Islington Council (202002434)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202002434

Islington Council

1 April 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

The complaint is about the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of scratches to her windows following cyclical works at the property.

Background and summary of events

Background

The resident lives in a three-bedroom, three-storey maisonette. The resident is a leaseholder, and the landlord owns the freehold for the property.

Summary of events

On 12 June 2019, the resident emailed the landlord to advise that she had raised the issue of scratched windowpanes that she reported was due to excess paint from its exterior decorators, resulting in the landlord visiting the property on 31 May 2019. The resident was unhappy with the outcome of the visit, in which it denied having caused the scratches and noted that there were older interior windowpane scratches, and so she requested an independent inspection and meeting to look to resolve the matter.
On 18 November 2019, the landlord wrote to the resident, and confirmed the following:
1. With reference to its visit on 25 July 2019, it explained that it was informed by the resident that some of the windows were scratched during the cyclical works undertaken in 2008.
2. It had acknowledged that some of the windowpanes “could have been scratched during the recent works”, and so it would be willing to replace those.
3. The resident was asked to mark the recently scratched windows, and instead “subsequently marked all of the glass in your property for replacement”.
4. The landlord did not agree that all of the windowpanes were damaged following the recent works. It outlined its desire to come to a reasonable resolution to the situation, which it believed would be to repair any damage caused by the most recent works.
On 21 November 2019, the landlord’s records confirmed that the resident had called it to report problems including the following:
1. She had discovered that all of her windowpanes were scratched following the cyclical works. There was the suggestion that some of the scratches were there before, but she was sure that they were not.
2. The main reason for calling was because she wanted the landlord to replace all of the windows that were scratched.
On 6 January 2020, the resident wrote to the landlord to make a stage one complaint to it, stating the following:
1. The main problem was that most of her windows had been scratched, and that she had asked for them to be replaced.
2. During the inspection on 25 July 2019, it had confirmed that there were new scratches to her windows and had committed to replacing these. It asked the resident to mark the affected windows, during which time it became apparent that most of her windows had scratches.
3. The resident had received a letter to say that some of the scratches were done during the earlier cyclical works in 2008, which she said was “not true”.
4. Other concerns were raised by the resident, which do not form part of the complaint submitted to this Service.
On 27 January 2020, the landlord issued its stage one complaint response to the resident, stating the following:
1. It apologised that the resident had been unhappy and confirmed that, following its call with the resident earlier that day, it had carried out its investigation into her concerns.
2. It again highlighted that the resident’s main concern was the scratched windowpanes, which she had requested that it replace.
3. Its records confirmed that, during the survey completed prior to the start of the recent cyclical works, she had showed the scratched windowpanes caused by the cyclical works in 2008.
4. It had inspected the windows following the resident’s concerns and had agreed that there was new damage caused to some of the windowpanes, therefore also agreeing to replace some of the windows. It acknowledged that the resident wanted every windowpane with a scratch “new and old” be replaced, and requested the resident contact it if she wished for it to replace the agreed windowpanes.
5. It also addressed the other points raised in the resident’s letter of 6 January 2020.
On 5 February 2020, the resident responded to the landlord and requested the escalation of her complaint to the second and final stage of its complaints procedure. The following points were also made by the resident:
1. She did not say that the last cyclical works in 2008 had scratched her windows, instead she said that “there were a couple on the inside at the bottom kitchen windows”.
2. She did not understand why it should only replace half of the windows, when she had discovered that most of her windows were scratched when she had followed the landlord’s request to mark the damaged windows.
3. She had highlighted that the scratches were not her fault, and that it seemed like no one wanted to take responsibility for them.
On 19 February 2020, the landlord replied to the resident to provide a follow-up stage one complaint response to its earlier letter of 27 January 2020. It confirmed the following:
1. It reiterated its previous position on the scratched windows, where it was willing to replace those panes that had been scratched during the most recent works; however, it believed the resident’s request to replace all of the windows to be “unreasonable”.
2. The landlord considered that the complaint was “not upheld”.
On 10 March 2020, the resident emailed the landlord in response to its latest letter of 19 February 2020. She felt that what she had said was being “twisted” and re-requested the escalation of her complaint, as she was “not going to settle for half the windows to be done when clearly the cyclical team have scratched them”.
On 27 May 2020, the landlord provided its stage two final complaint response to the resident to confirm the following:
1. It apologised for the delay in responding to the resident’s complaint, which was due to an increase in escalated complaint requests.
2. It appreciated that the resident wanted all of her windows replaced, however as per its inspection, “approximately 30% of the window glass had new scratches”, and this is what it would be prepared to replace, having not received any reports from her about this following its previous cyclical works in 2008.
3. It confirmed that it had partly upheld her complaint. It further highlighted that it was “likely appropriate due care during the works would have avoided the windowpanes being scratched”, and that “clear concise records of previous discussions and/or observations were lacking during this complaint”.
The resident subsequently complained to this Service that the landlord was only willing to replace 30% of her windowpanes, whereas she had found that 95% of them were scratched and attributed this to both its earlier and more recent cyclical works. We then contacted it for further information about her complaint and it reported that multiple inspections had found that many of the scratches were internal where no works had been carried out by it, but may have been by her own contractor, or were old external scratches that were significantly weathered and clearly not recent.

Assessment and findings

Policies and lease agreement

As per the landlord’s corporate complaints policy, responses to complaints which are upheld or partially upheld should contain the following:
1. A detailed explanation of what happened and why things went wrong.
2. An apology.
3. Details of the action to be taken, and the timescale for this to be completed.
As per the same policy, when the landlord was at fault, it would “put things right” by acknowledging its mistakes and apologising for them, explaining why things went wrong and what it would do to prevent this happening again. It stated that “so far as possible, [it] should seek to put the [resident] back to the position they would have been in if there had been no fault”. If this was not possible, financial compensation may be appropriate.
The landlord’s refunds, compensation and remedies policy states that, before financial awards are approved, consideration will be given to a range of remedies to “put things right”, including an apology, an explanation giving a full answer to the points raised, and action taken to put things right.
As per the resident’s lease agreement for the property, the landlord is responsible for the “main structural parts of the building (including the roof and foundations and external parts thereof, the frames of the windows but not the interior faces of such parts”.
The lease agreement for the property also confirms that the resident is responsible for window glass and the internal surface materials of the windows.

The landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of scratches to her windows following cyclical works at the property

Following the reports from 31 May 2019 of the resident’s windows being scratched as a result of the recent cyclical works, the landlord should have conducted an inspection to assess the damage caused by these works. The landlord would then be expected to offer a remedy that would put the resident back to the position that she would have been in prior to the windowpanes being damaged, in accordance with its corporate complaints and refunds, compensation and remedies policies above at paragraphs 14 to 15.
The landlord evidenced that it had undertaken inspections of the resident’s scratched windowpanes on 31 May and 25 July 2019, and that it had acknowledged from 18 November 2019 onwards that it had damaged some of the windows. When deciding how best to proceed, it is reasonable for the landlord to rely on the conclusion of its appropriately qualified staff and contractors in the absence of any other expert evidence to the contrary.
In this case, the landlord’s surveyor concluded from the above inspections that approximately 30% of the resident’s windowpanes had been scratched by it following the recent cyclical works, and it offered to replace these. However, it also found that many of the other scratches were internal where no works had been carried out by it, but may have been by her own contractor, or were old external scratches that were significantly weathered and clearly not recent, so that it declined to replace them. This was in line with the resident’s lease agreement above at paragraph 17 that made her responsible for the internal surface material of the windows.
The landlord acted fairly and in accordance with its corporate complaints and refunds, compensation and remedies policies’ requirements in acknowledging its mistake, apologising to the resident, and offering to replace those windowpanes assessed to have been damaged following the recent cyclical works from 18 November 2019 onwards.
In respect of the scratched windows which have not been assessed to have been damaged following the recent cyclical works, these are outside of the scope of this investigation, having not been brought to the landlord’s attention as a formal complaint within a reasonable period, which is usually within six months of the matters arising. The resident’s complaint about this to the landlord was instead first made on 6 January 2020 in relation to previous cyclical works that took place in 2008, and therefore it was not practical for the landlord or this Service to investigate this further because of the difficulty in obtaining records and evidence due to the length of time that has passed in the interim.
For the reasons detailed above, the measures taken by the landlord to redress what went wrong were proportionate to the impact that its failures had on the resident.

Determination (decision)

In accordance with paragraph 55(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord has offered redress to the resident prior to investigation which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, resolves the complaint about its response to her reports of scratches to her windows following cyclical works at the property satisfactorily.

Reasons

The landlord assessed the damage to the resident’s windowpanes following the recent cyclical works and offered to replace the windowpanes that it had agreed that it had damaged.
As per the lease agreement for the property, the resident is responsible for the window glass, and it is therefore reasonable for the landlord not to replace those that it had not damaged following the recent works.

Recommendation

It is recommended that the landlord considers a more detailed explanation of the assessment of damage in future cases. It is noted that the level damaged windowpanes has been reflected as a percentage, where it would have been more descriptive to detail the number of windows in the property, and the number of windows that it had agreed were damaged during the recent cyclical works.
The landlord should contact this Service within four weeks to confirm whether it will follow the above recommendation.
The Ombudsman accepts that, because of the present restrictions due to the corona virus pandemic, the timing of the above actions will depend on what is reasonable in the light of Government guidance regarding the health of the resident and of the landlord’s staff.