Thanet District Council (202105158)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202105158

Thanet District Council

12 April 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 response to the resident’s concerns regarding:
   1. The installation of storage heaters in his property
   2. The installation of fire alarms in his property.
   3. the increase in service charges due to the changes to the heating system and fire alarms.

Jurisdiction

2. What we can and cannot consider is called the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. This is governed by the Housing Ombudsman Scheme. When a complaint is brought to the Ombudsman, we must consider all the circumstances of the case as there are sometimes reasons why a complaint will not be investigated.
3. The resident has raised concerns about the increase to his service charge due to the changes to the heating system and fire alarms in his property. Under Paragraph 39(g) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, we will not consider complaints that concern the level of service charge or rent or the increase of service charge or rent. 
4. Whilst we cannot review complaints about the increase of service charges and determine whether service charges are reasonable or payable, this Service can review complaints that relate to the collection of service charges or how information about service charges was communicated. Therefore, we have looked at the landlord’s communication regarding the installation of the storage heaters and fire alarms in the property and how this affected the service charge as explained below.

Background

5. The resident is a tenant of the landlord. The property is a flat in a block of flats. There is a communal heater in the hallway of the building as well as individual storage heaters in each of the residents’ own properties. The communal heating system serves all properties in the building and is set to a temperature of 21 degrees. Residents pay for this via a service charge.
6. The resident has four storage heaters in his property. In April 2020 the resident raised concerns that one of his storage heaters was not working. The landlord sent its contractor to inspect the heater in April 2020. The contractor concluded the storage heater needed replacing. A new storage heater was installed in August 2020.
7. A new fire alarm was due to be installed in the resident’s property in July 2021. The landlord’s records state that the resident would not allow access to install the fire alarm and so the works were put on hold and the fire alarm was not installed.
8. The resident was unhappy that the newly installed heater and the fire alarm would be directly wired into the property’s electricity supply as he was concerned this would lead to an increase in his electricity costs. Following the installation of the new storage heater in August 2020, the resident reported that it was working intermittently and explained that the heater got very hot, and he was unable to adjust it. The landlord attended to inspect the storage heater on three occasions between December 2020 and June 2021. On each occasion, the landlord concluded that the storage heater was working correctly and had been turned off by the resident because it got very hot and to save on incurring additional electricity charges.
9. The resident reported further faults with the heater after the complaint was brought to this Service for investigation, whereby the landlord visited to carry out further inspections. On one of the inspections, the landlord had noticed that the resident’s hallway heater was not working and so it installed a replacement heater for the resident in July 2021. The resident raised further concerns regarding another heater in his property, as in November 2021, the resident reported that his bedroom storage heater had gone “bang” and was not working. The landlord informed the resident that an appointment would be made to inspect his bedroom heater, but the Ombudsman has not seen any correspondence to suggest that an appointment was arranged. 
10. The resident made a formal complaint to the landlord in April 2021, as he was unhappy that he had attempted to email and call the landlord to arrange an appointment to inspect the heater, but the landlord had not fulfilled this request. The resident was also unhappy that the storage heater in the front room of his property was wired into his mains electricity, which he was being charged for, in addition to the heating charges that were included in his service charge.
11. In the landlord’s final complaint response, it explained that it had no option but to install a storage heater that works from the communal electrical supply as well as the resident’s private electric supply, to allow the resident to have the ability to adjust the temperature within his own property. It explained that he would only be charged extra electricity costs if he increased the set point of the heater to over 21 degrees or used the boost facility for extra heat in the property.
12. The landlord said it required all its properties to have wired-in fire alarms, in line with government guidance and advice from the local fire brigade.
13. The landlord did not uphold the resident’s complaint but did feel that it could have provided better communication regarding how the new-style heaters work and confirmed that it had provided an instruction manual. The landlord also stated it was considering alternative options to install new fire alarms that would not be wired directly into the resident’s electrical supply.
14. The resident remained unhappy that he had to pay a communal electricity charge as well as a separate charge for his own heating. He was also dissatisfied with communication regarding the installation of new fire alarms in the property that were to be connected to his mains electricity. The resident wanted to be compensated for phone calls made chasing the landlord to arrange appointments to inspect the heaters and for the new installations not to be connected to his mains electricity.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

15.  The resident has mentioned that he suffers from asthma because of damp in the property due to the heating not working correctly. The Ombudsman does not doubt the resident’s comments about his health; however, we cannot draw conclusions on the causation of, or liability for, impacts on health and wellbeing. This may be better suited to being dealt with as a personal injury claim through the courts or the landlord’s liability insurer (if it has one). Nonetheless, consideration has been given to the general distress and inconvenience which the situation affecting his property may have caused the resident. This is an accordance with paragraph 39(i) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme which says the Ombudsman will not investigate complaints which concern matters where the Ombudsman considers it quicker, fairer, more reasonable, or more effective to seek a remedy through the courts, a designated person, other tribunal or procedure.

Policies and procedures

16.  The tenancy agreement (clause 5.1.4) confirms the landlord is obliged to keep the heating system in the property in good working order. The tenancy agreement also requires the landlord to respond to emergency repairs and to arrange a mutually convenient appointment with the resident for non-emergency repairs. The tenancy agreement (clause 5.1.1) confirms the landlord was obliged to carry out repairs within a reasonable time, giving priority to urgent repairs. The Ombudsman Service has seen no evidence of a repairs policy to identify the timescales of reasonable and urgent repairs.

Assessment

The installation of the storage heaters

17. The landlord would be expected to repair the heating system in line with the tenancy agreement The landlord referred to a reasonable time to carry out repairs in clause 5.1.1; however, it did not stipulate exact timescales for repairs to be carried out. The Ombudsman Service would consider 28 days or one calendar month for routine repairs to be reasonable. Individual landlords have different timescales for repairs, but it is industry best practice for routine repairs to be carried out within one calendar month. Emergency repairs where there is an immediate and significant health and safety risk should be carried out within 24-48 hours and urgent repairs which are repairs that if left for an extended period would become an emergency, should be carried out within 7 days.
18. In response to the resident’s repair reports in April 2020, the replacement heater was not fitted until August 2020. There was therefore a four-month delay from April 2020 to August 2020 which was significantly outside the timescales expected for routine repairs. In its stage one complaint response, the landlord acknowledged that there had been delays and apologised for this.
19. The landlord should have kept the resident updated concerning the reasons for the delay and, if possible, it should have given him a revised timescale for when the repair to the heating system was likely to be completed. The resident remained dissatisfied with the newly installed storage heater and continued to correspond with the landlord between the period of August 2020 and October 2021, as he found out the storage heater was connected to his mains electricity supply for which he incurred a service charge. During this period, the resident was dissatisfied with delays in trying to arrange appointments with the landlord to fix the heater. Whilst heating would not usually be of high concern within the summer months between May to July, the resident had emphasised the ongoing issue with the heating system repairs that are yet to be resolved over a period of nine months intermittently, including during the colder months of the year.
20. When responding to the resident’s complaint considering the length of time when the resident had reported that his heating was not working effectively, the landlord and its contractor should have treated the repairs and explanation of the workings of the heating system as particularly urgent. The landlord had sent a letter to the resident in June 2021 explaining the proposed installation works to connect the heating systems and it had also provided an instruction manual showing the resident how to operate and control the set temperature of 21 degrees for the communal heating system so as not to incur additional charges. However, this could have been sent sooner as the resident had been reporting problems with the heating since August 2020, when the new storage heater was installed.
21. The resident was dissatisfied with the landlord’s response and had explained that he was left with missed appointments, delays in repair works, and concerns as to installation works which remain unresolved over a significant period. As a result of the service failures, the resident has suffered distress and inconvenience. To remedy this, the landlord should have offered compensation to the resident.
22. The landlord should pay to the resident £150 compensation in line with Ombudsman Services’ remedies guidance (published on our website) which says we may award between £50-£250 in cases where we have found there has been service failure by the landlord which had an impact on the complainant but was of short duration and may not have significantly affected the overall outcome for the complainant, examples include repeated failures to reply to letters or return phone calls and failure to meet service standards for actions and responses but where the failure had no significant impact on the overall outcome of the complaint.

The installation of fire alarms

23. In addressing the installation of fire alarms, the landlord explained that it was required to install wired-in fire alarms in its properties in line with government guidance and advice from the local fire brigade. The Ombudsman notes the resident’s objections to having a wired-in fire alarm in his property but as he is a resident in a communal building, the landlord was obliged to consider the needs of all the residents in the building, who may be affected by a fire starting in one of the properties. The landlord is obliged to ensure that all the individual properties in the building have working fire alarms and installing wired-in fire alarms is a reasonable way of ensuring this as battery powered fire alarms may cease working if the batteries are not changed when needed.
24. The landlord has confirmed that the electricity cost for the fire alarm is approximately 94p per month, which does not appear to be an excessive charge for this safety equipment. The landlord has also referred to talks with contractors to see if another route to installation can be taken. The landlord had therefore made reasonable attempts in its complaint responses to address the resident’s increase in electricity charges due to the fire alarm installation.

Determination

25.  In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in its handling of the resident’s queries about the installation of storage heaters.
26.  In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was no maladministration by the landlord in its handling of the resident’s concerns addressing the installation of fire alarms in his property.

Orders

27. The Ombudsman orders the landlord to pay the resident compensation of £150 for the distress and inconvenience caused by its failures in responding to the handling of heating repairs.
28. The payment should be made within four weeks of the date of this decision.
29. The landlord is ordered to provide the resident with a date for the installation of the heating system to be investigated by its contractor and confirm the details with the resident within six weeks of the date of this decision.