Sanctuary Affordable Housing Limited (202126574)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202126574

Sanctuary Affordable Housing Limited

22 September 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 leaseholder 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 repairs to the communal fire panel.

Background

2. The leaseholder’s property is situated within a block of flats. A fire panel is present on the ground floor of the block which is linked to the smoke detectors and controls a smoke extraction system. The landlord confirmed that the fire system at the block did not have alarm bells, and therefore the ‘alarm’ sound reported by the leaseholder was the fire panel alerting a fault.
3. The landlord was made aware of the fire panel in the building sounding by another resident on 21 January 2020. It attended to repair this after two days and confirmed it was working. The landlord’s records noted on 11 February 2020 that there were ongoing issues with the fire panel, and its inspection indicated that the faults were due to someone tampering with the smoke detectors.
4. The leaseholder contacted the landlord on 13 February 2020 to raise her concerns over the sounding from the fire panel, highlighting that it had sounded every week since December 2019. She reported the issue again on 5 March, 3 August and 18 November 2020 when she raised a stage one complaint about the fire panel sounding for “a month now”, noting that this was a causing a noise nuisance. The landlord and leaseholder corresponded in December 2020 when it provided information to her on the steps it had taken to identify the problem with the fire panel. When the fire panel began sounding again, the leaseholder escalated her complaint to the final stage of the complaint process on 15 January 2021.
5. The landlord’s final complaint response to the leaseholder on 12 February 2021 listed the reports of faults to the fire panel, some of which had been reported by others including its own staff, and confirmed that it had attended on ten occasions since 12 February 2020, within two days of each report. It detailed the remedial work carried out on each occasion but noted that it was “disappointing that the problem persists”. The landlord relayed that a work order had been raised on 20 January 2021 in response to the leaseholder’s complaint, and it detailed the investigative work it proposed to carry out to eliminate the recurrent fault. It asserted that it had attended each report promptly but acknowledged that “more decisive action may have resolved this issue sooner” and apologised for this.
6. The leaseholder contacted this Service on 22 March 2022 to say that she wanted the landlord to complete the repair, provide compensation for the noise nuisance, and detailed concerns about the costs incurred (via service charges) in attending to the fire panel. The leaseholder reported to the landlord on 21 April 2021 that the fire panel was sounding again and considered that the repair was incomplete and her complaint unresolved. Information provided by the landlord demonstrates that the issue was ongoing as of May 2022.

Assessment and findings

Scope

7. The Scheme sets out that the Ombudsman does not investigate matters that concern the level of service charge (or service charge increase). This means that this investigation does not consider the leaseholder’s concern about costs incurred for the call outs to the fire panel, as this relates to the level (or increase) in service charges. Such matters can be considered by the First Tier-Tribunal (Property Chamber), which is able to determine whether service charges have been reasonable incurred, and an individual’s liability to pay.

Repairs

8. The landlord had an obligation, in accordance with its lease agreement with the leaseholder, to repair and maintain the common parts of the building, including fire safety equipment. Given that it was the fire panel, which controlled the smoke extraction system in the case of a fire, that was malfunctioning, the landlord would be expected to treat the repairs as urgent.
9. It is noted that the landlord’s attendance on each of the ten occasions mentioned above was prompt, and usually on the same day. This was appropriate in the circumstances and there was no evidence of a failure in its speed of response to the reported faults on the fire panel.
10. While the landlord attended promptly on each report of the fire panel sounding, it was unreasonable that the underlying issue persisted. This remained unresolved for 26 months between 21 January 2020, when it became aware of the issue, and 3 March 2022, when the complaint was duly made with this Service (and information suggests was still ongoing as of summer 2022). A landlord would be expected to have procedures in place to recognise, escalate and investigate recurrent issues, particularly when vital safety equipment is involved.
11. It was, therefore, a failure by the landlord that it did not recognise sooner that there was a persistent problem which caused the fire panel to sound a fault. This is of particular concern because it suspected as early as 11 February 2020 that the fault on the fire panel was the result of somebody tampering with the smoke detectors. It would have been reasonable for the landlord to write to the leaseholders of the building to highlight the issue and discourage any interference with the fire safety system. However, no proactive action was taken.  
12. The landlord had a duty, therefore, to investigate and confirm whether vandalism was the cause of the recurrent faults. It had an obligation to eliminate recurrent vandalism which could potentially endanger the wellbeing of its leaseholders by damaging vital fire safety equipment. In short, its inaction was a failure which led to excessive expenditure of effort by the leaseholder to report the faults and raise a complaint. Furthermore, the records note that the panel makes a loud ‘screeching’ sound when the fault is present, which can be heard in communal areas. The leaseholder has explained that the sound is loud and can be heard through the hallways, and into her home. Given the long period of time that this issue has now been ongoing, this noise would have been intrusive.
13. Finally, the continued fault sounding of the fire panel may have led to leaseholders becoming accustomed to the presence of a fault with the fire system and increase the potential for complacency in the event of an actual fire.
14. To recognise the leaseholder’s time, trouble, and likely distress and inconvenience, an order for compensation is made below. The amount takes into account the long duration of the problem at over 26 months, the landlord’s own compensation policy (which allows for awards of up to £150 for ‘medium impact’ failings), and the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance, which provides for awards from £250 where there has been a failure by the landlord, but this had not affected the overall outcome for the leaseholder.

Determination

15. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in its handling of repairs to the communal fire panel.

Orders

16. Within four weeks of the date of this report, the landlord must:
    1. Pay the leaseholder compensation of £200.
    2. If an permanent solution has not already been found, produce an action plan detailing how it will resolve the recurrent fault alert on the fire panel. This should include consideration of whether vandalism has been the cause of the recurrent faults, and if so, how it will address this. The plan should also include timeframes for actions. A copy of the plan should be provided to both the leaseholder and this Service.