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London & Quadrant Housing Trust (202017368)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202017368

London & Quadrant Housing Trust

25 February 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 is about the landlord’s handling of:
    1. The landlord for its handling of the resident’s reports of damp.
    2. The associated complaint.

Background and summary of events

  1. The resident was the tenant of the landlord at the time of the complaint. The property is a flat within a communal building.
  2. On 28 September 2020, the resident reported to the landlord that during hie renewal of his tenancy, he had been experiencing issues with window cleaning, the communal bin areas and water entering into the property from outside. He said that the walls above his doors got wet when it rained, causing staining, and a created a puddle outside his front door. The resident raised his concerns that this would lead to mould in the property and he had been using his heating constantly to prevent this. He highlighted that he had originally reported this to the landlord in March 2020.
  3. The landlord’s correspondence on 7 October 2020 recorded that it requested work to address the damp, noting that the original report in March 2020 had not been acted upon due to the impact of the corona virus pandemic on its service. It contacted the resident the following day to gather more details about the repair.
  4. On 25 January 2021, the resident raised a formal complaint with the landlord in which he said that, despite originally raising the matter of the water leaks in his property, nothing had been done since. He said that he had reported the matter during his discussion of the renewal of his tenancy and despite a number of subsequent attempts to raise the matter, he received no response from the landlord. The resident added that the windows had not been cleaned since November 2018 and that the landlord had not set up his direct debit correctly for his rent.
  5. To resolve his complaint, the resident asked for 20% of his rent since he reported the damp issue in March 2020, which he calculated to amount to £2244. He also wanted to alter the terms of tenancy agreement relating to terminating his tenancy.
  6. The landlord emailed the resident on 27 January 2021 to apologise for not rectifying the issues sooner. It assured him that it had raised works to address the water ingress but these were still outstanding. The landlord advised that it was forwarding the complaint to its maintenance team to progress. It informed him that it had raised his concerns about window cleaning when he first raised them; it said it would ask for the team responsible to update him. The landlord confirmed that it had since amended his direct debits to the correct amount. It said that it could not offer a rent reduction but could consider compensation once the repairs were completed.
  7. The resident emailed the landlord on 29 January 2021, in which he conveyed his dissatisfaction with its response. He said that the mention of compensation was “vague” and it had not provided a timeframe for this and that its response had not provided a resolution to his concerns. On 10 February 2021, the landlord confirmed to the resident that window cleaning not included as part of its maintenance contract.
  8. On 30 March 2021, following contact from the resident, the Ombudsman asked the landlord to provide its stage one complaint response to him. After further correspondence from the resident, this Service informed the landlord on 1 June 2021, that he had since moved away from the property and was now seeking compensation for its handling of repairs and wanted this addressed in its stage one complaint response. The Ombudsman intervened again on 15 June 2021 to advise the landlord that a Complaint Handling Failure Order (CHFO) would be issued within five working days if a stage one complaint response was not issued to the resident.
  9. The landlord provided a its stage one complaint response to the resident on 22 June 2021. In this it asserted that it had attended and rectified every report of a repair he had made. The landlord said that it had spoken to him in April 2021 about damp and mould and it had arranged for a specialist contractor to attend on 23 April 2021. It therefore said that there was no failure on its part and it would not be offering compensation.
  10. The resident replied to the landlord on 22 June 2021 to assert that it had failed to fulfil its obligation to keep in repair the structure and exterior of the property. He asserted that it had a legal obligation to ensure that the property was free from damp and mould and it had not upheld this, leaving the property to become a hazard to his health. The resident demanded a 20% refund of rent paid between March 2020 and April 2021. He confirmed on 29 June 2021 that he wanted his complaint to be escalated to the final stage of the landlord’s internal process.
  11. The landlord acknowledged the resident’s request to escalate his complaint on 30 June 2021. In this, it said that it had no record of a report about damp in March 2020.
  12. After the Ombudsman chased the landlord for the its final response to the resident on 12 August, it provided this to him on 9 September 2021. It said that at the time of his report of water penetration on 25 March 2020, it was only responding to critical and emergency repair appointments and non-essential works were paused; this caused “a significant delay in remedying this issue”. The landlord relayed that when it was able to attend the repair, the resident was due to move out of the property within two weeks. He reported a leak within the property on 9 October 2020 which it attended on 9 November 2021 but was unable to remedy the issue. This was inspected and follow on works were raised, however these were not completed due to it only attending critical and emergency repairs in line with government guidance on reducing contact with other people during the coronavirus pandemic.
  13. The landlord said that when the job was chased on 25 January 2021, the repair was still amongst its backlog of jobs due to the impact of the coronavirus. It confirmed that its specialist damp and mould contractors attended on 23 April 2021 and identified the source of the water leak from above. The landlord confirmed that subsequent works were carried out to address the damp and mould but the resident had vacated the property before these repairs were completed.
  14. The landlord acknowledged that it should have managed its repairs and communication more effectively. To recognise the impact of this, it offered the resident compensation of:
    1. £200 for inconvenience.
    2. £200 for distress.
    3. £200 for time and effort.
    4. £100 for its delayed complaint response.
  15. The resident contacted this Service later on 9 September 2021 to say that he remained unhappy with the level of compensation the landlord had offered which was not the 20% of his rent which he had requested. He also felt that it had not considered the potential health impact of the damp and mould.

Assessment and findings

Policies and procedures

  1. The landlord’s repairs policy confirms that it was responsible for the repair and maintenance of the structure and exterior of the property, “including walls, roofs, windows, external doors, drains, gutters, external pipes and boundary fences and gates.”
  2. The landlord’s complaints policy provides for a two-stage complaints process where it will respond to the complaint at stage one within ten working days. At the final stage of this process, it is to provide its response to the resident within 20 working days. If it is unable to meet either of these timeframes, it is to explain why to the resident and write to them again within a further ten working days.
  3. The landlord’s compensation policy provides for payment of compensation in the form of a rent rebate when they are unable to use a room in the property due to a repair issue which is the landlord’s responsibility. This policy states that the landlord will pay compensation when there is a service failure such as a failure to respond to a complaint with its target timeframes or if it failed to follow its policies or procedures.

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of damp

  1. Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 places a statutory obligation on the landlord to keep the structure and exterior of the property in repair. The landlord also has a responsibility under the Housing Health and Safety Rating System, introduced by The Housing Act 2004, to assess hazards and risks within its rented properties. Damp and mould growth are a potential hazard and therefore the landlord is required to consider whether any damp and mould problems in its properties amount to a hazard and require remedying.
  2. In its final complaint response to the resident on 9 September 2021, the landlord acknowledged that he had reported the issue of water penetration causing dampness in its property on 25 March 2020 and it did not resolve this repair until after 23 April 2021. This was a delay of 13 months for the resolution of the repair. Although it clearly needed to be resolved, there was no evidence that the repair was causing an immediate danger to the safety of the resident or the property. Therefore, the repair would be considered to be a routine rather than an emergency repair. The Ombudsman considers that a reasonable time to complete such work would be 28 days, in line with industry best practice. The landlord therefore delayed unreasonably in completing the work and this delay would have caused distress and inconvenience to the resident.
  3. However, during the period following March 2020, it must be considered that a national lockdown was in place and it was reasonable for the landlord to only attend to critical or emergency works, to protect the health of both its residents and employees, in line with the government guidelines at the time. While it was reasonable for it to postpone routine repairs, it would be expected of it to communicate with the resident to manage his expectations about when he may expect the repairs to be completed. There was no evidence that the landlord did this.
  4. It was reasonable then that the landlord acknowledged, in its final response, that it had not communicated or managed the repair effectively and offered £600 compensation in total for the distress and inconvenience this miscommunication caused to the resident. The Ombudsman’s remedies guidance, which is available on our website, provides for awards of compensation of between £250 and £700 for distress and inconvenience when there has been “considerable service failure or maladministration, but there may be no permanent impact on the complainant”. This may include “failure over a considerable period of time to act in accordance with policy – for example to address repairs”.
  5. The landlord’s compensation policy above confirms that rent rebates are payable when the resident loses the use of a room; otherwise, in the event of a failure of service, it will offer compensation. As there was no evidence that the resident lost the use of any part of his property due to the outstanding repair, it was appropriate for the landlord to offer compensation for distress and inconvenience instead of a rent rebate. As the amount of £600 offered for its failures in the management of the repair was also broadly in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance, this offer of compensation constituted a reasonable offer of redress and the landlord is not required to do anything further.

The landlord’s handling of the associated complaint

  1. The landlord’s complaints policy, above, confirms that it should have provided a stage one complaint response to the resident within ten working days of his complaint on 25 January 2021, and a final response to him within 20 working days of his request to escalate the matter on 29 June 2021.
  2. The landlord did not provide a formal stage one complaint response to the resident until 22 June 2021, 102 working days later, despite intervention from the Ombudsman on 30 March and 1 June 2021. The stage one complaint response was eventually provided on 22 June 2021 after this Service informed the landlord that it would have a complaint handling failure order issued against it imminently.
  3. When the resident escalated his complaint on 29 June 2021, further intervention was required by this Service before the landlord issued its final response to him on 9 September 2021 after 52 working days. In total, the landlord delayed its complaint responses by 104 working days and this was a failure to follow its complaints procedure.
  4. The landlord acknowledged, in its final complaint response, that this response had been delayed but did not mention that the stage one response was also significantly delayed. It offered £100 compensation for its failure to provide its final complaint response promptly. The Ombudsman’s remedies guidance provides for awards of £50 to £250 compensation where there has been a service failure which “was of short duration and may not have significantly affected the overall outcome for the complainant”. This may include a “failure to meet service standards for actions and responses but where the failure had no significant impact”.
  5. While the length of delay exhibited by the landlord in responding to the complaints was excessive, there is no evidence that prompter responses from it would have affected the outcome of the complaint significantly, given that the resident moved out of the property sometime prior to 1 June 2021. The offer of £100 compensation was therefore reasonable, and broadly in accordance with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance.

 

Determination (decision)

  1. In accordance with paragraph 55(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord offered redress to the resident prior to our investigation which, in the opinion of the Ombudsman, resolves the complaints satisfactorily concerning its handling of:
    1. The resident’s reports of damp.
    2. The associated complaint.

Reasons

  1. The landlord acknowledged its failures in the handling of the resident’s reports of damp and made an offer of redress which was reasonable and in accordance with both its own compensation policy and the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance.
  2. The landlord delayed in providing its final response to the resident, but it has made an offer of compensation in view of this which was reasonable and in accordance with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance.

Recommendations

  1. The landlord should:
    1. Pay the resident the £600 compensation if offered him for its failures in the handling of his reports of damp and leaks.
    2. Pay the resident the £100 compensation it offered him for its delay in responding to his complaint.
    3. Review its communication procedures to ensure that residents are communicated with regularly to manage their expectations when repairs are delayed.