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Birmingham City Council (202007242)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202007242

Birmingham City Council

25 March 2021


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 resident’s complaint is about the landlord’s response to her reports of a roof leak.
  2. This Service has also investigated the landlord’s complaints handling.

Background

  1. The resident occupies the property in accordance with a secure tenancy. She lives at the property with her partner and three children.

Policies and Procedures

  1. In accordance with its repairs and maintenance policy, the landlord is responsible for the repair and maintenance of the roof and external drainage.
  2. The landlord’s complaints policy provides for responses to stage two complaints (where complaints have not been resolved immediately at stage one) within 15 working days and to stage three complaints within 20 working days.

Summary of events

  1. The resident states that she has reported a leak in the roof of her property “at least 10 times” since August 2019. Records of the resident’s reports have not been provided, but the landlord also refers to reports having been made in October 2019, February 2020 and October 2020. The resident states that her family has suffered health problems as a result of the leaks.
  2. The landlord refers to a roof report on 28 October 2019 which noted that “scaffolding was necessary.” It reports that works were scheduled for 12 November 2019 but that wet weather delayed the works. No records of this have been provided.
  3. On 22 November 2019 the resident submitted a formal complaint stating that:
    1. The roofers who attended the previous week said they were unable to repair the roof due to the rain but that someone would be in touch to re-arrange. No one had since been in contact. Since then a significant amount of rain had penetrated through the roof and guttering;
    2. Two roofing companies had advised that the roof needed replacing but the landlord had refused this;
    3. The leak had damaged the wall in the resident’s daughter’s bedroom four months ago, rendering it unusable since that time. Mould was growing on the wall and the plaster was crumbling, but could not be repaired until the leak was repaired;
    4. The resident had also reported the gutter leak three times but nothing had been done;
    5. She sought rectification of all these issues.
  4. The landlord acknowledged the resident’s complaint the same day and provided its response on 12 December, after the roofing team was due to visit the property on 28 November to carry out an inspection (no notes have been provided to confirm whether or not this planned inspection took place). In its response it apologised for the fact that the resident had had to contact it a number of times regarding the issue. It then went on to copy its complaint notes on file, including citing that “the roofing team will be attending 28/11 at 2.00 to investigate the issues,” citing a date which had clearly passed. It also reported comments made by its contractors, which were that they had not followed the correct process by waiting outside the resident’s property for an hour before advising that no work could be done, and by failing to re-arrange their visit. It concluded that “a limited repair service is provided” whereby if something is considered repairable, then it will not be replaced.
  5. On the same day the resident reported that she was dissatisfied with the repair of the roof and requested it be replaced. The landlord responded later that day confirming that her complaint had been escalated.
  6. The landlord reports that the works due to start in October had been re-scheduled to start on 20 December, but it has not provided any records confirming that works went ahead, or whether they resolved the leak.
  7. In its stage three response (undated), the landlord stated that “due to budgetary constraints all capital works have been suspended until further notice, primarily due to the upgrade and installation of sprinkler systems in our high rise blocks in light of the Grenfell tragedy.” It stated she would be notified should the situation change.
  8. The landlord reports that, after the resident’s report of 5 February 2020, contractors attended the next day but did not identify a leak. Records have not been provided to confirm this.
  9. A report was again made on 6 October. The landlord states that this was attended to on 9 October when contractors realigned slipped tiles.
  10. The resident remains dissatisfied with the landlord’s response to the leak, which she says is ongoing.

Assessment and findings

Reports of a leak

  1. The landlord does not dispute its repairing obligations per se, though it does appear to try to limit its obligations in its stage two response by describing the “limited repair service” it provides. It has not provided the Conditions of Tenancy which it refers to in that response, however its repairs and maintenance policy makes it clear that it is responsible for the repair and maintenance of the roof and external drainage. Whilst it is correct that, where the roof is repairable, the landlord is not obliged to replace it, it is also the case that, if the roof cannot be satisfactorily repaired, it should be replaced. It was not appropriate that the landlord sought to limit its responsibilities in this way. Though there is no documentary evidence of this, the resident has reported that two contractors had recommended that the roof be replaced. The landlord does not accept or dispute this, and there is no evidence that it considered replacing the roof, despite the number of times the leak recurred.
  2. The evidence shows that, when the resident made reports of a leak, the landlord acted quickly in arranging inspections to assess the leaks. This was appropriate and in line with its obligations. However, the landlord has not provided any repair logs to this investigation, therefore there is no record of the outcome of the inspections or works the landlord states were carried out. In the absence of complete repairs records, this Service is unable to conclude that the landlord took adequate steps to resolve the reported issues. The landlord is reminded that good record keeping is vital to evidence the action it has taken and failure to keep adequate records indicates that the landlord’s repairs processes are not operating effectively.
  3. Further, whilst the landlord states that it has carried out remedial works, the resident states that the leak is continuing. The landlord stated in its final response that it would not be carrying out any capital works until further notice due to budgetary constraints. This is an unsatisfactory and inappropriate response which does not take into account the obligation the landlord has to repair and maintain the roof. The evidence suggests that the leak has not been satisfactorily repaired since it was first reported in 2019. This is an unreasonable amount of time and demonstrates service failure in the landlord’s response.

Complaint handling

  1. The landlord’s complaint responses appear to have been provided in a timely manner and in line with its policy timescales. However, its stage two response failed to comprehensively address the resident’s complaint; it did not refer to her complaints regarding the leaking guttering or the damage to her daughter’s bedroom as a result of the roof leak. It made no mention of the roofing companies which had advised that the roof needed replacing. It did refer to the complaint regarding the contractors’ visit, but its response appears to have copied text from its complaint notes, for example, “the roofing team will be attending 28/11,” a date which had been and gone.
  2. Both the stage two and three responses failed to offer a satisfactory resolution to the continuing leak. It did not set out the results of the inspection on 28 November, or what action it had taken/ was going to take in response. It was appropriate that it apologised for the resident having to chase for a response, but it did not substantively address the roof leak, the subject of her complaint. Nor did it address the aspect of her complaint regarding damage to her daughter’s bedroom. The landlord’s complaint responses do not show that it engaged with the substance of the complaint, or suggested a satisfactory resolution, as it was required to have done. This Service considers therefore that there was service failure in the landlord’s complaints handling.

Determination (decision)

  1. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord demonstrated maladministration in its response to the resident’s reports of a leak.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Scheme, the landlord demonstrated service failure in its complaints handling.

Reasons

  1. The landlord demonstrated maladministration in its failure to accept responsibility for maintaining the roof, failure to satisfactorily resolve the leak which has been occurring since 2019 and which it is obliged to repair, lack of consideration of a replacement roof and incomplete repairs records.
  2. Service failure was also demonstrated in the landlord’s complaints handling in its failure to comprehensively engage in or address the resident’s complaints and failure to offer a satisfactory outcome.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

  1. The landlord is ordered, within 28 days of the date of this report, to:
    1. Arrange for a senior contractor to inspect roof and guttering and act on recommendations resulting from that inspection in order to satisfactorily resolve the leaks;
    2. Pay £600 to the resident in compensation for the failures identified in its handling of the leak reports; and
    3. Pay £150 to the resident in compensation for the service failure identified in its complaint handling.

Recommendations

  1. It is recommended that the landlord review its record keeping policy to ensure that its repairing processes operate effectively.
  2. It is also recommended that the landlord carries out staff training on effective complaint response in line with its own policy and this Service’s complaint handling code: https://www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk/landlords-info/complaint-handling-code/

It is recommended that the landlord comply with the above recommendations within two months from the date of this report.