Brighton and Hove City Council (202306666)

Back to Top

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202306666

Brighton and Hove City Council

28 June 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 the resident’s reports of water ingress.

Background

  1. The resident is a leaseholder. The property is a two bedroom first floor flat. The landlord has no vulnerabilities recorded for the resident on its systems.
  2. The landlord’s repair obligations, located in the leasehold handbook, state that emergency repairs will be attended to within 24 hours, routine repairs will be attended to within 20 working days and complex repairs will take longer than 20 working days to complete. The handbook also states that when a flat is purchased, buildings insurance cover is automatically provided and paid for through the monthly service charge. The insurance covers against loss or damage to the building and fixtures and fittings.
  3. The resident reported water ingress to his landlord around 9 January 2023. The landlord attended on 10 January 2023 to inspect the leak and realised that it was coming from the chimney. The landlord felt that scaffolding would need to be erected to carry out the necessary repairs. It also took pictures of the damage. The resident said that he was told the repair would be completed in 4-6 weeks.
  4. The resident raised a formal complaint on 18 April 2023, as he had not heard from the landlord about the repair despite several months passing. He also said that he had contacted the landlord on several occasions without receiving a response.
  5. On 3 May 2023, the landlord sent in its stage 1 response and stated that raising scaffolding in the winter was more difficult due to weather conditions which could cause delays. Furthermore, it said it only had a limited supply of scaffolding equipment and there was high demand for these type of repairs. It said it would ask its contractor to raise the scaffolding and complete the repairs, but could not give an exact date. The landlord apologised for the distress and inconvenience caused.
  6. The resident escalated his complaint to stage 2 on 3 May 2023 and said that the issues had not been resolved. The landlord informed the resident that any internal damage needed to be claimed from the resident’s buildings insurance, which was paid for by the service charge and arranged by the landlord. The resident did not feel that this was fair as the issue was the landlord’s responsibility, however, he subsequently made a claim on his insurance. The landlord confirmed that there was no excess to pay.
  7. The resident stated that he was not able to live at the property due to the water ingress, as it affected his mental health and he had to live with his parents during this period. Pictures were provided by the resident to show the damage caused, however, they did not show what could reasonably be described as extensive damage. The landlord said that it had not seen any evidence to show that the property was uninhabitable when it had visited the resident and the resident had not sent sufficient evidence to show this was the case.
  8. On 18 May 2023, the landlord’s contractors informed the landlord that the external work had been completed and the works were awaiting a post-inspection sign off. However, the works failed the inspection on 23 May 2023, and the report said “the chimney still had a tree and grass coming out of it causing massive gaps in the pointing” and “There was also lots of gaps in the brickwork which would continue to cause water ingress”.
  9. The external repairs were later completed and signed off on 9 June 2023.

Assessment and findings

  1. The resident reported water ingress around 9 January 2023 and the landlord attended the following day to assess the situation. The leaseholder handbook states that the landlord would attend within 24 hours for emergency repairs or within 20 working days for routine repairs. Therefore the landlord complied with its repairs policy in respect to its timeliness to initially respond. It informed the resident that it would complete the repair within 4-6 weeks, as it required scaffolding to be raised and justified this timescale by stating scaffolding was in limited supply. The landlord’s actions in regard to how it first attended and planned to undertake the repair were reasonable in the circumstances as it assessed the seriousness of the problem and gave the resident a reasonable timeframe for it to be resolved.
  2. However, the repair notes show that the landlord first requested the scaffolding on 7 February 2023, which was around a month after the resident first reported the issue. The landlord gave the resident a timescale of 4-6 weeks to resolve the issue, but it took 4 weeks to raise the order for scaffolding, which would be reasonable to assume it would have known it needed after it visited the resident’s property. It was unreasonable that the landlord had delayed in ordering the correct equipment promptly after its initial visit and this caused an unnecessary delay.
  3. The resident said he contacted the landlord several times from the end of March 2023, but as he did not receive any response he submitted a formal complaint on 18 April 2023 and also informed his MP. This prompted the landlord to chase its contractors on 20 and 27 April 2023 and the works began around mid-May 2023, after the landlord issued its stage 1 response. In the stage 1 response the landlord said that it was hard to erect scaffolding due to weather conditions and that there was a high demand for repairs which required scaffolding.
  4. The records show there was a lack of proactive engagement by the landlord with its contractors which led to it over promising and being unable to deliver against its timescales at the beginning of the process. This failure to deliver will have led to the resident experiencing distress and inconvenience due to the delays and the lack of communication from the landlord.
  5. The landlord did not set out any consideration as part of its stage 1 response of any other options which would have allowed it to meet its planned service delivery, such as using a different contractor to provide the scaffolding and complete the required works. The landlord failed to offer compensation or redress for the resident for its failures at stage 1. The delays caused by a lack of effective management of the repair were unreasonable.
  6. Furthermore, the landlord acknowledged its lack of communication in its response at stage 1 of its complaints process, but it did not explain why it had not responded to the resident’s communications, and only apologised for the delay in completing the repair. The Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code states where something has gone wrong a landlord must acknowledge this and set out the actions it has already taken, or intends to take, to put things right. This can include apologising and providing an explanation, assistance or reasons. There was no evidence that the landlord had responded to the resident’s previous enquiries and it was inappropriate for the landlord not to address its poor communication as part of its complaint responses.
  7. The landlord confirmed that the external work had been completed on 18 May 2023, but the repairs subsequently failed an inspection. The inspection report showed that the contractor had not completed the works to a standard which prevented water ingress. The repairs were not completed until a few weeks later. It was unreasonable for the landlord to require a repeat visit, and subsequently delay completion of the works further. This would have caused the resident further distress and inconvenience.
  8. The resident said he could not live at the property during this time as he claimed it was uninhabitable and gave him anxiety. He provided photos to this Service which showed some damage to the interior of the property from water ingress, however, it is reasonable to conclude that they do not depict extensive and wide reaching damage to the property. The landlord also provided a photo from its initial visit which showed the extent of the damage at the time which was consistent with the evidence provided by the resident.
  9. The resident’s decision not to stay at his property was his choice. The landlord had taken reasonable steps to assess the internal damage, and did not conclude the property was uninhabitable. It was clear, however, that the resident was very worried about the situation and suffered inconvenience, and it is reasonable to conclude this was aggravated by the delays in the landlord providing resolution to his complaint and fixing the leak permanently.
  10. The resident was unhappy that the landlord told him to claim for the internal damage on his insurance policy, as he considered the repair was the landlord’s responsibility. The landlord informed and maintained to the resident throughout the complaints process that the building insurance, paid for out of his service charge, was the appropriate method to use to claim for damages caused by the leak. The leaseholder handbook states that leaseholders should claim on their insurance policy for loss or damage to the building or their fixtures and fittings. It is understood that the resident has now raised a claim on his policy to cover the internal damage. The landlord acted appropriately by signposting the resident to his insurers in line with the leaseholder’s handbook, and it confirmed there was no excess to pay and therefore the resident would not be out of pocket.
  11. In summary, the landlord was slow to raise the scaffolding and was not proactive in chasing its contractors to set this up. It also did not come up with viable alternative options to counter delays and failed to update the resident or respond to his enquiries – which it then failed to investigate in the complaint responses. The landlord only acted urgently after the resident raised a complaint. Furthermore, it initially completed the repairs to a poor standard, which then required them to be redone causing further delays. During this period of time the resident suffered distress and inconvenience and was worried that the water ingress would worsen causing further internal damage. The series of failures by the landlord in its handling of the resident’s complaint of water ingress to his property amount to maladministration.
  12. The nature of reports of water ingress will always cause some distress and inconvenience and the landlord needed to be given a fair opportunity to put matters right, which in this case, was around 4-6 weeks after the resident first reported the leak. After this period, there were delays of approximately 4 months. Therefore, it is fair and reasonable for the landlord to pay £100 compensation for each month that there was an unnecessary delay. The landlord is ordered to pay £400 compensation to reflect the distress and inconvenience caused by its failures in the circumstances.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, the Ombudsman Service finds maladministration with regards to the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of water ingress.

Orders and recommendations

  1. The landlord is ordered to write to the resident within four weeks of the date of this report to apologise for the service failures identified in this report.
  2. The landlord is ordered to pay the resident £400 compensation within four weeks of the date of this report for the distress and inconvenience caused by the delays in completing the repairs.
  3. The landlord should reply to this Service with evidence of compliance within the timescales set out above.