Network Stadium Housing Association Limited (202104184)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202104184

Network Stadium Housing Association Limited

10 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 leak in the resident’s roof.

Background

  1. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord. The property is a three-storey house. The resident has stated that she has a disability.
  2. On 7 September 2020 the resident reported that her son’s bedroom ceiling was “bowing and splitting”. The landlord sent a contractor out that day who inspected the ceiling and reported that there was a suspected roof leak. The landlord arranged for a roofing contractor to attend the property. The roofing contractor did not inspect the roof but reported to the landlord that the leak was from the upstairs window and that scaffolding would need to be erected so that the roof could be inspected and repairs carried out. When the roof was inspected in October 2020 no leak from the window was found but different repairs were identified and completed. However, water was still leaking through the ceiling following those repairs so the landlord came out to make the ceiling safe and advised the resident that it would inspect the roof again.
  3. On 22 October 2020 the resident made a formal complaint to the landlord as she the roof was still leaking and despite making several calls and emails to the landlord she had received no confirmation of when repairs would be completed.
  4. In its stage one complaint response on 4 November 2020 the landlord apologised for the lack of communication and how “poorly managed” the work was. It said that an internal error had meant that following her report on 5 October 2020, that the roof was still leaking, it had booked the ceiling repair but not the roof repair. The roof repair was booked when the resident contacted the landlord on 12 October. It confirmed that the roofing contractor had attended on 2 November 2020 and had re-fitted two slipped tiles. The roofing contractor had also noted that further work was required on the chimney stack and to refit another tile. The landlord explained that it had tried to contact the resident to arrange for this work to be completed and that once it was completed and a dye or flood test had been carried out to ensure there was no other leaks, it would complete the internal repairs to the bedroom ceiling. It awarded £100 compensation for “the time taken to resolve the issue and the inconvenience”.
  5. The resident escalated her complaint on 10 November 2020 as the roofing contractor had attended that week but had not been able to complete the work, and her calls and emails to the contractor had not been responded to. She said that “as a disabled person this issue was causing [her] much stress which she should avoid with [her] condition”. The landlord emailed the resident on 13 November to explain that the roofing contractor had been waiting to source the correct tiles from a reclamation yard and would complete the job the following day. The resident emailed the following day to confirm that the roofing contractor had not attended.
  6. In its stage two complaint response on 17 December the landlord acknowledged that the resident had said that the situation was causing lots of stress that due to her disability she needed to avoid. It also acknowledged that her son had not felt safe to sleep or work in his bedroom. It referred to an appointment that had gone ahead the previous day to resolve the repairs and said that once its electrician had attended on 18 December 2020 the bedroom would be back in a condition where her son would feel safe sleeping in there. It said it would increase its compensation award to £250 as the original award had only taken into account the delay from 5 October 2020 to 5 November 2020. It confirmed that the ceiling would be painted on 2 February 2021.
  7. On 23 December 2021 the resident reported to the landlord that the roof was still leaking through the bedroom ceiling. During January and February 2021 there were further visits and failed appointments from the roofing contractor and a flood test was conducted. The landlord advised the contractor that it had agreed to work out compensation for the resident once all work was completed. The roofing contractor confirmed it had completed the roofing work on 12 March 2021. On 7 may 2021, in a follow on to its stage two complaint response the landlord confirmed that the bedroom ceiling would be painted on 20 May 2021 and that it had increased its compensation offer to £460.
  8. The resident contacted this Service in November 2021 as she was not happy with the compensation amount and had experienced a further leak in the roof with water coming through the bathroom light socket.

 

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. The resident has said that the landlord’s delays in repairing the roof leak have caused stress which she should avoid due to her disability. The Ombudsman does not doubt the resident’s comments regarding her disability, but this Service is unable to draw conclusions on the causation of, or liability for, impacts on health and wellbeing. However, we can consider the general distress and inconvenience which the situation has caused the resident as well as the landlord’s response to her concerns about her disability. The resident may be able to make a personal injury claim against the landlord if she considers that her health has been affected by its actions. This is a legal process and the resident should seek independent legal advice if she wants to pursue this option. The Ombudsman is unable to give legal advice and therefore cannot comment on this matter further. This is an accordance with paragraph 39(i) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme which says the Ombudsman will 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, a designated person, other tribunal or procedure.
  2. The resident has reported to this Service that she has since experienced an additional leak in the roof with water coming through the light socket of the bathroom. As this is a separate issue to the complaint raised with the Service, this is not something that this Service can adjudicate on at this stage, as the landlord needs to be provided with the opportunity to investigate and respond to the more recent leak. The resident will need to contact the landlord and, if appropriate, raise a separate complaint through the landlord’s complaints process to get this matter resolved. The resident may be able to refer the new complaint to the Ombudsman if she remains dissatisfied once it has exhausted the landlord’s internal complaints process . Although we cannot comment of the specifics of the recent leak, we have considered the fact that the leaks from the roof have not been resolved when looking at this complaint.
  3. It is important that landlords keep clear, accurate and easily accessible records to provide an audit trail. If this Service investigates a complaint, we will ask for the landlord’s records. It is noted that although this Service requested that the landlord provide repair records, none have been provided. As the resident had not disputed the repairs timeline referred to in the landlord’s complaint responses, that information has been used to assess the complaint, along with information from emails that the landlord has provided, between itself, the resident and its contractors.

 

The landlord’s handling of a leak in the resident’s roof.

  1. The landlord’s repairs policy classifies repairs as either urgent repairs which if reported during the working day should be made safe within four hours, or routine repairs which should be completed within 15 working days.
  2. When the resident first reported that the bedroom ceiling was bowing and splitting the landlord acted reasonably by treating it as an urgent repair and attending the same day. (It is not possible to determine if this was in line with its repairs policy timeframe of four hours as the Ombudsman has not seen the repair records). Once it was established that there may be a roof leak then the landlord acted reasonably by arranging an appointment for the roof to be inspected on 24 September 2021, which was in line with its repairs policy’s 15 working day timeframe for routine repairs. Though it was no reasonable that the landlord decided to attend sooner (as this would reduce the waiting time for the resident) it would have been helpful for it to have contacted the resident to inform her that it had changed the appointment date to 18 September 2021.
  3. It is noted that the property is a three-storey house. Although it would have been appropriate for the roofing contractor to have inspected the roof before reporting that the leak was coming from an upstairs window, the contractor did take appropriate steps to arrange for scaffolding to be erected so that the roof could be inspected properly and any repairs completed.  Once the scaffolding was erected and the roofing contractor attended on 5 October 2021, they identified that other repairs to the roof were needed rather than repairs to the window and acted appropriately by completing these repairs. Although the repairs identified differed to what was originally reported on 18 September, the repairs were completed and there has been no suggestion since that the leak was in fact coming from the window. Therefore, it appears that the initial incorrect report that the leak was from the window did not cause significant detriment to the resident.
  4. However, as the resident reported on 5 October 2021 that the roof was still leaking it would have been appropriate for the landlord to have arranged for the contractor to return to the job as soon as possible to locate and repair the source of the leak and then arrange to repair the ceiling. Although the landlord acted appropriately by sending out a contractor that day to ensure the ceiling was safe and making arrangements for the ceiling to be repaired, it failed to arrange for the roofing contractor to return to the property. It was not until 12 October when the resident called the landlord for an update that it arranged to book an appointment for the roof contractors to return to the property. The landlord should have done this when the resident reported that the leak was still there on 5 October but the resident had to wait until 2 November 2021 for the roofing contractors to return to her property. This was a failure by the landlord in respect of its handling of a leak in the resident’s roof.
  5. When the roofing contractors found additional repairs were needed on 2 November 2020 they acted appropriately by completing the repairs to two slipped tiles and also reporting that further work was needed on the chimney stack. Following the resident’s complaint on 22 October 2020, in its stage one complaint response issued 4 November 2020 the landlord acted appropriately by acknowledging and apologising for its communication failings and the poor handling of the work and awarding £100 compensation for that.  It also acted appropriately by explaining that it would book an appointment for the additional works to be completed and that, once completed it would carry out a dye or flood test following the completion to ensure there were no further leaks present.
  6. As the roofing contractors failed to complete all of the recommended work the resident escalated the complaint. The landlord acted appropriately by contacting the roofing contractor and advising the resident that the delay was due to sourcing reclaimed tiles and that the job would be completed 14 November 2020. However, as the roofing contractor had failed to keep the resident updated and then failed to keep the appointment on 14 November 2020, which was unreasonable. In its stage two complaint response on 17 December 2020, the landlord confirmed an appointment had taken place the previous day to resolve the roofing issues and it acted reasonably by increasing the level of compensation to £250 to take into account the additional delays, arranging for an electrician to attend the following day and arranging for the ceiling to be painted in February 2021(which was the earliest available appointment).
  7. However, the roofing repairs were not completed until March 2021, which was more than six months after the resident originally reported the roof leak, which is an unreasonable delay overall. Therefore, this represents further service failure by the landlord.
  8. The landlord’s revised compensation payment of £460 was not calculated until 7 May 2021, at which point the only outstanding work was the painting of the bedroom ceiling, which had been booked for 20 May 2021. The landlord’s records show that this compensation payment comprised 23 weeks at £10 per week for the delay and 23 weeks at £10 per week for the distress caused. The dates used were from 5 October 2020 to 14 April 2021) it is not clear why the 14 April was used). Although this Service considers that amount to be reasonable for the delay and distress caused, as it is in line with the landlord’s compensation policy, the policy also has an option to make compensation payments for time and trouble. The time and trouble payment takes into account the length of time taken to deal with the problem and the complaint itself, the time and effort required from the complainant and minor unquantifiable expenditure incurred by the complainant such as the cost of telephone calls. This Service considers that the time and effort payment for this case would fall into the “major impact” category of £5 per week. Therefore, the landlord is ordered to pay the resident an additional £115 compensation, which is calculated at £5 per week for 23 weeks. 
  9. The Ombudsman also notes that in the resident’s complaint to the Ombudsman. she advised there was a further leak from the roof. It is not clear from the information provided whether this leak was connected to the previous leak or was a separate issue. As explained above, the Ombudsman cannot consider the recent leak in our current investigation. However, it is recommended that if it has not done so already, the landlord takes steps to investigate the cause of the recent leak and resolve it, in line with the timescales in its repairs policy. The landlord should consider compensation if there are unreasonable delays in fixing the leak.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in respect of its handling of a leak in the resident’s roof.

Orders

  1. Within four weeks of the date of this decision, the landlord is ordered to pay the resident a further £115 compensation in addition to the £460 compensation already awarded.

Recommendation

  1. It is recommended that if it has not done so already, the landlord takes steps to investigate the cause of the recent leak and resolve it, in line with the timescales in its repairs policy. The landlord should consider compensation if there are unreasonable delays in fixing the leak.