Waverley Borough Council (202205045)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202205045

Waverley Borough Council

15 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. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of a leak at the resident’s home, and its response to his request for compensation for damaged personal items.

Background

2. The resident is a tenant of the landlord. The complaint was dealt with by the resident’s partner. For the purpose of clarity, the report will refer to both parties singularly, as the resident. The resident’s home is a first floor flat. Above the flat, is a loft space which contains two cold-water storage tanks; one for the resident’s flat and one for the ground floor flat below.
3. On 27 January 2022, the landlord raised the following priority repair at the resident’s home; “a leak from the water tank in the loft”. The resident said that an operative “came out on an emergency call that night.” The next day, the following job was raised; “hall and bathroom need stain blocking once dry”. In February 2022, the resident submitted a compensation claim to the landlord, for personal items that he said had sustained damage as a result of the leak. This consisted of £45 for a damaged CCTV camera and £47.92 for eight damaged box files. The landlord wrote to the resident in March 2022 and advised him that it did not uphold his claim. It outlined that it expected its residents to contact their home contents insurers in such instances.
4. The resident contacted the landlord in late March and early April 2022. The resident was concerned that, what had caused the leak in the water tank, could potentially be a similar problem in the second tank and therefore may increase the likelihood of another leak occurring. He also highlighted that remedial works to paint the affected areas in his home had not been completed. He was dissatisfied with the landlord’s refusal of his compensation claim, as he believed that the leak was caused due to parts of the tank having been previously installed incorrectly, for which he believed the landlord was responsible. He was also dissatisfied with the conduct of one of the landlord’s staff who he said he had discussed the claim with.
5. The landlord undertook an inspection of both water tanks in early April 2022 and identified works that were required to prevent future leaks. The corresponding repair record noted; “tanks need cleaning fill valves need lowering and overflow pipes need securing”. The repair records show that these works were completed on 26 April 2022.
6. The landlord issued its final response on 26 April 2022. Regarding the resident’s request for reimbursement, the landlord reiterated that the resident’s tenancy agreement states that the resident must not store any belongings in the loft space. It also reiterated that the resident’s tenancy agreement outlines that it is a tenant’s responsibility to insure personal items and possessions, and for these reasons, said it was not able to reimburse the resident. It acknowledged that the work to apply stain block to the areas affected by the leak had not been completed, and said that its contractor would contact the resident to arrange for completion of this. The repair records noted that stain blocking and painting works to the resident’s bathroom ceiling and hallway were completed on 6 July 2022.
7. The resident referred his complaint to this Service as he remained dissatisfied with the landlord’s response, asserting the leak had resulted from poor workmanship for which he believed the landlord was responsible. He indicated that remedial works had either not been completed, or not been completed to a satisfactory standard. To resolve the complaint, he wanted the landlord to move his “ball valve in the loft to the correct height” and pay compensation.

Assessment and findings

8. The landlord has a repairs and maintenance compensation and reimbursement policy. This policy has a section which advises its staff how claims relating to reimbursement and/or damage to personal possessions should be considered. It states that liability is the criteria by which all claims are judged. It states “if the cause of damage could reasonably be judged to be not the fault of the landlord, and that all steps had been taken to prevent that fault occurring over an appropriate span of time, then a robust approach can be taken in refusing to compensate for content damage.”
9. The resident’s stage two complaint mentioned other issues with window repairs and a fence installation. The resident has not mentioned in his contact with this Service, if these remain outstanding issues. Therefore, this investigation will focus on the landlords handling of the leak, and its response to the resident’s request for compensation for leak damage to his personal items. The resident should consider contacting the landlord and raising the other issues as a new complaint, if they are still of concern, and if he has not already done so.
10. It is not the role of this Service to determine liability for the resident’s damaged items, as we cannot make binding decisions on matters such as liability in the same way that a court would. This is a legal term, which would need to be dealt with as an insurance claim or through the courts. It is the role of this Service to investigate whether the landlord acted in accordance with its policies, and whether it responded reasonably to the resident’s concerns.
11. The landlord attended the initial report of the leak in a prompt manner. Clear evidence of the full outcome of this visit has not been provided. It was therefore not apparent what the operative had determined to be the cause of the leak, or what works were undertaken to stop the tank from leaking. The resident said that he stopped the leak himself “by bending the stopcock” and that the operative had replaced this on attendance. Nonetheless, there is no dispute that the leak was stopped on or before this visit, and the evidence does not show there was any reports of actual water ingress following this.
12. It is noteworthy that the resident asserts he was told by the operative who initially attended the leak, that the leak had occurred, in part, due to the parts of the tank having being previously installed incorrectly. However, it was not seen in the evidence that the initial operative made any formal recommendations to the landlord regarding this, nor recommended any follow on works to the water tanks at that time. In light of the resident advising the landlord in March 2022, that not all necessary work had been completed to prevent the situation from reoccurring, the landlord took the appropriate action by promptly undertaking another inspection of the water tanks. This shows that the landlord took the resident’s safety concerns seriously, as it would need to do this to ensure that its obligations were being met. Following this, the evidence shows that the landlord completed the works recommended by this inspection within a reasonable timeframe.
13. In its final response, the landlord appropriately acknowledged that work to apply stain block to all areas affected by the leak in the resident’s home, had not been completed. However, the landlord did not clearly explain the reason for this delay, other than that its contractor had been instructed to, but had not carried out the required work. Given that this work order was not completed until early June (more than four months after it was initially raised), and that the evidence does not show the delay was unavoidable, nor that the landlord apologised for this delay, the resident would understandably have experienced some inconvenience and distress as a result.
14. The landlord did not sufficiently explain its reasons for denying the resident’s compensation request for damage to his personal items. This is because it did not address in any form, his clear concern that he believed it was liable for the damage. In explaining its decision to the resident, the landlord relied upon the part of the tenancy agreement that advises it is the responsibility of a resident to insure personal possessions within their home (it should be noted that this is not a condition of the tenancy agreement).  In doing so, the landlord implied that it did not consider damage to personal items in any circumstances. This was contrary to its compensation policy, which gives the landlord scope to consider such requests in circumstances where liability has been alleged. This policy clearly indicates that liability is the criteria by which it considers claims for reimbursement for damage to personal items.
15. Considering the above, the landlord did advise this Service that it established no grounds on which to pay the compensation claim, because it had found no evidence to support the resident’s belief that the ball valve was incorrectly installed and that this was the direct cause of the leak. However, the evidence does not show that it communicated this aspect of its reasoning to the resident. It was therefore unreasonable that the landlord refused the resident’s reimbursement claim, and signposted him to his home contents insurer in the first instance, without first clarifying if it was satisfied that it was responsible for the leak or not.
16. It was unclear why the landlord advised the tenant that part of the reason it would not reimburse him, was because he was storing items in the loft which was a breach of tenancy. This is because there was no specific mention in the resident’s claim submission, of the location of the items that had been damaged. In his stage two complaint, the resident described the items as being located in “the cupboard below”, but it was unclear if this was a cupboard underneath the water tank or underneath the ceiling. However, it was also not clear if he disputed the landlord’s interpretation of this.
17. The resident wrote to the landlord and expressed his dissatisfaction with its final response as he said it was “factually wrong on so many points” and requested a meeting with the landlord to discuss the situation further. In its submissions to this Service, the landlord said that upon review, it did not respond to this correspondence, due to an administrative error. However, the evidence does not show that it communicated this to the resident, who would, understandably, not have been aware of the reasons for its poor communication. He was also not given a fair chance at that time, to clarify any outstanding concerns or inaccuracies, and have the landlord clarify its position in that regard.
18. Overall, the landlord’s communication was poor, as it did not sufficiently explain its decision to not reimburse the resident for damaged personal items, in light of his liability concerns. The landlord also acknowledged to this Service, that it did not respond to the resident’s request for a meeting following its final response, but has not demonstrated that it took appropriate action to remedy this. Although it acknowledged the delay to complete stain block and painting works to the affected areas of the resident’s property, and later completed these works, it did not fully put this right by apologising to the resident nor give a reasonable explanation for the delay. In the circumstances, an amount of £100 compensation is appropriate to reflect the distress and inconvenience caused to the resident.

Determination

19. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the scheme there was service failure by the landlord in respect of the complaint.

Orders

20. Within four weeks of this report, the landlord should:
    1. Write to the resident, with a copy provided to this service, and apologise for the service failures identified in this investigation.
    2. Pay the resident compensation of £100.

Recommendations

21. It is recommended that the landlord reviews any lessons it can learn from the failings identified in this case, and in light of this, considers what changes it can implement to its service delivery to prevent such instances from reoccurring.
22. While the evidence shows the works to resolve the situation have been completed, the resident has made clear from his reports that he believes that not all works have been undertaken, and that some works have not been completed to an acceptable standard. If it has not done so already, the landlord should, in the near future, consider conducting an assessment of the situation by its senior staff, in conjunction with the resident, to clarify what repairs the landlord considers to be acceptable, and address any repair issues which it agrees still need resolution.