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First Choice Homes Oldham Limited (202228033)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202228033

First Choice Homes Oldham Limited

6 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

  1. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of a fault with the heating when the resident initially moved into the property.
  2. The Ombudsman has also investigated the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint.

Background

  1. The resident occupies the property, owned by the landlord, under an assured shorthold tenancy. He moved into the property on 13 January 2023.
  2. The resident said the heating was not working when he moved in. The landlord carried out a “Turn On And Test” gas check on 17 January 2023, as the property had previously been void. The contractor noted that there was no heating at this time.
  3. The resident contacted the landlord on 25 January 2023 to chase up the repair, saying he had not had any heating for 12 days. On 27 January 2023, the landlord’s contractor booked in a visit for the next day. The same day, the resident complained to the landlord. He requested compensation for extra electricity used to power temporary heaters whilst the central heating was not working.
  4. The landlord’s contractor repaired the boiler on 28 January 2023. The landlord sent its stage 1 response on 6 February 2023. It apologised, saying the contractor did not report the problem. It explained the problem was with the understanding of the heating controls. It offered £50 compensation for the period without heating.
  5. The resident was unhappy with the level of compensation offered. On 7 February 2023 he asked the landlord to escalate the complaint. The landlord sent its stage 2 response on 15 March 2023, in which it maintained its position from its stage 1 response.

Assessment and findings

Landlord’s handling of a fault with the heating

  1. The tenancy agreement sets out the landlord’s obligations. This shows it is the landlord’s responsibility to maintain the installations in the property for space heating and water.
  2. The landlord’s repair policy sets out a 3-hour response time for emergency repairs, and a 5-day response time for priority repairs. Whilst this Service would not expect this repair to have been carried out within 3 hours, the landlord should carry out repairs within a reasonable timeframe. This Service usually sees timescales of around 24 hours for repairs where there is no heating in a property. Bearing in mind the resident was without heating in the middle of winter, such a timeframe presents as reasonable in the circumstances of this case.
  3. The gas safety record certificate completed on 17 January 2023 says the job was passed to another contractor as the central heating was not working. It says the contractor supplied 2 temporary heaters and the hot water was working. It was commendable that the landlord’s contractor took this step, however it was still important for it to get the heating working in a reasonable timeframe. It was a cold time of the year and two temporary heaters are unlikely to have provided adequate heat throughout the entire property.
  4. The landlord said, in an internal email of 25 July 2023, that the contractor did not report the heating problem to it. The landlord is ultimately responsible for the actions of its contractors. It must ensure it has the correct knowledge and information management procedures in place for such issues to be reported. In this case the contractor, and by extension the landlord, did not act appropriately. This led to the heating issues be protracted, with the resident having to take action to prompt the landlord to organise the repairs.
  5. Whilst the landlord has said it no longer works with the contractor that carried out the gas safety check, it has not said whether this was due to a contract ending or following a review of its service level agreements. If the landlord has not conducted a review of its processes, it is possible for there to be further occurrences of contractors failing to report required repairs.
  6. The landlord’s records show that the resident contacted it to chase the repair on 25 January 2023. The next day, the landlord asked another contractor to arrange for an electrician to visit. The landlord’s email of 25 July 2023 says the electrician found a fault that required the manufacturer to attend. The repair was completed on 28 January 2023. The repair took 15 days from the start of the tenancy. This represented an unreasonable delay in resolving the heating issue.
  7. In both of its complaint responses, the landlord did not mention the fault with the boiler. It said the controls were installed correctly, and its contractor had since visited the resident and showed him how to use them. The implication in these responses were that there was no fault with the boiler and the problem was the resident not knowing how to use the controls. This contradicts the landlord’s email of 25 July 2023, which makes it clear there was a fault that required a repair.
  8. The landlord offered the resident a goodwill gesture of £50 to recognise that he had been without central heating for two weeks. However, it did not specifically respond to his request for payment for the additional electricity he had used to power the temporary heaters the contractor provided.
  9. As the resident had only just moved into the property, he has not been able to provide a copy of a utility bill for a comparative period at the same time of year. However, he estimated the additional usage at between £50 and £100 during a call with this Service prior to investigation. The landlords’ offer of compensation did not do enough to put things right. It did not fully consider the resident’s extra spending on electricity and the distress caused by not having central heating during winter.
  10. The Ombudsman considers that there was maladministration by the landlord in its handling of the fault with the heating. The landlord should have ensured the property had a working heating system at the tenancy start date. It is responsible for the actions of its contractor, which failed to report the problem and therefore caused further delay. Whilst the landlord did respond promptly when the resident chased the issue, the fault was not repaired within the timescale set out in its policy.
  11. The Ombudsman’s remedies guidance provides for compensation from £100 for cases where “there was a failure which adversely affected the resident and the landlord failed to acknowledge its failings and/or made no attempt to put things right”. An order has been made for the landlord to pay additional compensation of £150 to the resident to reflect the distress caused and the additional electricity cost for running the temporary heaters. This brings the total compensation for his issue to £200, including the £50 already offered by the landlord.

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint

  1. Landlords must have an effective complaint process to provide a good service to their residents. An effective complaint process means landlords can fix problems quickly, learn from their mistakes and build good relationships with residents. In this case the landlord’s complaint process lacked customer focus, provided an incorrect explanation of the heating issue, and took too long.
  2. The resident raised the complaint via the landlord’s webform on 27 January 2023. He said he had not had heating for approximately 2 weeks and had been given several reasons for this, including a wiring problem and a valve not working. He said he had not been able to settle into his new home properly and had used extra electricity to heat his home whilst the heating was not working.
  3. The landlord acknowledged the complaint by email the same day. It sent its stage 1 response on 6 February 2023, in line with the 10-working day timescale in its complaint policy. It apologised that the contractor did not report the problem for over a week, but said that when another contractor attended, it confirmed the controls were working and the resident had been shown how to use them. The landlord has a record of a repair being carried out. Therefore, it was not appropriate for it to blame the problem on the resident’s understanding of how to use the boiler controls.
  4. The landlord offered a goodwill gesture of £50 at stage 1 of its internal complaint process. However, it failed to address the resident’s request for reimbursement of additional costs incurred.
  5. The resident responded to the landlord on 7 February 2023, saying he was unhappy with the compensation amount. This service has seen no evidence that this escalation request was acknowledged or of any other correspondence before the stage 2 response was sent on 15 March 2023.
  6. This response was sent 26 working days after the escalation request, outside of the20-working day timescale set out in the complaint policy. The landlord did not update or explain the delay to the resident as its policy requires. The stage 2 response reiterated the response provided at stage 1.
  7. A multistage complaints process should be designed to ensure that a thorough review of the initial complaint response is carried out. In this case, the landlord has not demonstrated that such a review took place, as it merely upheld its original decision and failed to identify the additional failures noted in this investigation. The landlord did not use stage 2 to reassure the resident his complaint had been taken seriously. It failed to recognise the importance of the landlord/tenant relationship and did not use its complaints process to ensure it started the tenancy on the right footing.
  8. The Ombudsman considers that there was maladministration by the landlord in its handling of the resident’s complaint. It failed to get to the root cause of the problem in its responses and failed to consider the additional costs incurred by the resident. At both stages it incorrectly blamed the resident for his understanding of how to use the boiler controls.
  9. An order has been made for the landlord to pay compensation of £100 to the resident to reflect the distress caused by the failures in its complaint handling.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in relation to its handling of a fault with the heating.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in relation to its handling of the resident’s complaint.

Orders

  1. The landlord to pay the resident £300 of compensation, broken down as follows:
    1. £200 for the landlord’s handling of the fault with the heating, including the £50 it has already offered.
    2. £100 for the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint.
  2. The landlord to provide evidence of compliance with the above order to this service with within 28 days of this report.

 Recommendations

  1. The landlord to consider its service level agreements and knowledge and information management in light of the failure of its contractor to notify it of the repair issue and take appropriate steps to minimise the risk of similar issues re-occurring.