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Together Housing Association Limited (202318513)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202318513

Together Housing Association Limited

25 July 2024

 

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 how the landlord handled blocked drains in the property.
  2. The Ombudsman has also considered the landlord’s record keeping.

Background

  1. The resident is a joint assured tenant of the landlord, a housing association. The property is a 2-bedroom flat in which the resident lives with her husband. Both the resident and her husband are elderly and have long-term health conditions. Her husband also has cancer, and it is our understanding that the resident is his primary care giver.
  2. On 3 May 2023 the resident advised the landlord that her kitchen sink and bath were blocked. The landlord attended the property the same day but was unable to resolve the blockage. It attended several times more over the following month, but each time was unable to fully resolve it. On the occasions it was able to resolve them, the blockages quickly returned.
  3. The resident complained to the landlord via a councillor on 6 June 2023 about the time it was taking it to resolve the blockages, and the impact the lack of washing facilities was having on her and her husband. The landlord issued its stage 1 response on 8 July 2023 and acknowledged it had been unable to unblock the drains in May 2023. However, it stated that its contractor had attempted to engage with the resident to attend the property and complete the repair on 13 June 2023 and 3 July 2023 but the resident had either not engaged or refused them access. It asked the resident to engage with the contractor in the future to allow them access to repair the blockage. However, it acknowledged there had been a service failure in its handling of the repair up until this point. It is our understanding that a contractor attended and unblocked the drains on 11 August 2023.
  4. The resident then complained again on 21 August 2023 because she was unhappy with how long it had taken the landlord to unblock the drains, and asked for compensation for this. The landlord issued its stage 2 response on 15 January 2024. It stated that it had attended each visit related to the blocked drains according to its service standards, so it was unable to offer the compensation the resident sought. However, it offered her £50 for the extra cleaning products she had to make use of while the drains were blocked. It also offered £50 compensation for the delay in responding to her stage 1 complaint, and £50 for the delay in responding at stage 2.
  5. The resident is not satisfied with this and considers compensation of £800 is warranted to put right distress she says was caused by unreasonable delays in unblocking the drains. She would like the Ombudsman to investigate and order the landlord to provide this.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. This Service has been provided with records relating to reports of historical repairs and issues at the property from 2016. Some of these are related to historical instances of blocked drains. However, in a telephone call with the resident, she was explicit that all she wants us to consider is the landlord’s actions during the period beginning May 2023 when her drains were blocked. Therefore, in the interests of practicality and proportionality, we will follow the resident’s direction and restrict our investigation to this period.

How the landlord handled the blocked drains

9. The landlord’s repairs policy obliges it to complete:

  • Emergency repairs within 24 hours.
  • Routine repairs and maintenance within 28 days.
  • Planned external works within 90 days.
  1. The policy is not explicit in how the landlord should have prioritised the blocked drains. However, the Right to Repair Regulations (1994) provide a useful benchmark by which we can assess whether the landlord completed this repair within a reasonable timeframe. These regulations prescribe a 3 working day period by which landlords should be expected to repair a blocked sink, basin, or bath. The Ombudsman notes that these regulations do not apply to housing association tenants. However, given the urgency of the matter, we consider this a reasonable response time for the landlord to work according to.
  2. The landlord unblocked the drain and restored the resident’s washing facilities on 11 August 2023, and so it exceeded the regulation timeframe by over 13 weeks. This is a significant period of time to be without washing facilities, and the resident has explained that this caused her and her husband serious distress. She explained that she has to wash her husband frequently due to his health conditions, and that being unable to do so for so long was humiliating and degrading for them both.
  3. Although it seems reasonable to expect the landlord in most instances to resolve this kind of issue within 3 working days, clearly there will be times when this is not possible. In these instances, the Ombudsman expects landlords to consider any vulnerabilities the resident and other tenants may have, and then consider ways it might minimise the impact of the delay.
  4. The repair logs provided by the landlord are scarce, and there are many visits referred to in internal email exchanges which are not accounted for. The few logs relevant to the drains also each record the date the repair was completed as months before it was raised. This is clearly an error, and it has made it difficult for us to determine the outcome of each visit. However, based on internal email exchanges, we have been able to reach a view on the landlord’s actions during this period.
  5. We can see the landlord attended the property on 3 May 2023, the same day the resident reported the issue. While it attended within the emergency repair timeframe, it was unable to resolve the blockage. We can see it then attended again on 8 May, 18 May, 26 May, and 2 June to attempt to unblock the drains. The records related to these visits do not provide much detail as to what the landlord attempted to do each time to resolve the blockage, although it is mentioned it attempted to use a plunger to do so on 26 May. Ultimately, each visit was unsuccessful in resolving the issue, as related records consistently describe the blockage either remaining or returning shortly after the visit. We can see the landlord decided at some stage in early June 2023 that it required a specialist contractor to investigate the drains, and it began procuring one at this stage.
  6. Ideally, landlords should aim to repair an issue on the first visit. While it is not reasonable to expect this to happen in every instance, 5 separate unsuccessful visits across a month was excessive and should have prompted a different approach sooner. The landlord should have decided to enlist a specialist contractor sooner than it did, and it is the Ombudsman’s view that this unnecessarily prolonged the delay.
  7. The resident contacted the landlord on 10 May and 16 May 2023 and made explicit reference to the lack of washing facilities and her concern about being unable to properly care for her husband. The resident routinely emphasized this impact in her communication with the landlord until the repair on 11 August 2023. Given the severity of the impact on the resident and her husband, the landlord should have taken action to try and mitigate this until the repair was completed. The only recorded step we can see that it took was on 26 May 2023 when it offered to pay for the resident to use a laundrette until the issue was resolved. The resident refused this due to fears about her allergies. While this was a positive step, even if it had been accepted it did not go far enough given she was still without personal washing facilities. It was also offered 23 days after the blockage was first reported.
  8. A decant is something landlords can consider offering residents when they are experiencing significant loss of amenity in a property. We can see the landlord raised the notion of the resident moving properties in its stage 1 response. There is also references to a possible decant in internal email exchanges from late May 2023, but there is no evidence the resident was offered this at any stage while the repair was pending. We would expect to see evidence that the landlord considered a decant as a possible way to mitigate the resident’s situation. However, beyond a few mentions in complaint correspondence and emails, there is no evidence to show how or why it decided not to offer it. Ultimately, we do not consider the landlord satisfactorily considered ways it might have mitigated the impact of the blocked drains between 3 May 2023 and 11 August 2023.
  9. The landlord does not consider its own actions or omissions were the cause of the delay or associated impacts on the resident. In its stage 2 response, and in internal email exchanges, it takes the view that the resident routinely refused to allow contractors access to complete the repair, and that this was the main cause of the delay. The resident’s tenancy agreement obliges her to allow the landlord reasonable access to carry out works at reasonable notice. While we accept the resident had a responsibility to do so, we do not share the landlord’s view that her actions were the cause of the majority of the delay.
  10. We can see the resident continued chasing the repair throughout early June 2023. An internal email exchange described the landlord attempting to contact the resident on 12 June 2023 to arrange a visit for the following day, but that she did not engage and asked them to call back in the afternoon. There is no record of a call back. In its stage 1 response the landlord said a contractor then attempted to attend on 13 June 2023 and she refused access, but there are no records of this. Given there are no records related to the visit, and no record of a call back, we cannot reasonably say the landlord organised an appointment on 13 June 2023 which the resident failed to honour.
  11. Internal email exchanges indicate the contractor was then able to reach the resident on 21 June 2023 and offered to attend and complete the repair at some point that week. However, the resident was unable to accommodate this due to hospital appointments. The records indicate she agreed to an appointment on 3 July 2023, but then did not allow the contractor access on this date when they arrived. While the resident has denied that she refused access, the evidence does not support her account. An email from a contractor to the landlord suggests the resident refused another attempt to visit the property on 27 July 2023. It appears the contractor called the resident to discuss a visit but that she ended the call before this could be agreed.
  12. The resident has explained she has multiple long term health conditions which means she has to attend frequent hospital appointments, which the landlord was also aware of. It would be unreasonable to expect her to have cancelled medical appointments in order to accommodate the repair the week beginning 21 June 2023. However, we acknowledge the landlord was likely in a position to complete the repair from 21 June 2023. We can also see it acted reasonably to try and organise an appointment to do so for the remainder up until the scheduled appointment on 3 July 2023. Had the resident allowed access, it is likely the repair would have been completed on that day. Therefore, we do not consider the landlord was responsible for the delay from 13 June 2023 until 3 July 2023.
  13. While we recognise this, the evidence does not persuade us that the landlord made reasonable attempts to reschedule the repair from 3 July 2023 onwards. The landlord has an obligation to accommodate vulnerable residents as per its strategy on supporting vulnerable customers. The resident and her husband belong to several of the categories of vulnerable peoples listed in this policy. The Housing Health and Safety Rating System also sets out that disrepair to washing facilities is a key risk factor in harmful outcomes for residents. The landlord was aware the property was still without washing facilities from 3 July 2023 onwards. Therefore, it should have given consideration to these risk factors and made proactive attempts to reschedule the repair from this point. The evidence does not suggest it made sufficient or concerted efforts to do so.
  14. For instance, we can see the landlord provided its stage 1 response on 8 July 2023 and encouraged the resident to engage with its contractors to reschedule the repair. However, there are then no records of any visits or related contact with the resident until 27 July 2023, when a contractor advised the landlord the resident had refused them access. There are then no records of any attempts to engage the resident from this point until the 11 August 2023 repair. Therefore, we do not consider it acted with due regard to its vulnerable persons strategy or Housing Health and Safety guidance from 8 July 2023 until 11 August 2023. Had it done so, we consider the repair could have been completed sooner.

Compensation

  1. It is the Ombudsman’s view that the landlord failed to unblock the drains within a reasonable timeframe, and then failed to act reasonably to mitigate the impact of this. It is also our view that the landlord missed opportunities to proactively and sympathetically engage with the resident. We will therefore order the landlord pays compensation to remedy the distress these omissions likely caused.
  2. The Ombudsman’s guidance on compensation payments sets out that payments between £600 and £1000 are typically suitable to redress a failure which has had a significant impact on the resident.
  3. We accept the resident was likely caused severe distress during the 13 weeks she was without washing facilities. It is also likely that this was distress was more pronounced than it would have been for another person without her vulnerabilities or caring responsibilities. Even if we discount the period between 21 June 2023 and 3 July 2023 for the purposes of calculating compensation, there are still 11 weeks during which we consider it likely the landlord’s omissions caused the resident significant distress. For this reason we will order the landlord pays £500 to remedy this.
  4. We will also order the landlord pays compensation for loss of amenity from 3 May 2023 until 21 June 2023 and from 8 July 2023 until 11 August 2023. This reflects our assessment that the landlord did not act reasonably to expediate the repair or mitigate the impact of the delay during these periods. The blocked drains rendered the water facilities in both the kitchen and the bathroom out of use. Therefore, we will calculate the loss of amenity payment as 30% of the total rent paid during both periods, which is £332. The total payment of £832 sits at the higher end of the scale in our compensation guidance. Ultimately,  we consider this is appropriate given the duration and severity of the impact.

Record keeping

  1. While the Ombudsman was able to determine this case based on the evidence provided, there were gaps and omissions in the landlord’s records, as highlighted throughout this report. The Ombudsman would expect a landlord to keep a robust record of contact and evidence of its actions relating to each casefile, which can be provided to the Ombudsman upon request.
  2. Landlords who fail to create and record information accurately, risk missing opportunities to identify that its actions were wrong or inadequate and contribute to inadequate communication and redress. Overall, the landlord’s record keeping and information management was inadequate, which made the Ombudsman’s investigation more difficult.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was maladministration in how the landlord handled blocked drains in the property.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was also maladministration in the landlord’s record keeping.

Orders

  1. The landlord to apologise to the resident for the failings identified in this report.
  2. The landlord to pay the resident £832, inclusive of the £50 it has already offered. This comprises:
    1. £332 for the loss of amenity between 3 May 2023 and 11 August 2023.
    2. £500 for omissions in its handling of the blocked drains.
  3. The landlord should provide the Ombudsman with evidence of compliance with the above orders within 4 weeks from the date of this report.

Recommendations

  1. The landlord to self-assess against our Spotlight Report on: Knowledge and Information Management (KIM). This will give it the opportunity to consider how it can improve its record keeping to avoid repeating the omissions we identified in this report.