Your Housing Limited (202117883)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202117883

Your Housing Limited

18 July 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 level of compensation offered by the landlord following a leak into the resident’s property.
2. The Ombudsman has also identified that the landlord’s complaint handling requires investigation as part of this complaint.

Background

3. The resident has been an assured tenant at the property of the landlord since 24 August 2009. The landlord is a registered provider of social housing.
4. The property is a flat in a communal building. Both the resident and his representative have corresponded with this service during the complaint. For reasons of clarity, the resident and his representative have been jointly referred to as “the resident” in this report.
5. The landlord’s repair logs state that an emergency repair was raised on 4 September 2021 to address a major leak in the property above the resident. A second emergency repair was also raised on the same day to make safe the electrical installations in the resident’s property. Follow-on work was then arranged for 15 September 2021 to reinstate his hallway light.
6. The resident contacted this service on 15 November 2021 and expressed his dissatisfaction with how the landlord had handled the issue and that it had not opened a formal complaint. This service passed on the resident’s concerns to the landlord, who opened formal complaint and sent a stage one complaint response on 1 December 2021.
7. The landlord apologised to the resident for the delay in opening the complaint. It explained that the staff member who had spoken with the resident subsequently went on a leave of absence and the resident’s request was not picked up by another staff member. The landlord acknowledged that this level of service was not acceptable.
8. The landlord noted that the resident had recently redecorated and laid new carpet in his hallway at his own expense, and that he had requested compensation for damage caused by the leak. It explained that it would not normally consider compensation in this type of situation as this would be a matter for the resident’s home contents insurer. The landlord agreed that, in light of its delays in responding to the complaint, compensation was appropriate. The landlord offered £170, and broke down this payment as £50 for the delay in opening a complaint, £50 towards the redecoration of his hallway, and £70 towards the replacement/cleaning of his hallway carpet.
9. Following an escalation request from the resident, a stage two complaint response was provided on 25 January 2021. The landlord noted the resident’s position that it should offer compensation of £600 in total, being £350 to replace the carpet, and £250 to redecorate his hallway.
10. The landlord reiterated its position that the resident should make a claim through his insurer for any damage caused to his personal property, or otherwise make a claim through its public liability insurance. It also reiterated the compensation it had offered in its stage one response.
11. In referring the complaint to this service, the resident stated that the outstanding issues were that he did not believe that his home contents insurance should pay for the damage and that it should be the landlord’s responsibility to pay for the damage that the leak caused.

Assessment and findings

Relevant policies and procedures

12. The landlord operates a two stage complaints policy. Following an initial informal stage, the landlord will provide a stage one response within 10 working days, and a stage two response within 15 working days of an escalation.
13. The landlord operates a compensation policy, which notes it may offer ‘goodwill’ compensation where it had failed to adequately address an issue in line with its service standards. The policy recommends an amount of £100 for distress and inconvenience.
14. The landlord also operates a repairs policy. The policy notes that the landlord will attend to ‘emergency’ repairs within 24 hours, and to ‘routine’ repairs within 21 calendar days. The policy also notes that internal decoration is the responsibility of the resident.
15. The tenancy agreement notes that the landlord will insure the building, but that residents should insure their furniture an personal possessions.

Compensation following leak

16. Following the reports of a leak in the resident’s neighbour’s property, the landlord appropriately attended on the same day, which was in line with the emergency timeframes noted in its repairs policy. Similarly, given the potential danger posed by the leak interfering with the resident’s electrical installations, the landlord also appropriately attended the resident’s property to make safe the electrical installations within the same timeframe.
17. Given that the loss of the light in the hallway did not present an immediate safety risk, it was reasonable that the landlord made arrangements for this light to be reinstated within the routine repair timeframes noted in its repairs policy.
18. As per the tenancy agreement, the landlord is not responsible for accidental damage caused to the resident’s personal possessions. In the Ombudsman’s experience, this approach is common in social housing tenancy agreements.
19. Where a landlord had failed to act in accordance with its repair responsibilities resulting in damage to a resident’s personal possessions, the Ombudsman would expect a landlord to consider compensation or remedial works. In instances where the landlord is not responsible for damage caused, it is reasonable to recommend that a resident makes a claim on their contents insurance.
20. In this instance, it is not evident that the landlord was responsible for the damage caused by the leak. This service has been provided with the landlord’s repair logs for the 12 months prior to the leak, and it is not evident that the landlord was previously aware of any leak into the resident’s property prior to the report made on 4 September 2021. It is not evident that the landlord could have acted any sooner to prevent the damage caused to the resident’s possessions.
21. Although the distress caused to the resident by damage following the leak is wholly understandable, given that the resident is responsible for the internal decoration of the property, it was reasonable for the landlord to have referred the resident to his insurer in this instance.
22. As noted above, the landlord’s compensation policy allows it to offer goodwill compensation. This is not an acceptance of liability, but a recognition of the distress and inconvenience a resident may encounter. The landlord’s delay in responding to the resident’s complaint is discussed further below, however, given that the resident had postponed arranging repairs until there was an outcome to his complaint, the delay in the landlord’s response had the affect of delaying any repairs. The landlord appropriately acknowledged in its stage one response that these delays had inconvenienced the resident, and it appropriately used its discretion to offer goodwill compensation of £120, in line with its compensation policy.
23. As noted above, this offer of compensation was not to cover the costs of the damage to the resident’s hallway and carpet, but to reflect the inconvenience caused by its delayed response. While the resident is of the opinion that a greater amount of compensation should have been offered to cover the replacement costs of his possessions, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, the amount offered is broadly in line with the Ombudsman’s own remedies guidance (which is available on our website) for instances of service failure by a landlord which does not cause significant impact.
24. In summary, it was reasonable for the landlord to have referred the resident to his insurance policy regarding the damage caused to his possessions, and its offer of compensation amounted to reasonable redress for its service failure.

Complaints handling

25. As noted above, a landlord should provide a stage one response within 10 working days of a formal complaint. It is not disputed that the resident attempted to raise his concerns as a complaint, but the that landlord did not offer a formal response until after intervention from this service.
26. While the landlord appropriately explained the circumstances of this delay, namely that its staff member had failed to correctly hand over the complaint prior to going on leave, and it appropriately apologised, this fell short of adequately reflecting the time and trouble expended by the resident in chasing up the complaint.
27. It was appropriate, therefore, that in addition to the goodwill compensation offered in relation to the damage caused to the resident’s possessions it also offered £50 for the delays to its complaint response. In the Ombudsman’s opinion, this amount, in combination with the other compensation offered relating to the impact caused by the delay, and the landlord’s apology, amounted to reasonable redress of this element of the complaint.

Determination (decision)

28. In accordance with paragraph 55(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, and in the Ombudsman’s opinion, there was reasonable redress offered by the landlord for its service failure in respect of the complaints regarding:
    1. the level of compensation offered following a leak into the resident’s property;
    2. its complaints handling.

Recommendations

29. The landlord to contact the resident within four weeks of the date of this determination and reiterate its offer of £170 compensation, if this is yet to be accepted by the resident.