Stroud District Council (202215859)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202215859

Stroud District Council

27 September 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

  1. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of heating repairs.

Background

  1. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord, a local authority. The property is a 1-bedroom house. The resident’s tenancy began on 8 August 2022. The landlord is aware that the resident suffers with his mental health and has a community psychiatric nurse.
  2. It is not clear whether it was at the resident’s request, but the landlord attended the property on 10 August 2022 and carried out a full heating service. In doing so, it identified that a new living room radiator and thermostat was required. The radiator was ordered and an appointment booked for 15 September 2022 to fit the thermostat.
  3. The resident called the landlord on 12 September 2022 to say the boiler had lost pressure, and was noisy and intermittent. A repair appointment was scheduled for 2 October 2022.
  4. The landlord attended on 15 September 2022 but there are different accounts of the appointment. The landlord said there was no access so it was not able to fit the thermostat. In contrast, the resident said the electrician attended but needed to order a wireless thermostat (as the resident refused a hard-wired thermostat) so could not complete the job. The landlord’s repair log said it also repressurised the heating system the next day which resolved the boiler issues.
  5. On 21 September 2022 the landlord left a voicemail to arrange installation of the living room radiator. The landlord then attended on 2 October 2022 and the boiler was repressurised again. It is not clear whether this was as a result of the boiler losing pressure again, or whether the landlord had not updated that this repair had been completed on 16 September 2022.
  6. The resident called the landlord on 4 October 2022 and arranged an appointment for the radiator installation on 27 October 2022.
  7. It is not clear why but the landlord cancelled an appointment for 19 October 2022 at the last minute. The resident called the next day and said he was not happy the heating appointment had been cancelled at short notice and the landlord should have carried out necessary heating work before he moved in. The landlord noted the call was terminated due to the resident’s bad language.
  8. The resident raised a formal complaint shortly afterwards, which was acknowledged the same day. He said he had waited 10 weeks for heating repairs and they were due to be completed by 19 October 2022. He said the landlord disregarded his mental and physical health, and the appointment had been confirmed 3 times with different staff members. The landlord delivered a temporary heater the next day.
  9. The landlord attended on 26 October 2022 to fit the new radiator, but the resident said to come back later as he was unaware of the appointment and allegedly slammed the door aggressively. Later that day the landlord received an email from the resident’s social worker which said she had visited him the previous week and the house was noticeably cold. She believed the lack of heating had a detrimental impact on his health and he had told her repair appointments were repeatedly moved or cancelled.
  10. The landlord reattended the following day and installed the radiator and thermostat. An internal landlord email acknowledged that, whilst it did not condone the resident’s behaviour, it should not attend properties with no notification or cancel appointments at the last minute.
  11. In the landlord’s stage 1 response of 3 November 2022, it said the resident was not left without heating as it was only the lounge radiator that did not work and it had delivered a temporary heater. However, it apologised for the inconvenience it had caused.
  12. The resident escalated the complaint to stage 2 on 7 November 2022, saying that using the temporary heater had cost £50 to 70 per day for 7 days. He disputed that he had refused a hard-wired thermostat and said the operative said he would have to “trunk around the whole house” unless he ordered a wireless thermostat. The resident said he received a voicemail on 19 October 2022 that the engineer did not want to [install the radiator] as he did not know if the thermostat was also being done. Both appointments were scheduled for that day, but both were cancelled.
  13. The landlord acknowledged the escalation request on 8 November 2022. It asked the resident how many hours/days the temporary heater had been on for and then sent its stage 2 response on 5 December 2022. It said it had apologised on multiple occasions and acknowledged its lack of communication. It was in the process of reviewing communication procedures with a view to improve resident experience. It again asked how many hours/days the temporary heater was on for.

Events after the end of landlord’s complaints process

  1. The resident emailed the landlord on 6 December 2022 unhappy with the stage 2 response. It is not clear if he provided the landlord with the information asked for in relation to the temporary heater usage, but he then emailed this Service 2 days later and said he did not want the Ombudsman to proceed with an investigation.
  2. After further issues between January and June 2023, the resident emailed this Service again and asked for the case be re-opened, on 19 August 2023.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. The Ombudsman acknowledges that the resident has experienced further issues at the property. However, no evidence has been provided of these matters being raised as part of the complaint under investigation here, or that he wished for any further issues to be investigated by this Service. As a result, these matters are not considered further in this report (reflected at paragraph 42.a of the Scheme). Instead, this investigation is focused solely on the heating issues raised in the complaint which the landlord has had an opportunity to investigate and resolve in the first instance.
  2. The resident has told the landlord about the impact its handling of the heating repairs had on his mental and physical health. The Ombudsman does not doubt these comments and empathises with the resident’s situation, but it is beyond the remit of this Service determine whether there was a direct link between the landlord’s actions and his health. Such issues would be better raised as a personal injury claim through the courts (reflected at paragraph 42.f of the Scheme).

The landlord’s handling of heating repairs

  1. The landlord has a repairs and planned maintenance policy which sets out expectations for different categories of repair. It is not clear whether the heating repairs were classed as urgent or routine repairs, but routine repairs should be completed within 28 working days. Repairs to heating or hot water not working between 31 October and 1 May should be responded to within 1 working day.
  2. After the heating service, the landlord arranged to complete the repairs 26 working days later. However, whilst it did attend, it did not complete the repairs. The evidence suggests the radiator was ordered straight away, but the wireless thermostat was not ordered until approximately a month later which contributed to the delays and was a failing.
  3. The landlord delivered a temporary heater on 19 October 2022. Whilst there is no evidence the resident requested a heater, it would have been reasonable for it to provide one at an earlier date. It was not reasonable to rely on warm weather as a reason not to offer to provide a heater.
  4. The evidence showed a degree of confusion in relation to the repairs, as to what would be carried out and when. The landlord said the heating repairs were booked for 27 October 2022, so it is unclear why an appointment for 19 October 2022 was cancelled (which led to the formal complaint being raised), or why it attended on 26 October 2022. The confusion, coupled with a lack of communication over a prolonged period of time, exacerbated the resident’s frustration and disappointment.
  5. The landlord was aware a new radiator and thermostat were required on 10 August 2022, but the repairs were not completed until 27 October 2022. Whilst the radiator was ordered promptly, it would have been reasonable for the landlord to clarify the options in relation to the thermostat. The heating repairs ultimately took 55 working days to complete. This which was outside the timescale set out for a routine repair, and was a failing.
  6. The landlord apologised for the inconvenience caused to the resident by its handling of the heating repairs in its stage 2 response. However, it is not clear if he was reimbursed for the cost incurred by use of the temporary heater. The complaint response failed to acknowledge inconvenience caused to the resident by the delays, poor communication, and cancelled appointments.
  7. The landlord should have considered the distress caused by the failings it apologised for, and the length of time the resident had been reporting the issues. Taking these failings into consideration, the landlord did not sufficiently acknowledge, or offer redress for, its failings. There was, therefore, service failure in the landlord’s actions and an order for £100 compensation is made accordingly.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was service failure in the landlord’s handling of heating repairs.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks of the date of this report, the landlord is ordered to:
    1. Provide a written apology to the resident for the failings identified in this report.
    2. Pay the resident £100 for the inconvenience, distress, time and trouble caused by its failings.

Recommendations

  1. The landlord should consider reimbursing the resident for the costs associated with the use of the temporary heater, if it has not already done so.