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Hyde Housing Association Limited (202303768)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202303768

Hyde Housing Association Limited

24 May 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:
    1. The landlord’s response to reports of an intermittent leak.
    2. The associated complaint handling.

Background

  1. The resident holds an assured tenancy. The property is a 3-bedroom maisonette. The resident has mental health difficulties and a disability which impacts her breathing. The resident’s adult son and daughter acted as her representatives, and so this report references ‘the resident’ but refers to actions of the resident herself and the representatives.
  2. The resident made a complaint to the landlord on 13 October 2021. She said that the property had a leak which had been ongoing for 3 years and it had damaged the flooring downstairs. She said that it had attended multiple times but failed to find the source of the leak. She added that the leak impacted her breathing because of her disabilities.
  3. The landlord provided its stage 1 complaint response on 4 March 2022. It upheld the complaint and apologised for the delay in responding to the complaint and for the delays in completing repairs. It offered £150 compensation for the delays and the distress and inconvenience caused to her. It said it would inspect the leak on 10 March 2022 and then raise any repairs identified.
  4. On 13 September 2022, the resident escalated her complaint. She said the leak had returned and she was unhappy that the landlord had not found the source of the leak. She said she had a disability and asked it to complete the necessary repairs. She also mentioned that the ongoing leak had damaged the walls and toilet downstairs.
  5. The landlord provided its stage 2 complaint response on 14 March 2023. It apologised again for its delay in providing its response and for the delay in arranging the repairs. It said it had removed asbestos panels from the hallway and it would inspect the leak on 15 March 2023. It awarded an additional £675 compensation for its complaint handling failures, delays in completing repairs, time and trouble reporting repairs and for any distress and inconvenience caused.
  6. The resident escalated her complaint to this Service as she was unhappy that the cause of the leak remained unresolved. The complaint became one that this Service could investigate on 8 August 2023. On 15 January 2024, the landlord reviewed the resident’s complaint and increased its offer of compensation to £1,500. It also requested evidence of any damaged belongings so it could consider a request for reimbursement. It said it had arranged repairs to investigate the leak further.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. The resident stated in her complaint that the landlord’s handling of the leak had affected her health. While this Service does not doubt the resident’s comments, it is outside our remit to draw conclusions on the causation of, or liability for, impacts on health and wellbeing. This is in accordance with paragraph 42(f) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme. This Service has however considered the general distress and inconvenience which the situation may have caused the resident.
  2. It is evident that the resident continued to experience issues with the leak after the landlord’s final complaint response and there are now concerns related to damp and mould in the property. The Ombudsman cannot investigate matters that did not go through the landlord’s internal complaint process. This is in accordance with paragraph 42(a) of the Scheme. However, the Ombudsman will consider some events that occurred after a final complaint response in order to assess whether the landlord used its complaints process to put things right and learn lessons from the outcome of a complaint. If any new incidents have occurred since the end of the complaints process that the resident is dissatisfied with, she may wish to log a new complaint for the landlord to investigate her concerns and have the opportunity to put things right. She may then bring that complaint to the Ombudsman to investigate were she to be unhappy with the landlord’s response.

The landlord’s response to reports of an intermittent leak

  1. The resident told the landlord that it had failed to address the source of the leak for over 3 years. The landlord has provided its repair records to the Ombudsman, but it is unclear as to when it first logged the leak. In the stage 1 complaint response, it said the resident first reported the leak on 16 July 2021. The landlord’s repair records do not mention a repair on this date. This is a record keeping failure.
  2. Overall, the landlord’s repair records were either missing or lacking detail. The repair records do not evidence all of the repairs mentioned within the landlord’s complaint responses. Additionally, some of the records show the date that it completed repairs, but it does not show when it raised the repairs or any detail about when it had booked appointments for. It is therefore difficult to assess the time taken to complete the repairs because of the landlord’s poor record keeping.
  3. The landlord acknowledged its failures in responding to the reports of a leak and apologised for the delay in producing the asbestos report which it required before starting works to inspect the stack pipe behind some hallway panels. The landlord’s apology was appropriate. It offered £150 compensation towards its failings, of which £100 is for the delay which is believed to be for the substantive issue of its response to the leak.
  4. The £100 compensation was not proportionate to offer redress for the failings identified within this investigation. The landlord requested the asbestos survey on 3 November 2021. The landlord and its contractors exchanged multiple emails to decide who would be responsible for conducting the survey. It took 55 working days to make this decision, which was in excess of its repair timeframe target of 20 working days. The landlord confirmed in its complaint response that it had completed the asbestos test on 26 January 2022, but the repair records do not reflect this.
  5. The resident chased the landlord on 2 February 2022 and asked for an update on when it would repair the leak. On the following day, it escalated the matter internally and asked for the asbestos report to be treated as urgent due to the resident’s vulnerabilities. There is no evidence to suggest that it then did so. The delay in completing works would have understandably caused distress and inconvenience to the resident who had an ongoing leak which it could not address until it had produced the asbestos survey report.
  6. In its stage 1 complaint response, the landlord said it would inspect the leak on 10 March 2022 and raise any necessary repairs following this. From the landlord’s repair records, it is unclear whether it later raised any repairs. It is evident that the panels did contain asbestos, and its repair records show it removed some panels on 10 March 2022. However, it is unclear what works it did to inspect the stack pipe behind the removed panels to check for the source of the leak. Its repair records do not reference any works regarding this at the time.
  7. Between the appointment on 10 March 2022 and the resident’s complaint escalation on 13 September 2022, there is very little evidence as to what action the landlord took to resolve the leak.
  8. On 11 April 2022, the resident told the landlord that its contractor had attended on 5 April 2022 but the contractor was unprepared and could not complete any works. She also mentioned the impact of the ongoing leak on her disability. The repair records do not show an appointment on this date so it is difficult to assess what action it took. It attended the property on 19 May 2022 to repair a leak to the toilet but, due to poor record keeping, it is unclear when it raised the repair or whether this related to the ongoing leak.
  9. Following the resident’s complaint escalation on 13 September 2022, where she outlined that the leak had returned, it took over 2 months to raise works to inspect the property. On 25 November 2022, the landlord booked an inspection for 19 December 2022, which was over 3 months since notification of the leak reoccurring. This was not appropriate and would have understandably caused the resident further frustration and concern that the landlord was not taking the matter seriously.
  10. During this time, the resident contacted her MP for support in addressing the leak. The resident’s MP contacted the landlord on 14 occasions between 15 November 2022 and 24 February 2023. It responded to the MP on only 7 occasions and provided information to the MP which it has not evidenced within the information provided to this Service. For example, it mentioned a property inspection completed on 4 January 2023 and that it removed further asbestos panels on 13 March 2023. It is unclear why it removed further panels 1 year after it had first removed asbestos panels or why such a delay occurred between the works.
  11. It is not evidence that the landlord regularly communicated with the resident regarding the leak and how it would resolve this for her. The landlord has not provided any communication logs or records of contact attempts made to the resident during this time. This is a record keeping failure.
  12. In the landlord’s final complaint response in March 2023, it acknowledged the process had been drawn-out and it delayed in responding appropriately to the leak when it returned. It apologised for this and offered a further £675 compensation, of which £475 was for its handling of the leak. It said that it would inspect the leaks on 15 March 2023 and complete any necessary repairs.
  13. While it was appropriate for it to outline how it would rectify the leak and the damage caused, it is a concern that the landlord failed to follow through the repairs to completion. It is evident that the leak remains ongoing intermittently, over 1 year on from the final complaint response and therefore the landlord’s actions after the final complaint response failed to demonstrate that it had learned lessons from its failings.
  14. The landlord’s repair records do not reflect what steps it took to find the source of the leak which is a failing. It also does not show whether it appropriately considered the impact of the intermittent leak on the resident’s health needs, which is not appropriate. As such, the overall offer of £825 compensation is not proportionate to the failings identified within this investigation.
  15. The Ombudsman acknowledges that the landlord reviewed its handling of the complaint on 15 January 2024 and increased its offer of compensation to £1,500. This replaced the compensation offered in its final complaint response. The overall compensation for the handling of the leak was now £1,200, which included consideration of the resident’s efforts, delays in completing repairs and distress and inconvenience caused.
  16. While the increased offer was significantly more than the landlord offered within its final complaint response, the Ombudsman considers that the revised offer was not proportionate to the failings identified in this report. The landlord has continued to fail to identify the cause of the intermittent leak. If the landlord had taken the appropriate steps to identify the leak when it first occurred, or throughout the complaints process, it could have resolved the matter much sooner. It is likely to cause concern to the resident that the leak may occur again.
  17. Given these failings, the landlord is ordered to pay a further £650 compensation to reflect the further distress and inconvenience caused to the resident by the leak remaining unresolved some 14 months after its final complaint response and 4 months after its increased compensation offer. The landlord is also ordered to arrange for a surveyor to inspect the property and produce an action plan as to what steps it will take to find the source of the leak. It should also include a list of repairs required to make good the property and return it to the condition it was in before the leak occurred.

The associated complaint handling

  1. In the resident’s complaint to the landlord, she said that the leak had damaged various areas in the property downstairs, including the walls, toilet and flooring. The landlord did not respond to this aspect of the complaint within its complaint responses, but it is noted that it did refer to this within its compensation review letter in January 2024.
  2. It would have been appropriate for the landlord to have signposted the resident to make an insurance claim through the landlord’s liability insurance if she wished for reimbursement for any damaged items or personal damages. This would have been good practice to ensure that it could independently investigate the resident’s request, and it is therefore a failing that it did not do so. The landlord is ordered to provide support to the resident in making an insurance claim, if she wishes to do so.
  3. The landlord acknowledged failures in its complaint handling regarding its delayed responses. It took 99 working days for it to provide its stage 1 complaint response. While it did provide 2 holding letters to explain that its response would be delayed, the first holding letter was not provided until 3 February 2022, which was 78 working days after the complaint was made. It then took a further 126 working days to provide its stage 2 complaint response.
  4. In acknowledgement of the time and trouble caused by the landlord’s delayed complaint responses, it offered £200 compensation in its final complaint response for its delays in responding to the complaint. It then revised its offer to £300 compensation following a review of its complaint handling on 15 January 2024.
  5. The landlord’s increased offer of £300 compensation towards its complaint handling failures was appropriate and in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance where there was a failing which adversely impacted the resident. This was proportionate to the distress and inconvenience that the complaint handling failures would have understandably caused to the resident. The Ombudsman therefore makes no further award of compensation in this regard. However, this Service expects the landlord to investigate its actions fully within its complaint responses. If it had done so, it would not have required a review of its complaint handling some 10 months later. Therefore, a finding of maladministration remains appropriate.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s response to reports of an intermittent leak.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was maladministration in the associated complaint handling.

Orders

  1. Within 28 calendar days of the date of this determination, the landlord is ordered to:
    1. Apologise to the resident in writing for its continued failure to identify the source of the intermittent leak and for its overall response to reports of an intermittent leak.
    2. Pay the £150 compensation offered in its stage 1 complaint response.
    3. Pay the £1,500 compensation offered in its revised compensation offer dated 15 January 2024, which replaced the amount offered in its stage 2 complaint response.
    4. Pay a further £650 compensation for the distress and inconvenience caused by its response to reports of an intermittent leak. This should be paid directly to the resident and not the rent account.
    5. Arrange for a surveyor to inspect the property and produce an action plan as to what steps it will take to find, and resolve, the source of the leak. It should also include a list of repairs required to make good the property and return it to the condition it was in before the leak occurred. This repairs schedule should be sent to the resident and this Service and include a point of contact she can approach should any concerns need to be raised during any proposed works.
    6. Provide the resident with details of how to make a liability insurance claim to its insurance team regarding her concern of damaged belongings caused by the landlord’s response to reports of an intermittent leak. It should provide support in doing so, if requested by the resident.
  2. The landlord should reply to this Service with evidence of compliance with these orders within the timescale set out above.