Islington Council (202341765)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202341765

Islington Council

14 August 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. This complaint is about the landlord’s handling of reports of issues with the heating and hot water system.

Background

  1. The resident holds a secure tenancy. The property is a 1-bedroom flat on the third floor.
  2. The resident reported that he had no heating or hot water in his property on 16 November 2023. The landlord attended on 20 November 2023 and performed a repair, restoring heating in the property temporarily. The resident reported that immediately after the appointment, a new issue arose with a leak underneath the kitchen pipes. The landlord attended again on 4 December 2023, finding that the cause of the boiler breakdown was a blocked condensate pipe. The landlord disconnected this pipe from the trap and raised a new work order for contractors to attend to remove the blockage.
  3. The resident contacted the landlord on 4 December 2023 to raise a new complaint. He was unhappy that his boiler had broken down, mentioning this had happened several winters in a row. He was dissatisfied with the delays in completing the repairs and being left with a leaking pipe and a broken boiler. He said he had needed multiple days off work and to use the gym for showering due to the leaks.
  4. The landlord acknowledged the complaint the following day and provided its stage 1 response on 19 December 2023. It upheld the resident’s complaint, providing him £225 compensation for the time taken to resolve the issue and the associated distress and inconvenience. It said that its most recent appointment had been unsuccessful due to being unable to access the property and that it would contact the resident to arrange a new appointment to finish the works.
  5. The resident escalated his complaint to stage 2 of the complaint process on 3 January 2024. He was unhappy that the hot water and heating problems still had not been resolved. He said that to resolve his complaint, he would like £2,000 compensation.
  6. The landlord was unable to gain access on 13 January 2024 for the appointment to re-run the pipes. The landlord’s records indicate that an engineer attended the property on 15 January 2024 to repair the leak and rectify the boiler error.
  7. The landlord provided its stage 2 complaint response, upholding the complaint and increasing the compensation offer to £533.32. It also said it would be considering if the boiler needed a total replacement, which it would let him know within 2 weeks. It added that separate heating disruption compensation would be awarded by its housing and communities team.
  8. The resident contacted the Ombudsman on 18 February 2024, asking us to consider his complaint. He said that being left without hot water and heating across the winter had caused him distress. He added that he had been required to take multiple days off work for appointments the landlord failed to attend, and he had been forced to use the gym to shower due to the blockages. He said that to resolve his complaint he would like £2,000 compensation. The resident confirmed in March 2024 that the landlord had now replaced his boiler.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. The resident has mentioned that he has suffered from boiler issues each winter for several years. Paragraph 42(c) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme in place at the time of the complaint stated that the Ombudsman may not consider complaints which ‘were not brought to the attention of the member as a formal complaint within a reasonable period which would normally be within 6 months of the matters arising’. Given this, the resident’s reports of earlier boiler and heating issues have not been considered as part of this investigation, although they have been noted for context. This investigation will begin from the point that the resident began making consistent reports of a loss of heating and hot water from November 2023.

The landlord’s handling of reports of issues with the heating and hot water

  1. The landlord’s repair policy states that it will attend to urgent repairs within 24 hours of these being reported. For any works which require recall or are not completed correctly, it says it will return within 5 working days to make good any problems. As for its routine repairs, it does not give an exact timeframe but says that it will attend on the next available appointment.
  2. The resident first reported that his boiler had broken down and he had no hot water or heating on 16 November 2023. The landlord’s records indicate that the cause of the boiler breakdown was a blocked condensate pipe. Whilst the landlord has provided its repair records to the Ombudsman, it has been difficult for this Service to determine exactly when the heating and hot water was restored. The landlord’s stage 2 complaint response says work was completed on the initial heating loss on 19 December 2023, and the piping work completed on 13 January 2024. The information on its repair records do not match this information. The resident has also disputed these as being correct, saying that the remedial works were not fully completed even after the stage 1 complaint response had been sent to him.
  3. The landlord’s records indicated that it attended on 20 November 2023, and completed works to restore the heating system – although its repair records do not indicate exactly what work was completed. The resident has indicated in his correspondence that works were completed and the system left functioning but this lasted for less than a day before he had to report another breakdown. This repair also appears to have caused an additional problem of a leaking pipe in the resident’s kitchen. The landlord appears to have failed to attend in line with the timescales in its policy. Further, the lack of accurate records about what works contractors completed means that the landlord is unable to specify the works it undertook at each visit and how it satisfied itself that it would be able to achieve a long-lasting repair to the boiler.
  4. From what can be evidenced, the outstanding works on the second reported fault with the boiler and heating system were completed on 15 January 2024 – it noted that an engineer repaired the leaking radiator. It also said that an engineer had tested and the faulty boiler had been rectified. It was noted that when the engineer left, the boiler was left in a working order. It remains unclear exactly when, or if, the works to re-run the pipework was completed.
  5. The landlord also agreed as part of its stage 2 complaint response to perform a survey of the resident’s boiler to see if this was functioning correctly or if it should be replaced. Given the continuing issues with the boiler and heating system, this was a fair action for the landlord to take. The landlord completed this survey as per its commitment and followed this up by replacing the resident’s boiler in March 2024. Its actions in considering a long-term resolution and following up commitments it made represent good practice in an attempt to deliver the resident with the outcome he desired – a reliable heating and hot water system.
  6. The repairs undertaken by the landlord appear to have required several different contractors. Throughout the repair, there were appointments for engineers, plumbers, and carpenters. Whilst the landlord cannot be held responsible for repairs being complex and requiring several different trades, it still has the responsibility to efficiently manage the repair, ensure this is completed within the timescales set out in its repairs policy and minimise inconvenience to the resident.
  7. The landlord failed to do so, the repair taking over 2 months to carry out. When the complex nature of the repair was discovered, it would have been appropriate for the landlord to have undertaken an earlier survey of the boiler and raise all of the necessary jobs in conjunction to ensure this was not unnecessarily delayed. The landlord therefore failed to manage this repair effectively. This is despite the impact that the resident said the loss of heating and hot water had on his ability to warm his home and wash and the alternative steps he had to take to do so.
  8. The landlord has attributed some of the delays to a number of appointments which it has recorded as no access. The resident has disputed that several of these were in fact caused by the landlord’s failure to properly communicate. The landlord has failed to provide the Ombudsman with evidence of its communication regarding these appointments, or evidence that it did in fact communicate with the resident regarding these. Its failure to do so again represents a fault in its record-keeping practice.
  9. The landlord recognised itself that it had fallen short of the required service standards in dealing with the resident’s boiler fault reports. It apologised for this and offered the resident a total of £533.32 for the delays and the inconvenience these caused to the resident.
  10. This compensation amount represents a reasonable offer of redress from the landlord to resolve the complaint. This amount of redress is within the range that the Ombudsman would suggest a landlord pays for service failure that has adversely impacted a resident. Given the delay period and the impact on the resident, this level of compensation was proportionate, particularly given the landlord said that an additional amount would be offered for the outage period itself.
  11. It is recommended that the landlord review its repairs record-keeping practice to ensure that adequate detail about appointments are being recorded and can be provided to the Ombudsman.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 53b of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was reasonable redress in the landlord’s handling of reports of issues with the heating and hot water.

Recommendations

  1. If not already paid, the landlord should re–offer the £533.32 compensation to the resident that it awarded in its stage 2 complaint response.
  2. If not already paid, the landlord should credit the resident with the heating disruption compensation that it promised in its complaint responses. It should tell the resident how it has calculated this amount.
  3. The Ombudsman’s reasonable redress decision has been made on the basis that the above amounts are paid.
  4. The landlord should consider reviewing the information it is recording about appointments to ensure that it has a full audit trail of actions taken by its contractors throughout the repairs process.