Onward Homes Limited (202201249)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202201249

Onward Homes Limited

8 February 2024

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

The leaseholder’s complaint is about the landlord’s handling of:
1. A loss of heating to the property.
2. His formal complaint.

Background and summary of events

The leaseholder purchased the property under a lease dated 24 April 1998. The property is a ground floor flat within a residential block. The block is owned and managed by the landlord.
The property was constructed with ‘economy 7’ heating. Economy 7 is an electricity tariff which offers cheaper unit rates during off peak hours. This enables homes with storage heaters to generate heat overnight at a lower cost, which is the heaters then release throughout the following day. Economy 7 requires a separate ‘2 rate’ electricity meter and circuit to record the variable costs.
In October 2021, another leaseholder in the block (hereafter referred to as leaseholder B) had works carried out in their property to remove the storage heaters and disconnect from economy 7. Leaseholder B contacted the landlord on 5 November 2021 and said their electrician had identified a fault with the communal electrics which had caused their heating to fail.
The landlord inspected the communal electrics at the block on 5 November 2021. The landlord recorded that the electrics were in good working order but noted that there were parts relating to economy 7 contained in a sealed unit belonging to the energy supplier which it could not access.
On 12 November 2021, the landlord spoke to the energy supplier – which had visited the block earlier that day. The supplier said that it needed to renew part of the meter installation but required an electrician to be present.
The energy supplier and an electrician from the landlord attended the block together on 18 November 2021. The landlord’s records indicate that no work was carried out.
The leaseholder emailed the landlord on 14 December 2021. He said that the economy 7 electric had not been working in his property, and another neighbour’s, for around 6 weeks now. He claimed this had been caused by the energy supplier whilst carrying out works for leaseholder B in October 2021. He asked the landlord to look into the situation.
The landlord responded on 24 December 2021. It said that its “remit is to provide electricity to the communal elements of the building. Anything beyond the communal area, relating to the interior of the property is the responsibility of the leaseholder”. It said it would keep the leaseholder updated on the situation, but it was not something it “would become involved in”.
On 19 January 2022, the landlord emailed the leaseholder confirming that it had spoken to leaseholder B and advised them what they needed to do to resolve the situation. It asked him to liaise directly with leaseholder B about the situation going forwards.
The leaseholder responded the same day. He requested a list of works the landlord had carried out in the communal electric cupboard since October 2021, stating that leaseholder B had told him the landlord attended to check the circuits.
The leaseholder submitted a complaint to the landlord on 23 January 2022. This covered multiple issues, the majority of which are not subject to this investigation. The leaseholder mentioned that he was still awaiting information from the landlord as to what works it had carried out in the communal electric cupboard prior to the economy 7 failing.
On 25 January 2022, the landlord told the leaseholder that leaseholder B had been advised by his electrician, and the landlord’s electrician, that the faulty equipment belonged to the energy supplier. The landlord said leaseholder B had advised his tenant (whose name the utilities at the property were under) to contact the supplier to arrange for them to resolve the issue.
On 9 February 2022, the leaseholder told the landlord that he had arranged to have a new heating system installed at his property on 17 February 2022 with an electrical check completed after this. He asked whether the landlord would need to be present during the electrical check. The leaseholder also said he had been advised that the landlord would be discussing the economy 7 situation with its legal department and asked if there was any update on this.
The landlord responded the same day. It confirmed that it had referred the matter to its legal department due to a lack of update from leaseholder B. On 16 February 2022, the landlord emailed again to confirm it did not need to attend the leaseholder’s electrical check. It also advised that the energy supplier had told it that it would be visiting each property affected by the loss of economy 7 and provided the leaseholder with contact details to liaise with the supplier about this.
The leaseholder had a new electric heating system installed at the property on 17 February 2022 which no longer utilised the economy 7 tariff. His electrician completed a full electrical check of the property which did not identify any issues.
On 23 February 2022, the leaseholder emailed the landlord to inform it that the energy supplier had not attended its scheduled visit to his property.
The energy supplier emailed the leaseholder on 1 March 2022. It said that it would not be attending “as there is no problem with the meter itself” and “the fault will be with either the timeswitch or the relays and this is the landlord/BNO’s (building network operator’s) responsibility to repair. We do not have external timeswitches as it is the landlords responsibility to change a faulty timeswitch”. The leaseholder forwarded a copy of this email to the landlord.
The leaseholder contacted the landlord on 14 March 2022 asking for an update and contact details for its legal department. The landlord responded the same day to advise that it would be visiting the block to take photos for its legal team later that week but that no further update was available.
On 29 March 2022 the leaseholder emailed the landlord requesting to make “a formal complaint”. He said that he had been asking for updates and information on the economy 7 failure from the landlord since November 2021 and it had failed to provide these. The leaseholder claimed that due to the lack of heating his property had developed damp and mould issues causing him to replace the heating system, redecorate the property and renew damaged carpets, internal doors and a fridge/freezer. He requested an update on the situation and for the landlord to apologise, reimburse him for all of the costs he had incurred and compensate him for the stress and anxiety caused.
Later that day, the landlord provided its stage 1 complaint response. It stated that it had been supporting the leaseholder to resolve the heating problem – which had been caused by leaseholder B and had instructed its legal team to take necessary action to ensure that leaseholder B resolved the issue. The landlord apologised that it had “taken a long time” to respond to the leaseholder’s complaint and offered him £75 compensation for this.
On 31 March 2022, the landlord responded to the leaseholder’s email, of 29 March 2022, in which he asked to log a further complaint. The landlord said that the matters raised had formed part of the leaseholder’s earlier complaint, which it had provided a stage 1 response to, and that he should refer to this for its latest position.
Separately on the same day, the landlord emailed the leaseholder responding to the information provided by the energy supplier on 1 March 2022. It said that if the fault was being caused by the timer switch, this would be located in the leaseholder’s property and so be his responsibility to repair. It offered to send an electrician to check this but advised that it would potentially recharge him for this.
The leaseholder replied explaining that he had a full electrical inspection completed on 17 February 2022 with no issues identified. He said that the issue was in the communal electric cupboard and was the landlord’s responsibility as per the energy supplier’s email. The leaseholder requested an update and copies of reports from the landlord’s visits/repairs to the communal electric cupboard to be provided as a response to his complaint of 29 March 2022.
On 6 June 2022, the leaseholder asked the landlord to provide a copy of the latest electrical inspection for the building, and reports from its legal department and electrician regarding the broken economy 7 circuit in the communal electric cupboard.
The landlord responded on 9 June 2022 providing a copy of the building’s electrical inspection. It advised that it did not produce reports for routine repairs so could not provide any in relation to its inspections of the electrics and that its legal team had not been required to draft a report for the case. The landlord said it had found no issues with the communal electrics on previous inspections but had raised a request for a further inspection and would update him following this.
A contractor attended the block on 22 June 2022 to carry out an inspection of the communal electrics but was “unsure on where the timer for the heaters was located”. The contractor returned on 3 August 2022 and “advised that due to the type of installation of the heating system a specialist would be required due to not being able to safely isolate the incoming supply for each flat to locate the fault”.
The landlord emailed the leaseholder on 5 August 2022. It said that “The information we have received from [the energy supplier] and from electrical operatives we have instructed, is that there is no problem with the electrics in the communal cupboard and that access would be required to the individual flats to identify the issue”. It said that it had “offered to arrange for an electrical operative to attend your flat to carry out this investigation. My understanding is that your flat is no longer experiencing issues with the electric heaters as you have arranged for these to be replaced with a different heating system and therefore, no further investigation at your flat is required”.
The leaseholder requested to escalate his complaint to stage 2 on 12 August 2022. He said that he was still not receiving updates on the situation and the economy 7 supply had not been restored.
The landlord provided its stage 2 response on 25 August 2022. It said that it:
1. Had carried out a thorough investigation into the fault with the heating and concluded that this was caused by a problem in leaseholder B’s flat.
2. Could not be held responsible for any faults to the heating caused by the actions of a third party and was not responsible for remedying faults traced to an individual property.
3. Had sought its legal team’s advice to ensure leaseholder B “was doing all that could be done to resolve the problem” and had kept the leaseholder up to date with this.
4. Was satisfied that it had acted appropriately in offering support and assistance to the leaseholder and leaseholder B to resolve this matter.

Assessment and findings

Loss of heating

It is important to establish that, following the installation of his new heating system on 17 February 2022, the leaseholder was no longer directly impacted by the lack of economy 7 electric supply. Whilst the leaseholder continued to ask the landlord for updates on the situation beyond this date, this Service can only consider whether the landlord communicated with him appropriately during this period – as he was no longer experiencing any significant adverse effect from the outstanding repair issue.
After being notified of a fault with the electrics on 5 November 2021, the landlord appropriately attended the same day to carry out an inspection. The inspection failed to identify any faults but noted that it was unable to check some equipment was in a sealed unit belonging to the energy supplier.
The landlord communicated with the energy supplier on 12 November 2021, which took responsibility for the fault and advised that it needed to renew part of the installation. The landlord met the supplier on site on 18 November 2021 to provide an electrician in support of this work. It is unclear from the landlord’s records why the work was not completed on this date, but as the lead party for the expected works, it was likely to have been a decision made by the supplier.
From this point until 1 March 2022 (when the leaseholder forwarded on an email update from the supplier stating it had determined the fault to be the landlord’s responsibility) it was reasonable for the landlord to believe that the source of the fault was equipment belonging to the energy supplier – and therefore the supplier’s responsibility to resolve. This was based upon inspections carried out by both its own electrician and the supplier, and it was entitled to rely upon their technical expertise.
The landlord took steps to explain this to the leaseholder, and that it was providing support and advice to leaseholder B about how to resolve the situation with the energy supplier. It is apparent that there was difficulty in progressing matters owing to the fact that neither the landlord nor leaseholder B had a direct relationship with the supplier – with the account being held in the name of the tenant to whom leaseholder B had sublet their property.
Having been without heating in the property for some months, the leaseholder decided to have his heating system replaced and removed from economy 7 electric. It is acknowledged that the leaseholder likely undertook these works, and incurred significant expense in doing so, at least in part due to a lack of progress in resolving the issue with the economy 7 electric. As a result of this, he requested for the landlord to compensate him for the cost of the works after it became apparent that the supplier believe the fault was the landlord’s responsibility.
However, at the point this work was carried out on 17 February 2022 both the landlord and the leaseholder still believed that the fault was the responsibility of the energy supplier. Indeed, as recently as 15 February 2022 the landlord was in contact with the supplier which was making arrangements to visit the affected properties. The landlord could not, therefore, be reasonably expected to compensate the leaseholder for the impact of a fault that another party had accepted responsibility for was taking steps to resolve.
The same principle applies to the damp and mould which the leaseholder said had been caused by the lack of heating and led him to replace carpets and internal doors and to redecorate the property.
This Service has seen no evidence that the leaseholder raised the damp and mould with the landlord prior to this date. Therefore, even if it could have been deemed responsible, the landlord was not given a reasonable opportunity to investigate and respond to the matter prior to the leaseholder taking steps, and incurring expense, to resolve it himself.
The leaseholder has expressed dissatisfaction that the landlord declined to attend the electrical check carried out by his electrician after the works of 17 February 2022. As the landlord had no responsibility for the electrical installation being tested within the leaseholder’s property it was reasonable for it not to attend this.
However, it is of concern that on more than one occasion the landlord referred to the leaseholder being “uncooperative” and not allowing it access to the property to check for an electrical fault. Whilst the landlord did offer to send an electrician to check the leaseholder’s property, in an email on 31 March 2022, it explained that this would potentially result in the cost being recharged to him. It was therefore reasonable for the leaseholder to refuse this when he had already had a full electrical check completed at his own expense – with no faults identified.
It is apparent that throughout the life of the complaint the leaseholder sent a high volume of email correspondence to the landlord. The landlord attempted several times to measure his expectations explaining that it was “unable to provide daily updates”, could not “provide immediate replies to emails” and asking that he “consider the impact that sending multiple emails per day has on our ability to manage our workloads”.
Despite this, the landlord’s records evidence that it was effective in responding to the leaseholder – providing replies within a day or two of his initial contact in the vast majority of cases and answering the questions raised.
The leaseholder’s dissatisfaction with the landlord’s responses is based mainly on information he states that it “refused” to provide him. The leaseholder requested several times for the landlord to provide reports of its inspections of the communal electric cupboard. The landlord’s explanation that it was unable to do this, as it did not produce such reports for responsive repairs visits, was reasonable. However, it would have been reasonable for the landlord to provide the leaseholder with what details it did record in its repair logs from relevant attendances.
This would also have helped establish a clearer timeline of events and mitigate the confusion caused when the landlord advised the leaseholder that a contractor would inspect the communal electrics on 14 June 2022– when in fact the contractor failed to gain access and did not return until 3 August 2022. In his stage 2 escalation request the leaseholder said that the landlord had informed him that “that a third party electrician had attended the site and no issues found” in “June/July” 2022, however this Service has seen no evidence to support this claim.
The leaseholder also expressed dissatisfaction that the landlord would not provide him with contact details for, or updates from, its legal department. The landlord’s explanation that it was unable to share any details of actions taken by its legal team due to confidentiality was reasonable. The landlord’s stage 2 complaint response explained that “leaseholders are not at liberty to have direct contact with our legal team” whilst assuring the leaseholder that it had sought appropriate legal advice and kept him updated.
In summary, by the point that the landlord became aware that the energy supplier was not responsible for resolving the fault with the economy 7 electric the leaseholder had already replaced his heating system and was no longer experiencing any detriment. Following this the landlord continued to appropriately correspond with the leaseholder about the matter answering his emails in a timely manner and providing reasonable updates. There is no evidence of maladministration.

Complaint handling

The leaseholder made his complaint on 23 January 2022. This complaint covered multiple issues with only a slight mention of the fact the leaseholder was “still awaiting report as to what work prior to economy 7 circuits failing was carried out”. The landlord acknowledged his complaint on 8 February 2022 stating it aimed to resolve it within 10 working days.
After receiving no response from the landlord, the leaseholder submitted a further complaint on 29 March 2022. This was focused wholly upon the economy 7 issue and included several new pieces of information including the energy supplier’s position that the landlord was responsible for the fault and the leaseholder’s request for compensation and reimbursement of expenses incurred.
The landlord provided its stage 1 complaint response that same day and, in a later email, advised that it felt the matters raised by the leaseholder on 29 March 2022 were “a repeat of issues that were raised in a previous complaint”.
The Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code states that “Where residents raise additional complaints during the investigation, these should be incorporated into the stage one response if they are relevant, and the stage one response has not been issued. Where the stage one response has been issued, or it would unreasonably delay the response, the complaint should be logged as a new complaint”.
The landlord’s stage 1 complaint response did not address all of the matters raised in the leaseholder’s further complaint of 29 March 2022. Its failure to log a new complaint meant it did not formally respond to his request for compensation – although it did provide a separate update on 31 March 2022 responding to the new information received from the energy supplier.
The stage 1 response was provided 65 working days after the leaseholder had submitted his complaint. The landlord acknowledged and apologised for this delay and its offer of £75 compensation represented reasonable redress for this in keeping with amounts contained in the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance.
The leaseholder requested to escalate his complaint to stage 2 of the landlord’s process on 12 August 2022. The landlord acknowledged this on 16 August 2022 and provided its response on 25 August 2022 – within the 10 working days its complaints policy allows.
In summary, the landlord acknowledged and offered reasonable redress for the delays in its stage 1 complaint response and delivered its stage 2 response within the required timescale. However, it declined to log a new complaint after the leaseholder raised further issues and provided new information on 29 March 2021, which would have been appropriate under the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code.

Determination (decision)

In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was no maladministration by the landlord in its handling of a loss of heating to the property.
In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in its complaint handling.

Reasons

The landlord reasonably believed the fault causing the loss of heating was the responsibility of the energy supplier (which was taking steps to resolve this) up to and beyond the point at which the leaseholder was no longer impacted by the fault. Following this the landlord continued to communicate with the leaseholder about the matter appropriately, responding to his emails in a timely manner and providing updates where able to.
The landlord acknowledged, and offered reasonable redress for, the delays in its stage 1 complaint response and delivered its stage 2 response within the required timescale. However, it declined to log a new complaint after the leaseholder raised further issues and provided new information on 29 March 2021, despite the fact that these were not appropriately addressed in its stage 1 complaint response.

Order

Within 4 weeks of the date of this report the landlord is ordered to pay the leaseholder £100 compensation for the service failure in its complaint handling. This is in addition to the £75 awarded in its stage 1 complaint response.
The landlord should provide evidence of compliance with this order to this Service.