Islington Council (202116052)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202116052

Islington Council

30 August 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 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 repairs to the resident’s boiler.

Background

2. The resident is a tenant of the landlord of a maisonette.
3. On 20 July 2021, the resident reported a problem with her boiler to the landlord. Its engineer attended this on the same day, but they advised her that a replacement part would need to be ordered to restore heating and hot water to her property, as the part that the engineer had was faulty. The engineer then re-attended without notice on the following day to complete their checks to the boiler, as they did not have a contact number for her, but the resident’s autistic son did not let them in or provide them with her contact details as she was not at home. The engineer made subsequent visits to check the boiler on 29 July and 2 August 2021, and found further faults. The resident’s boiler was finally fixed on 3 August 2021.
4. On 4 August 2021, the resident made a stage one complaint to the landlord, as she had been without heating and hot water from 20 July to 3 August 2021 due to the boiler fault. She wanted compensation for the stress, inconvenience and pain caused to her and her son by this. On 25 August 2021, the landlord issued its stage one complaint response to the resident. It awarded her £25 compensation as a goodwill gesture for any inconvenience caused to her.
5. The resident’s complaint was partially upheld because efforts were made to fix the boiler by the landlord but the two faulty replacement parts for this were outside of its control. It also said that it had been unable to contact her by telephone, which would have been the best way to progress the repair, so that, as it understood that she was reluctant to accept telephone or cold calls, she should have provided her email address to the gas engineer when they had requested her contact information. The landlord nevertheless advised the resident that she was entitled to compensation for the disruption to her hot water supply in the summer, and that it had forwarded the details of her claim for this to its insurance department that she could follow up this up with.
6. Following the resident’s subsequent correspondence of 27 August 2021 disputing the stage one complaint response and outlining her and her son’s vulnerabilities that she felt had been “discriminated” against, on 1 September 2021 the landlord issued a review of its stage one response. It assured her that her and her son had not been “discriminated” against, but it apologised to her for any unintended offence or upset caused by it. The landlord also confirmed that there was no suggestion that the resident’s son was aggressive or rude towards its gas engineer, and that it had only described their report about not being let in to her property.
7. However, an additional £25 compensation was awarded by the landlord to the resident in an effort to satisfactorily conclude matters, as it appreciated that having multiple repair attendances could be stressful and inconvenient despite considering that it was not possible to repair her boiler sooner due to faulty parts. She then escalated her complaint to the final stage of the landlord’s complaints procedure 5 September 2021, as she was dissatisfied with the time that it had taken to reply to her, having had to bathe in cold water for two weeks while having arthritis, and with its gas engineer’s attendance without notice. On 20 September 2021, the landlord awarded the resident £111 compensation for the service disruption to her hot water supply.
8. On 11 October 2021, the landlord issued its final stage complaint response to the resident. It acknowledged and apologised to her for its final stage response’s delay, and it offered her £75 compensation in recognition of this. It was nevertheless satisfied that the £50 compensation awarded for service failure for the breakdown in its internal communications that had led to the delay in her boiler repair, and the £111 compensation for service disruption to her hot water supply, were adequate redress for this.
9. The landlord apologised, however, that its gas operations team had not responded to the resident’s two requests for updates on the progress of the repair until 28 July 2021. It had therefore arranged for her housing records to show email as her preferred contact method, and that she should not be contacted via telephone, to prevent this from happening again. Although the landlord explained that its timescale for responding to correspondence could be ten working days, and so this might not be the most effective form of communication in terms of service response times.
10. The resident then complained to this Service that she was not happy with how the landlord had handled her reports of repairs to her boiler because of the length of time that it had taken to respond to her, its timescale for replying to emails from vulnerable residents appearing “discriminatory”. She also continued to dispute its description of the events in her case, including of her son’s response to its gas engineer’s attendance without notice. The resident additionally advised us that she was dissatisfied with the landlord’s handling of her reports of a water leak from a cut external pipe spilling into her garden and disrupting the water supply to her bathroom, to which she had yet to receive a satisfactory reply.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

11. The resident’s dissatisfaction with the landlord’s handling of her reports of a water leak from a cut external pipe, together with her reports of experiencing “discrimination” by it for her and her son’s vulnerabilities, is outside of the scope of this investigation. This is because, under the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, we cannot investigate complaints that are either made prior to having exhausted the landlord’s complaints procedure or where the resident is seeking an outcome that is not within our authority to provide.
12. There is no evidence that the complaint from the resident about the cut external pipe has completed the landlord’s complaints procedure yet, and this Service does not have the authority or expertise to determine whether there has been “discrimination” in the way that a court or tribunal might. Therefore, this investigation will not make findings in respect of either of these matters.

The landlord’s handling of repairs to the resident’s boiler

13. The landlord carried out repairs to restore the lack of heating and hot water from the resident’s boiler in ten working days instead of within its housing repairs guide’s 24-hour timescale for it to do so, but it attempted to repair this as swiftly as it could in the circumstances. Also, it awarded the resident £50discretionary compensation under its compensation, refunds and remedies housing policy and procedure, although it was not obliged to do so, to recognise any distress and inconvenience that she experienced as a result of this.
14. The landlord, moreover, proactively started a claim for compensation with its insurance department on behalf of the resident for the disruption of her hot water supply in summer, in accordance with the compensation, refunds and remedies housing policy and procedure. Additionally, it acknowledged this failing, explained why this happened, apologised to her for this and offered her £111 compensation for the disruption to her hot water supply, as well as £75 compensation for the delay in its final stage complaint response. The landlord also amended its records to reflect that the resident only wished to be contacted by email, and not via telephone.
15. On 20 July 2021, the resident reported the boiler problem, the landlord raised an emergency 24-hour job to repair her boiler, its engineer attended on the same day but, due to faulty parts and further faults being identified, the repair was delayed until 3 August 2021.This may have been further affected by it not having her contact telephone number, and by her email address not being provided when asked for by the engineer.
16. However, the landlord ought to have always had the resident’s preferred contact details on record, and to have initially asked her what her preferred method of contact was and kept that information available for its staff and contractors. As it additionally knew that her household was vulnerable, it should have advised its engineer of this, so that they could have sought to avoid attending unexpectedly without notice, while she was not at home.
17. The landlord did nevertheless apologise and award the resident £50 discretionary compensation for any distress and inconvenience caused to her by its above failings, as permitted by its compensation, refunds and remedies housing policy and procedure. It also confirmed to her that its records had been amended to say that her preferred method of contact was by email and not via telephone to try and prevent these from occurring again. Overall, the landlord attempted handle the boiler repairs appropriately given the delays from the faulty parts that were outside of its control. It responded to the resident’s report of the boiler repair within 24 hours, as per its housing repairs guide timeframe for repairs that affected a tenant’s day to day living, including the loss of heating and hot water.
18. The landlord additionally followed the compensation, refunds and remedies housing policy and procedure to award the resident her entitlement to compensation for the disruption to her hot water supply in summer, as required by its policy and procedure. It did so by liaising with its insurance department on her behalf that led to its £111 compensation to her for the disruption. This was appropriate as it showed the proactive nature of the landlord to try and resolve this for the resident, and its desire to maintain a good relationship with her by doing so that was beneficial for both parties.
19. The landlord further awarded the resident £75 compensation for its delayed final stage complaint response, as permitted by its compensation, refunds and remedies housing policy. The total amount of compensation offered by it to her was therefore £236 in recognition of her complaint, which was in addition to it apologising and acknowledging its failing of its breakdown in communication that had led to a delay in the boiler repair. The landlord also explained what had caused the delay in communication in responding to the two requests for updates on the repair from its gas operations team that the resident had mentioned in her final stage complaint escalation request, which it resolved by adding her contact preferences to its records.
20. This was appropriate, as this showed that the landlord had thoroughly investigated the resident’s complaint, advised her of its failings and awarded her compensation in recognition of this. This additionally demonstrated that it was aware that her household was vulnerable, and that it ought to have responded to her sooner than it did, including because she was asking for updates on boiler repairs as she had arthritis and had to bathe in cold water for two weeks.

Determination

21. In accordance with paragraph 55(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord has offered redress to the resident prior to investigation which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, resolves the complaint about its handling of repairs to her boiler satisfactorily.