London Borough of Hackney (202114761)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202114761

Hackney Council

30 November 2022

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 a repair to the toilet seat.

Background and summary of events

1. The resident is a secure tenant of the landlord, a local authority. The property is a two-bedroom ground floor flat, which the resident occupies with thier daughter.
2. On 15 June 2021, the resident called the landlord to report a repair to the toilet seat. The resident described the toilet as a therapeutic unit. The staff member the resident spoke with, advised that they would need to seek clarification on whether the landlord would do the repair and agreed to call the resident back once they had done so.
3. The resident submitted a formal complaint to the landlord on 30 June 2021, as they had not heard back about whether it would complete the repair. The resident advised that the toilet seat had broken off the day before (29 June 2021). The resident provided a picture with their complaint, showing the seat had detached from the toilet.
4. The resident advised that they wanted the landlord to repair the toilet immediately and offer compensation at a rate of £10 per day for the distress and inconvenience of having no toilet seat and £50 for the time taken to bring the complaint.
5. The following day (1 July 2021) the landlord issued its stage one response to the resident. It apologised that its customer services team did not contact the resident back when they agreed to. It confirmed that the Team Leader would be discussing this with the member of staff that the resident had spoken with and would ensure this did not happen again.
6. In respect of the repair, the landlord informed the resident that it did not repair toilet seats unless they were for adapted toilets. It acknowledged that the resident described their toilet as a therapeutic unit and said that the staff member who recorded the report, was unsure if this meant that the toilet was adapted. The landlord referred to the image of the toilet and seat that the resident provided with their complaint and stated that the seat was not from an adapted toilet. It advised that the resident is responsible for the repair and would need to arrange for the repair themselves. It confirmed that on this basis of its findings, it was unable to offer compensation.
7. The resident escalated their complaint to stage two on the same date that they received the landlord’s stage one response. They quoted the landlord’s repair obligations for toilet systems, as set out in the tenancy agreement and explained that the toilet was installed in 2017, following a recommendation by an Occupational Therapist. They stated that the seat was not standard and was previously repaired by the landlord.
8. On 21 July 2021, the resident followed up with the landlord to ask when they could expect the stage two response. They followed up again on 28 July 2021 and the landlord called the following day and apologised for the delay in escalating the complaint.
9. The landlord provided its stage two complaint response to the resident on 9 August 2021. It acknowledged the delay in the provision of its response and explained that the reason for this was due to the officer who received the request, not being aware of how to escalate the complaint and making the assumption that the complaint had already been escalated. It confirmed that it had raised this with the member of staff and would provide advice to them on its compliant system going forward.
10. It explained that in the stage one investigation, the information available at that time established that there was no evidence that the resident met the requirement for it to repair the toilet seat or, that it had previously repaired the toilet seat. It confirmed that it had since reviewed the repairs history and found that a repair was carried out to the toilet seat in August 2019. It advised that this information only came to light recently, because its records had recently been retrieved following a cyber-attack it was victim to in October 2020.
11. As a result of it finding that it had previously carried out repairs, the landlord agreed that a precedent had been set in 2019. On this basis, it agreed that it would complete the repair to the toilet seat. It confirmed an appointment date had been booked for the repair to be completed on 25 August 2021.
12. The landlord apologised for the confusion in establishing the facts but explained that this was due to the absence of the repair history following the cyber-attack. It advised that it did not consider that there were grounds for compensation.
13. The landlord attended to the repair on 25 August 2021 however, the toilet seat supplied did not fit. The toilet seat repair was completed on 28 October 2021. On 2 November 2021, the resident wrote to the landlord again, requesting compensation in relation for the time taken to complete the repair and the distress and inconvenience to the members of the household.
14. The landlord responded to the resident on 3 November 2021, it acknowledged that there was an avoidable delay in repairing the toilet between the 25 August and 28 October 2021. It offered the resident £90 compensation for the delay and the associated distress during this period. The resident remained unhappy with the amount of compensation offered and sought £420 for the delays and distress they experienced as a result of the repair.

Assessment and findings

15. The tenancy agreement states that the landlord is responsible for the repairs to systems in the property that supply sanitation (including the toilet). The landlord’s repairs guidance informed that residents are responsible for the repair and replacement of toilet seats. However, in the case of adapted toilets, the landlord has confirmed that it will repair toilet seats.
16. The landlord’s repair policy sets out that a ‘normal’ repair, where the fault or failure does not cause major inconvenience or danger to occupants, will be completed within 21 days.
17. There was a failure in the landlord’s initial response as it did not get back to the resident after they reported the repair, to clarify whether or not it would complete the repair. The landlord acknowledged this failure and clarified the action it took. in light of this finding, which was to have a discussion with the member of staff with a view to ensuring it did not happen again. This was an appropriate response.
18. Within its initial repsonse to the complaint, the landlord informed that having reviewed the photograph the resident provided, it did not consider that the resident’s toilet was adapted. While it was reasonable for it to refer to the image, the landlord did not make any queries to establish whether the toilet was adapted.
19. This Service accepts that as result of the cyber-attack, the landlord did not have access to its records at the time the report was made or, when it responded to the stage one complaint. In the absence of those records, it is expected that it sought clarification about whether it had a repair responsibility for the toilet seat. This could be from asking the resident directly for information about why they believed that the toilet was an adaptation and whether they had any evidence to support this. 
20. This Service is aware from having investigated a previous complaint, under reference 201905072, concerning the landlord’s handling of a repair to the toilet seat on another occasion, that the toilet is adapted and the landlord previously repaired the seat in August 2019.
21. When the resident escalated their complaint to stage two, they informed the landlord that the toilet seat was installed following an Occupation Therapist assement in 2017 and had previously been repaired by the landlord. When the landlord carried out its stage two investigation, it was able to retrieve repair records which confirmed that it had previously completed repairs to the toilet seat in 2019.
22. On the basis of this finding, it changed its decision and agreed to repair the seat. This was appropriate for it to do, given the evidence that it previously completed repairs to the toilet seat.
23. The landlord provided a clear explanation as to why it position on doing the repair had changed, and it apologised to the resident for any confusion caused. This was appropriate for it to do. The landlord also recognised that there was a delay in it providing its stage two response and offered an explanation as to why this happened and what it would do to avoid this happening again.
24. However, I find that the landlord has not taken into consideration the impact of it not establishing the historical repair information at an earlier stage, had on the overall time it took for the repair to be carried out.
25. The absence of the historical repair information at the time the repair report was made, was not a fault of the landlord. But other than referring to the image the resident provided, it made no attempt to obtain information in order to establish whether it did have a responsibility for the repair.
26. The result of this is that the landlord did not take responsibility for the repair, until August 2021, two months after it was requested.
27. There is no evidence that the toilet itself did not function, or could not be used, despite the fault to the toilet seat. Although, the absence of a toilet seat would have caused the resident inconvenience when using the facility. Given this, I consider that a compensation award for the time taken for the landlord to establish the repair responsibility, is appropriate.
28. This Service notes that following the complaints procedure, the resident experienced a period of delay between August and October 2021 before the repair was completed in October 2021. The landlord has offered £90 compensation for this period, outside of its complaints procedure. It was reasonable for it to consider compensation for this period of nine weeks.
29. The landlord’s compensation policy refers to the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance when calculating compensation for distress and inconvenience. The Ombudsman’s remedies guidance notes that for circumstances where there has been a service failure, but this has not significantly affected the overall outcome for the resident, an award of up to £100 is appropriate.
30. In this case, the toilet seat was repaired nearly four months outside of the landlord’s 21 day repair target time. The repair to the seat resolved the outstanding matter however, I consider that the inconvenience to the resident during that time, excluding the nine weeks the landlord has already compensated for, warrants an additional payment of £45 compensation.

Determination (decision)

31. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was a service failure by the landlord in its response to the repair to the toilet seat.

Reasons

32. The landlord acknowledged that it did not get back to the resident as it had promised to when they reported the repair. It also informed of what actions it was taking with its staff in light of finding this.
33. The landlord has explained that during the time prior to its stage two investigation, it did not have access to records showing that it had repaired the seat in 2019. On finding that it previously completed a repair to the toilet seat 2019, it made a reasonable decision to repair the seat.
34. However, the landlord has failed to take into consideration that its failure to carry out a thorough investigation as to whether the toilet was adapted from the outset, contributed to the overall delay in the completion of the repair. It has offered the resident an apology for the confusion caused while it established the facts but this alone, is not proportionate to the inconvenience experienced by the resident from not having a toilet seat for nearly four months.

Orders

35. That within 28 days, the landlord is to pay the resident £135 compensation, inclusive of the £90 it offered, in recognition of the service failure in its response to the repair.