Birmingham City Council (202105351)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202105351

Birmingham City Council

30 September 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 complaint is about the landlord’s handling of repairs to the resident’s gas fire.

Background and summary of events

2. The resident is the tenant of the landlord’s property, which is a house.
3. The property has two lounges which both have gas fires. The landlord has explained that its fire was faulty, but that it was supplementary to the main gas central heating system in the property. The central heating system was working over the period in question.
4. The landlord raised a repair on 14 October 2020 for the gas fire, which had failed a gas safety check and been disconnected. A sweep of the chimney was required before the fire could be refitted and tested. The landlord’s notes say the resident was offered an electric fire replacement, but that the resident declined.
5. According to the landlord’s repair records, it re-raised the works on multiple occasions between 16 and 26 October 2020, noting that at least three appointments were missed by its contractors.
6. The landlord’s repair logs of 19 November 2020 and 1 December 2020 say that the resident was waiting on an update on when scaffolding would be erected for the chimney sweep.
7. On 11 and 26 January 2021 the landlord re-raised the repair, noting that the resident was unhappy it had been outstanding since October 2020.
8. According to the landlord’s repair records, a gas engineer attended the property on 2 February 2021. The landlord re-raised a repair to clean out the chimney on 3 March 2021.
9. On 11 March 2021 the resident made a complaint about the landlord’s handling of the repairs.
10. The landlord acknowledged the complaint on 11 March 2021 and said it would respond within 15 working days.
11. The resident called the landlord on 23 March 2021. The landlord noted he was still waiting for an update on the scaffolding and chimney sweeping.
12. The landlord internally corresponded on 1 April 2021 that the resident called and was unhappy with a lack of communication from the landlord.
13. In its complaint response of 1 April 2021, the landlord said that, because there were two chimneys at the property, its scaffolding contractor was unsure where the scaffolding needed to go. It advised that the scaffolding company would meet the landlord on site and erect the scaffold on 8 or 9 April 2021. It would then complete the chimney sweep on 12 April 2021. The landlord apologised for the level of service the resident received and confirmed this would be raised internally.
14. The resident complained to the landlord on 13 April 2021. He said that the landlord did not attend the appointment and he was unhappy with the delays. 
15. The landlord acknowledged the complaint on 15 April 2021 and said that it would respond within 15 working days. It appears that the landlord raised another stage one complaint.
16. In the landlord’s complaint response, dated 5 May 2021, it acknowledged that the contractor should have contacted the resident if it could not attend, and apologised for the distress and inconvenience. The landlord confirmed its contractor had spoken with the resident and arranged to attend on 6 May 2021.
17. According to the repair records, the landlord attended to clear and sweep the chimney on 7 May 2021.
18. The resident escalated his complaint on 7 May 2021 because he remained dissatisfied with the missed appointments and delays.
19. The landlord sent its final complaint response on 15 June 2021. It apologised for its delay in responding and said that “the scaffolding was erected on 4 May 2021. Roofers then attended on 6 May 2021 to clean both chimney flues and a gas engineer came on site to reconnect fires.” It apologised for the delay and any inconvenience caused to the resident. The response was very brief.

Assessment and findings

Landlord’s obligations

20. The landlord’s repairs policy says it will maintain and repair chimney and chimney stacks, heating systems and fires, provided that they were supplied by the landlord, or the repair responsibility has otherwise been accepted by the landlord. The repairs policy says that tenants are responsible for sweeping, cleaning and clearing chimneys and fireplaces.
21. In line with the landlord’s repairs policy, it will attend to repairs within the following timescales:
    1. Emergency repairs: 2 hours.
    2. Urgent repairs (concerned with protecting the health and safety of the tenant and their family or the security of the property) one, three or seven working days.
    3. Routine Repairs: 30 days of them being reported. There are some larger repairs that may need special materials and arrangements to be completed. In these cases the tenant shall be advised what timescale to expect.
22. The repairs policy says that repair workers must keep any appointments made and explain what they will be doing, how the work will affect the resident and keep the resident informed of progress.

Assessment

23. While the repairs policy says the landlord is not responsible for chimney sweeping, it appears to have nonetheless accepted responsibility for completing this alongside the repair required for the fire to pass the gas safety check.
24. There were clear delays in the landlord’s handling of the repair. Given that the resident had alternative ways to heat his home, and the fire had been “made safe” by being disconnected, it would have been reasonable for the landlord to classify the repair as routine and complete it within 30 days, as set out in its policy. However, the landlord took seven months to complete the works. Some of the delays were due to the need for scaffolding, which is often a time consuming and complicated endeavour (as shown by the contractor’s experiences here); however, there were multiple missed appointments, and the overall time taken to complete the work was excessive by any reasonable measure.
25. Additionally, nothing in the evidence indicates that the resident was updated in a reasonable manner, or that the landlord managed his expectations for the time needed to complete the work. That resulted in the resident contacting the landlord regularly. Alongside the inconvenience of the multiple missed appointments, and the time taken, the limited communication warranted acknowledgement and redress by the landlord.
26. In the landlord’s final response, it acknowledged that there were service failures in its handling of the repair. However, the landlord’s short response did not reflect the extent of the service failure and the effect this had on the resident. The Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code explains that “Where something has gone wrong a landlord should acknowledge this and set out the actions it has already taken, or intends to take, to put things right.” It goes on to recommend that “Complaints can be resolved in a number of ways. A landlord’s policy shall require that any remedy offered reflects the extent of any and all service failures, and the level of detriment caused to the resident as a result.”
27. The landlord’s complaint response in no way demonstrates the basic complaint handling principles set out in the Code and expected of a landlord.

Determination (decision)

28. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in its handling of repairs to the resident’s gas fire.

Reasons

29. The landlord delayed unreasonably in dealing with the repair, did not attend to several appointments and did not keep the resident updated on the progress of the repair, in line with its repairs policy and good practice. The landlord acknowledged that there were service failures but did not offer compensation, which would have been reasonable, for the distress and inconvenience caused to the resident.

Order

30. In light of the findings of this investigation, the landlord is ordered to:
    1. Pay the resident £200 in recognition of the inconvenience caused by the missed appointments and lack of updates on the repair.
    2. Review its handling of the repairs and of the complaint to consider what lessons it can learn, with a view to:
       1. improving its adherence to repairs timeframes and in particular its communication with tenants when repairs are extended or delayed.
       2. ensure its complaint handling meets the basic standards set out in the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code.
31. This payment must be made within four weeks of the date of this report. The landlord should update this Service when payment has been made.
32. The review must be completed within six weeks of the date of this report, and shared with this Service and the resident.