Westminster City Council (202224845)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202224845

Westminster City Council

26 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 complaint is about the landlords handling of:
1. The resident’s reports related to the supply of hot water after it was turned off following a leak into the flat below her.
2. The renewal of the radiators and associated pipework.
The Ombudsman has also considered the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

The resident lives in a one-bed fourth floor flat under a secure flexible tenancy, which began on 5 April 2015.
The landlord’s case management system does not show that the resident has any vulnerabilities. The resident describes having non-epileptic seizures, asthma, a neurogenic bladder and incontinence. More generally, the resident describes herself as a “pensioner, disabled and housebound.”
The resident said that she has been experiencing intermittent heating since 2018. Alongside this, she said that she was without hot water between May and September 2022, when her water was switched off following a leak. There were two further periods at when the resident says she was without hot water for two weeks at Christmas in 2022 and four weeks in June 2023. The resident’s heating and hot water is supplied as part of a district heating system.
The landlord committed to repairing the heating system in the resident’s flat but claimed that it could not complete the works due to “obstructions” in the resident’s property. Later the scope of work expanded to include replacing the heating system. This work involved the removal of floorboards, an asbestos survey and replacement of radiators and pipework. The landlord suggested that this could only be completed with the resident and her possessions decanted to another property to allow access.
The resident raised a complaint on 12 September 2022, in which she said she had been without hot water for almost four months. The resident was seeking compensation for the distress and inconvenience that this had caused her.
The landlord issued its stage 1 response on 30 September 2022 and upheld the resident’s complaint. The landlord acknowledged that the water had needed to be switched off, but that it had been reinstated on the same day as the complaint response. The landlord said that an engineer was also due to attend on this same day to carry out an assessment of the heating.
The landlord issued a second stage 1 response on 6 October 2022. This response partially upheld the resident’s complaint. The landlord acknowledged that the hot water had been switched off, but said that it had attempted to reinstate this, but had not been able to due to obstructions within the property. Similarly, the landlord said it had been attempting to replace the heating system since January 2022, but the obstructions had prevented this work taking place. The landlord did acknowledge that it should have followed up with the resident sooner about the hot water, apologised and offered £40 compensation.
The resident escalated her complaint on 17 October 2022. The resident felt that the compensation offered was not reflective of her distress and inconvenience, which were made worse by her health conditions.
The landlord issued its stage 2 response on 4 November 2022. It partially upheld the complaint, as it felt it had delayed in progressing matters. The landlord did note that the works would remain outstanding until areas within the resident’s property were cleared, to allow access. The landlord offered social care support if required and increased its previous compensation offer by a further £40.
The landlord issued a second stage 2 response on 13 January 2023. The landlord partially upheld the complaint as it felt it should have responded sooner to reports that the heating was not operational. The landlord continued to note that the amount of possessions in the property had delayed more effective and lasting repairs. The landlord apologised for this delay and increased its compensation offer to £410.
The resident remained dissatisfied and escalated her complaint to the Ombudsman on 17 January 2023 seeking a rent refund and additional compensation to reflect the distress and inconvenience she had felt.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

In her correspondence, the resident states that she has experienced issues with the heating in her property since 2018. The landlord’s repair records support this and show heating issues being reported in 2015, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022 and 2023.
When a complaint is referred to the Ombudsman, we must consider what is fair in all the circumstances. We must also consider whether the matters should have been escalated to our Service at an earlier stage to receive a determination. This is to ensure that events can be clearly recalled, and that appropriate evidence will still be available to support the investigation.
For this reason, it is not fair to either party to consider matters that have not been escalated previously over this extended period. In this case, the determination will only consider matters raised in the 12 months prior to the formal complaint being raised. Therefore, any issues related to defects in the heating system or hot water prior to October 2021 will not be considered as part of this determination.

Hot water

Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 requires landlord to keep in repair and proper working order the installations for space heating and heating water. When a landlord is notified of a defect it must respond within a reasonable time to make a lasting and effective repair.
The landlord repair policy confirms these commitments and sets out three different priorities for repairs:
1. Emergency repairs – to be responded to within two to four hours.
2. Urgent repairs – to be responded to and works begun within 24 hours.
3. Non-urgent repairs (including major repairs) – to be completed by appointment.
Within the scope of this investigation, the resident first reported a loss of hot water following a leak in her property being identified. An engineer attended on 30 May 2022 and disconnected the resident’s hot water in order to isolate the leak, as previous repairs had been unsuccessful.
The resident states that she called the landlord on several occasions after this to ask for the water to be reinstated. The landlord’s records do not show these calls. It is not possible for this Service to accurately determine if and when these calls were made from the evidence provided. Notwithstanding this, it is not disputed that the landlord agreed that it should have proactively followed up on this issue.
The resident raised a complaint on 12 September 2022, in which she said she had been without water for nearly four months, since the date the engineer attended to isolate the leak. The resident explained that this was particularly distressing as she is doubly incontinent and relied on having hot water to wash. The resident is also a Muslim and said that she needed hot water to wash prior to praying each day.
The landlord responded to this concern by sending an engineer to the property on 30 September 2022. The landlord’s records indicate that hot water was restored on this day. This was 123 days since the hot water was first disconnected and 18 days since the resident raised her complaint. This was an unreasonable delay, given that this was an emergency under the landlord’s repairs policy and should have been responded to within two to four hours.
The resident also stated that she was without hot water for two weeks at Christmas in 2022 and four weeks in June 2023. The landlord repair records do not indicate any reports were made related to hot water in this time. This is a record keeping failure.
In recognition of this, the landlord apologised in all its complaint responses for the delay in following up with the resident. It also offered compensation of £20 at stage 1, which increased to £250 in its stage 2 response. Once this case had been escalated to the Ombudsman, the landlord undertook another review of this case. In its written response, the landlord increased the compensation for this element to £250 for the delay in addressing the hot water and £208 to reflect 104 days without hot water, calculated at £2 per day.
Overall, the Ombudsman considers that there were significant delays in undertaking the agreed works. This is not disputed by the landlord. These delays can be attributed to an administrative failing, as the landlord had no effective system to follow up on the works through to completion. This caused the resident additional distress and inconvenience, particularly given her health issues and religious needs, and negatively impacted her enjoyment of her property.
It is also unacceptable that the landlord only further reviewed this case following an intervention from this Service. The Ombudsman expects landlords to adhere to their own repair policy timescales and legal obligations under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, without requiring external intervention to complete works.
Taking together the significant delays, administrative failings, ineffective record keeping and lack of consideration for the resident’s vulnerabilities and needs, this amounts to severe maladministration. The landlord failed to adhere to its own policies and did not adapt or prioritise these works given the resident’s health needs which were directly affected by the lack of hot water.

Renewal of radiators and associated pipework

Within the scope of this determination, the resident first reported a loss of heating on 30 May 2022. Importantly, the landlord stated in its correspondence that the resident’s heating was functional throughout the period of this complaint but may not have been operating at peak efficiency. This was, in part, due to the repairs or upgrade needed and also because of the amount of possessions within the property obstructing the flow of heat.
One of the landlord’s stage 1 complaint responses acknowledged that this had been a longstanding issue of intermittent heating. The landlord’s repair records indicate that the resident reported a total or partial loss of heating in:
1. February 2022
2. May 2022
3. August 2022
4. January 2023
5. March 2023
Following previous reports, an engineer had attended the resident’s property in December 2021 and recommended that the radiators in the property were changed. The landlord’s stage 1 response indicated that many attempts had been made to book these appointments since that time, but obstructions within the property had prevented this going ahead.
In photographs seen by this Service, there is some evidence of possessions that might have caused difficulty for the landlord’s staff to gain access, such as boxes and paperwork. The resident acknowledged this and stated that she had previously paid friends to assist her with moving her possessions on several occasions, to facilitate this access. When she had done this, she said that the landlord’s contractors did not attend or attended without understanding the scope of works required and were not able to complete the work.
The landlord’s stage 2 response indicated that it was still willing to complete the works, but that it required areas of the property to be cleared before this would be possible. There was no evidence presented that the landlord offered any substantive support to the resident when she initially reported these repair issues, with the removal or temporary storage of these possessions, given her vulnerabilities.
Similarly, if the landlord felt that the resident’s behaviour amounted to hoarding, there is no indication in the evidence that it reported this as a safeguarding matter to adult social services, which it had a statutory duty to do. Furthermore there is no evidence that the landlord explored the viability of involving or referring the resident to third party agencies to assist the resident with her possessions. This could have included support from adult social care services, Age UK or other support agencies.
The presence of possessions within the property, even if these were causing obstructions, does not absolve the landlord of its repair obligations under Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. This lack of pro-active support left a vulnerable resident without heating for a protracted period and this was a significant failing by the landlord.
In December 2022, the landlord decided that decanting the resident to complete the works would be preferable. The landlord had sourced a property and arranged for storage for the resident’s possessions at this time. The evidence shows that the resident requested to delay the decant, initially until after Christmas and then later to March.
It is noted that parts of the time taken to arrange the decant were at the resident’s request when she asked to delay works until the spring. There were also further delays in arranging a suitable property, viewing and allocation of a decant property around the resident’s availability.
Ultimately, the resident viewed and accepted a temporary accommodation property on 7 June 2023 and was moved at the end of the month. It was positive to note the support of the landlord’s neighbourhood team with moving the resident and her possessions during the decant process. Additionally, throughout the process, the landlord offered the resident to move into supported accommodation and to arrange an occupational therapy appointment. The resident declined the offer of supported accommodation and it is not clear if the occupational therapy assessment was taken up by the resident.
The evidence shows that the works to the heating system were completed by the end of August. This included replacement pipework, radiators and hot water tank. The resident states that, at the time of this investigation, she remains in temporary accommodation as the landlord had, until very recently, been unable to locate the source of the leak. This has resulted in the resident being in temporary accommodation for over 7 months and this is an unreasonable delay. Additional works have now been identified, including damp within the resident’s property, which are likely to result in her remaining in temporary accommodation for longer whilst this is resolved.
During this complaint the landlord has provided the following remedies to the resident:
1. Apologies for the delays in completing the works.
2. £20 compensation in its stage 1 response for delays in contacting the resident to see if the areas in her property had been cleared to allow the works to go ahead.
3. £1100.72 compensation to offset the resident’s increased electricity bills due to running electric heaters in the property. Whilst this compensation was offered on 2 February 2023, it was not paid to the resident due to internal administrative delays until 14 April 2023.
4. Provision of electric and oil heaters.
Overall, a period of over 20 months elapsed from the time that the landlord’s contractor identified that the heating system needed to be replaced in December 2021 until the completion of the works in August 2023.
Outside of the resident’s request to postpone the works by around 3 months, the remainder of the delay can be attributed to significant administrative delays with the landlord altering the scope of works, arranging a suitable property and facilitating the move.
The Ombudsman considers that these delays were unreasonable and caused the resident a loss of enjoyment of her property. Whilst it was positive to note the apology, compensation for increased electricity usage and some progress with repairs, the landlord’s existing remedy is not suitable for the level of delay experienced, the displacement of the resident from her home and the associated distress. This is severe maladministration, for which the landlord must apologise to the resident, pay additional compensation and review its processes for handling cases of this type.

Complaint handling

The landlord operates a two-stage complaint process. It commits to acknowledge complaints within two working days and issue responses within 10 working days at both stages.
The Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code), which was in force at the time of this complaint stated:
1. That complaint responses must clearly present the decision on the complaint, along with the reasons for that decision and any remedy offered.
2. “Landlords must ensure that efforts to resolve a resident’s concerns do not obstruct access to the complaints procedure or result in any unreasonable delay. It is not appropriate to have extra named stages (such as ‘stage 0’ or ‘pre-complaint stage’) as this causes unnecessary confusion for residents.”
3. “A complaint should be resolved at the earliest possible opportunity”
For this complaint, the landlord issued two responses at both stage 1 and stage 2. These responses were similar, but contradicted themselves on some critical points, for example the stage 1 responses showed the complaint as upheld in one case and only partially upheld in another. One of these responses also offered £40 compensation, whilst the other did not.
It is unclear why two responses were issued and this point does not appear to have been addressed by the landlord. This is maladministration as it had the potential to extend and confuse the complaints handling process for the resident. It also demonstrates a non-effective complaints process and issues with record-keeping, which the landlord will need to review to prevent a reoccurrence.
In addition to this, all four complaint responses issued were outside of the landlord’s policy timescales. In total, the responses were delayed by 10 working days at stage 1 and 55 working days at stage 2. Within the complaint responses the landlord apologised for the delays and offered a total of £40 compensation.
The landlord’s records do not include any reference to the physical health needs of the resident or any reference to the resident’s religion. Both factors should have led the landlord to ask whether any reasonable adjustments were required. It is clear from the evidence provided that many of the landlord’s staff were aware of the resident’s needs, but these were not captured in its records or utilised in its provision of services to the resident.
The Ombudsman considers that this was a record keeping failure that directly affected the landlord’s ability to provide a good service to this resident. This is a service failure, and the landlord must ensure that it accurately captures and records this type of important information to allow it to make any necessary reasonable adjustments.
The landlord reviewed this complaint following escalation of the complaint to this Service on 20 June 2023 and issued a further response. The landlord increased its compensation offer to £708 comprised of:
1. £250 for its service failure in complaint handling and delay in addressing the lack of hot water.
2. £250 for the distress and inconvenience caused and the additional time and trouble spent escalating this issue.
3. £208 for 104 days without hot water, based on £2 per day.
The landlord initiated its reviews of this case in June 2023 following its escalation to the Ombudsman. The landlord must ensure that it progresses cases in line with its repairs and complaints policies, in a timely manner and not subsequent to the involvement of an external body that has become involved in the complaint.
The landlord’s failure to take account of the household’s vulnerabilities and needs, or act on its own volition to resolve this matter prior to this Service’s involvement exacerbated the complaint handling issues further.
Cumulatively, issuing multiple delayed complaint responses, failing to accurate record the resident’s needs and conducting a reactive review of the complaint only after escalation to this Service amounts to maladministration. The landlord’s redress, including its delayed, increased compensation following the Ombudsman’s involvement, is insufficient to address the failings identified.

Determination

In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there has been:
1. Severe maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports related to the supply of hot water after it was turned off following a leak into the flat below her.
2. Severe maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the renewal of the radiators and associated pipework.
3. Maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

Within 28 days of the date of this determination the landlord must:
1. Arrange for a senior officer at Director level or above to apologise in person to the resident for the failings found in this determination.
2. Pay the resident £1050 compensation, comprised of:
  1. £500 for the distress and inconvenience of the landlord’s delays in resolving the heating issues in the property.
  2. £500 for the time and trouble for the resident pursuing the heating and hot water issues through to completion.
  3. £150 for the landlord’s poor complaint handling.

This compensation is in addition to the £708 compensation previously offered in the landlord’s complaint responses, which it must also pay, if it has not already done so. Compensation must be paid directly to the resident, not applied to the rent account, unless this is agreed by the resident.

Pay the resident £1,621.08 compensation. This has been calculated using the Regulator of Social Housing’s average rent tables for this period and is based on 15% of the value of the rent paid between December 2021 and August 2023, less three months for the time that the resident requested the repairs and decant be deferred. This is to reflect the loss of amenity and loss of enjoyment of the property during this period. This compensation must be paid to the resident directly, not applied to the rent account, unless this is agreed by the resident.
Provide the resident and this Service with a schedule of works for the ongoing repairs in the resident’s property. This schedule must include an accurate estimate of when the resident can expect to return to her property. If the landlord cannot assess this accurately, it should consider a permanent decant to another suitable property.
Review its records for this household within 4 weeks and other resident households with suspected or known vulnerabilities within 4 months to ensure that they accurately reflect the vulnerabilities, health issues and religious needs of its residents, along with any reasonable adjustments required in its day to day operations and service provision. The Ombudsman’s ‘Knowledge and Information Management’ (KIM) report, available on our website, should be referenced and used to assist and guide the landlord with this element of review.
Review its repairs processes and record keeping practices to identify learning which will enable it to accurately track repairs through to completion. Where actions are identified, the landlord must use its best endeavours to complete these within a reasonable timescale.

The landlord must provide the resident and this Service with evidence of compliance with these orders, within the timescales shown above.

Recommendations

The landlord should consider paying the resident compensation to the value of £2 per day between the 2 February 2023 and the date the resident was decanted, to account for additional electricity usage for portable heaters in this period. This would be in addition to the £1100.72 previously offered in respect of previous additional costs.