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Lewisham Council (202105873)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202105873

Lewisham Council

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 about:
    1. The landlord’s response to the resident’s concerns about her boiler.
    2. The landlord’s handling of the associated complaint.

Background and summary of events

  1. The resident is the tenant of the landlord.
  2. The Ombudsman would expect a formal complaint about dissatisfaction with a landlord’s service to be made within a reasonable period. This would normally be within six months of the matters arising. Since the complaint is about the resident’s concerns with the boiler breaking down regularly over an extended period, this investigation will consider events from 27 December 2019. Although there was evidence of her reporting issues with her heating and hot water since 1 October 2015, there was a significant interval of approximately 17 months between her report on 27 December 2019 and her previous report of no hot water on 27 July 2017.
  3. The resident reported a complete breakdown of the boiler on 27 December 2019. The landlord provided temporary heating to her the same day and the issue was traced to an electrical issue which was repaired on 2 January 2020.
  4. On 7 January 2020, the resident reported that the hot water was lukewarm and there was no central heating on the lower floor of the property. This was traced to the boiler filter isolator on 10 January 2020 and fixed.
  5. The resident reported a complete breakdown of the boiler on 10 May 2020. This was attended by the landlord on the same day and was corrected by resetting the service programmer.
  6. A complete breakdown of the boiler was reported on 30 November 2020. This was traced to the boiler filter isolation valve and was fixed within the day.
  7. The resident made an out of hours call to the landlord about a boiler repair on 2 December 2020. This was fixed the same day by draining and refilling the system and replacing the pressure relief valve.
  8. On 2 December 2020 the resident made a complaint to the landlord’s heating contractor, saying that she needed eight callouts for the boiler in 2020 and had experienced having no heating or hot water some days as using electric heaters and the emergency immersion heater was an expensive alternative.
  9. The following day the landlord recorded that two port valves for the boiler were required. The resident informed the landlord on 14 December 2020 that she had symptoms of corona virus and was therefore isolating; she informed it she would need to rebook appointments.
  10. On 16 December 2020, the resident reported to the landlord that the screen on her boiler was blank. It noted that a new printed circuit board was needed but she still had corona virus symptoms. It fitted the circuit board on 29 December 2020, when it was not possible to start the boiler up as the resident had no gas credit. The landlord fitted the two port valves on 31 December 2020.
  11. At some point prior to 29 December 2020, the resident followed up her complaint with the landlord’s contractor, asking for compensation to be offered to her for the additional costs she had incurred for electrical heating over the years.
  12. On 10 February 2021, the landlord attended the property as the radiators were not warming up. After investigating the central heating system, it scheduled follow on works for 19 February 2021 which were completed and left the radiators working.
  13. On 2 March 2021, the resident reported to the landlord that she had no heating and hot water. She added that her electrical heaters were no longer working and she had spent “a fortune” running them while waiting for the boiler to be repaired. The resident said that using the emergency water tank to bathe was expensive and she was being affected emotionally and physically by having to report and chase repairs for the boiler. The landlord said it would update her later that day.
  14. The resident emailed the landlord on 3 March 2021 to acknowledge that she had received an appointment for 5 March 2021. She said that for nine years she had been paying excessive electricity bills while work and investigation was carried out to her boiler. The resident asked the landlord to consider providing compensation for her electricity costs and the distress caused to her by the boiler breakdowns.
  15. The landlord responded to the resident later that day to attribute her boiler failures to the quality of the system water. It explained that debris in the water had damaged the heat engine, which would be replaced in two days, and works already completed, such as the replacement of the filter, would have already improved the water quality. The landlord advised that debris in water could not be seen externally and advised that it would carry out an inspection after the repair to attempt to prevent any further premature boiler failures.
  16. The resident replied to the landlord later that day to say that she gathered from its response that it would be an ongoing problem, despite having experienced issues for nine years already. She requested that the landlord escalate her existing complaint.
  17. The landlord delivered fan heaters to her on 4 March 2021 and carried out remedial work on 5 March 2021 to restore the heating.
  18. The landlord issued a stage two complaint response to the resident on 26 march 2021. It noted that she had been experiencing intermittent problems with her boiler over a nine-year period and the reason for her complaint was that the problem would reoccur. The landlord relayed that its stage one complaint response had pledged to work with her to fully diagnose and resolve the matter. It noted that it had kept her updated with works to the boiler.
  19. The landlord explained that debris in the water had compromised the function of the boiler and noted that, since the replacement of the affect part on 5 March 2021, there had been no further reports. It noted from its records that there had been 19 visits to repair the boiler over the last seven years and, at any one time, the she had not been without a heating system for over 24 hours. The landlord also noted that it had supplied alternative heating and on one occasion there was no gas supply from the meter.
  20. The landlord said that it did not consider the number of boiler faults to have been excessive and that the resident had not been left without hot water and heating for long periods. It recognised, however, that inconvenience and distress would have been caused to the resident and her household and offered compensation of £150.
  21. The resident emailed the landlord on 29 March 2021 to escalate her complaint, challenging its statement that there had only been 19 boiler repairs reported in the past seven years. She said that there had been “a lot more cases” but she had not reported these and had managed in alternative ways. The resident said that she had incurred debts of almost £2000 due to being forced to supply alternate heating and she had, on occasion, gone to stay with a relative due to her property being too cold. She said that the compensation offered by the landlord was inadequate to cover the additional costs she had incurred, which had led to her having to leave her job and the distress over the years caused to her and her family.
  22. The resident spoke with the landlord on 6 April 2021 to add further information to her complaint. She said that a “holistic view” should be taken of her case and felt that if it had looked at the total number of repairs appointments that had taken place over nine years it may have chosen to replace the boiler sooner. The resident said that there had been three occasions when she had needed to choose between paying for food or paying for heating and wanted this to be considered in any award of compensation. She added that the possibility of the boiler breaking down again was causing her distress.
  23. The landlord’s independent adjudicator issued a final stage complaint response to the resident on 9 June 2021. In this, they noted that the she had not reported all problems to it as they occurred; therefore, they said that it could not therefore be expected to identify a systemic fault with the boiler if not all the issues were reported to it. The adjudicator noted that there would not have been sufficient information available to the landlord up to the end of November 2020 to indicate to it that significant work was required to the boiler. 
  24. The adjudicator noted that the landlord unable to attend the property while the resident was isolating because of corona virus for part of December 2020, but said that it should have attended as soon as the isolation period ended. This would have been five days earlier than its attendance on 31 December 2020.
  25. The adjudicator noted that the heat engine of the boiler had been replaced on, which the landlord had explained was effectively a replacement of the internal parts of the boiler without replacing the housing, and no new faults had been reported since this replacement.
  26. Th adjudicator found that there had been a failure in the handling of the resident’s initial complaint which she made to the landlord’s contractor. They noted that the complaint was not forwarded to the landlord, and this was not dealt with through its complaints procedure nor the contractors procedure. The adjudicator found, therefore, that there had been fault in the handling of the complaint. They also noted that the initial stage one complaint response sent by the landlord did not acknowledge its delay in completing works in December 2020, after the resident’s self-isolation but “indirectly” addressed this in its stage two response by offering £150 compensation. The adjudicator found this to be a fair remedy for the delay.
  27. On 14 June 2021, the resident brought the complaint to this Service through her MP saying that her issues had “gone on far too long” and she had “suffered severe financial loss and immense stress”. She believed that the adjudicator’s report had taken so long due to the landlord altering its records. The resident added that she had raised three formal complaints to the landlord, which two were ignored. She said that the £150 compensation offered by the landlord was insufficient.

Assessment and findings

Policies and procedures

  1. The landlord’s tenancy agreement with the resident confirms that its responsible for the repair and maintenance of the installations it provides in the property for the supply of water, gas, electricity, heating and sanitation.
  2. The landlord’s repairs policy states that emergency repairs are those that are required to prevent an immediate danger to people or major damage to the property, or are to restore a total loss of heating in winter. It should attend within two hours to make the situation safe. If the repair cannot be completed immediately then it will carry out follow on work as urgent or routine repairs in normal working hours. This policy provides a completion timeframe of one working day for urgent repairs, and 20 working days for routine repairs.
  3. The landlord’s complaints policy provides for a two stage complaints procedure. This states that it aims to provide responses within ten working days at the first stage and within 15 working days at the second stage of the complaints procedure. If the resident remains dissatisfied at the end of this process, they may bring the complaint to the attention of the Ombudsman. This policy became effective as of January 2021.
  4. The landlord’s previous complaints policy provided for a three-stage complaints procedure where, after the second stage, the complaint could be considered by an independent adjudicator. At this final stage a response should be provided within 30 working days and if the resident remained dissatisfied they may bring the complaint to the Ombudsman.
  5. The landlord’s compensation policy states that it seeks to provide a remedy which restores a resident back to the position they were in prior to any service failure. If it is unable to do this then it will consider making an offer of compensation in recognition of any inconvenience caused to the resident.

The landlord’s response to the resident’s concerns about her boiler

  1. As confirmed by the landlord’s tenancy agreement with the resident above, it had a responsibility to repair and maintain the boiler. It also has a responsibility to provide facilities for space heating and water heating. The landlord fulfilled this responsibility by ensuring that there was an emergency immersion heater for access to hot water whenever the boiler broke down and providing electric heaters as an alternate source of heating. It therefore acted appropriately by ensuring that the resident had access to these, except for her report on 2 March 2021.
  2. The landlord’s repairs policy confirms that it should attend to restore a total loss of heating in winter as an emergency repair, and within one working day otherwise. It duly did so within this timeframe on 27 December 2019, and on 10 May, 30 November and 2 December 2020. On 2 March 2021, it should have attended within one working day in response to her report of a loss of heating and hot water. It did not meet the timeframe in its policy on as it did not attend until 5 March 2021. It also did not provide temporary heating to the resident until 4 March 2021, two days after her report. The landlord, therefore, did not meet its responsible to ensure that a source of heating was available to the resident.
  3. It was evident that the resident was isolating due to corona virus in December 2020 but it was unclear when this isolation was due to end. It is not disputed, however, that there was a delay of five days in attending to carry out the follow on works to the boiler. It was reasonable for the landlord to not attend the property while the resident was isolating, as it had a duty to protect both the health of the resident and its staff. However, it is not disputed that it delayed once the isolation ended, which was a failure on its part.
  4. The resident has contended that she had to report faults with the boiler an excessive number of times over the past nine years. This timeframe is outside the scope of this investigation; however, it is noted that the reports were of a greater frequency after November 2020. The Ombudsman would expect that a landlord would note frequent reports of defects and take further investigative action to identify deeper issues. In this instance it did so by effectively replacing the boiler on 5 March 2021. As there were no further breakdowns reported since, this demonstrated that was a reasonable action on its part to remedy the increasing frequency of boiler faults reported by the resident.
  5. The resident contended that the frequency of the boiler faults led to “severe financial loss” and distress for her, while stating that she did not report all faults to the landlord on each occasion. While a loss of heating and hot water can be a distressing situation and having to wait for repairs from the landlord can be inconvenient, it can only reasonably be expected to address defects which were reported to it. Therefore, the landlord can only be accountable for its actions once it is aware that a repair needs to be carried out. From 27 December 2019 onwards, the evidence shows that the landlord responded to each report it received and carried out works as appropriate, although there was a delay in December 2020, and it did not provide temporary heating immediately on 2 March 2021.
  6. The landlord offered £150 compensation to the resident in its stage two complaint response to her on 26 March 2021. This Service’s remedies guidance, available to read at https://www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Remedies-Guidance.pdf, provides for compensation awards of between £50 to £250 in cases were there has been a failure which “had an impact on the complainant but was of short duration and may not have significantly affected the overall outcome for the complainant”. The landlord’s offer was therefore reasonable as was broadly in accordance with the Ombudsman’s guidance when it is considered that the delays exhibited by the landlord were not excessive and that the repairs were ultimately carried out on each occasion.

The landlord’s handling of the associated complaint

  1. The landlord has not provided this Service with evidence relating to its stage one complaint response to the resident. However, the account in its final response is not disputed insofar as this initial complaint was not handled correctly. As it cannot be evidenced that the landlord handled the stage one complaint response in accordance with its complaints policy above, it is considered that there was a failure in its handling of the stage one complaint.
  2. The landlord’s complaint responses at the second and final stages were provided within the timeframes specified above in its previous complaints process. However, as there was no evidence that the stage one complaint was handled correctly, compensation should be paid to the resident for her inconvenience in pursuing the complaint. In accordance with this Service’s remedies guidance above, £100 compensation should be paid to the resident to the landlord’s failure to handle the stage one complaint in accordance with its policy to recognise the likely level of inconvenience caused to the resident.

Determination (decision)

  1. In accordance with paragraph 55(b) of the Scheme, the landlord made an offer of redress to the resident which, in the opinion of the Ombudsman, resolves the complaint satisfactorily concerning its response to the resident’s concerns about her boiler.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in its handling of the associated complaint.

Reasons

  1. The landlord responded reasonably to the resident’s reports of boiler malfunctions, although it delayed on two occasions, and it made a reasonable offer of compensation which proportionately recognised the level of failure in its response.
  2. There was no evidence that the landlord handled the stage one complaint response in accordance with its procedure and it was not disputed that the complaint was handled incorrectly at this stage.

Order

  1. Within 28 days, the landlord should:  
    1. Pay £100 compensation to the resident for its failure to handle the complaint in accordance with its policy.

Recommendations

  1. The landlord should:
    1. If it has not done so already, pay the £150 compensation to the resident it offered her in its stage two complaint response.
    2. Continue to monitor the resident’s boiler for a reasonable period to ensure that its repair on 5 March 2021 rectified the issues she was experiencing.