Hyde Housing Association Limited (202301783)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202301783

Hyde Housing Association Limited

17 January 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 reports of leaks in the property and the associated repairs.
2. The Ombudsman has also considered the landlord’s:
   1. complaint handling;
   2. record keeping.

Background

3. The resident holds an assured tenancy with the landlord in a 3-bedroom first-floor flat.
4. On 15 November 2022 the resident reported that there was a leak coming from her bath. She stated that water was coming in through her living room ceiling which caused damage to her sofa. In response, the landlord attended the property on 6 December 2022. On 21 December 2022 the resident reported that there was still an ongoing leak coming into the living room and asked the landlord to investigate the issue. In response, the landlord attended her property on 5 January 2023.
5. On 16 January 2023 the resident raised a formal complaint with the landlord. In summary, she said that the leak from her bathroom into the living room had been an ongoing issue for several years. She stated that 4 plumbers had attended the property but failed to take any significant action. She added that an operative failed to attend a pre-arranged appointment and that although another appointment had been made for 17 January 2023 to replace her bath panel and shower door, she wanted the landlord to resolve the leak first. She repeated that the leak had caused water damage to her sofa and asked the landlord if its insurance would cover this. The landlord acknowledged the complaint on 24 January 2023.
6. On 9 February 2023 the landlord responded at stage 1 of its complaints process. It partially upheld her complaint. In summary, it said:
   1. That following its visit on 6 December 2022, it had failed to return to complete the repairs to her damaged ceiling.
   2. That following her report on 21 December 2022, it arranged an appointment with her for 5 January 2023, but it was unable to gain access.
   3. It would carry out repairs to her ceiling on 10 February 2023.
   4. It failed to acknowledge her complaint within its set response times.
   5. It apologised for the inconvenience caused and stated that it was undertaking actions to get quicker at responding to repairs.
   6. It would offer £200 compensation, comprising of £50 for delays in acknowledging the complaint, £100 for delays in completing the repairs, and £50 for the distress and inconvenience caused.
7. On 10 February 2023 the landlord attended the property and repaired and repainted the ceiling. On 6 March 2023, the resident reported another leak from the bathroom. She added that her tiles had blown, carpet had been damaged and mould started to form. On 27 March 2023, the landlord retiled her bathroom.
8. On 29 March 2023 the resident escalated her complaint. She said that she was unhappy with the work that had been carried out in her home and that the standard of the tiling work was poor. She added that she now had black mould on her carpet and that her insurance did not cover the damage caused to her sofa. She also stated that there was further damage to her property, including to her front room ceiling and bath panel. As a resolution, she wanted additional compensation and for her tiling to be redone.
9. The resident had an appointment arranged to redecorate her front room ceiling on 13 April 2023. The landlord rescheduled that appointment on the day to 24 April 2023, without prior notice. The resident said that she had already prepared the room for the work to take place and that she had lost income as a result.
10. On 14 April 2023 the landlord issued its final response. It said that its stage 1 response gave a fair reply and that it would not be changing its decision. It added that it would raise a new stage 1 complaint to address the issues surrounding the further redecoration works arranged for 13 April 2023.
11. In the resident’s complaint to the Ombudsman, she said that the landlord’s offer of compensation was insufficient considering the distress and inconvenience she had experienced, and the damage caused to her personal items due to the leak and subsequent damp and mould.

Assessment and findings

12. When investigating a complaint, the Ombudsman applies its Dispute Resolution Principles. These are high level good practice guidance developed from the Ombudsman’s experience of resolving disputes, for use by everyone involved in the complaints process. There are three principles driving effective dispute resolution:
    1. Be fair – treat people fairly and follow fair processes.
    2. Put things right.
    3. Learn from outcomes. 
13. The Ombudsman must first consider whether a failing on the part of the landlord occurred, and if so, whether this led to any adverse effect or detriment to the resident. If it is found that a failing did lead to an adverse effect, the investigation will then consider whether the landlord has taken enough action to ‘put things right’ and ‘learn from outcomes’.

Reports of a leak

14. The landlord’s repairs procedure states that all non-urgent repairs will be attended to and completed within 20 working days.
15. Although the landlord attended to the resident’s initial report of a leak within its repair timescales, it is unclear what action it took to resolve the issue. The resident stated in her complaint that she was told to stuff towels against the shower. She also noted that the landlord had loosened her bath panel screws to make it easier for her to see where the water was coming from. The landlord did not refute this claim. This was inappropriate advice. The landlord should have investigated the cause of the leak during this initial visit and taken steps to remedy it. Instead, it put the onus on the resident. The landlord’s lack of action would have left the resident concerned that a leak was likely to happen again. This would have caused significant distress and inconvenience to the resident.
16. Indeed, the resident did report a further leak from her bathroom over a month later. On this occasion, an appointment was arranged for 5 January 2023. The landlord stated in its stage 1 response that its operatives were not given access to the property on this date, but this Service has seen no evidence to support this statement. In addition, its internal complaint records suggest that it stopped the leak on 17 January 2023 yet the Ombudsman has not seen any repair records to confirm this. Overall, the landlord’s repair records were either missing or lacking detail, meaning it is unclear when appointments were raised or what works were carried out. This indicates issues with the landlord’s record keeping and the Ombudsman has made a finding of maladministration in this regard. In this case, we are not making an order for remedy as repair record-keeping orders that relate to similar issues have been made in other recent Ombudsman cases such as 202112886 and 202203159.
17. The landlord’s records show that it repaired and repainted the resident’s ceiling on 10 February 2023. This was almost 3 months after the initial 15 November 2022 report. This was a considerable delay and outside of its policy timescales. This would have caused further distress and inconvenience to the resident.
18. The resident reported another leak from her bathroom on 6 March 2023. She stated that the leak had caused damage to her carpet and that mould was starting to form. This Service has seen a timeline of events produced by the resident that indicated the landlord attended her property the same day and found that all the bathroom tiles were compromised and needed replacement. Additionally, the timeline suggests that the resident called the landlord to report a further leak on 16 March 2023. However, there are no landlord repair records to reconcile this. This is concerning and, again, may indicate issues with the landlord’s record keeping.
19. The landlord’s repair records did show that it retiled the bathroom on 28 March 2023. However, photographs provided to this Service showed that the work was done poorly. This was also evidenced by an internal landlord email which stated that the retiling work looked ‘‘rough’’. Furthermore, this email asked an operative to reattend to remedy the issue, yet there was no evidence that it did so. In January 2024 the resident informed this Service that the landlord has still not repaired the tiles properly, despite this being a likely cause of the original leaks.
20. In addition, the resident reported yet another leak from her bathroom on 3 April 2023 that she said had caused further damage to her living room ceiling. The landlord’s repair records indicated that it scheduled an appointment to repair the ceiling in May 2023, which was rearranged by the resident for 8 June 2023. However, these records suggest that repair works did not commence until 30 June 2023, with the re-decoration work finishing on 12 July 2023. A complaint submitted by the resident dated 9 June 2023 suggested that the landlord cancelled the 8 June 2023 appointment. Although the Ombudsman has not seen any repair records to support this, given the landlord’s poor record keeping, it is reasonable to conclude that this was another avoidable delay in getting matters resolved for the resident. They also indicate that the landlord did not learn sufficient lessons from its earlier delays in the handling of leaks in the property over the previous 6 months.
21. The Ombudsman acknowledges that the landlord reviewed its handling of her complaint in November 2023 and increased its offer of compensation to £650. This took into account the delay in completing repairs, poor communication, missed appointments and the distress caused. It also identified a series of learning points from the complaint. However, this Service expects the landlord to undertake a sufficient investigation and review all circumstances of the case at stage 2. Had this been done, the landlord would have identified its failings earlier and had the opportunity to put things right sooner. The landlord only undertook a further review after the issue had been brought to the Ombudsman for investigation.
22. Furthermore, the Ombudsman considers that the revised compensation offer was not proportionate to the failings identified in this report. The landlord failed to identify and investigate the cause of the leaks, which led to the resident experiencing further leaks throughout the complaint. In addition, there were considerable delays in repairing the ceiling. The Ombudsman considers that had the landlord taken the appropriate steps to identify the leak in the first instance, these delays could have been avoided and the matter resolved sooner. Although the landlord’s tiling work on 28 March 2023 seemed to stop the leak, the resident made a further report on 3 April 2023. In addition, the evidence shows that the tiling work was unsatisfactory and at the time of writing this report, the landlord has still not resolved this. This is unacceptable and is likely to cause concern to the resident that a leak may occur again.
23. Given these failings, this Service has determined that there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of reports of leaks in the property and the associated repairs. In line with this Service’s Remedies Guidance, awards of up to £1,000 compensation should be made where the Ombudsman has found failure which significantly impacted the resident. In view of this, orders are made below for remedy.

Complaint handling

24. The landlord’s complaints policy states that at stage 1, the person investigating the complaint must contact the resident within 2 working days to discuss the reason for the complaint. It adds that if it is agreed to escalate a complaint, a full review will be carried out by the senior manager.
25. It took the landlord 8 days to acknowledge the resident’s complaint. This was outside of its 2 working days timescale as set out in its policy. It was therefore appropriate for the landlord to apologise for this failing and offer redress to put things right.
26. However, the landlord failed to address all the resident’s concerns. Specifically, it failed at both stages of its process to respond to her reports of damage to her sofa, carpet and other personal belongings, despite opportunities for it to do so. In addition, it failed to respond to whether its insurers would cover the damage. While this Service is not able to determine a link between the landlord’s actions, or lack thereof, and any damage caused to the resident’s belongings, the landlord should have responded to these concerns in its formal responses. Additionally, it should have provided her with advice on how she could raise a claim through the landlord’s liability insurance. This was a failure on the part of the landlord and demonstrated that it did not carry out a full review of her complaint, in line with its complaints policy. This would have caused frustration to the resident.
27. Furthermore, the landlord’s November 2023 review of her complaint stated that it would contact the resident via telephone to discuss reimbursing her for the damage to her sofa, but the resident has informed this Service that this has not yet happened. Therefore, an order has been made in respect of this.
28. On 13 April 2023 the resident stated that an appointment raised for this date to redecorate her living room ceiling had been rescheduled by the landlord without notice. In response, the landlord stated it would raise a new complaint regarding this issue. This was inappropriate and it is unclear how the landlord arrived at this decision. Given that this concern was related to damage caused by leaks in the property, the landlord should have addressed this matter in its final response. This would have caused further frustration to the resident. Overall, the landlord’s formal responses failed to adequately address the resident’s concerns about missed appointments.
29. It is noted that the landlord’s recent review acknowledged some of its complaint handling failures and in addition identified several learning outcomes. However, it is considered that the failings identified in this report have not been ‘put right’ for the resident. Therefore, this Service has made a finding of service failure in respect of the landlord’s complaint handling and an order has been made below for remedy.

Determination

30. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in respect of its handling of leaks in the property and the associated repairs.
31. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in respect of its complaint handling.
32. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in respect of its record keeping.

Orders

33. The landlord must do the following within the next four weeks:
    1. Provide a written apology for the failures identified in this report.
    2. Pay the resident compensation of £1,100 comprised of:
       1. £650 as offered by the landlord in its November 2023 review of the resident’s complaint.
       2. A further £350 for the significant distress and inconvenience caused by its handling of reports of a leak in the property.
       3. A further £100 for the frustration caused by its complaint handling.
    3. Inspect the property and satisfy itself that it has carried out sufficient work to remedy the reported leaks. The landlord must share a copy of its findings and any resulting action plan with the Ombudsman and resident.
    4. Retile the bathroom to a satisfactory standard. If it is unable to complete the work within the next 4 weeks, it must provide the resident with a timescale for completion.
    5. Contact the resident and discuss the reimbursement of the damage to her belongings following the leaks. If an agreement cannot be reached, the landlord must provide the resident with its insurer details to enable her to make a claim.
34. The landlord should provide this Service with evidence of compliance with these orders within the timescale set out above.