Lambeth Council (202310961)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202310961

Lambeth Council

30 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. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s concerns about the payment of communal electricity in the building.
  2. The Ombudsman has also considered the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

  1. The resident has lived in the property since 1992, when she moved in as a child with her mother. She was assigned the secure tenancy for the property in May 2016. The property is a 3 bedroom maisonette, which shares a communal corridor and light with a neighbouring property. The landlord is a local authority, which owns and manages the property.
  2. The resident sent the landlord a complaint by email on 8 November 2022. She said the communal lighting was connected to her electricity meter, which meant she was the only resident paying for the light.
  3. The landlord sent a stage 1 complaint response on 28 November 2022, in which it said:
    1. Its neighbourhood housing officer had contacted electrical engineers for advice and would update the resident once they received a response.
    2. The resident could request an escalation to stage 2 of its complaint process if she was dissatisfied.
  4. The resident requested an escalation to stage 2 via email on 30 November 2022. She said:
    1. The landlord had provided no timescale as to when it might resolve the issue.
    2. She was unhappy the landlord had allowed this situation to arise in the first place.
  5. The landlord visited the property and took photographs of the communal lighting and the resident’s meter on 1 December 2022.
  6. The resident emailed the landlord on 25 January 2023 and 8 February 2023 asking for an update following its visit to the property.
  7. The landlord sent its stage 2 response on 15 March 2023, in which it said:
    1. Its electrical engineer had raised a work order with a contractor to investigate the communal lights.
    2. There was no landlord electricity supply at the property, so it would need to arrange for UK Power Networks to install this. UK Power Networks would need to complete a survey before agreeing any work. The completion of any work would then take “in excess of 12 weeks”.
    3. Its electrical engineer was looking at “other options” and it would update the resident in due course.
    4. The resident had the right to bring her complaint to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) if she was dissatisfied with the response.
  8. The resident duly raised her complaint to this Service on 10 April 2024.
  9. The landlord sent an electrician to complete a survey on 18 April 2024. It later installed a separate landlord electricity supply to power the communal lighting on 8 May 2024.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. In order to raise a complaint to this Service under paragraph 25.a. of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, a complainant must be “a person who is or has been in a landlord/tenant relationship with a member. This includes people who have a lease, tenancy, licence to occupy, service agreement or other arrangement to occupy premises owned or managed by a member”.
  2. While the resident lived in the property as a child with her mother from 1992, she did not have a landlord/tenant relationship with the landlord until the tenancy was assigned to her in May 2016. As such, this report will only consider the matter of the communal energy charges from May 2016 onwards, as this was the date when the resident became an eligible complainant.

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s concerns about the payment of communal electricity

  1. There is no clause in the resident’s tenancy agreement to specify who is responsible for the payment of the communal electricity, nor is there any service charge for this in the agreement. The tenant was therefore only responsible for the payments set out in her tenancy agreement which did not include the payment for the communal lighting.
  2. For the failure to recognise sooner that it did not have a separate landlord supply for the electricity in the communal area, and the resulting inconvenience to the resident, the Ombudsman finds maladministration.

The landlord’s complaint handling

  1. The landlord has not provided us with a copy of its complaint procedure from the time of the complaint. However, section 5 of the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code) at the time required landlords to:
    1. Log and acknowledge a complaint within 5 working days.
    2. Send a stage 1 decision in writing within 10 working days of acknowledgement, extending this by up to 10 working days if necessary by writing to the resident with an explanation of the delay.
    3. Send a stage 2 decision within 20 working days of the resident’s request to escalate, extending this by up to 10 working days if necessary by writing to the resident with an explanation of the delay.
  2. It took the landlord 14 working days to send the stage 1 response and 72 working days to send the stage 2 response. Both these response times exceeded the required timescales but there was a particularly long delay for the stage 2 response. The delayed response caused the resident to chase the landlord for updates on 25 January 2023 and 8 February 2023.
  3. Section 5.16 of the Code at the time required the landlord to include a referral to this Service in its stage 2 response. The landlord incorrectly referred the resident to the LGSCO instead of this service, which was contrary to the Code requirement.
  4. Section 6.5 of the Code at the time said any resolution offered by the landlord needed to “clearly set out what (would) happen and by when, in agreement with the resident where appropriate” and that any remedy needed to be “followed through to completion”.
  5. In its stage 1 response, the landlord told the resident its housing officer would contact her once they had heard back from the electrical engineers. The landlord gave no timescale for this. In its stage 2 response, the landlord said it was exploring options and would update the resident about this, but we have seen no evidence it contacted the resident again. The landlord only installed the separate electricity supply over 12 months later in May 2024, which was shortly after the resident had duly made her complaint to this Service. The failure of the landlord to provide any timescales or follow up to its stage 1 and stage 2 resolutions fell short of the requirements under section 6.5 of the Code.
  6. The dispute resolution principles that apply to complaints require a landlord to put things right. The landlord did not offer the resident any compensation for its delayed complaint responses and the payments that the resident made towards the communal lighting through the years. It therefore failed to put things right.
  7. For the delays in responding to the complaint, and the failure to offer or follow up with a suitable resolution, the Ombudsman finds maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s:
    1. Concerns about the payment of communal electricity in the building.
    2. Complaint.

Orders

  1. It is ordered that, within 4 weeks of the date of this report, the landlord sends the resident an apology written by a senior member of staff.
  2. It is ordered that, within 4 weeks of the date of this report, the landlord pays the resident £265. This comprises:
    1. £40 for the approximate communal electricity costs incurred between May 2016 and April 2024.
    2. £25 for the inconvenience caused by having to report the communal electricity issue.
    3. £200 for the complaint handling failures identified and the resulting inconvenience.