Southwark Council (202404949)

Background

1. The resident has lived in the property, a one-bedroom ground-floor flat, since August 2022. He reported numerous leaks into his bathroom from the flat above before raising a complaint with the landlord.

What the complaint is about

2. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of leaks.
3. We have also considered the landlord’s handling of the associated complaint.

Our decision (determination)

4. We have found that there was reasonable redress in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of leaks.
5. We have also found that there was reasonable redress in the landlord’s handling of the complaint.

We have not made orders for the landlord to put things right.

Summary of reasons

The resident’s reports of leaks

6. The landlord identified that it did not handle the resident’s reports of leaks appropriately and took steps to remedy this, including completing the repairs and paying compensation to the resident.

The handling of the complaint

7. The landlord identified failings in its complaint handling and provided an apology and appropriate compensation to the resident for these.

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.

Recommendations

Our recommendations are not binding, and a landlord may decide not to follow them.

Our investigation

The complaint procedure

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.

8. The landlord’s repair guide says that non–urgent leaks will be repaired within 20 days.
9. It is not clear from the information provided when the leak was first reported to the landlord. The first recorded attempt by the landlord to investigate the leak was on 31 October 2023. The source of the leak was not identified on this visit.
10. Following on from this visit, the landlord and/or its contractors attended the property and the property above to identify and resolve the leak on at least 8 occasions between 31 October 2023 and 20 November 2024. This shows that the landlord was making efforts to try to identify and resolve the issue.
11. If the landlord was unable to identify the cause of the leak, it is understandable that it would not be able to fix it. It is appropriate that the landlord continued to visit to try to solve the issue.
12. The landlord experienced significant difficulties gaining access to the property above which was believed to be the source of the leak. It was able to gain access to this property in October and November 2023. It was then unable to gain access several times throughout 2024, including on occasions that it had agreed access with the resident of that property.
13. The landlord was in communication with the resident of the property above and made reasonable attempts to gain access to repair the leak. It was communicating with the resident of the above flat from March 2024 about the need for it to access the property to resolve the leak.
14. The landlord made repeated attempts to gain access to the flat above and took steps to explain to the resident of that property why it needed to gain access. It was flexible in its approach with that resident. It also considered whether to take further action to gain access to the property, including legal or tenancy enforcement action. This was appropriate.
15. The landlord could not identify a leak when it did gain access to the flat above. The flat in question had recently had a new bathroom installed which was under warranty with the contractor who had installed it. The landlord appropriately made enquiries with the contractor to carry out investigations into this, as the landlord did not want to invalidate the existing warranty by completing work itself.
16. This is an appropriate response by the landlord. However, we have not seen evidence that it managed this effectively and proactively. This is likely to have delayed a resolution for the resident, and is a failing.
17. The landlord identified some further failings in its stage 2 response. These included delays in carrying out the investigative works needed and failures in chasing the work it had issued to contractors. This points to record keeping and communication failures.
18. The landlord offered compensation for its handling of these reports as follows:
    1. £500 for the delays in resolving the leak.
    2. £500 for the distress and inconvenience caused by the leak.
    3. £50 for a missed appointment in April 2024.
19. The delays that the landlord identified were not made clear in the response provided to the resident. However, it was clear that there were delays in raising works with its contractors and that this work was not monitored after appointments were missed.
20. There were delays in completing works as a result of not managing the jobs allocated to contractors effectively, as well as delays in starting the process of gaining access to the flat above. These failings were of a reasonably short-term nature, with the landlord delaying by weeks rather than months. The longer delay was caused by the landlord not being able to gain access to the flat above, which was not the fault of the landlord.
21. We have considered the offer of £500 for the delays and the £500 for the distress and inconvenience together in our consideration of this complaint. A payment of £1,000 is appropriate when there has been maladministration with a significant impact on the resident. The prolonged duration of the issue and the delays in resolving this will have had a substantial impact on the resident. Considering this, the amount offered by the landlord was appropriate.
22. We have not seen any evidence of the missed appointment in April 2024, so cannot comment directly on this. However, the redress offered was in line with the landlord’s compensation policy and so has also been considered fair in the circumstances.
23. For the reasons set out above, we have found that there was reasonable redress in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of leaks.

24. The landlord’s complaints policy says that it will provide a response at stage 1 within 10 working days and at stage 2 within 20 working days.
25. The resident raised his complaint on 30 October 2023. He received a stage 1 response from the landlord on 24 November 2023. This was after 20 working days. He received a subsequent stage 1 response from the managing agent on 3 May 2024. This was after 130 working days (or 6 months). This substantial delay was a failing.
26. The resident asked to escalate his complaint to stage 2 on 14 April 2024. However, his complaint was only escalated in November 2024 after he contacted our service. He received a stage 2 response on 21 November 2024. This was 7 months after asking for his complaint to be escalated to stage 2. This was also a failing.
27. There were significant failings with the handling of this complaint. The stage 1 responses issued by the landlord and managing agent did not sufficiently answer the resident’s complaint and the timescale given in the landlord’s complaints policy was not followed.
28. There was also a significant failure in not escalating the complaint to stage 2 when the resident asked to do so. The landlord’s policy and our statutory Complaint Handling Code make it clear that a complaint should be escalated to stage 2 when a resident remains dissatisfied after a stage 1 response has been issued. If there is a good reason not to escalate a complaint, the landlord should explain this to the resident at the earliest opportunity.
29. Due to the delays at both stages, the resident had to wait an unreasonable amount of time to receive an answer to his complaint. This is likely to have made him think that his concerns were not being taken seriously and would have caused him distress and inconvenience. The resident continued to contact the landlord throughout and the failure to properly handle the complaint would have seriously damaged the landlord-tenant relationship.
30. The landlord identified these failings within its stage 2 complaint response. It provided an apology to the resident when it first identified these failings, and again when it provided the stage 2 response to his complaint. This was positive and shows the landlord took its failings seriously.
31. The landlord offered the resident £250 for the failings in its complaint handling. This was a significant payment for failings in complaint handling and appropriately reflected the delays the resident had experienced in the complaints process.
32. It is acknowledged that despite the delays in answering and escalating his complaint, this did not impact on the landlord’s response to the issues the resident was experiencing.
33. The offer of compensation made by the landlord is in line with a finding of maladministration in our remedies guidance, which would be appropriate when there have been failings that have adversely affected but have not had a permanent impact on the resident.
34. For these reasons, we find there was reasonable redress in the landlord’s handling of the complaint.

Learning

35. The landlord did not appropriately follow its complaints process in this case and this caused additional detriment to the resident. This is evidenced by the significant delays in the responses at both stages.

Knowledge and information management (record keeping)

36. The records provided to our service were incomplete and did not provide full details of the work carried out by the landlord and its contractors to resolve the issues.
37. There were also failings in monitoring the progress of the complaint through the complaints process, which meant that the resident did not receive an answer for a considerable time.
38. There was insufficient oversight of work allocated to the landlord’s contactors, and this meant that the repairs were delayed for the resident. The landlord should consider its monitoring of contractors and work that has been allocated.

Communication

39. The communication from the landlord was poor on many occasions. It did not keep the resident up to date with the progress of his complaint or the repair.
40. The communication between the landlord and its managing agent was not consistent and this contributed to the failures the resident experienced.