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The Guinness Partnership Limited (202102353)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202102353

The Guinness Partnership Limited

10 November 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 is about the landlord’s handling of redecoration work to the resident’s hallway. 

Background and summary of events

  1. The resident is a tenant of the landlord. She lives in a block of similar properties.
  2. The landlord’s records show on 27 January 2020 the resident reported a water leak coming from the property above. The landlord attended that day to make the property safe. It completed follow on work to investigate and repair the leak on 11 February. On 14 February and 12 March 2020 it raised a repair work order to renew the skirting boards, and plaster and decorate the hallway in the resident’s property. The landlord cancelled both appointments following the start of national restrictions as a result of the Covid19 pandemic. The landlord’s records show it raised the work orders to redecorate and replaster the walls again on 21 July 2020. However this work was not completed.
  3. On 16 September 2020 the landlord raised a work order to “trace and rectify minor plumbing repair”. It completed the work on 22 September 2020. On 13 October 2020 it raised an order to carry out “minor PVC window/door repair” and carry out a “minor wall tile repair”. It completed the work on 16 November 2020.
  4. The resident raised a formal complaint over the phone to the landlord on 14 December 2020. She said she wanted the landlord to give her money so she could pay for her own decorator, and purchase paint for her hallway.
  5. The landlord called the resident on 15 December 2020 to acknowledge her complaint. Its records show the resident said she was claiming £150 for damaged items (blinds, handbags etc) as a result of the leak. The landlord advised her to make a claim on her home contents insurance for damage to her personal items. The resident said that as the leak was had been ongoing for the previous three years, the landlord should reimburse her for damaged items (it is unclear from the information provided whether the resident was referring to the same leak as the one resolved by the landlord in February 2020). The resident confirmed she had paid a private decorator to decorate her hallway. She said she would send the landlord a bill once they completed the work. The landlord advised it could not guarantee reimbursement for these costs. Following the phone call, the landlord cancelled the appointment arranged for the following day to redecorate the hallway.
  6. The resident emailed the landlord on 29 December 2020. She provided her decorator’s bill and asked the landlord to reimburse her for half of it.
  7. The landlord issued its stage one complaint response on 2 February 2021. It said it cancelled the repairs raised in February and March 2020 for the leak due to national COVID-19 restrictions. It had arranged an appointment to redecorate the hallway, but the resident asked for it to be cancelled.  It said it could not reimburse her for the decoration costs as she did not allow it to rectify the issue itself before hiring her own decorator.
  8. The resident escalated her complaint by phone on 5 February 2021. The landlord’s records show she reiterated her request for half of the costs for her decorator, and compensation for damaged belongings.
  9. The landlord issued its stage two complaint response on 23 April 2021. It acknowledged receipt of the resident’s decorator bill but maintained its decision not to pay this as it had offered to redecorate the hallway but the resident had cancelled the appointment,

Assessment and findings

  1. The resident’s tenancy agreement states she is responsible for insuring the contents of her home. The landlord’s complaints policy sets out that it will not pay compensation if something has gone wrong which was not its fault although it will carry out repairs to remedy any situation which it is responsible for. According to the landlord’s repairs policy, it classes emergency repairs as ones which address an immediate health and safety risk (complete loss of power, or an uncontainable leak). The landlord will attend to emergency repairs within 24 hours, and non- emergencies within 28 days.
  2. The resident asked the landlord to reimburse her for half of the costs incurred to redecorate her hallway. The landlord declined and said it was not given the opportunity to redecorate itself. Tenants are usually responsible for decorating the inside of their properties and landlords are not generally expected to carry out redecoration works, even in cases where the décor has been damaged by a leak. The exception to this would be if the landlord was responsible for causing the damage, such as if the landlord’s contractor damaged the décor while carrying out a repair. In this situation, the landlord would be responsible for redecorating any damaged areas. In this case, there is no evidence that the landlord was responsible for causing the leak and it took appropriate action to fix the leak once it was reported so it does not appear that the landlord was obliged to redecorate the resident’s hallway. It seems that the landlord agreed to do this work as a goodwill gesture. The landlord was entitled to choose to use its own contractor to carry out the work, so that it could control the costs.
  3. The Ombudsman can understand the resident’s reasons for appointing her own contractor to do the decorating, in view of the nine-month delay in the landlord arranging the redecoration. However, this would not mean that the landlord was responsible for paying all or part of the costs for the resident’s decorator. This is because the decorating could have been done by the landlord’s contractor the next day after the resident said she wished to use her own contractor. The landlord explained its position clearly to the resident so she had the option not to incur any costs if she wished to use the landlord’s control instead of her own.
  4. The landlord has explained that it cancelled the repair appointments in February and March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is understandable that the landlord would have prioritised emergency repairs during this period and many other landlords did the same, in line with government guidance on reducing contact with other people. However, the evidence shows the landlord raised the work order again in July 2020 and attended in September and October2020 to complete work such as a “minor wall tile repair” which would not generally be considered to be an emergency, in line with the landlord’s definition. It is therefore unclear why it took the landlord until December 2020 to organise the hallway redecoration when it had already attended for multiple other non-emergency repairs. There was an unreasonable delay, which the landlord has not adequately explained. The landlord should pay the resident compensation in view of the distress and inconvenience caused by this delay, as set out in more detail below.
  5. The resident asked the landlord to compensate her for her damaged belongings. It remains unclear whether the resident was referring to damages incurred as a result of the leak from the property above in February 2020, or a separate, earlier leak. The landlord has stated that she would need to make a claim on her contents insurance for these costs. Nevertheless, given the uncertainty with what the resident was actually claiming compensation for, the landlord should have at least considered whether it was responsible for causing the leak. Its complaints policy sets out that it will not pay compensation when it is not at fault. However, the landlord should have considered her request and not immediately signposted her elsewhere. In this situation, it would have been appropriate for the landlord to refer the resident’s claim for damage to her possessions to its liability insurer If the landlord does not have liability insurance for this situation, it should have considered the resident’s compensation request internally and explained its decision to the resident. The landlord should take these steps now, in order to resolve this aspect of the complaint.

Determination (decision)

  1. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure in respect to the landlord’s handling of redecoration work to the resident’s hallway. 

Reasons

  1. There was an unreasonable delay in arranging an appointment to redecorate the resident’s hallway, and the landlord did not demonstrate that it had considered her request for compensation for damaged belongings. The landlord would not be expected to reimburse the resident for the cost of her own contractor decorating the hallway, but it should pay compensation for the distress and inconvenience caused by the delay. The landlord should also demonstrate that it has considered the resident’s request for reimbursement for her damaged belongings and confirm its position regarding this.

Orders and recommendations

  1. The landlord is ordered to pay the resident £150 compensation for the distress and inconvenience caused by errors in its handling of the resident’s complaint.
  2. The landlord is ordered to respond to the resident’s request for compensation for damage to her personal items due to the leak. The landlord should refer the resident’s claim for damages to its insurer, if it has one or if it does not have an insurer, it should consider the claim internally and respond to the resident, confirming whether or not it accepts liability for this damage and the reasons for its decision.
  3. These actions should be taken within four weeks of the date of this report. The landlord should update this Service when the payment has been made and it has responded to the resident’s compensation claim.