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Tower Hamlets Community Housing (202301138)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202301138

Tower Hamlets Community Housing

5 June 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 the landlord’s:
    1. Handling of reports of repairs issues with a communal lift.
    2. Complaint handling.

Background

  1. The resident is a leaseholder of a fourth floor flat. It is serviced by one lift.
  2. A contractor completed a lift inspection on behalf of the landlord in November 2022. This was due to the lift having been isolated in September 2022, due to a required repair which it had been unable to complete. The report identified several repairs and stated the lift was left off, due to major mechanical issues.
  3. The landlord said the resident raised a complaint on 11 November 2022. We have not seen a copy of this complaint. However, the resident sent a further letter on 21 December 2022, detailing the outstanding issues. This letter was sent on behalf of all residents. The resident said the lift had been out of action for 3 months. He advised the progress was slow, with the landlord not arranging a meeting with the lift manufacturer, developer and maintenance contractor until 16 January 2023. The resident said that a part was needed, but that this needed to be manufactured and installed, and there was no timescale for when this would take place. He advised that this was causing inconvenience for all residents. He requested that the landlord expedite the lift repairs and that it provide weekly updates to all residents.
  4. The landlord issued a stage 1 response on 13 February 2023. It said that it had written a letter to the resident on 14 November 2022. That letter said that it would not charge service charge of £5.33 per household per month, which was specific to lift maintenance. It also offered all flats £50 due to the inconvenience. It said that it was working to get the lift fixed and that it had communicated with residents via text message, letter, email and notices on the notice board. It advised that in the 12 months prior to the fault, the number of call outs was acceptable. It re-offered the £50 compensation.
  5. The resident escalated the complaint on 19 February 2023. He asked what the landlord had done when the lift was first reported as broken, as he felt that there was no action for 60 days. He said that the landlord did not respond to his or other residents request for the lift to be repaired. He raised concerns that the lift had not been in good condition since it had been installed. This included a gap in the doors. He asked why lift inspections had not picked this up sooner. He raised concerns that any lift repair may not result in a permanent fix. The resident advised that, while the complaint was not about compensation, the amount offered was insufficient. He reiterated that the communication had been poor.
  6. The landlord responded to the stage 2 complaint on 23 March 2023. It acknowledged that in the early weeks of the lift breakdown it did not respond quickly enough to residents. It said the repair had been very complex and this made communication on what it was doing complex. It addressed the resident’s concerns that the repair approach had been “trial and error” and said that a number of things had been tried to repair the lift, but that these had not worked. This led to the resolution it stated was in motion at that time. In response to the residents concerns that it should have contacted the developer earlier, it said the lift repair was not protected by a defect liability. However, it agreed that it should have contacted the lift manufacturer sooner when realising the repair was complex. It advised that it expected the lift to be back in service in the week commencing 3rd April 2023. It upheld the offer of £50.
  7. On 3 May 2025 the resident confirmed that the lift had been fixed. The resident raised the complaint with the Housing Ombudsman as he remains unhappy at how the landlord handled the matter. The lift has broken down on more than one occasion since the repair.

Scope

  1. When the resident raised the complaint he has done so noting that this impacts all residents in the block. The resident is not, in any formal capacity recognised by the Ombudsman, acting as a representative for any other party. For clarity we do not consider this a group complaint. This investigation will focus on the individual concerns and communication raised by the resident to the landlord. However, when reviewing the findings of the investigation, the landlord may wish to consider the impact the matter may have had on other residents in the same block.
  2. The resident has made us aware that the lift has broken down prior to the incident that caused the complaint. The Ombudsman is also aware that there have been further lift breakdowns since the repair was completed. As per paragraph 42c the Ombudsman may not consider events that happened more than 12 months prior to the issue being raised with the landlord. We understand the complaint was made by the resident on 11 November 2022. We will not consider any events prior to 11 November 2021.
  3. As per paragraph 42a of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the Ombudsman may not consider events which have not exhausted the landlord’s complaints procedure. We will only consider events date after the stage 2 response, if they are directly linked to commitments made by the landlord as part of the complaint resolution. As such, any new lift breakdowns after the stage 2 response, would need to be considered under a new complaint.

Assessment and findings

The landlord’s handling of reports of repairs issues with the communal lift.

  1. In the landlord’s stage 1 response it said there had been 6 call outs for the year prior to the lift breaking down in September. It said this was an acceptable amount of call outs. The Ombudsman has only seen evidence of lift breakdowns going back to April 2022. We note that the six call outs happened between April 2022 and September 2022. We are unable to say if there had been any call outs prior to that time. The report completed by specialist lift contractors stated that a yearly average was between 4 – 6 call outs. Given that there were 6 call outs over 6 months, this would indicate that there was a higher than average number of call outs for the lift, prior to it breaking down.
  2. On 8 July 2022 a lift specialist completed an examination of the lift. It identified that one defect was or could become a danger to people. This was due to the excessive movement of the car between guides. It said this needed to be reduced by 22 July 2022. We have not seen evidence the landlord completed this repair. The subsequent lift inspection, dated November 2022, confirmed that the lift was isolated on 29 September 2022 as this repair had not been completed. We have insufficient evidence from the landlord to determine what actions, if any, it took between the 8 July 2022 and 29 September 2022 to undertake the repair. We have also not seen evidence which supports whether the landlord ensured the lift was safe to use. We consider this to be a failing in the landlord’s handling of the lift repair.
  3. The lift report in November 2022 said that the next action to complete the repair needed to be a joint visit with the manufacturer. The evidence indicates this happened on 16 January 2023. We have not seen evidence to support why the meeting took 2 months to organise. Whilst it can be complex to organise meetings between multiple external parties, we would expect to see that the landlord was taking all possible actions to expedite this. We have insufficient evidence to support the landlord did this.
  4. The resident raised concerns that the landlord and its contractors adopted a “trial and error” approach when completing the lift repair. The landlord has said that the lift repair was complex. Where a repair is complex and the resolution is unknown, it is possible that different approaches need to be attempted, to resolve the matter.
  5. The landlord said in its stage 2 response that it hoped the lift would be back in service, in the week commencing 3 April 2023. We have not seen confirmation that the repair was complete at this time. The resident emailed on 3 May 2023 that the lift repair was back in service. In the absence of evidence, we have accepted that the lift was repaired on, or before 3 May 2023.
  6. The landlord said it communicated with the resident regarding the lift. It said that it used email, letter, text message and notices in communal areas. The Ombudsman has not been provided copies of this correspondence. We do not dispute that the landlord made contact attempts to provide updates on the lift repair. However, in the absence of evidence, the Ombudsman cannot assess the quality or frequency of these. We note however, that the lack of information was a source of frustration for the resident.
  7. The landlord has advised that it would not charge service charges for the lift maintenance. We consider this to be a reasonable approach from the landlord.
  8. In responding to the complaint, the landlord acknowledged some failings. It said that it had been slow to take action in the initial stages. It also acknowledged that it should have engaged the help of the lift manufacturer once it realised the repair was complex. While the Ombudsman recognises that a lift repair can be complex, we consider that a lift being out of service for 7 months is excessive. The landlord has not demonstrated that it took all actions to expedite the lift repairs. It has also not sufficiently demonstrated that it was communicating with the resident during the repair. We also note that the landlord failed to provide evidence of actions it took to address a repair with the lift, when it was first identified in July 2022. There was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of lift repairs.
  9. The landlord offered £50 compensation. We note the landlord first offered this on 14 November 2022. At this time the lift had been out of action for 6 weeks. The evidence indicates that the lift was out of action for a minimum of 18 further weeks before it was repaired. We consider that the landlord should have reviewed the compensation at stage 2, and taken into account the additional impact of the lift being out of service for that time. We have reviewed our compensation guidance for maladministration, and the landlord’s offer of £50 for 6 weeks. We have made an order to increase the compensation to £200 in recognition of the length of time the lift repair was outstanding, and the inconvenience to the resident.

The landlord’s complaint handling.

  1. The landlord’s complaints policy says it will respond to stage 1 complaints within 20 working days. The landlord advised that the stage 1 complaint was initially sent on 11 November 2022. It took 63 working days to respond which was outside of the timescales.
  2. The landlord’s complaints policy says it will respond to stage 2 complaints within 10 working days. It took 21 working days. This is outside the timescales within its complaints policy.
  3. The delay in the stage 1 response caused frustration to the resident, and resulted in him sending a further complaint, on 21 December 2022 and on 12 January 2023. A resident should not need to send further complaints to get a complaints response. As such there was service failure in the landlord’s complaints handling.
  4. Whilst the Ombudsman recognises that the complaint handling caused frustration to the resident, we do not consider there to have been a permanent impact due to the failings. We have considered our remedies guidance and awarded £75 for the service failure.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was:
    1. Maladministration in the landlord’s handling of reports of repairs issues with the communal lift.
    2. Service failure in the landlord’s complaints handling.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

  1. The landlord is ordered to pay the resident £275 compensation. This is broken down as:
    1. £200 for the delay in repairing the lift.
    2. £75 for the complaint handling failures.

If the landlord has already paid the £50 previously offered for delays in repairing the lift, it can deduct this from the total. The landlord should provide evidence of compliance with the above orders within 4 weeks of this report.

Recommendations.

  1. We are aware there have been subsequent lift break downs since the stage 2 was issued. It is recommended that the landlord contact the resident and confirm if there are any outstanding concerns with the lift. It necessary, the landlord should open a new complaint.