Hammersmith and Fulham Council (202122553)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202122553

Hammersmith and Fulham Council

21 June 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 repair to the resident’s boiler.

Background

  1. The resident is a secure tenant of the landlord.
  2. On 9 November 2021, the resident reported to the landlord’s out of hours repairs team (at approximately 6am) that her boiler was not working. She then called later that day as no operatives had attended. She explained that she had her baby granddaughter with her and needed to go out for groceries The landlord explained that there had been an error, and the repair was not passed to its repairs team by the out of hours team. It arranged for an operative to attend the property that day. The resident called on a number of occasions that day and was reassured that an operative would attend. However, no visit was received, and the resident rang the landlord again on 10 November. An operative attended that morning to rectify the fault.
  3. The resident raised a complaint on 24 November 2021 as she was dissatisfied with the length of time it had taken an operative to attend, however she also explained in detail her frustrations dealing with the landlord’s staff while chasing the repair, and with being misinformed about when the repair operative would attend. She added that she had needed to use a further day of annual leave to allow access to the operative on 10 November 2021 and she had had to stay home all day on 9 November 2021 in case the operative arrived.
  4. The landlord apologised that the repair was not logged when the resident had initially called its out of hours team on 9 November 2021. It confirmed that an operative attended on 10 November 2021, approximately 2.5 hours outside of its target timeframe. It apologised for the inconvenience caused to the resident and said that it was working hard to improve its services to residents. The resident was dissatisfied with the initial complaint response, as she did not feel the landlord had properly considered the poor communication she had received and her needing to chase the repair, or the two days off work she had needed to take to wait for the repair. The landlord sent a further response in which it acknowledged the inconvenience caused by the delayed repair, but did not consider the delay to be unreasonable. Nonetheless, it apologised again and offered the resident £20 compensation.
  5. The resident referred her complaint to this Service as she remained dissatisfied with the level of compensation offered by the landlord, and did not feel that her complaint had been addressed properly. She remained dissatisfied that the landlord had promised an operative would attend on 9 November 2021, and that she had not received any communication or explanation from the landlord.

Assessment and findings

  1. The resident’s tenancy agreement confirms that the landlord is responsible for repairs needed to the installations in the property for the provision of heating and hot water. The resident would be responsible for allowing access to the landlord or its staff to carry out repairs. The landlord’s repairs and maintenance policy states that emergency repairs, such as loss of heating or hot water in winter months (which it defines as 1 November to 30 April), would be attended to within 24 hours.
  2. The landlord’s view that the repair being completed 2.5 hours outside its 24 hour timeframe was not unreasonable, is an understandable position to take. However, this particular repair, involving failed heating and hot water, in the cold season, meant that even a minor delay had a greater impact than might otherwise be the case. Accordingly, in these circumstances any delay was noteworthy, and something the landlord should have demonstrated a level of concern and empathy about which was missing in its complaint responses.
  3. In both of her complaints to the landlord the resident emphasised her frustration with the overall boiler failure, but also with its poor communication about the repair, including the length of time she had had to wait on the phone, not being kept updated, and being misinformed about the appointment. In both of its complaint responses the landlord focussed on the time taken to complete the repair. It did not address its poor communication with the resident, or the missed appointment. It is one of the fundamentals of complaint handling, and the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code, that any complaint response addresses each of the issues raised by the complainant. By not doing so in this case the landlord also failed to acknowledge and remedy the full extent of its repair and communication failings, and missed the opportunity to learn from the complaint so as to avoid similar communication issues arising again.
  4. Overall, while the time taken to complete the boiler repair was not excessive, the resident also experienced poor communication from the landlord, which it failed to acknowledge or remedy.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in relation to the complaint.

Orders

  1. In light of the failings found in this investigation, the landlord is ordered to pay to the resident £150 compensation. This is in addition to the £20 it already offered, which should also now be paid if it has not been already.
  2. Evidence of this payment must be provided to this Service within four weeks of the date of this report.