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

  1. The resident has been a secure tenant of a 2-bedroom ground floor flat since 18 November 2013. The property is adapted for the resident’s medical needs, including a wet room and widened doorways.
  2. She submitted her stage 1 complaint on 15 August 2023. She said:
    1. She had no hot water and the landlord was not providing timescales for this to be resolved.
    2. Earlier in the year issues with the hallway and bathroom flooring led to part of the tiling in the bathroom being replaced with aqua boards. The landlord had led her to believe that the whole bathroom would be aqua panelled. There had been no response to her queries about this.
  3. The landlord responded on 24 October 2023. It said:
    1. The hot water had been reinstated, it awarded compensation of £3 per day for the 25 days without hot water as per its compensation guidelines.
    2. There was no update on the aqua panelling. The complaint handler had no response to his multiple requests for an update from the repairs team.
  4. The resident escalated her complaint to stage 2 on 24 October 2023 because her complaint about the bathroom had not been resolved or a course of action confirmed.
  5. The resident escalated her complaint to the Ombudsman on 14 December 2023 as she had not had a response from the landlord at stage 2.
  6. The landlord responded to the stage 2 complaint on 18 December 2023. It said:
    1. The complaint was partially upheld.
    2. It apologised that the stage 1 complaint had not been responded to within 10 working days as per its complaints policy.
    3. The repairs manager had stated that the bathroom works were complete, the other walls would not be aqua panelled.
    4. It awarded £100 compensation for the delays with stage 1 and 2 responses.
  7. The resident kept her complaint with the Ombudsman as she felt the whole bathroom should have been aqua panelled and the level of compensation offered was not enough.

Assessment and findings

Repairs handling

  1. Under the tenancy agreement the landlord is responsible for repairs to maintain the structure and exterior of the property. This is in line with section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985.
  2. The repairs guide sets out timescales for repairs. Emergency repairs should be attended within 24 hours. Urgent repairs will be attended within 3 working days. Non urgent repairs should be completed within 20 working days from the date of the report. In cases of planned major work, there may be reasonable delays if there is no serious risk to health and safety.
  3. On 30 January 2023 the resident reported the floorboards in the hallway felt “spongy and like it will fall through.” The landlord’s repairs guide classes rotten floorboards as an urgent repair which should have been attended within 3 working days. On 8 February 2023, 8 working days later, an operative inspected the floorboards. They reported back to the landlord that the wet room flooring was leaking into the hallway, causing damage to the hall flooring. The landlord needed to carry out flooring and plumbing repairs.
  4. The resident again raised the issue of the water penetration damaged flooring on 13 March 2023. An operative attended 4 days later on 17 March 2023 and raised repairs for the bathroom walls and flooring and for the hallway flooring. On 19 April 2023, the hall floorboards were replaced. The floorboards should have been made safe within 3 working days, however it was 57 working days before the work was carried out.
  5. The tenancy agreement states that if a resident is unhappy with a repair they should contact the landlord who will send someone to inspect or fix the problem. If the resident remains unhappy, they can apply to the arbitration tribunal to make an independent decision about the work.
  6. The resident contacted the landlord on 20 April 2023 and 9 May 2023 before submitting her stage 1 complaint on 15 August 2023. She felt the work to the bathroom was not complete as only part of it had been aqua panelled. She was under the impression from inspections on 8 February 2023 and 17 March 2023 that the tiles would be removed from all 4 walls and replaced with aqua panelling.
  7. Even with extended deadlines to the stage 1 response, the landlord was unable to give a full response regarding the walls in the wet room. It was only in the stage 2 response on 18 December 2023 that it stated the works to the bathroom were complete and there was no intention to aqua panel all the walls.
  8. The evidence shows that sufficient aqua panelling to cover all walls in the wet room was requested by the operative who inspected the bathroom on 17 March 2023. When work commenced to hack off damaged wall tiles on 12 April 2023, it was found that the plasterboard behind was “degraded and rotten”. Where the tiles were removed and replaced with aqua panels, the wall had to be stripped back to block. One wall was partially aqua panelled over the existing tiles. It is reasonable to expect that the whole bathroom would need the same level of work and that to do this in one go would be more efficient than replacing half the wall covering.
  9. There is no evidence of the landlord inspecting the “completed” works to the bathroom after the resident first made it aware that she was unhappy with the repair. There is no evidence that arbitration was offered as a solution to the disagreement over the quality and completion of the repair. Had the landlord followed its own tenancy agreement it may have been able to prevent the time and trouble for the resident having to raise a complaint. Overall there has been maladministration in the landlord’s handling of repairs.

Level of compensation

  1. The compensation policy states that the landlord determines levels of compensation by the particulars of the case. Medium impact is where the events are clearly an injustice to the resident and the service has failed to meet the required standards. At the medium impact level, it awards £10 per week for delay in delivering a service and £10 per week for distress caused. In addition the landlord considers the time and trouble for the resident in getting a resolution to their problem. Factors here include the response times, time and effort for the resident, difficulty experienced by the resident in dealing with the landlord and the degree of inadequacy of the council’s communication. The maximum award for time and trouble is £250.
  2. The landlord awarded £100 for delays with responses to the stage 1 and 2 complaints. The resident experienced significant delays, uncertainty and inconvenience with resolution of her problems. There was an 11 week delay with urgent repairs to floorboards, a 5 week delay with the response to her stage 1 complaint and a 2 week delay with the response to her stage 2 complaint. She had to wait 34 weeks for a response to her query about the bathroom works being incomplete. This totals 52 weeks of delays and distress.
  3. The resident has had to repeatedly chase the landlord for repairs, to get clear information and complaint responses. This has caused the resident time, trouble and inconvenience. Overall there has been maladministration in the landlord’s consideration of the level of compensation.

Complaint handling

  1. The landlord operates a 2 stage complaints process. Its complaint policy states it will acknowledge complaints within 3 working days. It should respond to stage 1 complaints within 15 working days. It should respond to stage 2 complaints within 25 working days. In some cases there may be delays and these will be communicated to the resident.
  2. The resident submitted her stage 1 complaint on 15 August 2023. The landlord emailed her 3 times to extend the deadline. On 3 October 2023 it aimed to respond by 10 October 2023. On 21 and 23 October 2023 the resident chased the response and asked for a copy of the complaints policy. The landlord finally sent its stage 1 response on 24 October 2023, 50 working days after the complaint was submitted.
  3. The resident requested that her complaint be escalated to stage 2 on 24 October 2023. She chased the response on 3 December 2023 and again requested a copy of the complaints policy. On 7 December the landlord apologised for the delay and stated the response would be provided by 11 December 2023. The landlord finally responded on 18 December 2023, 39 working days after the complaint was escalated. There is no evidence that it ever provided the resident with a copy of the complaints policy.
  4. The complaints policy states that when answering a complaint the landlord will address the issues raised and give a clear outcome as to whether it upholds the complaint. Despite the delays, the stage 1 response did not address the issues in the bathroom and did not give a clear outcome. Overall there has been maladministration in relation to the landlord’s complaint handling.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was maladministration in relation to the landlord’s handling of repairs.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s consideration of the level of compensation.
  3. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was maladministration in relation to the landlord’s complaint handling.

Orders and recommendations

  1. Within 4 weeks of the date of this report the landlord must:
    1. Apologise to the resident for the failings identified in this report.
    2. Inspect the resident’s wet room for safety and raise works to conform with the original inspection report.
    3. Pay compensation of £1000 directly to the resident:
      1. £400 for the delays with repairs and responding to the resident’s complaints (this includes the £100 offered at stage 2 unless this has already been paid).
      2. £400 for distress caused by the failings detailed in this report.
      3. £200 for the resident’s time and trouble caused by the failings detailed in this report.
  2. The landlord should provide evidence of compliance with the above orders to this Service within 4 weeks.