Thirteen Housing Group Limited (202002401)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202002401

Thirteen Housing Group Limited

2 August 2021

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 how the landlord handled:
   1. Repairs to the property following a fire.
   2. The resident’s claim for reimbursement for her personal items damaged by the fire.
   3. The resident’s claim for compensation for the cost of replacing a carpet which was removed from the property after the fire.

Background and summary of events

Background

2. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord, which is a housing association. The property is house.
3. The landlord’s repairs policy says it prioritises it’s repairs as ‘Emergency’ (any defects that put the health, safety or security of residents at risk), ‘Appointable’ (a repair that can prevent immediate damage to the property) and ‘Planned’ (a non-urgent repair).
4. The landlord states that it aims to attend emergency repairs within 24 hours and will agree an appointment date with the resident for appointable and planned repairs.
5. The landlord operates a two-stage complaints process. When a complaint is received, the landlord aims to provide a response at stage one within five working days. If the complainant is dissatisfied with the response, they can request an escalation of the complaint to the next stage. The landlord will then undertake a review of the complaint and provide a stage two response within ten working days. This will be the landlord’s final response to the complaint.
6. The landlord also operates a two-stage claims procedure. When a resident makes a liability claim, this will be acknowledged and an initial claim response will be sent within 15 working days. If the resident feels their claim had not been fully considered, they can request a review. A second response will then be sent within 28 working days. This will be the landlord’s final consideration of the claim.
7. In this case, the resident went through the landlord’s claims procedure. However, the complaint aspects of the case were addressed by the landlord in both of its responses alongside the claim. The landlord also informed the resident that its stage two claim response is the equivalent of a stage two complaint response. Therefore, the Ombudsman is satisfied that the complaint was considered by the landlord and the resident has exhausted its internal complaints process. This means that our service can investigate this aspect of the complaint under our rules.

Summary of events

8. On 5 December 2019 a fire occurred in the kitchen of the property. The fire brigade’s incident report described the fire as accidental and the cause as a short circuit from faulty leads from an appliance to a double wall socket.
9. The landlord’s repair logs state that an emergency repair request was raised on 5 December 2019 for a joiner and a gas engineer to inspect the property. Following the inspections, work orders were raised by the landlord to rewire the kitchen, install a new kitchen, plaster the kitchen and lounge, replace the kitchen window and redecorate following the completion of the work.
10. On 22 January 2020 the contractor emailed the landlord and confirmed that the work had been completed. The contractor also recommended that due to smoke damage, the boiler should be replaced. The landlord raised a work order to replace the boiler which was completed on 20 February 2020.
11. An internal landlord email sent on 19 February 2020 stated that it had been informed by the resident that a carpet was removed from the property during the work and left in the garden, where it was damaged by rainfall.
12. A further internal landlord email sent on 20 February 2020 stated that it had spoken to its staff members who had visited the property, as well as the contractor, all of whom denied removing the carpet.
13. During the 20 February 2020 appointment to replace the boiler, further work was identified as being required to a double socket in the kitchen and pipe boxing (which was completed on 20 February 2020), and to replace the vinyl flooring in the bathroom (which was completed on 28 February 2020).
14. On 28 February 2020 the landlord called the resident to confirm that the new bathroom floor had been fitted that day. The landlord’s notes of the call state that it informed the resident that it had agreed to pay £200 as a goodwill gesture in relation to the removal of the carpet.
15. On 21 March 2020 the resident sent a liability claim to the landlord of £12,360 for personal items damaged by the fire. As part of the claim, the resident also highlighted her dissatisfaction of how the repairs to the property had been handled.
16. The landlord acknowledged the claim on 7 April 2020 and sent a formal response on 23 April 2020. In relation to the repairs, the landlord informed the resident that:
    1. It agreed that not all the work originally completed by the contractor was up to its expected standard, but it had arranged to have the outstanding issues (double socket, boxing in a pipe and kitchen flooring) rectified in a timely manner.
    2. It recognised that in light of the cause of the fire, the resident was particularly concerned with the double socket replacement. It had spoken to the contractor and made it aware of its failings with regards to this repair initially.
    3. It had been unable to confirm who had removed the stairs carpet from the property. The contractor denied it was responsible, and as its work was limited to the kitchen, it would have had no need to move the carpet. Similarly, the resident had access to the property and had moved some items to allow work to proceed but moving the stairs carpet would not have been required for this.
    4. As the landlord and not been able to conclusively prove or disprove its liability, it had offered the resident a £200 goodwill gesture towards the replacement of the carpet.
17. The resident wrote to the landlord on 20 August 2020 and requested an escalation of her claim/complaint. The complaint elements of the escalation request were:
    1. The stairs carpet and bathroom flooring were removed without consulting her first.
    2. The landlord had originally agreed to replace both the carpet and bathroom flooring, but subsequently only replaced the bathroom flooring.
    3. She disputed that the contractor’s work was only limited to the kitchen, as it had also cleaned and redecorated the property.
18. The landlord acknowledged the escalation request on 27 August 2020 and sent a final response to the resident on 9 September 2020. It explained that the contractor was asked to clean, redecorate and replace the bathroom flooring as a gesture of goodwill and not because the landlord had accepted liability.
19. The landlord was unable to confirm the circumstances as to how the carpet and bathroom flooring was disposed of. It assumed that the reason was because of smoke damage and apologised to the resident for this oversight. It then explained the £200 goodwill gesture for the carpet was calculated in line with liability insurance principles and it is satisfied that it had offered reasonable redress for this issue.
20. The landlord concluded by informing the resident that its response was an equivalent of a stage two complaint response and that if she continued to be dissatisfied, she would now be in a position to take her complaint to this Service to consider.

Assessment and findings

How the landlord handled repairs to the property following a fire

21. The landlord followed its repairs policy during this case. Following the fire, the landlord raised an emergency repair to inspect the property and then arranged follow-on work in line with its appointable repairs category as set out in its repairs policy.
22. When further work was recommended to replace the boiler, the landlord raised a work order for this. When the resident raised concerns with the quality of some of the completed work, the landlord inspected the property, raised work orders to resolve the issues and the work was completed within six working days. Therefore, there is no evidence of service failure in how repairs were handled by the landlord following the fire.

The resident’s claim for reimbursement for her damaged personal items.

23. The resident made a compensation claim to the landlord for the damage caused to her personal items by the fire. This was declined by the landlord as it denies liability for causing the fire.
24. It is important to be aware that in accordance with the tenancy agreement, residents are advised to take out their own home insurance policies to cover the cost of any personal possessions damaged as a result of events such as fire or flood. The landlord would not generally be expected to cover the cost of a tenant’s personal possessions which were damaged due to fire. The landlord would only be expected to consider compensation for damage to possessions if it was established that the landlord was responsible for causing the fire through negligence by its staff or contractors.
25. The Ombudsman is not able to determine liability or causation in a legal sense and we do not award damages in the way a court might. The resident’s claims for damage to the property’s contents may be better dealt with as a legal claim or a claim against the landlord’s liability insurance policy (if it has one). The resident should seek independent legal advice if she wishes to pursue this matter further. Although we cannot determine liability for the fire, the Ombudsman has considered the landlord’s response to the resident’s compensation request and whether this was reasonable in line with the landlord’s policies and industry best practice.
26. The landlord acted reasonably in working with the fire brigade to establish the cause of the fire. It concluded that the fire was caused by a faulty lead from a kitchen appliance. It is understood that there is some debate concerning the exact cause of the fire and it has not been conclusively established whether the fire was caused by a problem with the kitchen appliance or with the plug socket. The landlord has shown that it considered the resident’s comments about the cause of the fire. Ultimately it concluded that it was not liable for causing the fire as it had carried out an electrical inspection recently which did not identify any problems with the plug socket. Therefore, the fire was not foreseeable and was not caused by negligence by the landlord’s contractors or employees. As above, the Ombudsman cannot determine whether the landlord is liable for the damage caused by the fire. However, we can conclude that the landlord’s response to the resident’s compensation request was reasonable and the landlord is not required to do anything further regarding this matter.

The resident’s compensation request for the loss of her carpet

27. The resident had requested the landlord either compensate her for the removal of the carpet or install a replacement. On being informed by the resident, the landlord undertook an internal investigation on the circumstances of how the carpet was removed, but it was unable to establish if it was removed by one of its operatives or contractors.
28. The landlord then offered a goodwill gesture to the resident of £200 towards the cost of replacing the carpet and explained that the replacing of the bathroom flooring, cleaning and redecoration was also done as a goodwill gesture to assist the resident with moving back into the property sooner.
29. This is in line with the landlord’s repairs policy, which states that the resident is responsible for flooring, decoration and painting. As the landlord had denied liability for the fire, it was not strictly obligated to undertake any decoration or replace the bathroom flooring, although it was reasonable that it did so on this occasion as a goodwill gesture in recognition of the impact of the fire on the resident and her property.
30. The landlord’s compensation policy recommends payments of £100 to £300 for issues which the landlord has assessed as having a medium impact on the resident. Medium impact is described by the compensation policy as an event where the landlord has failed to meet its required standards and there has clearly been an injustice to the complainant.
31. In this case, while the exact circumstances of the carpet’s removal could not be established, the landlord recognised service failure on its part as its representatives on site should have been aware of how the resident’s personal items were being handled, which included the carpet.
32. The landlord awarded compensation in line with its compensation policy and also broadly in line with the Ombudsman’s own remedies guidance, which is available on our website. This recommends a payment of £50 to £250 for service failure where the landlord had failed to meet service standards for actions and responses, but the failure had no significant impact on the complainant. As above, the landlord’s service failure here was in not having accurate records to confirm what its contractors and operatives did or did not do with the resident’s possessions whilst they were in the property. It has not been conclusively established that the landlord was responsible for removing the carpet so it would not be expected to pay compensation for this.
33. The landlord has therefore offered reasonable redress to the resident which was proportionate to the service failure it had identified and fully resolved this aspect of the complaint

Determination (decision)

34. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was no maladministration by the landlord in respect of how it handled repairs to the property following a fire and the resident’s claim for reimbursement for her personal items damaged by the fire.
35. In accordance with paragraph 55(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord made an offer of redress to the resident in respect of her request for compensation for the removal of a carpet from the property, which in the Ombudsman’s opinion satisfactorily resolved this aspect of the complaint.

Reasons

36. The landlord followed its repair policy in arranging and completing repairs to the property following the fire. Some repairs were not completed to a satisfactory standard but the landlord acted promptly to resolve these repairs once it was made aware of the issues.
37. The landlord recognised service failure with regards to the removal of the carpet as it was unable to establish the circumstances of how the carpet was removed despite having operatives on site at the time.
38. The landlord awarded compensation to the resident which was proportionate to the service failure it had identified.