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Camden Council (202114649)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202114649

Camden Council

20 November 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. This complaint is about the landlord’s:
    1. Response to the resident’s report of a leak and damage to his ceiling.
    2. Handling of the resident’s concerns about a member of its staff’s behaviour towards him.
    3. Handling of the associated complaint.

Background and summary of events

  1. The resident was a secure tenant of the landlord at the time of the complaint. The resident succeeded to the tenancy on 3 October 2016. The property is a one bedroom flat on the seventh floor of the block.
  2. The landlord is a council and the property is managed by a Tenant Management Organisation (TMO) that undertakes most of the estate management and maintenance services on behalf of the landlord.
  3. On 29 April 2021, the resident logged a formal complaint with the landlord saying that:
    1. On 19 April he returned to his flat from a weekend away to find it had been flooded from the flat above. A significant crack had appeared to his lounge and hallway ceiling where filthy, dirty water had seeped into his flat. He called the Out of Hours (OOH) emergency number the same day at 8pm to report the leak and advised that there was no need for a plumber as the leak had already happened. He said he would contact the TMO the following day, which he did.
    2. When he attended the TMO office on 20 April 2021, he was not offered a visit or inspection and was advised that no house calls were being made due to Covid. The resident said he was provided with the landlord’s Public liability claim form, which he was advised to complete.
    3. He then took the completed form to the TMOs office on 21 April 2021 and found the attitude of the member of staff he discussed the flood with to be offensive and off–handed.
    4. He then called the landlord’s repairs and was passed around between housing, environmental health and repairs and was eventually put through to the TMO. He then spoke to the same member of staff that he had spoken to on 22 April 2021 and they were again very off-handed with him and started shouting at him, accusing him of being abusive, which he said he was not.
    5. The member of staff eventually arranged for the estate handyperson to visit his property on 23 April 2021, to inspect the crack, which they did.
    6. He wanted to know why it took the TMO four days to get someone to inspect the crack and why, to date, no electrician had attended to inspect his electrics, the leak having gone through the light fitting in his lounge.
  4. The landlord acknowledged the resident’s complaint on 30 April 2021.
  5. On 19 May 2021, the TMO issued a Local Resolution response to the resident’s complaint. The TMO acknowledged that the resident would have been under considerable stress when he spoke to its member of staff and that he was upset by their decision not to visit his property. It had spoken to the member of staff concerned and was convinced that the resident’s concerns about their behaviour was an unfortunate incidence of miscommunication.The TMO went on to explain that:
    1. There had been a leak in the leasehold property directly above the resident’s property, due to refurbishments being carried out by the leaseholder, earlier that week. When the resident first reported the incident to the OOH emergency number, the member of staff concerned had offered to send a contractor to help suck-up any water in the property, which the resident declined as the situation was no longer an emergency.
    2. Its staff were adhering to instructions to limit visits to only extreme emergency situations and therefore the member of staff could not have accepted the resident’s persistent requests to visit his property, given that it was a non-emergency situation.
    3. With regards to the time taken to attend his property, the nature of the repair did not merit an immediate response, as the hairline crack in his ceiling did not pose an immediate risk to him or his visitors, and was considered an aesthetic repair. There was discussion about an electrical inspection during the OOH call, which the resident initially refused. The property was inspected by its handyperson, on 23 April 2021, and its electrical contractor, on 11 May 2021, both of which found no risk to the resident or his home. Although recommendations were made, the inspection did not mention any damage to the light fitting in the lounge or any electrical installation as the result of the leak. The TMO said that it was satisfied that its response was proportionate, and that given an urgent response time was applied to what was a routine repair it did not uphold the complaint.
  6. The resident emailed the landlord to escalate his complaint on 10 June 2021. The resident said that he had received a hard copy as the TMO were unable to provide electronic copies, which the resident said was creased and not very professional. The resident said that:
    1. He denied being upset that the member of staff would not visit his flat due to Covid but they showed no empathy towards him or the situation he was in and did not explain to him that there had been a leak from the leaseholder’s property.
    2. He was offered a plumber to attend his home, there was no running or leaking water for a plumber to deal with and nothing was mentioned about having the water sucked up.
    3. A handyman was sent to his property on 23 April 2021, but only after he had done some chasing around.
    4. The crack in his ceiling was not a hairline crack.
    5. There definitely was no discussion during the telephone call of 19 April 2021 regarding an electrical inspection of his home and he could only surmise that member of staff he had spoken to had mis-remembered the telephone conversation. Had he been offered an electrical inspection during the phone call he would have said yes. The electrician did not attend until 11 May 2021, the handy man that attended on 23 April 2021 did not perform an electrical inspection, he only inspected the crack in the ceiling. To date he was yet to hear from the TMO regarding the repair to his ceiling.
  7. On 21 July 2021, the resident chased the landlord for its response.
  8. The landlord issued its final response on 10 August 2021. In its response the landlord said that:
    1. The resident had not been supplied with an electronic copy of its stage one response due to TMO upgrading its system and that, unfortunately the state of the hand-delivered response was not something the TMO could accept responsibility for. The landlord also addressed the resident’s concerns that the response had a patronising tone, which it said was not intended and apologised if the resident felt that way.
    2. It was sorry to hear that the resident was unhappy with the attitude of the member of staff he spoke to on 21 and 22 April 2021 and that it had met with the member of staff in question. The landlord also explained that the stage one response had been compiled using witness statements. The landlord said that the difficultly had arisen when the member of staff said he was unable to visit the resident’s property. From its investigation the member of staff had prioritised the resident’s appointment over another already made.
    3. With regards to the viewing or inspection of the damage to the ceiling, the request was made on 20 April and the inspection carried out on 23 April 2021. This was a turnaround of three days and the timescale for repairs essential classification was a minimum of 20 working days.
    4. With regards to the resident feeling that the electrical inspection of his property took too long, it had checked the records and there was no indication that the leak had affected the electrical installations in the resident’s property. The TMO were not initially notified that the electrics were affected by the leak. A request was made for its contractor to inspect the electrical installations at the resident’s property but to date they had been unable to get access to the property. The landlord also said that it had been informed that the resident had not been available for follow up repairs to be carried out.
    5. The landlord acknowledged that the stage one response was issued three working days outside the timescale, explaining that this was due to additional interviews required to address the complaint and staff being out of the office when the response was due. The landlord said that this added to the delay which it also apologised for.

Assessment and findings

  1. The Ombudsman’s role is to consider whether the landlord responded appropriately to the resident’s concerns by adhering to its policies, procedures, and any agreements with the resident, and that the landlord acted reasonably, taking account of what is fair in all the circumstances of the case.

Relevant legislation, policies and agreements.

  1. In accordance with the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 and its repairs policy, the landlord is responsible for structural repairs. Once on notice, the landlord is required to carry out the repairs or works it is responsible for within a reasonable period of time, in accordance with its obligations under the terms of the tenancy agreement and in law.  The law does not specify what a reasonable amount of time is; this depends on the individual circumstances of the case. 
  2. The landlord’s repairs policy includes a number of different repair priorities and timescales, including:
    1. Emergency, where there is an immediate threat to life. The response time being six to 24 hours.
    2. Essential, where the problem is a nuisance and it likely to lead to further damage if not fixed. The response time being 20 working days.
    3. Routine, problems that need fixing by are not causing serious discomfort or inconvenience and are not likely to lead to further damage. In this case appointments are to be agreed with the resident.
  3. The landlord has a two stage internal, formal complaints policy. The policy states that stage one complaints will be responded to within 10 working days and stage two within 25 working days.
  4. This Service’s remedies guidance suggests compensation of between £50 and £100 where there has been a minor failure by the landlord in the service it provided and it did not appropriately acknowledge these and/or fully put them right. Such failures would be of a short duration and may not have significantly affected the overall outcome for the resident.

Landlord’s response to the resident’s report of a leak and damage to his ceilings.

  1. When the resident called the landlord on 19 April 2021, having been advised that there was no longer water leaking into his property, it was reasonable for the landlord not to arrange for a plumber to attend. This is not disputed by the resident, who agreed that he had advised during that call that there was no need for a plumber.
  2. What is disputed however is whether the attendance of an electrician was offered during that call, and whether the landlord had offered to send someone to suck up the water.
  3. The landlord did arrange for its handyman to attend to inspect the ceiling, which they did within four working days and within the 20 working day timescale set out in the landlord’s repairs policy. It was reasonable for the landlord not to consider the repair to the ceiling as an emergency as there was no evidence that the ceiling was in danger of falling.
  4. There is no evidence of the resident raising concerns about the attendance of an electrician until his complaint to the landlord on 29 April 2021. At this point, given that the resident had raised concerns about the electrics in his property, it would have been appropriate for the landlord to arrange for an electrician to attend. The evidence is contradictory as to whether an electrical inspection took place. Whilst there is evidence of both the landlord and the resident saying that an inspection was made on 11 May 2021, in its final response the landlord said that a request was made for its contractor to inspect the electrical installations at the resident’s property but to date they had been unable to get access to the property.
  5. It is good practice for a landlord to maintain accurate, contemporaneous records on reports it receives, and its actions in response. This will enable it to effectively manage any issues raised by its tenants as well as fulfilling its obligations as a landlord. It cannot properly investigate and respond to complaints without accurate and comprehensive records and this could result in unfairness to the resident.
  6. As a member of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord also has an obligation to provide this Service with adequate information to enable us to fully investigate matters referred to us and it has failed to do so in this case. The landlord has failed to provide this service with contemporaneous records of its call with the resident on 19 April 2021 and the evidence it has provided with regards to the electrical inspection is unclear.
  7. This has resulted in a finding of service failure for this element of the complaint for which the landlord has been ordered to apologise to the resident and pay him £100 compensation. Given that it is unclear whether an electrical inspection took place, or whether the ceiling has since been repaired, the landlord has also been ordered to carry out a further inspection of the resident’s property to establish if there are any repairs for which it is responsible that remain outstanding following the reported leak.

Staff behaviour towards the resident.

  1. Given the resident had raised concerns about the behaviour of a member of its staff towards him, the landlord would be expected to conduct a fair and objective investigation, take appropriate action where necessary, and clearly relay its findings to the resident.
  2. In this case, the landlord interviewed both the member of staff in question and two other members of staff that were present at the time the alleged behaviour took place.
  3. Whilst it is not possible to definitively establish what happened, it is clear the landlord considered the allegations and took steps to investigate those concerns. Whilst it found no evidence to support the resident’s concerns it was appropriate for the landlord to acknowledge, and to say that it was sorry, that the resident was unhappy with the behaviour of its member of staff. The landlord also sought to explain its member of staff’s position as to what happened on the days complained about by the resident, acknowledging that there had been an ‘’unfortunate incidence of miscommunication’’.

The handling of the associated complaint.

  1. The resident logged his formal complaint with the landlord on 29 April 2021. According to the landlord’s complaints policy, the landlord should have responded to the resident by 13 May 2021, within 10 working days. The landlord did not do so until 19 May 2021, exceeding its 10 working day timescale by four working days.
  2. The resident emailed the landlord to escalate his complaint on 10 June 2021. According to the landlord’s complaints policy, the landlord should have provided its stage two response within 25 working days, by 15 July 2021.
  3. On 21 July 2021 the resident chased the landlord for its response. However, the landlord did not then issue its final response until 10 August 2021, exceeding the timescale given in its complaint policy by 18 working days. This was not a reasonable time for the resident to have to wait.
  4. In its final response the landlord apologised for the short delay in it providing its stage one response, which was reasonable. However, it failed to either acknowledge or apologise to the resident for the delay in providing its final response letter. This was a failing by the landlord for which it has been ordered to apologise to the resident and to pay him £100 compensation, in recognition of the inconvenience to the resident and its failure to acknowledge and account for the delay through its final complaint response

Determination (decision)

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in respect of its response to the resident’s report of a leak and damage to his ceiling.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was no maladministration by the landlord in respect of its handling of the resident’s concerns about a member of its staff’s behaviour towards him.
  3. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in respect of its handling of the associated complaint.

Reasons

  1. As a result of the landlord failing to provide this Service with adequate information to enable us to fully investigate this element of the resident’s complaint, a finding of service failure has been made with respect of its response to the leak.
  2. The landlord has demonstrated that it has taken the resident’s concerns regarding its staff conduct seriously and investigated accordingly. Having been unable to find, and not having been provided with, any evidence to support the resident’s claims, it was reasonable for the landlord to not uphold the resident’s complaint.
  3. There was an unreasonable delay in the landlord providing its stage two response to the resident complaint, exceeding the timescale given in its complaint policy by 18 working days, which the landlord failed to either acknowledge or apologise for in its response.

Orders

  1. That within 28 calendar days of this determination, the landlord is to:
    1. Pay the resident a total of £200 compensation, made up as follows:
      1. £100 for its failure to provide this service with adequate information to enable us to fully investigate his complaint about the leak and damage to his ceiling.
      2. £100 for its complaint handling failures.
    2. Arrange an inspection of the resident’s property to ensure that there are no repairs for which it is responsible that remain outstanding following the reported leak.
    3. Confirm to this service that it has complied with the above orders.