Westminster City Council (202116473)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202116473

Westminster City Council

19 July 2022

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 concerns:
   1. The landlord’s handling of a leak and damage to the resident’s kitchen cupboard and flooring.
   2. The landlord’s record keeping.

Background

2. The resident is a tenant of the landlord.
3. The resident contacted the landlord on 27 July 2021 and complained that a leak had caused damage to her kitchen (she said she had reported the leak previously that day and an emergency repair appointment had been arranged). Due to the damage, she told the landlord that her “kitchen cupboard” would have to be replaced again as it was only a few months old. She said that the leak had either occurred because a “tap” which previously had been faulty had not been repaired correctly, or because the landlord’s operative had not turned the “tap” off on a previous visit. It is understood that the tap in question was a stopcock at her home.  She asked the landlord to investigate the issue and compensate her.
4. The landlord issued its stage one response on 8 September 2021. It said it partially upheld the resident’s complaint and apologised that the leak had caused damage to the flooring, but said it would not replace the flooring as it was the resident’s responsibility under her tenancy agreement. The landlord advised the resident that she could make a claim for this under her home content’s insurance.
5. The resident contacted the landlord on 8 September 2021 and escalated her complaint. She explained that she held the landlord responsible for the leak as she believed it was caused by its operative, who she said had loosened the stopcock during a previous repair visit, and did not tighten it enough on completion.  She confirmed that the leak has stopped, but said that the engineer’s mistake caused damage to her kitchen cupboard, and there was mould underneath her linoleum flooring and an “unbearable smell”. She asked the landlord to repair any damage to the underfloor and to replace the floor covering.
6. Following intervention from this Service, the landlord issued its stage two response on 14 January 2022 and upheld the resident’s complaint. It said it inspected the resident’s property again on 12 January 2022, and as a result agreed to replace the sink base unit and replace part of the subflooring (the timber sheeting under the floor covering), in addition to replacing the floor covering. It apologised for the inconvenience caused, and offered the resident £110 compensation.
7. The resident advised this Service she remained dissatisfied with the landlord’s response, as it had not yet completed the agreed works as of early March 2022.  She was also unhappy with the level of compensation offered, and to resolve the complaint said she wanted the landlord to complete the necessary works and increase its compensation offer.
8. The landlord advised this Service that work to replace the floor covering, sink base unit, and part of the sub-floor, were completed on 25 March 2022.

Assessment and findings

9. In accordance with Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, the landlord is obliged to keep the structure of the resident’s home in repair.
10. The landlord has a complaints policy. It states that when awarding compensation, it will consider the Ombudsman’s guidance on remedies and financial compensation.
11. The landlord’s and resident’s accounts of how and when the leak was resolved, were not consistent. The resident said “she called [the landlord] on the 28th of July as the source of the leak was found and stopped”, and that a subsequent visit was agreed for a surveyor to assess the damage caused. This indicated that the leak was stopped by the resident, before the landlord attended her home. This was contrary to the landlord saying in its initial response that following attendance to the resident’s home on 11 August 2021, the “the operative tightened the stopcock onsite which then imminently allowed the water to reside.” Nonetheless, there is no dispute that the leak was resolved.
12. A significant part of the resident’s complaint, was that she believed the leak occurred due to the actions of the landlord’s operative who had previously attended another job at her home, and she therefore believed the landlord should repair the damage caused to her kitchen unit and flooring.
13. When the landlord issued its stage one complaint, it partially upheld the resident’s complaint, but it did not explain what it considered its partial failure to be. The landlord said that an engineer who attended the resident’s property on 11 August “mentioned in his report that the stopcock had been previously turned off to rectify another job involving another property. Once it was turned back on, it had then started leaking”. This indicated that the leak may have occurred due to the actions of the landlord’s operative, and thus the landlord was potentially responsible for the damage caused.  If damage was caused as a result of the landlord’s operative’s actions, then the landlord would be reasonably expected to signpost the resident to its own liability insurer, or make the damage good itself. This is especially true given that the home contents insurance the landlord directed the resident to in many cases does not consider fixed flooring to be included.
14. Accordingly, it was unreasonable for the landlord to advise the resident (in its initial response) that it would not replace her kitchen flooring and to signpost her to her own content’s insurer, without clarifying if it was satisfied that it was responsible for the leak or not. If the landlord was unsure, it should have at least made further investigations into its operatives’ actions and clarified its position to the resident. There is no evidence it did so. Also, the resident’s initial complaint clearly concerned damage to her sink unit/cupboard, the fact that the landlord did not address this particular repair in its stage one response would understandably have caused her frustration and inconvenience in pursuing her complaint further. The landlord’s unclear and incomplete response, meant that the resident had to escalate her complaint, causing a delay to get it resolved, before the landlord eventually changed its mind and agreed to replace the kitchen unit and flooring in its final response.
15. It is also worth noting that repairs to the resident’s floor covering and subfloor are two distinct repairs. Subflooring would usually be considered to be part of the structure of the resident’s home, and as such the landlord would have a particular obligation to keep this in good repair. Although the landlord agreed to “replace the timber sheeting which runs under the flooring” its final response, nothing in the evidence shows why the landlord only committed to do this at this stage, despite it being a particular concern of the resident’s escalation request four months earlier, given that she emphasised the area had an issue with mould and a bad smell. Therefore, there was a considerable unreasonable delay in the landlord taking appropriate action in line with its obligations to repair the resident’s subfloor, considering that the landlord also considerably delayed in issuing its stage two response which would have delayed the matter further.
16. In its final response, the landlord appropriately apologised for the inconvenience caused by its delay in resolving the situation, and awarded £110 pounds compensation.  £40 of this was for the delay in issuing the stage one and two responses (and £20 for missed appointments). That was a reasonable remedy for the complaint handling delays. However, the landlord was inconsistent and unclear in explaining its complaints decisions, and the repair delays and actions, as the landlord said “the repairs raised have been attended to within our agreed Service Level Agreement and were successfully resolved.” This indicated that the landlord was of the position that it undertook all repair work within a timely manner, and it was therefore unclear why it fully upheld the resident’s complaint.  As the landlord has not kept appropriate contemporaneous records of many of its actions, there is limited support for those explanations it did provide. Given the scale of the service failures identified by this investigation, the £50 the landlord offered the resident for her inconvenience, time and trouble was disproportionally low, and the minimum provided for in the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance (which the landlord says it is guided by).
17. Overall there were several service failures by the landlord, as it did not demonstrate that it made further investigations into the actions of its operative to determine who was liable for the leak, and it failed to clearly set out its position to the resident in that regard.  As the landlord’s response indicated that the leak may have occurred due to its operative actions, it unreasonably advised the resident to her own home contents insurer, rather than signposting her to its liability insurer, or consider making good the damage at an earlier stage. The landlord particularly unreasonably delayed in carrying out repairs to the resident’s subfloor, as it was specifically obligated to do this. The landlord partly remedied some of its failings in its final complaint response, but the compensation if offered was not proportionate.

Record Keeping

18. In response to our requests for information for this investigation, the landlord failed to provide comprehensive records about when the leak was reported and how it was resolved. Nor did it provide relevant repair records for the inspections it referred to in its complaint responses. The landlord told us that its “surveyors do not make or provide reports for day to day inspections.” However, this appears to be incorrect, as in its complaint responses the landlord referred to its surveyors’ reports following their inspections. This impacted on our ability to robustly investigate the landlord’s actions, as it was not always possible to determine if the resident’s report of the leak and subsequent damage were logged, responded to, investigated and rectified appropriately.
19. Good record keeping is one of the fundamental aspects of housing management, and without it a landlord is often unable to support any claims it has made about the actions it has taken, or provide evidence that it is meeting its obligations fairly and consistently. In this case, the landlord’s record keeping was poor enough for it to be considered a service failure in its own right.

Determination

20. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in its handling of the resident’s reports of a leak and damage.
21. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in respect of its record keeping.

Orders

22. In light of the failings found in this investigation the landlord is ordered to pay the resident £200, comprised of:
    1. £150 compensation for its failings in handling the repairs.
    2. £50 for its poor record keeping.
23. These payments must be made within four weeks of this report. They are in addition to the £110 the landlord already offered, which should also now be paid, if it has not been already.

Recommendations

24. The landlord should consider undertaking a review of its record keeping practices to ensure that it keeps robust repair and inspections records, and prepare an action plan accordingly so that it is able to provide such information to this Service upon request.