Tower Hamlets Community Housing (202344665)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202344665

Tower Hamlets Community Housing

18 October 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 resident’s complaint was about:
    1. The landlord’s response to the resident’s reports about streetlights including how this report related to the way the landlord collected service charges, the resident’s report of the landlord providing him with inaccurate information and the landlord’s management of the resident’s block.
    2. The Ombudsman will consider the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

  1. The resident occupied his home under a shared ownership lease with the landlord. He was the sole occupier of a one-bedroom property. The flat was situated in a block on an estate that, according to the lease, was owned and managed by the landlord.
  2. On 2 January 2023, the landlord raised a repair to streetlights outside a neighbouring block. According to a repair log, the lamp was replaced leaving the light working on 6 January 2023.
  3. On 23 January 2023, the resident reported to the service charge income manager that the streetlights outside his own block had not been working “for a month”.  The landlord responded the next day stating there was no record of this having been reported and requesting further information.
  4. Following that reply, on 24 January 2023 and 26 January 2023, the resident sent photos of streetlights that were off. The photos were dated 3, 17 and 26 January 2023. It was not clear if those of 3 January 2023 were the same lights as the later photos.
  5. On 31 January 2024, according to an engineer’s report, the landlord’s contractor attended to repair a light outside the resident’s block, but they required parts. The landlord wrote to the resident to inform him that the repair had been raised “on receipt of the report”.
  6. According to a repair log, the contractor sent a quote for further works on 6 February 2023. The job was cancelled, as the contractor did not receive a response.
  7. According to an engineer’s report 13 March 2023, a light was repaired but the report did not specify which.
  8. The resident chased the landlord for the repair several occasions in March 2023 and reported that the light was “far too bright” and again, felt this made the landlord chasing him for payment of service charges unreasonable. On 17 March 2023, he made a complaint as follows:
    1. The streetlights on the estate had not been working since early January 2023.
    2. He wanted “measurable & tangible evidence that the landlord’s services would improve, without the leaseholders’ involvement, an explanation as to why the estate was not monitored/maintained and the streetlights to work, at all times”.
  9. On 5 April 2023, the landlord replied with its Stage 1 response as follows:
    1. It apologised for the delay in its reply that had been due 3 April 2023.
    2. It referred to his complaint of 6 March 2023.
    3. A quote of 6 February 2023 for further works was not approved until 20 March 2023 and the additional works were scheduled to be completed by the middle of April 2023.
    4. This delay to the quote was caused by its administrative error and amount of the quote but it accepted full responsibility for this mistake.
    5. The estate was monitored and maintained regularly. It offered a visit and inspection by its Neighbourhood Officer for any outstanding issues.
    6. Street cleaning and litter picking took place once a week along with monthly site visits by the Neighbourhood Officer. They had not picked up any issues with the streetlights the previous week as it was daylight.
    7. It apologised the resident had had to chase the repair.
    8. The landlord had taken an unreasonably long time in accepting the quote which has led to a delay in the streetlight being repaired. This was not “good enough” and improvements were being made to the authorisation process of high value orders to stop delays like this happening again. It was working with its IT team to build a report to automate this process.
    9. It offered £50 for the inconvenience of having to chase for the repairs and for the delay in the complaint response.
  10. On 12 April 2023, the landlord wrote with a Stage 1 response to a complaint the resident made on 1 April 2023 (the Second Complaint) regarding not adhering to its timescales in replying to him. It apologised for those delays.
  11. On 14 April 2023, the resident reported that the lights had been repaired but the area was not “flood lit” as they were on all the time.
  12. On 17 April 2023, the landlord wrote further to its letter 5 April 2023 as follows:
    1. It noted that the resident had not accepted the landlord’s explanation about its email of 24 January 2023 stating there were no reports of a light not working. It also noted that the resident had reported that he felt the landlord’s response was “in order to enforce the demand for Service Charge payment, via legal mechanisms and to excuse the landlord’s poor performance”. He considered this to be “bullying and harassing”.
    2. On receipt of the resident’s email of 24 January 2024, the incomes officer checked the works for his block not that of the previous repair resolved on 6 January 2023 which was why she said there had been no reports.
    3. It would not be raising a complaint “against your claims of bullying and harassment on this matter”.
    4. The resident had refused the offer of compensation and therefore it would “rescind” this offer.
  13. On 19 April 2023, the landlord wrote with its Stage 2 response to the resident’s Second Complaint that its Stage 1 response had acknowledged the delays in communication. The landlord considered that its Stage 1 response had addressed the issues raised and had not identified any grounds to escalate the complaint.
  14. On 20 April 2023, the landlord wrote with its Stage 2 response to the First Complaint as follows: 
    1. It was satisfied that the information shared by the income officer on 24 January 2024 was correct. There was no live report about the light outside the neighbouring block at that time.
    2. It was sorry he felt that its staff had ‘bullied and harassed’ him. It had reviewed the correspondence and found the communication reasonable and professional.
    3. It had acknowledged and apologised for the delay in repairing the streetlights.
    4. In answer to the resident’s complaint of feeling he had to “performance manage” the landlord, it stated that “the complaints process was in place for feedback”.
    5. It did not uphold the complaint.
  15. On 5 May 2023, the landlord wrote to the resident that it was working with its contractor to find a resolution to why the streetlight was on at all times. It was a low energy bulb. It would not raise an additional complaint. It was likely that its contractors would need to install a sensor to rectify this issue. The works would not be added to the service charges.
  16. The evidence indicated that the issue continued into October 2023. On 19 October 2023, the resident wrote wishing to raise a complaint why the light had remained on “24/7”. The landlord wrote that the delay as due to a member of staff going on maternity leave. According to the resident the repair was resolved. The repair logs showed further jobs were raised in relation to street lights.

Assessment and findings

  1. The resident’s complaint was essentially about the delay to the landlord repairing the streetlights on the estate where the property is situated. It was not disputed that the landlord was responsible for the streetlights. This indicated that the lights were on the common parts of the estate for which the landlord was responsible for the upkeep. The resident was liable for a contribution of the costs of that upkeep though his service charges.
  2. The landlord’s initial response to the resident’s reports of 23 January 2023 was reasonable. Once it had gathered the specific information about the then current failure, it arranged for an engineer to attend, which he did on 31 January 2023. However, the further repair was delayed and was not to take place until April 2023. The landlord acknowledged this delay and offered a payment of £50, which included a 2-day delay in its Stage 1 complaint response. The repair exceeded the 5-day policy timescale for communal repairs. However, factors outside the landlord’s control were involved as parts were required. While the resident would have been inconvenienced by the light not working, given the issue affected the outside and not the inside of the resident’s property, the Ombudsman considers this to be a reasonable offer.
  3. It is noted that a repair took place on 13 March 2023 after which the resident reported that the light was too bright. It was not quite clear how this event fitted in the chronology of events. However, it is clear the repair was outstanding and subsequently became an issue of the streetlight being on “24/7”.
  4. Through his complaint, the resident also raised wider issues about the landlord’s estate management such as its monitoring and maintenance. The resident considered that the fact the lighting went wrong indicated a lack of proper monitoring by the landlord. These issues had been raised in a previous complaint that the Ombudsman investigated under case reference 202008313. In that case, the Ombudsman found that the landlord made reasonable redress and made a recommendation that “the landlord to ensure that appropriate monitoring of services, such as communal maintenance, continues”.
  5. The failure of the streetlight in itself did not demonstrate a systemic or significant issue. Equipment will fail from time to time but this Service does consider the landlord’s response to equipment failures and whether it could have prevented them. The landlord reasonably explained that it had visited the estate the week before in daylight hours and did not see that the streetlight was off. The Ombudsman will make a recommendation that the landlord consider inspecting lights during the winter months later in the afternoon. It was reasonable that the landlord informed the resident of its regular inspection timescales and offered to meet with him on inspections.
  6. We would expect the landlord to monitor a repair and that it actually takes place. We noted that the issue of the light being on all the time took a significant time to be resolved, from March/April 2023 to October 2023. The landlord attributed this to a person being on maternity leave. We would expect the landlord to have ensured alternative staffing arrangements were in place.
  7. It was reasonable that the landlord on 5 May 2023 stated it would not add the costs of the repairs and adding a sensor to the service charges. The Ombudsman considers that not passing on the charges to be reasonable.
  8. This investigation also notes that further repairs to the streetlights were required. The Ombudsman will make a recommendation that the landlord reviews the streetlights and considers whether it should look at an overhaul or replacement. This would be costly and would require consultation with the residents as they would bear the costs of the works and may prefer to address the issues with repairs.
  9. It is reasonable for the landlord to rely on residents reporting repairs as they are in situ. It is also in line with its repair policy which states that “However, some repairs may become apparent between inspections. For these, we rely on residents of the block to report these directly to the landlord.”
  10. The resident complained that, on 24 January 2023, the income officer had denied being aware of any street light repairs in response to his reference to issues on 23 January 2023. The landlord’s explanation was that the incomes officer had checked repairs for his block and not other blocks. While the resident had not specified which block had been affected, if a lapse, it was minor and in any event the income officer then reasonably requested further details.  Moreover, there was no evidence of any outstanding repairs or reports about either block at that time, as the light outside a neighbouring block had been repaired on 6 January 2024.
  11. There is no evidence that the landlord deliberately misled the resident or gave that response for any ulterior motive. Furthermore, while the resident had taken photos on 3, 17 January and 24 January 2023, there was no evidence that he had sent these to the landlord prior to 24 January 2023.
  12. The resident raised that he felt it was unfair for the landlord to recover service charges, in particular through the legal process, while the landlord had not, in the resident’s view, performed an adequate service and the charges were not, as he expressed in his emails of 23, 24, 25 and 30 January 2023, “value for money”. The Ombudsman is not investigating the reasonableness of the service charges. The appropriate body that has jurisdiction to consider complaints about the level of the service charge is the First-Tier Tribunal (Property Chamber – Residential Property), and indeed the resident has made an application to that tribunal about charges from 2018 onwards. In relation to the landlord’s approach, it was entitled to seek to recover service charges and the fact there were current service failures was not a reason to prevent it from recovering past charges.
  13. In all the above circumstances, the Ombudsman considers that there was reasonable redress in that the landlord acknowledged its delay, offered compensation, made changes to its processes, and did not pass on the costs of the subsequent repair through the service charges.

Complaint handling

  1. The landlord reasonably treated the resident’s email 6 March 2023 as a complaint and reasonably sought further information which was provided on 17 March 2023. It acknowledged its delay in approving the quotation to repair the streetlight which, in turn, had held up the repairs. It reasonably took full responsibility. However, it did not explain why it would take a further month before the repair took place.
  2. It was unreasonable to state, in its email of 17 April 2023, that it would not raise the resident’s complaint about bullying without any further explanation. However, it rectified this when it addressed the resident’s concerns in its Stage 2 response of 20 April 2023. While the resident refused the offer, it was unreasonable to “rescind” its offer of £50 and the Ombudsman will make a recommendation in that regard. Better practice would have been to leave the offer open for the resident to accept within a specified period.
  3. The landlord’s complaint policy did not provide for refusing to escalate a complaint however its explanation that the resident had not provided grounds that differed from his original complaint was reasonable.
  4. It was unreasonable not to accept the resident’s complaint about the further delay to the repair from March/April 2023 to October 2023 or consider reviewing its original response. The repair was not resolved in April 2023 as it was due to have been. In the circumstances, the landlord should have considered reviewing its Stage 2 response and the Ombudsman will make a recommendation in that regard.
  5. While disappointing in outcome to the resident, the Ombudsman’s considers that the Stage 2 response of 20 April 2023 to the First Complaint addressed the resident’s issues. It may have missed the resident’s point that the resident felt he had to monitor the landlord but it was reasonable to point out that the complaint process gave an opportunity for residents give feedback.
  6. There was a minor delay to the Stage 2 response and the Ombudsman finds that its recognition of the delay, its apology and factoring the delay into its compensation offer constituted reasonable redress.

Determination

  1. In accordance with Paragraph 53(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, in the Ombudsman’s view, there was reasonable redress in relation to the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports about streetlights.
  2. In accordance with Paragraph 53(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, in the Ombudsman’s view, there was reasonable redress in relation to the landlord’s complaint handling.

Recommendations

  1. The Ombudsman makes the following recommendations:
    1. The landlord should repeat its offer to pay the resident the sum of £50 offered on 5 April 2023 and either send him a cheque, if possible, or give him a reasonable timescale (the Ombudsman suggests 3 months) within which to accept payment and provide any necessary bank details.
    2. The landlord should consider arranging estate inspections later in the afternoon during the winter months.
    3. The landlord should review the condition of the streetlights and frequency of failures and repairs, if appropriate, consider whether it should offer a consultation to look at an overhaul or replacement.
    4. Unless the landlord has accepted a further complaint in relation to the lights, the landlord should consider reviewing its Stage 2 response of 20 April 2023.
    5. The landlord should ensure that its complaints team monitors repairs to ensure that resolution of a complaint is carried through and make appropriate staffing arrangements for long term leave.
  2. The landlord should notify the Ombudsman of its intentions regarding these recommendations within 4 weeks of this report.