Landlords can now complete the Complaint Handling Code Annual Submissions form. More information is available online.

London & Quadrant Housing Trust (202119188)

Back to Top

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202119188

London & Quadrant Housing Trust

7 February 2023


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 the resident’s reports of a leak from the balcony above her property, and the resulting damage caused.
    2. The landlord’s handling of the associated complaint.

Background

  1. The resident is a leaseholder of the property. The building that the property is situated in is a block of flats. Within the building, some properties have balconies.
  2. In November 2020, the resident raised a complaint with the landlord during which she mentioned there was leakage from balconies in the building her property was situated in. On 30 September 2021, the resident contacted the landlord to report there was water ingress into her bedroom, which she believed was coming from the balcony of the property above hers, or through the building’s cladding.
  3. In October 2021, the landlord asked for the property above the resident to be assessed, to determine a possible cause for the water ingress. On 20 October 2021, works were raised following an inspection. The works raised included lifting slabs on the balcony in the property above the resident’s and making good the bedroom following the water ingress. On 29 April 2022, the landlord informed the resident that the works would be rebooked with a different contractor, as it was no longer using the previous one.
  4. On 6 June 2022, the resident made a new complaint with the landlord. She stated she was dissatisfied with the wait time for a repair appointment and believed it should have been treated as an emergency repair due to the worsening conditions. She later added she was dissatisfied with the landlord’s poor communication and service and that a member of staff had informed her the repair would be open ‘indefinitely’.
  5. The resident continued to chase the landlord for progress on the repairs and a further inspection took place on 13 June 2022 and identified works were approved on 22 July 2022. On 4 August 2022, the resident informed the landlord she had received no update on the repair works. On 31 August 2022, the landlord informed the resident that contractors would be attending on 1 September 2022 to begin the works. On 2 September 2022, the resident confirmed that the works had been completed however she was dissatisfied that the contractors had informed her that any resulting damage from the water ingress would need to be raised again with the landlord.
  6. The landlord issued its final complaint response on 13 September 2022. It acknowledged there had been delays in its complaint handling, which it stated was due to an increased volume of work. In addition, it acknowledged that the resident had been waiting for a prolonged time for the repairs to be completed. It also provided details of its liability insurers, so that the resident was able to submit a claim for any damages. The landlord recognised that its service had been poor, and it had failed to communicate effectively with the resident. In view of this, it stated it would be providing further staff training. Ultimately, it recognised the distress and inconvenience which had been caused and offered the resident £230 compensation (£20 for the delay in responding to the resident’s stage two complaint, £100 for the time, effort, distress and inconvenience which the resident experienced, £10 for poor communication from its contractors and £100 for the delay in completing the repair).
  7. The resident escalated her complaint to the Ombudsman on 14 September 2022. She was unhappy with the landlord’s final response, and believed it had not taken responsibility for the delays and resulting damage. In addition, she was dissatisfied with the poor communication throughout the process, and that she had had to chase the landlord’s contractors directly. She believed the compensation offered by the landlord was insufficient. Furthermore, she was unhappy with the prospect of referring her claim to insurers, as it would be time consuming and may be rejected. As a resolution to her complaint, the resident advised she was seeking for repairs to be completed within her bedroom, where it was damaged following the water ingress.

Assessment and findings

Scope of Investigation

  1. It is noted that the resident believes that the landlord’s handling of her reports has exacerbated her husband’s medical conditions. However, it is beyond the expertise of this Service to make a determination on whether there is any direct causal link between reported health conditions and the landlord’s actions, or lack thereof. The resident may wish to seek independent advice on making a personal injury claim if she wishes to pursue this part of her complaint. This is an accordance with paragraph 42(g) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme which states that the Ombudsman may not investigate complaints which concern matters where the Ombudsman considers it quicker, fairer, more reasonable or more effective to seek a remedy through the courts, other tribunal or procedure.

The landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of a leak from the balcony above her property, and the resulting damage caused.

  1. The landlord’s ‘Claims procedure guide 2021’ states that leaseholders and shared owners have direct access to its insurers. The landlord’s repairs policy states that where damage occurs due to its contractor’s negligence, it will refer the issue to its insurers. The policy also states it will only redecorate following a repair where it has an obligation to. In addition, it advises that then landlord is responsible for repairs to any balconies and that routine repairs would be completed at the earliest mutually convenient appointment.
  2. In this case, following the resident’s reports of water ingress on 30 September 2021, works were raised by the landlord on 4 October 2021. It is not disputed by either party that the works to the balcony of the property above, in order to resolve the leak, were completed by 2 September 2022. It is also not disputed that this was a prolonged delay which impacted on the resident, causing her inconvenience and distress.
  3. However, the resident has stated that she initially reported the water ingress in May 2021, during a phone call with the landlord. From the evidence provided, the landlord does not appear to have a record of this call and as such, this Service is unable to determine whether the call did take place. However, during a previous complaint submitted by the resident in 2020, which related to a separate matter, it is noted that she did inform the landlord of leakage from the balconies in the building. This report does not appear to have been addressed at the time. While it will not form part of this investigation due to not being raised with this Service at the time, it may have been an opportunity for the landlord to resolve the issue at an earlier stage if it had requested further details at that point.
  4. Following the resident’s complaint, the landlord acted appropriately by, in October 2021, arranging for the balcony above her property to be assessed. It also asked her to clarify when the last water ingress had taken place and which areas of her property had been affected. Records show the landlord’s contractor made several attempts to make an appointment, but the resident advised these were not convenient. This initial delay was therefore outside the landlord’s control. Its contractor ultimately inspected the property on 18 or 19 October 2021 and repair works were raised the following day. The landlord’s initial response was appropriate and in line with its repairs policy, as it had attended at the earliest mutually convenient time for both the resident and its staff.
  5. However, following the inspection there was no progression in the works until 29 April 2022, when the works were assigned to a new contractor. This was a significant and unreasonable delay of over six months. Whilst this Service understands there may be occasions where a landlord has issues with staffing or contractor relationships which results in a delay, it would be expected to communicate this to the resident, and to provide regular updates to appropriately manage her expectations. While it advised in its stage one complaint response that the contractor had been “unable to accommodate” the repair, it is unclear when the landlord became aware of this and whether it could therefore have appointed a new contractor sooner. From the evidence provided, there was no communication from the landlord during this period, which caused distress and inconvenience for the resident, as she was concerned about the damage being caused by the water ingress. It also caused her time and trouble when chasing the landlord regarding the progress of the works.
  6. Furthermore, once the works were re-raised with the new contractor, they were not completed until 2 September 2022, a further delay of around four months. Landlord records show there were several avoidable delays during this period, including a delayed inspection which did not take place until 13 June 2022 and a subsequent delay regarding an invoice that was not approved until July 2022. As before, the impact of these delays was exacerbated due to the landlord’s poor communication as the resident needed to chase the works on several occasions, causing her inconvenience and distress.
  7. The landlord retained ultimate responsibility for the effective handling of its repair responsibilities, regardless of whether it had appointed a contractor to complete any works. It should therefore have been much more proactive in ensuring the contractors were in a position to progress the works and meet both the landlord’s repair targets and the resident’s expectations. This was particularly important once it had appointed a new contractor in April given the resident had already experienced a significant delay. Overall there is insufficient evidence that the landlord appropriately handled the repairs that were originally raised in October 2021. This was not appropriate and meant the resident was not treated fairly.
  8. The landlord should have more effectively managed the progress of the repair, and ensured it provided the resident with regular updates, or details of correspondence it had with the contractor. That it failed to do so was evidence of poor communication, although it is acknowledged the landlord identified this during its investigation.
  9. During the repairs process, the resident was dissatisfied that a member of the landlord’s staff informed her that the repair would be open ‘indefinitely’. Due to this, the resident was concerned that the landlord would not complete the repair. The landlord acted appropriately by apologising to the resident on 22 July 2022. It explained this was a miscommunication and that it had provided feedback to the relevant members of staff so further training could be provided.
  10. Where there are admitted failings by a landlord, the Ombudsman’s role is to consider whether the redress offered by the landlord put things right and resolved the resident’s complaint satisfactorily in the circumstances. In considering this the Ombudsman considers whether the landlord’s offer of redress was in line with the Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles: be fair, put things right and learn from outcomes.
  11. It was positive that the landlord recognised its poor service in its complaint responses, and that it apologised to the resident for its lack of communication which resulted in distress and inconvenience. It attempted to put things right by completing the works needed in order to remedy the water ingress and offering the resident £210 compensation in recognition of its failings. In addition, it showed some learning as it committed to providing further staff training, which it believed would improve its service.
  12. However, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, the landlord’s offer of compensation did not adequately reflect the level of service failure that had occurred following the significant delay in completing the works and the inconvenience, time and trouble that the resident had been caused as a result. It advised the resident in its stage one complaint response that the original contractor had been “unable to accommodate” the repair, but it was six months before a new contractor was appointed in April 2021. Once a new contractor had been appointed, there was then a further delay from April 2021 until September 2021 before the works were finally completed, meaning it took almost a year in total to resolve the issue.
  13. The Ombudsman would have expected to see the landlord offer more than £100 for such a significant delay and also more than £100 to reflect the resident’s time and trouble over this period. The Housing Ombudsman’s remedies guidance suggests awards of between £250 and £700 where there has been considerable service failure or maladministration such as a complainant repeatedly having to chase responses and failures of a considerable period of time to act in accordance with policy. An order has therefore been made at the end of this report for the landlord to pay an increased amount of compensation which better reflects the level of service failure and impact on the resident.
  14. In correspondence following the complaint, the resident has advised she remained dissatisfied as although repairs had been completed, the bedroom of her property had been damaged and she believed the landlord was responsible for repairing it. The Ombudsman is unable to determine liability for damage and this would usually be dealt with as an insurance claim or through the courts. In this instance, the landlord acted appropriately by providing the resident with the details of its own insurance team which, as a leaseholder, she has direct access to. Landlords are entitled to have insurance policies to cover the cost of liability claims and the landlord would not be expected to consider a claim for damage to the resident’s possessions outside the insurance process. Whilst this Service acknowledges the resident felt it may be time consuming to submit an insurance claim, and was concerned it may be rejected, the landlord had followed its policies and procedures by doing so.

The landlord’s handling of the associated complaint

  1. The landlord’s complaints policy states that a stage one response will be issued within 10 working days, and a stage two response will be issued within 20 working days. It states that at both stages, if it is unable to meet that timeframe, it would explain why, and issue the response within a further 10 working days.
  2. In this case, the resident raised her complaint on 6 June 2022, and the landlord issued its stage one response on 22 July 2022. This was a total of 35 working days, and was therefore outside of the appropriate timeframe as listed in the landlord’s complaints policy. Following this, the resident escalated her complaint on 22 July 2022, and the stage two response was issued on 13 September 2022. This was a total of 37 working days, which was also outside of the appropriate timeframe listed in the landlord’s complaints policy. At both stages, the landlord failed to provide any form of holding response to the resident in order to manage her expectations in relation to the delays.
  3. In addition, the resident had to regularly chase a response to her complaint, such as on 18 July 2022. On this date, the landlord explained to the resident that her complaint had been escalated, but was awaiting allocation. The Complaint Handling Code provided by the Ombudsman offers guidance on how a landlord should handle a resident’s complaint appropriately. It states that a complaint should be logged and acknowledged within five working days. From the evidence provided, no acknowledgement of the complaint was issued during the stage one process. During the stage two process, the resident received acknowledgement of her complaint on 31 August 2022. This was a total of 28 working days from her escalation, and was not in line with the maximum timeframe set out in the Complaint Handling Code.
  4. Furthermore, the landlord only issued an acknowledgment of the complaint following intervention from this Service. This is evidence of poor communication on the landlord’s behalf, and it is recommended that the landlord considers providing additional staff-training to its complaint handlers, to ensure that its staff are aware of the appropriate timeframes for handling a resident’s complaint.
  5. However, the landlord did recognise that there was a delay in providing its stage two response. In view of this, it offered the resident £20 compensation. Whilst this does show that the landlord had attempted to put things right, the amount seems disproportionate when considering all of the factors listed above. A further order has therefore been made at the end of this report for the landlord to pay an increased amount of compensation to provide more adequate redress for the delays at both stages, and the poor communication throughout the complaints handling process. This will be in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance which states that compensation of £50 to £100 is appropriate in cases where there was a minor failure by the landlord, and the compensation offered is not quite proportionate to the failings identified by our investigation.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was:
    1. Maladministration regarding the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of a leak from the balcony above her property, and the resulting damage caused.
    2. Service failure by the landlord regarding its handling of the associated complaint.

Orders

  1. The landlord is ordered to:
    1. Pay the resident £450 to reflect its repair handling failures (£200 for the delay, £200 for the resident’s time and trouble and £50 for poor communication).
    2. Pay the resident £50 to reflect its complaint handling failures.
  2. For clarity, this total amount of £500 will replace the landlord’s original award of £230, rather than being in addition to it.
  3. The landlord should provide this Service with evidence of compliance with the above orders within four weeks of the date of this determination.

Recommendations

  1. It is recommended that the landlord considers providing additional staff-training to its complaint handlers, to ensure that its staff are aware of the appropriate timeframes for handling a resident’s complaint.