Luton Borough Council (202122872)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202122872

Luton Borough Council

23 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:
    1. The landlord’s response to a leak into the communal toilet that was believed to have come from the resident’s property.
    2. The landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

  1. The resident is a secure tenant of the landlord. The property is a first floor, sheltered housing flat in a block of similar properties, with communal facilities situated on the ground floor.
  2. In August 2021 the landlord replaced the water pump in the resident’s wet room. On 2 October 2021 the landlord’s out of hours repairs team received a report of a leak coming through the ceiling of the communal toilets in the block of flats where the resident lives. It sent a plumber to attend who believed that the leak was coming from the resident’s property. As there was no response from the property he turned off the water supply to the property externally. The leak stopped once the water was turned off. The landlord later told this Service that the plumber put a note through the resident’s letterbox asking her to contact the repairs team about the water being switched off. The resident says there was no note was left.
  3. On the evening of 2 October 2021, the resident contacted the repairs out of hours service to ask why her water had been turned off. The landlord says the resident declined to say whether she would be at home that evening but that it arranged for a plumber to attend that evening. However, the plumber could not get a reply at the resident’s property. The resident reported she heard her intercom ringing at 10pm but did not answer as it was late in the evening. The repairs team tried to call her that but there was no response.
  4. The next morning on 3 October 2021 the plumber attended the resident’s property again but there was still no response and the resident’s mobile phone was switched off when he tried to call her. That same day, the resident wrote a letter of complaint to the landlord as nobody had contacted her to say her water was being turned off or to turn it back on again. The landlord reported it did not receive this letter until 8 November 2021. The repairs team says it tried to call the resident again on 4 October but could not contact her so it decided to wait for her to make contact. The resident disputes this as she had had no missed calls. On 13 October 2021 the resident contacted the landlord and the repairs team came out to turn the water back on that day.
  5. In a letter to the landlord, dated 19 October 2021, the resident said she had not received a response to her previous letter and had ended up being without water for 11 days, during which time she was unable to flush the toilet or use the sink, hand basin or shower or maintain basic hygiene standards. She requested compensation for the distress, worry, inconvenience and harm that being without water had caused.
  6. In its stage one complaint response on 3 November 2021, the landlord said that it had not received the first letter dated 3 October 2021 and apologised if it had not been picked up earlier. It explained that as the leak through the communal toilet ceiling was coming from the resident’s property and she was not home, it had turned off the water externally as it was not safe to leave it on. It detailed the times it had tried to contact on 2,3 and 4 October 2021 and said it was not its policy to offer compensation in these circumstances.
  7. In her escalation request dated 7 November 2021 the resident said she objected to being “blamed” for the leak and that suggested that the operatives who could not find a leak when they replaced the water pump in July/August 2021 were incompetent.  She disagreed that anybody had tried to contact her on 3 or 4 October 2021 and said no note about the water being turned off had been left at her property and no texts sent to make an appointment. She said the landlord’s complaint response showed no care, concern or support for her wellbeing. She said the that the loss of water had affected her physical and mental health and she wanted compensation for the “stress symptoms that have affected my health” and for “items”.
  8. As she had received no response to the letter dated 7 November 2021, the resident sent a further letter dated 23 December 2021, in which she explained that the items she wanted compensation for were 120L of water, bleach, wet wipes, bedlinen, air freshener, 6 pairs of pyjamas, a bed and a chair which she said totalled £1800. She said that the repairs team had no knowledge of her medical history yet left her without water for 11 days. She said that the repairs team was not following the landlord’s complaints procedure and that its stage one response had “accusational jarring undertones” against her that she strongly refuted.
  9. In its 7 January 2022 stage two complaint response the landlord said that it had already answered the resident’s query about turning off the water, in detail in its stage one complaint response. It noted there had been no reports of leaks since 2 October 2021 and so believed the leak had been resolved, but invited the resident to contact the landlord if they believed the leak was ongoing.
  10. The resident contacted this Service in January 2022 as she said it was unacceptable for the landlord to turn off the water without telling her and leave it off for 11 days. She said that it was only turned back on when the landlord’s housing staff requested that the repairs team do so on 13 October 2021. She has also explained to this Service that the reason she wanted to be compensated for the items she had previously listed was because she had to buy water, air spray and bleach for sanitation purposes whilst her water was turned off. The other items she had listed had been soiled as she had been unable to hold in urine or stools during the time that she was without toilet facilities. She said that this was “unnecessary suffering and expense for 11 days and that she hoped “the damage is not permanent to [her] health, wellbeing and mental health”

Assessment and findings

Response to the leak

  1. When a leak is reported to a landlord its response should be to send a plumber out promptly to make the area safe whilst it tries to find the source of the leak. It would then be expected to ensure that the leak had been repaired or resolved. When the landlord’s repairs team received a report of a leak through the ceiling of the communal toilet on 2 October 2021 it acted appropriately by responding to it as an emergency and promptly sending a plumber out to investigate the leak. As the plumber believed that the source of the leak was from the resident’s property, and there was no reply when they tried to contact the resident there, the plumber acted reasonably by turning off the water supply to the property externally.
  2. The resident has complained that the landlord had already ruled out there being a leak in her property in August 2021 when it replaced the water pump in her wet room. However, no leak being found previously does not mean that a leak could not have developed since, so it was reasonable that the plumber considered whether the resident’s property was the source of the leak at that time, regardless of whether no leak had been found there before. Once the resident’s water was turned off, the leak stopped, so the plumber’s assumption that he had located the source of the leak was reasonable.
  3. It is disputed whether the plumber left a note asking the resident to contact the landlord about the water being turned off. However, in any event, the resident called the landlord’s repairs team on the evening of 2 October 2021 to ask why the water was off and was informed that there was believed to be a leak from her property. At that point the resident was at home and the repairs team acted reasonably by sending a plumber to the property as this showed a willingness to resolve the issue as soon as possible. The plumber arrived just over an hour after the resident had rang the repairs team and when he could get no response from the resident’s property, the repairs team acted appropriately by trying to call the resident too. The resident has confirmed there were attempts to contact them that evening that they did not answer.
  4. As they were unsuccessful in contacting the resident that night, the repairs team took appropriate steps to try to contact the resident the following morning, in person and by telephone. This is confirmed by the repairs team’s out of hours records.
  5. The repairs team have said that it also tried to call the resident on 4 October. The resident disputes this. By then it was Monday so it would have been normal office hours (rather than out of hours) and we have not been provided with any records for that day. As there are differing opinions of whether a call was made on that day and no evidence to confirm either version of events it is not possible for this Service to confirm whether an additional call was made that day. However, this Service considers that the repairs team had already made reasonable attempts to contact the resident on 2 and 3 October 2021, and, as the repairs team were aware that the resident had their number (as she had already contacted them on 2 October 2021) its decision to wait for the resident to contact it was reasonable.
  6. It is however noted that the resident lives in a sheltered housing scheme. The scheme is for elderly and/or vulnerable residents and as such it may have been helpful for the repairs team to have advised the scheme manager that it had been unable to contact the resident to turn her water back on.
  7. The resident has referenced how the landlord’s failure to turn the water back on at her property for 11 days has impacted her physical and mental health. Unfortunately, the Ombudsman cannot draw conclusions on the causation of, or liability for, impacts on health and wellbeing. This would be more usually dealt with as a personal injury claim through the courts.
  8. Although in her complaint letter to the landlord dated 3 October 2021 the resident mentioned that the water had not been turned back on yet, the landlord did not receive this letter until 8 November 2021 so it would be unreasonable to expect the repairs team to have acted on the information in that letter. The tenant’s handbook also recommends that any repair issues are reported by ringing its repairs freephone number and this Service would suggest that that option be used in the first instance for any future repair issues. The resident did not chase the repair or lack of water supply between the landlord’s various efforts to contact her and her call on 13 October. Once the resident contacted the landlord on 13 October 2021 the repairs team acted appropriately by arranging for the plumber to switch the resident’s water back on that day. Once the water was switched back on the leak did not resume and the resident has advised that the landlord did not have to carry out any repairs.
  9. This Service understands the resident’s frustration that in the end the leak appeared to have been resolved without any repair work being done inside her property, however the Ombudsman considers that the landlord’s plumber acted reasonably by turning off the water to her property as it was an emergency situation and he believed the leak originated there at the time, and the leak stopped once the water was turned off. It was also reasonable for the repairs team to want to return to turn on the water when the resident was present in case additional repairs work was needed inside her property. The repairs team took reasonable steps to try to contact the resident to switch the water back on, before deciding to wait until the resident made contact instead. The 11- day delay in the water being switched on was due to the resident not contacting the landlord again until 13 October 2021 (other than by letter on 3 October 2021 which was not received till November 2021). Therefore, there was no maladministration by the landlord in its response to a leak into the communal toilet that was believed to have originated from the resident’s property.

 The landlord’s complaint handling.

  1. The landlord’s complaint policy states that it aims to respond to complaints at stage one of its complaints process within 15 working days and that it will send a holding letter to explain any delay in responding within that timeframe. At stage two it says it aims to respond within 25 working days and that if more time is required it will send a holding letter which will include an apology for the delay, an explanation for the delay and the date a full response can be expected.
  2. The resident’s original complaint letter was dated 3 October 2021, however the landlord has advised this Service that it did not receive that letter until 8 November 2021, by which time it had already responded to the resident’s second letter of complaint dated 19 October 2021. As this Service has received no evidence to the contrary it is not able to assess whether the first complaint letter was responded to within a reasonable timeframe. However, the landlord responded to the second letter of complaint on 3 November 2021, which was ten working days after the date of the letter. This was reasonable as it was within the timeframe in its complaint policy and also within the ten working day timeframe that the Ombudsman’s complaint handling code advises.
  3. In its stage one complaint response the landlord took appropriate steps to explain that the water had been turned off as it was an emergency situation and the plumber had not been able to contact the resident. It would have been helpful if the landlord had explained that the reason the resident was not given prior warning was because it was an emergency (rather than being planned works). It would also have been helpful if the landlord had explained why compensation was not being considered rather than just stating that it was not landlord’s policy to offer compensation in “those circumstances”. Internal emails that the landlord has provided to this Service show that the reason it did not consider compensation was because it believed that the repairs team had taken reasonable steps to contact the resident and that the extensive delay in revisiting the property to turn the water back on was due to the resident not contacting the landlord again until 13 October 2021. This Service considers that to be an appropriate stance to take and although the compensation policy does not refer to identical circumstances to this case, it does state that in similar circumstances where a landlord does not attend a booked appointment, it will not pay compensation if “the customer did not give us access to their home or caused delay in any other way”.
  4. Once the resident escalated her complaint in a letter dated 7 November 2021 the landlord should have issued its stage two response within 25 working days according to its policy and sent a holding letter to customer if it was not going to reply within that timeframe. The landlord failed to reply within the timeframe stated in its policy and failed to issue a holding letter. This resulted in the resident sending another letter to chase up a response on 23 December 2021. Therefore, there was service failure by the landlord in respect of its complaint handling.
  5. The landlord eventually issued its stage two response on 7 January 2022. This was over 40 working days from the date of the resident’s escalation request and was outside the 25 working days response timeframe stated in its complaints policy. As the landlord’s compensation policy states that compensation claims may be made for “failure to respond to or process a complaint within our target times where there is no good reason for this one” and that payments of £50-£250 can be considered for “failure to meet service standards for actions and responses where the failure had no significant impact” it would have been reasonable for the landlord to have apologised for the delay and considered whether compensation within that range was appropriate. As the landlord failed to do either, there was further service failure by the landlord in respect of its complaint handling.
  6. In its stage two complaint response, the landlord also failed to address the additional points the resident had made about what she thought was an accusatory tone and lack of concern in its stage one response and it would have been helpful to have explained that even if it turned out that there was no leak at the resident’s property it was still reasonable for the plumber to have turned off the resident’s water as it believed there to be a leak at the time and reasonable for it to want to return when the resident was present in case further work was needed inside her property. It would also have been helpful to express some concern for the resident’s unhappiness at being without water for 11 days even if it did not believe that it was responsible for the delay.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was no maladministration by the landlord in its response to a leak into the communal toilet that was believed to have originated from the resident’s property.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in its complaint handling.

Orders and recommendations

  1. Within four weeks of the date of this letter the landlord is ordered to:
    1. To pay the resident £75 compensation to acknowledge the inconvenience caused by the complaint handling delays.
  2. This Service recommends that the landlord considers bringing the complaint response timeframes in its complaints policy into line with the complaint response timeframes this Service recommends in its complaint handling code, which are 10 working days at stage one and 20 working days at stage two.
  3. The landlord is strongly recommended to review its repairs team’s procedure for restoring water (or other essential service) to sheltered housing properties when it has been unable to contact the resident directly. This could include contacting the scheme manager as a step in the procedure.