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Lambeth Council (201907737)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 201907737

Lambeth Council

7 October 2021


Our approach

  1. 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.
  2. 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 complains about the landlord’s response to reports of cracks and structural issues at the property, and its handling of his formal complaints about the matter.

Background

  1. The landlord’s complaint policy in place at the time set out a three-stage process:
    1. Early resolution was where the landlord would try and resolve the issue straight away, without a written response, and the complaint would be recorded as closed unless the landlord received further communications.
    2. At the local resolution stage, a more senior member of staff would take a fresh look at the problem and a response provided within 20 working days.
    3. The final review stage was undertaken by an Improvement & Review Officer and a member of Senior Leadership Group.
  2. The landlord’s repairs policy sets out that it will repair the structure of residents’ homes. The policy states that repairs that were undertaken as part of an agreed program and/or improvement works would be carried out within a specified timescale, or 90 days unless otherwise stated.
  3. Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 sets out that a landlord is responsible for keeping in repair the structure and exterior of the property.

 

 

Summary of events

  1. In October 2018 the resident contacted the landlord with concerns about structural issues at the property and cracks that had formed inside and out. The landlord acknowledged this on 17 October 2018 and said that the resident would be contacted within two working days. As he heard nothing further the resident emailed again on 8 November 2018, attaching photographs of the cracks and stating that there was a significant problem, and asked to escalate the complaint to the next stage.
  2. As he still had no response, the resident emailed the landlord again on 15 November 2018, stating that its complaint procedure meant he should have had an acknowledgement of the complaint by this point, and said ‘I am trying really hard to get someone to care about this, as it is a beautiful building which needs some care before the damage gets worse. I’m really struggling to get any progress with this…’ He again asked for his complaint to be progressed.
  3. There are no further records available to this Service until 29 October 2019, when the landlord received an MP enquiry which explained that during the last two years large cracks had appeared at the resident’s property. The resident had reported this on many occasions, and in 2018 a housing officer visited and said that further investigations would follow. There had been no further action since that time, and the resident was concerned that the cracks were increasing in size, and that because of poor maintenance the property was falling into a serious state of disrepair.
  4. The landlord replied and said that an inspection would be carried out on       20 November 2019. The resident emailed the MP and the landlord’s complaint department on 25 November 2019 explaining that no one had turned up for the appointment and asked that the landlord make contact as soon as possible. The resident sent another email on 2 December 2019 chasing up the landlord as they had received no response or contact.
  5. The resident sent a complaint letter dated 23 December 2019 (although a copy of this has not been provided). The landlord provided a stage two response dated 30 January 2020, signed by a Complaints and Information Officer. stating that they had liaised with the Head of Repair Operations. The response referred to the 23 December 2019 letter, in which the resident had requested a review of the members enquiry that was raised on 28 October 2019. The letter summarised the complaint as being about large cracks that had appeared in the property over the last two years, and that had been reported to the landlord on many occasions. Despite a housing officer visiting in 2018 confirming that further investigations would follow, no further action had been taken. The resident was concerned that the cracks were increasing in size and that the property was falling into a serious state of disrepair. The inspection that was scheduled for November 2019 did not happen.
  6. The landlord said that having investigated these matters it was clear that it had taken too long to carry out repair works at the property and apologised for this. It noted that a survey was carried out in June 2018 which concluded that due to the cracking observed, underpinning work would need to be undertaken. The letter said ‘This should have resulted in the work being assigned to a contractor so that the recommended repair work could be undertaken. Regrettably I have been unable to establish with certainty why this didn’t happen…’ The letter explained that due to the length of time that had elapsed between carrying out the survey and finding a suitable contractor to undertake the work, a fresh survey was required because it was likely that the cracks would have deteriorated in the meantime. The landlord also acknowledged ‘It’s simply not good enough that the follow up inspection, that was scheduled for November, did not happen. This level of service falls well below what we would normally expect, and I fully appreciate the further unnecessary frustration this must have caused you.’
  7. The landlord said that it had taken action to prevent the problem from occurring in the future. It said ‘I can confirm that we are working closely with our contractors to improve the performance of the council’s repair services. As well as confirming that we’re arranging an urgent follow up survey, I have spoken to our Repairs Team to remind them of the importance of maintaining a good level of communication. I have also highlighted to them the inconvenience that is caused by this poor level of service and the additional work that it creates for us.’ The letter noted that surveyors had spoken with the resident the day before and would be arranging a time to inspect his property.
  8. The Ombudsman understands that the resident has since been decanted from the property for the necessary works to be carried out, but that these works have not yet been completed.

Assessment and findings

  1. When considering complaints the Ombudsman applies its Dispute Resolution Principles, which are high level good practice guidance developed from the Ombudsman’s experience of resolving disputes, for use by everyone involved in the complaints process.
  2. There are only three principles driving effective dispute resolution:
  • Be fair – treat people fairly and follow fair processes
  • Put things right
  • Learn from outcomes

Repairs

  1. It is important to note that while the issues at the property remained ongoing after the landlord’s January 2020 final response and have yet to be remedied, this investigation concentrates on the period addressed in the formal complaint (2018 to the date of the final response, January 2020). This is because paragraph 39(a) of the Scheme sets out that the Ombudsman will not investigate complaints which are made prior to having exhausted a member’s complaints procedure. As the more recent issues have not been the subject of a formal complaint, this Service is limited in the extent it can assess them. Should the resident wish for events after January 2020 to be considered by this Service it is open to him to raise them as a formal complaint with the landlord in the first instance.
  2. In line with its repair policy and the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, the landlord had a duty to investigate and address the cracks and structural issues at the property when these were reported. It is not clear exactly when the issues with cracks and subsidence were first made known to the landlord, but the evidence available to this Service includes a ‘ground investigation report’ dated May 2018 which notes that the contractor was instructed by the landlord on 3 March 2018 to undertake a ground investigation as the property was experiencing problems with subsidence and settlement that was causing damage, stating ‘An investigation into the existing foundations and subsurface soils was required in order to suggest remedial measures to prevent further damage from taking place.’
  3. Therefore, the landlord was aware of problems in early 2018 at the latest (which roughly accords with the resident’s comment in October 2019 that he had been reporting the issue for two years). The June 2018 structural engineer’s report recommended that underpinning be undertaken at the property, as well as some other works.
  4. As the landlord has acknowledged in its stage two response, it failed to carry out this work. The landlord has not been able to provide any explanation for this, which is concerning both in terms of its repairs process, which should ensure that such works are monitored and progressed, and its record keeping practices, which should ensure that a ‘paper trail’ of such matters is available to interrogate and determine the cause of the failure. The landlord said that to address this it was working with contractors to improve the performance of its repair services, and had spoken to the repairs team about the importance of communication.
  5. This in itself was reasonable, but as the landlord had been unable to determine what went wrong, it cannot fully ‘learn from outcomes’ and take action to avoid such failings in the future.
  6. Given that structural issues such as those involved in this case can take a long time to investigate, monitor, and address, it is unlikely that they could have been concluded within 90 days as referred to in the repair policy, but it is clear that the landlord failing to take any follow up action after the June 2018 report caused a significant delay. This delay rendered the June 2018 report obsolete, and so a further inspection had to be carried out, causing further delay. The additional costs of this were not a good use of the landlord’s limited financial resource. Further, the evidence indicates that had the resident not taken the time and trouble to chase the landlord up and involve his MP, these repairs may have remained outstanding. Given that the resident has had to be decanted from his property for the works to take place, it would seem that the repairs required are significant.
  7. As well as failing to action the June 2018 survey, the landlord also did not respond to the resident’s emails in October and November 2018 in which he raised concerns about the structural issues. There appears to have then been no further action from either the resident or the landlord for eleven months, at which point the resident’s MP made contact. The landlord did respond in a reasonable time frame to this contact and arranged a new inspection, however, a further failing occurred when the 20 November 2019 appointment was missed. Again, there is no explanation for this, although the landlord did appropriately acknowledge and apologise for the failing.
  8. From the comment in the stage two response about a surveyor arranging a time to inspect the property, it appears that the missed November 2019 appointment was not rescheduled until sometime in February 2020 at the earliest, representing a further three-month delay.
  9. The resident has explained that following on from the final response he continued to have to chase the landlord for action to be taken, and in August 2020 he was so concerned about the safety of the building that he involved the London Fire Brigade. As stated above, these matters were not considered as part of the formal complaint and so are not assessed here, however, they do demonstrate the resident’s ongoing concern about the situation.

Complaint handling

  1. There is no evidence in the records available that the landlord responded to the resident’s October and November 2018 emails and complaints, other than its 17 October 2018 acknowledgment email. The resident has explained to this Service that he received no response, and the landlord itself does not reference any prior formal complaint in its subsequent stage two letter. Had the landlord responded to this complaint, it may have highlighted that the actions required following the June 2018 report had not taken place. This was a missed opportunity to address the issue much sooner.
  2. The landlord replied to the 29 October 2019 MP enquiry saying that an inspection would be carried out on 20 November 2019. This would seem to be at the ‘early resolution’ stage, given it was the first response, and no other investigation of the issue was carried out.
  3. When the inspection did not happen, the resident contacted the complaint team on 25 November 2019 and 2 December 2019. The Ombudsman has seen that the landlord received these emails, but there is no indication that it responded.
  4. The landlord then provided a final stage response, seemingly skipping the resolution stage, which was not in line with its complaint policy. The response appropriately acknowledged the failings in the handling of the repair and offered apologies for these. However, this did not go far enough to ‘put things right’ for the resident, who had taken a considerable amount of time and trouble in pursuing the issue and was understandably very frustrated at the landlord’s handling of the matter. 

Determination (decision)

  1. In line with Section 54 of the Scheme, the Ombudsman finds maladministration in the landlord’s response to reports of cracks and structural issues at the property, and service failure in its handling of the formal complaints.

Reasons

  1. There has been a long delay in the landlord addressing the structural issues at the property, which it has been unable to explain. There have also been failings in the complaint handling, with the 2018 complaint not being responded to at all, which was a missed opportunity to remedy the situation much sooner.
  2. The evidence available does not suggest that the structural issues had an impact on the property in terms of causing repair problems (for example, damp), and neither did the resident report any such issues in his communications with the landlord. However, the resident has explained that he has experienced a great deal of stress due to the issues detailed above, and this has impacted his health. He has said that he had to keep the heating on at the property a lot of the time due to the draughts from the cracks, and that he was worried about the structural safety of the building, in particular the porch area at the communal entrance. He has been extremely frustrated by the lack of action from the landlord, and its poor communication on the matter, and would like to know when he can return to the property. As identified in this report, he spent time and trouble pursuing the matter with the landlord, firstly in October and November 2018, and then from late 2019 onwards.
  3. While the landlord has acknowledged and apologised for the failings in its repair process, this has not ‘put things right’ for the resident. Therefore, this Service makes orders to remedy this complaint. The compensation ordered below is in recognition of the time, trouble and frustration the resident experienced due to the failings identified here, taking into account the 11-month period where the matter was not pursued.
  4. It should also be noted that while the resident has referred to detrimental impact on his health, the Ombudsman Service cannot determine claims for compensation for the impact a case has had on someone’s health. A claim for compensation due to health issues requires an assessment of liability. Only the courts can provide a decision of liability following a personal injury claim by the resident against the landlord. Therefore, the resident would first need to seek appropriate independent legal advice.

Orders

  1. Within one month of the date of this report the landlord should:
    1. Pay the resident a total of £750, comprised of £500 for the time, trouble and frustration experienced due to delays in the handling of the structural issues, and £250 for the frustration and loss of opportunity experienced due to the complaint handling failures.
    2. Write to the resident setting out a schedule of works for the property and an estimated date for when these will be completed.

Recommendations

  1. If the resident is able to provide the landlord with evidence of an increase in heating costs, due to needing to have the heating on because of draughts, the landlord should consider offering compensation for this.