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Westminster City Council (202100773)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202100773

Westminster City Council

29 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 leaseholder 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 the leaseholder’s request for repairs to his toilet and the level of compensation offered in this matter.

Background and summary of events

Policies and Procedures

  1. The landlord’s repairs policy lists the lack of toilet facilities as an example of an emergency repair. The target timescale for emergency repairs is 2-4 hours.
  2. The landlord’s compensation and payments scheme explains when compensation might be payable and sets out an appropriate tariff of payments, depending on the circumstances and quoting a maximum amount per year, payable pro rata for shorter periods.
  3. The landlord’s complaints policy explains that it does not cover all circumstances. One of those circumstances is when a complaint involves an insurance claim against the landlord.

Background

  1. The leaseholder is the leaseholder of a first floor flat. The leaseholder rents the property out.
  2. On 25 November 2020 the leaseholder reported to the landlord that the toilet was blocked. A plumber attended the same day but could not clear the blockage. The drainage contractor re-visited the next day and attempted to clear the blockage using rigid milling but that was also unsuccessful. CCTV was used to try and find the cause of the blockage, again without success.
  3. On 30 November 2020 the landlord was informed by the drainage contractor that scaffolding would be required to allow access to the stack pipe, which would require access from the rear, via the downstairs garden flat. Therefore the tenants of the garden flat needed to be contacted to arrange access. The drainage contractor was asked to provide location photos of where the scaffold needed to be placed.
  4. The drainage contractor provided the photos to the landlord’s main contractor on 4 December 2020, at which point it was in a position to instruct a scaffolding company.
  5. On 11 December 2020 the leaseholder made a formal complaint that he had been waiting two weeks for his toilet to be unblocked, even though the repair had been classed as an emergency.
  6. The main contractor planned to erect the scaffolding on 21 or 22 December 2020, however it was unable to make contact with the tenants of the garden flat to arrange access. The issue was escalated to the landlord’s repairs team who were eventually able to contact the tenants of the garden flat on 30 December 2020. It was agreed that scaffolding could be erected on 5 January 2021.
  7. On 31 December 2020 the landlord provided its stage 1 complaint response. It set out the course of events as detailed above. It said that its drainage contractor did not provide the requested location photos in a timely fashion. It also said that, when the photos were received on 4 December 2020, its contact centre should have escalated the matter to its repairs team. Instead, it merely asked the main contractor to contact the residents of the garden flat. It was reiterated that work would begin on 5 January 2021. In conclusion, the landlord upheld the complaint and apologised. It said that its internal escalation processes had not worked as they should and that the communication between the contact centre, repairs team and the main contractor had been poor. The landlord offered the leaseholder £110 in compensation, made up of:
    1. £40 for the delay in completing the works between 10 December 2020 and 7 January 2021, when it expected all works to be completed.
    2. £40 for distress and inconvenience
    3. £30 for the time and trouble the leaseholder had taken to make the complaint
  8. On 3 March 2021 the leaseholder contacted the landlord to say that no repairs had taken place. He also said that the compensation offer did not take into account loss of rent at £1,300 per month or the monthly costs for council tax, gas and electric. He requested that his complaint be escalated to stage 2.
  9. The blockage was resolved on 10 March 2021 following a repair to the stack pipe.
  10. The leaseholder contacted the landlord on 23 March 2021 to highlight that he had still not received a response to his stage 2 complaint and that although the repairs had now been completed, the complaint about the amount of time it took still stood.
  11. On 14 April 2021 the landlord provided its stage 2 response, apologising for the delay in responding. It also apologised that the timescales for repairs set out in the stage 1 response had not been honoured and that the leaseholder had had to complain again to get the work done. As further delays had occurred, the landlord upheld the complaint and increased the compensation offer to £250, made up of:
    1. £100 for time and trouble in pursuing the complaint and for inconvenience
    2. £150 for the delay in undertaking the repair
  12. With regard to the leaseholder’s request for loss of rent, the landlord explained that, as a leaseholder, he could make a claim on the landlord’s buildings insurance for losses such as rent loss and the provision of alternative accommodation that may result from such events. It provided the leaseholder with details of how to make a claim.
  13. On 21 April 2021 the leaseholder contacted the landlord to say that its insurer had covered the loss of rent but that the costs for council tax, gas and electric had still not been covered, with the outstanding amount totalling £400. At this point the landlord informed the leaseholder that he had exhausted the landlord’s own complaints process and should escalate his complaint to this Service.

Assessment and findings

  1. Following a detailed review of the evidence submitted by both parties, the Ombudsman’s investigation considers the action taken by the landlord in response to the resident’s reporting of the blocked toilet and whether it followed its own policies and procedures, kept to the law and acted reasonably and proportionately in the circumstances.
  2. The landlord’s drainage contractor did respond to the initial call out within the timescale for emergency repairs. However, the required repair was complex, particularly in terms of requiring scaffolding that in turn needed access through another flat. Depending on the circumstances, it will not always be possible for an emergency repair to be resolved immediately and an inability to do so would not be seen as a service failure. In this case it was reasonable that the repair was not completed within the landlord’s advertised timescales.
  3. Having said that, there were delays beyond that which would be considered unreasonable in the circumstances. The repair was finally completed on 10 March 2021, some three and a half months after it was first reported.  However, the landlord has fully accepted that errors occurred that led to delays, for which it has apologised and offered compensation. The landlord has also accepted that it failed to meet the repair date of 7 January 2021 that was promised in the stage 1 response.
  4. The tariffs set out in the landlord’s compensation policy cover a span of payments up to a maximum amount per year, depending on the particular circumstances of a case. Overall, the Ombudsman is satisfied that the landlord has assessed the leaseholder’s case appropriately and that the offer of £250 compensation for time and trouble, distress and inconvenience, and delay in carrying out the repairs is in line with its policies and procedures.
  5. The landlord appropriately signposted the leaseholder to its insurer to make a claim for loss of rent and the leaseholder’s claim was ultimately successful.
  6. The leaseholder has also requested that the landlord reimburse him for council tax and standing charges for utilities. While the Ombudsman appreciates that the leaseholder may have been reclaiming this cost from his tenants, and was unable to do so as a result of the landlord’s service failure, these were costs that the leaseholder was responsible for, irrespective of whether the property was being let out or not. It was therefore reasonable that the landlord directed the resident to its insurer to raise a claim for reimbursement, in the same respect as the loss of rent.
  7. The Ombudsman recognises that the resident attempted to do this, but without success. As the landlord’s complaints policy explains, however, dissatisfaction with the claims process, or any refusal to uphold a claim by the insurer will not be addressed under the complaints process. This is a matter which needed to be taken up with the insurer. It was therefore not unreasonable that the landlord did not offer to cover the resident’s expenses / out of pocket costs itself.
  8. In identifying whether there has been any maladministration, the Ombudsman considers both the events that initially prompted a complaint and the landlord’s response to those events through the operation of its complaints procedure. The extent to which a landlord has recognised and addressed any shortcomings and the appropriateness of any steps taken to offer redress are therefore as relevant as the original mistake or service failure. The Ombudsman will not make any findings of maladministration where the landlord has fully acknowledged any failings and taken reasonable steps to offer redress.
  9. In this case, the landlord has demonstrated that it was mindful of its obligations under relevant policies and procedures, taken the opportunity of the complaints process to clearly explain its position and identify elements of service failure, and offered reasonable redress for those failings which ‘put things right’ in accordance with the Ombudsman’s own Dispute Resolution Principles. As a result, no further action is require by the landlord to resolve the complaint.

Determination (decision)

  1. In accordance with paragraph 55(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord has identified and acknowledged service failings and made an apology and an offer of redress to the resident which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, satisfactorily resolves the complaint about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reporting of the blocked toilet and the compensation subsequently offered.

Reasons

  1. The landlord acknowledged that there was an unacceptable delay in carrying out repairs and has apologised for it. The landlord’s complaints process identified that compensation would be appropriate, and an amount was offered that was in line with the landlord’s policies and procedures.

Orders and recommendations

Recommendation

  1. The landlord should reoffer to the resident the £250 compensation offered during the complaints process, in respect of the delay to repairs. This recognised genuine elements of service failure and the sufficient redress finding is made on that basis.