London & Quadrant Housing Trust (202116813)

Back to Top

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202116813

London & Quadrant Housing Trust

20 May 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 resident’s reports of repairs to her toilet.
    2. The associated complaint.

Background

  1. The resident is a tenant of the landlord and moved into her property through a mutual exchange. The property was assigned to her on 27 November 2020. The tenant home condition checklist completed by the outgoing tenant stated that they replaced the kitchen and bathroom with the permission of the landlord. This was signed by the new resident on 28 October 2020 confirming that she signed with the knowledge that she would take the property as seen and would undertake any repairs which were her responsibility in line with the tenancy agreement.
  2. The resident reported to the landlord on 1 December 2020 that her toilet flush was not working correctly. The landlord attended to repair this and left it working but noted that the flush was weak. The resident subsequently contacted the landlord twice further in December 2020 about the toilet not flushing and raised a complaint, which was not pursued past stage one of the landlord’s complaints process, about the landlord’s delay in returning to fix the toilet. It attended again on 29 April, 22 June and 16 July 2021 before informing her that the toilet was not its repairing responsibility as it was an alteration made by the previous tenant.
  3. The resident raised a stage one complaint to the landlord on 16 July 2021, expressing her dissatisfaction with the length of time she had waited for the toilet to be repaired, that the landlord had not informed her until now that it would not take responsibility for repairing the toilet, and with the information she was provided at sign up. She said that she had not been informed at the time that she would be responsible for repairs to the kitchen and bathroom.
  4. After the landlord responded to her stage one complaint the same day, she escalated her complaint on 18 July 2021. After the resident chased the landlord for a response on 16 August 2021, she contacted this Service for intervention and the landlord issued its final response to her on 15 November 2021, after completing repairs to her toilet on 2 and 4 November 2021. In its final to response to her, it reiterated that she had signed to accept the property as seen with the knowledge that the outgoing resident had altered the kitchen and bathroom. The landlord confirmed that it had carried out repairs to her toilet on health and safety grounds, to prevent the situation deteriorating but future repairs were her responsibility. It offered her £300 compensation for its handling of the matter and its delay in responding at the final complaint stage.
  5. On 3 December 2021, the resident advised this Service that she continued to be dissatisfied with the landlord’s response as she wanted it to repair or replace the toilet and that she felt that compensation in the region of £5000 was appropriate to recognise the distress and inconvenience she had experienced.

Assessment and findings

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of repairs to her toilet

  1. The resident acquired her property through a mutual exchange. This process involves assigning the existing tenancies to new tenants. The landlord’s mutual exchange policy confirms that when a tenancy is assigned to a new tenant, each tenant takes over the other tenant’s tenancy type and terms. This confirms, therefore, that the resident took over the pre-existing tenancy from the outgoing tenant under the same terms of tenancy.
  2. The landlord’s residents’ home improvement policy confirms that improvements are considered to be the resident’s fixtures and fittings; therefore, the repair and maintenance responsibility for that improvement or alteration will lie with the resident. The tenant home condition checklist completed by the outgoing tenant confirmed that the kitchen and bathroom were replaced by them, with permission from their landlord at the time. This meant that the outgoing tenant had responsibility for repairing and maintaining the kitchen and bathroom.
  3. When the resident was assigned the property from the outgoing tenant during the mutual exchange, she was also assigned the repairing responsibility for the kitchen and bathroom. Therefore, any repairs the landlord carried out to her kitchen or bathroom would be chargeable to her, in accordance with its “Your home and your maintenance responsibilities as a tenant” guide. This states that it will only carry out such repairs which are the resident’s responsibility when there is a significant health and safety risk or non-repair would cause further damage to the property.
  4. It was therefore reasonable for the landlord to carry out the repairs to the resident’s toilet on 2 and 4 November 2021 in order to prevent a health and safety risk. There was no evidence that it recharged these repairs to her. It was entitled to recharge the resident, that it did not do so, which was a reasonable response in light of her being unaware at the time of her repairing responsibility. This demonstrated that it took steps to prevent any further distress and inconvenience to her.
  5. While the landlord appropriately maintained that the repair of the toilet was the resident’s responsibility, and reasonably carried out repairs to prevent the situation deteriorating without charge to her, it is unclear if it made explicitly clear to the resident at the time of the tenancy assignment that she would be responsible for future repairs to the kitchen and bathroom. The information from the sign-up process which the landlord provided to the Ombudsman implies the resident’s repairing obligation without explicitly stating so. While there was no evidence of a failure in the information the landlord provided to her, a recommendation will be made below regarding its advice to tenants when completing a mutual exchange.
  6. The information given by the landlord to resident about her repairing obligation was in accordance with its policy; however, it was not timely. The landlord confirmed to her on 16 July 2021 that she was responsible for the repair of the toilet. This was seven months after her first report to the landlord about the toilet not flushing correctly on 1 December 2020 and after several contacts and appointments to address the issue. The landlord should have made clear earlier that it was not obliged to repair her toilet to manage her expectations better. Instead, in the intervening seven months, it made appointments on 2 December 2020, and 18 January, 30 April, 25 May and 16 July 2021 to address the toilet repairs.
  7. The landlord acknowledged, in its final complaint response on 15 November 2021, that its communication had not been effective and offered £200 compensation for her inconvenience, distress, time and trouble. This Ombudsman’s remedies guidance, available to view on our website, provides for awards of compensation between £50 and £250 where there has been a failure by the landlord which had an impact on the resident but which was short term and may not have significantly affected the overall outcome for her. The landlord’s compensation offer was therefore reasonable and in line with what the Ombudsman would have awarded if the landlord had not made an offer. This is because the landlord’s communication failures did not prevent her from receiving a repair to her toilet, which was not charged to her, and would not have affected her repairing responsibility.

The landlord’s handling of the associated complaint

  1. The landlord’s complaint policy provides for a two-stage complaints procedure. At stage one of this procedure, it should provide a response to the resident within ten working days of receipt of the complaint, and at the final stage it should provide a response within 20 working days. If it is unable to meet either of these timescales, it should explain why to the resident and provide a written response within a further ten working days.
  2. The resident’s stage one complaint was responded to within the timeframe above, as the landlord responded on the same day that she raised on her complaint on 16 July 2021. She escalated her complaint on 18 July 2021 and chased it for a response on 16 August 2021 and sought the intervention of the Ombudsman on 21 October 2021. The landlord then issued its final complaint response to her on 15 November 2021, 84 working days after her complaint escalation.
  3. The landlord, therefore, failed to provide its final complaint response to the resident within a reasonable timeframe and considerably in excess of the timeframe specified in its complaints policy. Its failure led to further effort being required by the resident to chase the landlord and seek intervention from the Ombudsman to prompt a response from the landlord. The landlord recognised this failure in its final complaint response and offered compensation of £100 to the resident for this. This offer was broadly in accordance with this Service’s remedies guidance, mentioned above. The landlord therefore made a reasonable offer of compensation to the resident for its delay in dealing with her complaint.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 55(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord offered redress to the resident prior to investigation which, in the opinion of the Ombudsman, resolves the complaints satisfactorily about its handling of:
    1. Her reports of repairs to her toilet.
    2. The associated complaint.

Recommendations

  1. The landlord should:
    1. Review its procedures for carrying out mutual exchanges, specifically to:
      1. Explicitly highlight alterations within the property.
      2. Bring to the attention of the incoming resident that these will be their responsibility to repair and maintain.
      3. Clarify that such repairs, if carried out by itself, will be chargeable to the resident.
    2. Pay the £300 compensation to the resident that it offered her in its final response, unless this has already been paid.