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Lewisham Council (202120613)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202120613

Lewisham Council

4 October 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 the resident’s report of a leak in her bathroom. 

Background

  1. The resident is a leaseholder of the landlord, in a top floor flat.
  2. The resident raised a complaint on 23 February 2021. She said that she had paid for investigations into the damp and mould in her bathroom and discovered there was a leak, which was possibly caused by the roof. She thought that the leak had been ongoing for a while due to recurring damp and mould in her bathroom and said that it was a safety concern as there were children in the property. She had reported the leak to the landlord and experienced poor communication when trying to resolve the issue and said no one was taking responsibility for arranging the repair.
  3. In the landlord’s final response, it advised that investigating and resolving leaks can be a long process, but it acknowledged that it had not properly communicated with the resident. It said it would provide a timescale for the works and provide her with fortnightly updates. It advised that she would need to arrange repairs to damage caused by the leak to the property with her home contents insurance. It awarded the resident £25 compensation for her time and trouble.
  4. In the resident’s complaint to this Service, she said she was dissatisfied with the landlord’s handling of the repairs as the leak was ongoing. She did not think the contractor carried out sufficient investigation or adequate repairs to the leak when the scaffolding was initially in place, which had caused additional works to be required, as the leak recurred.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. The resident reported the leak had recurred on 28 November 2021. While the Ombudsman acknowledges that the return of the leak is very frustrating, as the second leak was reported several months after the landlord’s final response, the landlord must be given the opportunity to respond to the resident’s additional concerns. This is in accordance with paragraph 39(a) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme which says the Ombudsman will not consider complaints which in his opinion are made prior to having exhausted a member’s complaints procedure. If the resident remains dissatisfied with the landlord’s handling of the second leak, it is recommended that she raises a new complaint to the landlord. The resident may refer this matter to the Ombudsman if she remains dissatisfied once she has received the landlord’s final response to these concerns.

Handling of the leak

  1. The landlord’s leaseholder guide states that the landlord is responsible for repairs to the structure and shared parts of the building. It also advises the resident to contact the repairs service if they believe the leak is originating from the roof. As a result, when the resident reported that she had completed independent investigations into the damp and mould in her bathroom and found a leak, that was suspected to originate from the roof, the landlord was responsible for investigating any necessary repairs.
  2. The landlord has not provided clear communication records with the resident, and some of the information and dates relied on within this report have been provided by the resident. The landlord is expected to keep clear, concise records regarding communication with the resident and repairs, in order to keep a clear audit trail. If there is disputed evidence and no audit trail, we may not be able to conclude that an action took place or that the landlord followed its own policies and procedures.
  3. The resident has advised this Service that she was informed on several occasions by the landlord that her insurer was responsible for the repairs. At times this advice was reasonable. Leaseholders are responsible for their property and belongings and are advised to arrange contents insurance. If they make a claim and the insurer believes the landlord is liable, the insurer can then pursue the landlord for any costs, including the resident’s excess payments. However (in the period after the final response) the resident continued to report the leak asd it had reoccurred, and the landlord incorrectly signposted them to their insurer. This appears to be from confusion around which works the resident was reporting (ie the remedial works or the actual leak).
  4. The landlord’s repair records show that repairs were raised for the leak on 26 February 2021 and an inspection took place on 9 March 2021. The landlord then carried out a variety of work including clearing the gutters and repointing the tiles. However, the dates of each of the works are unclear from the repair records provided and we have been unable to distinguish which works were completed for each leak. The resident stated that contractors attended on 28 April 2021 and said the scaffolding was not in the correct place to complete the work, so the scaffolding was then moved on 13 May 2021, to enable further works to take place. The resident emailed the landlord on 29 July 2021 as she said the scaffolding had been dismantled; the landlord then confirmed the leak had been resolved. As there are not clear repair records, although it is evident that the landlord undertook works to resolve the leak, it is unclear what caused the lea, what work the landlord completed, and on what basis the landlord was told the leak was resolved.
  5. In her complaint to this Service, the resident stated that she did not think the contractor had carried out sufficient investigation into the leak and adequate repairs. The landlord is entitled to act on the advice of its appropriately qualified contractors. As such, if the contractor had deemed the required work had been completed, it would have been reasonable for the scaffolding to be removed. However, the lack of information available in the landlord’s records mean it could not give a robust response to these concerns from the resident.
  6. Overall, it took the landlord five months to confirm that the leak had been resolved, from when the resident reported it. It should be noted that it can take more than one attempt to resolve issues such as leaks as it can be difficult to identify the cause of the issue at the outset and in some cases different repairs may need to be attempted before the matter is resolved. This would not necessarily constitute a service failure by the landlord. It was therefore appropriate that the landlord explained to the resident in its final response that leaks can be complex and time consuming to identify and repair. It is also acknowledged that it was reasonable that the works would have taken longer due to the required scaffolding. However, the poor records from the landlord mean:
    1. It has not been able to address the timeframe taken in full and therefore justify exceeding its repairs policy.
    2. The fact that leaks are hard to diagnose places greater emphasis on the need for a clear record of what investigations and repairs have been completed to aid future attempts, and these were lacking in this case.
  7. If the landlord is unable to adhere to its repair timeframes for relevant reasons, it should ensure that the resident is kept regularly updated on the progress of the works. The landlord therefore should have provided reasons for any delays it experienced. However, the resident had to chase appointments and contact the landlord to arrange follow-on repairs that had been identified by the contractor. Even after the landlord advised in its final complaint response that it would provide fortnightly updates, the resident had to contact the landlord when the scaffolding was dismantled to be informed that the works had been completed. The landlord also did not inform the resident of the works that had taken place to resolve the leak. The landlord therefore failed to regularly update the resident as promised.
  8. The landlord offered the resident £25 compensation in its final response for time and trouble. Although it was appropriate that the landlord recognised the resident’s time and trouble in pursuing the repair, the level of compensation was not proportionate to the landlord’s communication failings. Additional failings have also been identified within this report that require additional redress.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in way it handled the resident’s report of a leak in her bathroom.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks, the landlord is ordered to pay the resident a total of £300:
    1. £100 to acknowledge the inconvenience of the delayed repair.
    2. £100 to acknowledge the inconvenience caused by the inadequate record keeping, which in turn limited the quality of the landlord’s response to the resident and its ability to evidence the approach it had taken.
    3. £100 to acknowledge the inconvenience of not updating the resident as promised.
  2. Within 4 weeks, the landlord is ordered to contact the resident and to open a new formal complaint to investigate. This complaint should investigate the report of the new leak from November 2021 and the landlord’s response.