London & Quadrant Housing Trust (201912066)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 201912066

London & Quadrant H T

28 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 resident has complained about:
1. the landlord’s response to reports of a gas leak from a neighbouring property and its handling of remedial works relating to the leak;
2. the landlord’s complaint handling and the level of compensation offered.

Background and summary of events

Background

The resident has been an Assured Tenant, in respect of the property, for several years.
The property is a two-bedroom first floor flat.

Policies and procedures

The landlord has a gas safety policy stating that responsible persons at the landlord’s office are responsible for ensuring that:
1. Person centred risk assessments are undertaken, and vulnerability checks made on occupied dwellings that are to be or have had their gas capped.
2. Gas related incidents involving residents are appropriately investigated and any remedial/corrective actions are undertaken as a result.

The Corporate Health and Safety Team are responsible for:

Reviewing gas related accident and incident reports ensuring that investigations are completed to identify root causes and actions to prevent a re-occurrence.

In relation to capped off occupied dwellings the policy states that when the gas supply to an occupied dwelling is capped off, Housing Management shall be formally notified by the Gas Team within as short a period of time as is reasonably practicable, of the capping and rationale behind this. Housing Management shall then undertake a person-centred risk assessment and any local vulnerability checks. The outcome of the person-centred risk assessment shall be reported to the relevant internal services / external agencies and Corporate Health & Safety.
The landlord’s complaints policy states that it will acknowledge a complaint within one working day and that it will investigate the complaint thoroughly and where necessary work with other business areas to deliver an effective solution for the customer. It will write with the outcome of the stage 1 complaint within 10 working days. Where a complaint cannot be resolved immediately an action plan will be agreed with the customer as soon as possible but within another 10 working days.
Requests for escalation should be reviewed with a manager. If the customer wishes to go to the next stage then they would need to confirm what aspects of the complaint remain outstanding or have not been addressed to determine whether escalation is warranted.

Scope

In bringing his complaint to the Ombudsman, the resident has commented on the health problems experienced by previous tenants. The resident has also commented on his downstairs neighbour’s problems with getting the landlord to respond to reports of issues in her flat. However, there is no evidence of the resident formally acting on behalf of any other residents, or of those issues having been taken through the landlord’s complaints policy. As a result, the Ombudsman is unable to comment on these submissions (in accordance with paragraphs 25(c) and 39(a) of the Scheme). Instead, this investigation has focused on the specific complaints raised by the resident, regarding his own property.

Summary of events

The resident and his family moved into the property on 19 December 2016. Evidence provided to the Ombudsman shows correspondence and action or tests undertaken in relation to low temperatures and lack of insulation in the property between December 2016 – February 2017.
On 19 July 2017 the resident reported to the landlord, among other issues, that there was a funny smell in the bedroom. He said it may have come through the wall or floor from next door who had had pest control work recently. He said it may also be coming from the downstairs flat, whose tenant had complained about a damp problem in her walls and smell. The resident said he had raised concerns, shortly after moving in, about damp trapping features in the kitchen cupboard carcasses and inbuilt bathroom structures that were beyond his means to address. He requested pest control for cockroaches and a surveyor visit to discuss works on the kitchen and bathroom. He additionally requested a written report on the damp from the downstairs flat.
During December 2017 and 2018 there was contact in relation to the resident’s boiler. In March 2018 the resident was requesting a new boiler prior to a new kitchen being fitted, which was apparently agreed. The landlord carried out an annual gas safety inspection on 11 March 2019.
On 11 November 2019 the resident’s wife collapsed and was taken to hospital.
On 15 November 2019 the mains gas supplier capped off the gas supply to the whole building due to a leak. The resident’s recollection is that, prompted by some visitors having previously said there was a smell in the hall and wondering whether it might be a gas leak, together with his wife having collapsed a couple of times recently, he surmised that there might be carbon monoxide fumes coming from the flat downstairs. He therefore rang the landlord’s helpline who then rang the gas company and an emergency engineer was dispatched. According to the resident, the gas leak was identified as coming from the downstairs flat, however the engineer also checked the meter and new pipes to the resident’s boiler that had been recently fitted by the landlord during a kitchen refurbishment and said that they would have to be capped off for the time being because they each had small leaks. The landlord’s contractor also attended on this date but on arrival, finding that the gas supplier had cut off the gas in the street, was unable to do anything at that time.
On 20 November 2019 the resident handed in a formal complaint letter to the landlord. The resident took this to a particular office where the resident says it was date stamped as having been received on 22 November 2019. It appears that the landlord then forwarded this to another office where it was stamped as having been received on 6 December 2019. In the letter, the resident said that emergency gas engineers had attended to investigate a ‘smell’ which was a result of his wife being admitted to A&E twice with what they now understood to be the effects of gas/carbon monoxide poisoning. Also, due to this, his wife had a fall in the property resulting in knee damage. He said that the entire family had been having health problems since moving in and that the gas company had explained that the issue with gas/carbon monoxide was likely not a new issue but one that had become worse over an extended period of time. He said he had serious concerns for the damage caused to their health and anxiety about how the downstairs neighbour had failed to immediately take action.
The resident said that his flat needed a new mains gas pipe into the property which meant that flooring would have to come up, the kitchen partly removed and other works, meaning that it would be an unhabitable situation for them and their young child. He therefore asked the landlord to provide alternative accommodation during the works, which he said were due to start on 20 November 2019 and he wanted a transfer to a new property. He also explained that the gas supply was still currently turned off.
On 1 December 2019 the resident contacted the landlord to say he had not heard anything since handing in his date stamped letter of 20 November 2019. As it had been more than 10 days, he asked for the complaint to be escalated to stage 2 of the landlord’s complaints process. The resident repeated this request on 5 December 2019.
By 19 December 2019 the resident had still received no response and so wrote to the landlord again. He said he had made his own enquiries and found that the downstairs tenant had undertaken ‘off the book’ works on a malfunctioning boiler without going through the landlord’s repair desk. He said the fault failed to be resolved and left the tenant with only her gas cooker for heating and he now understood that his family’s exposure to gas/carbon monoxide over a considerable period of time was a combination of the confirmed gas leak in her hallway, which had been missed by the landlord’s contractors, and her faulty boiler remaining unaddressed. The resident expressed concerns about the landlord’s inability to monitor and effect safe behaviour from the neighbour in the future and therefore asked to be moved.
Also on 19 December 2019 there is an internal email explaining that, although the resident’s complaint letter of 20 November 2019 had arrived at the correct office on 6 December 2019, it had only that day been allocated to the relevant person.
From the evidence provided, the gas supply was reconnected to the downstairs neighbour’s flat on 21 December 2019.
On 23 December 2019 the resident spoke to the landlord over the phone and then sent a follow up email, attaching previous correspondence that had so far gone unacknowledged. He said that his wife had felt unwell recently which coincided with the neighbour’s gas being reconnected. The resident commented that the gas supply to his flat was still cut off, leaving them without hot water.
The landlord has a record of attending the property on 24 December 2019 to carry out an annual gas safety check. The note says that, on attendance, it found that the works to the gas meter had still not been completed and that the resident needed to contact the gas company to get the repair resolved. Once that was done it could then return to service the boiler.
Following intervention from this service, the landlord wrote to the resident on 23 January 2020 to acknowledge his complaint. It also gave advice about the process for moving home.
On 25 January 2020 the resident responded that he was unable to engage in the homes swapping process in good conscience whilst knowing that there were currently high levels of carbon monoxide in the property which were above permissible levels. The resident advised that a recent carbon monoxide reading of the inside of his flat gave a reading of 13, which he said was above the legal limit. He said the levels were the result of fumes coming from the neighbour’s flat since the landlord’s gas fitters had reconnected the supply. The resident further said that, despite being aware of the particular health circumstances of his family, the landlord had left them with no hot water and just two portable heaters since 15 November 2019. He expressed concern about having the gas reconnected and wanted the landlord to convert the flat to electric.
In response to the complaint the landlord sent a gas engineer to the property on 27 January 2020. According to the resident, he showed the engineer evidence of high carbon monoxide meter readings and asked him to investigate how such readings could be present without gas currently being connected to the flat but the downstairs flat having been reconnected. It is suggested that the engineer denied that such readings could be coming from the downstairs flat. The landlord has not provided any information or notes relating to a visit on this date.
On 28 January 2020 the landlord provided its stage 1 complaint response. With regard to complaint handling, it said that it had taken 14 days for the resident’s complaint letter of 20 November 2019 to reach the correct office, at which point it failed to progress it and no action was taken until it was contacted by the Housing Ombudsman. It apologised for the errors and delay that had occurred and said it would be asking senior managers within the gas team what went wrong to ensure similar errors were not repeated. The landlord offered £20 for failing to respond to the resident’s initial concerns. In relation to the gas leak, it said that its contractors attended but were greeted by the gas company engineers who were working in the road. As the issue related to the main gas supply and meter, this fell to the gas supplier to rectify and the landlord was not legally responsible for this. It said that it reattended the property on 24 December 2019 to carry out the annual gas service but was unable to complete it because the gas company was still carrying out its works. The landlord said that once the gas company had finished its works, it would return to do the annual gas service. Finally, in response to the resident’s request to go all electric, it said that, as the property currently had a gas supply with gas appliances, it would not look to change them because it offered a repair first service and so would not look to replace components if they were repairable.
On 30 January 2020 the resident responded and said that he was awaiting personal contact to assess the family’s vulnerability to proposed works within the building and the manner in which they were to be carried out. He said that the landlord appeared to be misinformed about the gas company (presumably in terms of who was responsible for carrying out the remaining works). The resident requested a meeting so that the landlord could be better informed of the situation they were living in and the effect on their overall health.
The customer services officer that was dealing with the complaint then contacted the gas team for more information, particularly referencing the carbon monoxide issue in relation to the downstairs flat. The response was simply that the gas had been shut off in the street by the gas company, that the supply was off for some time and out of the landlord’s control. Following further correspondence with the resident, the landlord then contacted the resident again on 7 February 2020 to say that, prior to the gas leak, it had carried out an annual gas safety check in March 2019 and that there had been no previous reports recorded relating to gas issues. It said the matter was now closed with the customer relations team.
The resident then contacted the landlord again about ‘proposed works’. The customer services officer contacted the gas team again on 10 February 2020 for clarification of that and whether the resident still had no heating and hot water. The gas team replied that it had spoken to its contractor who said that a gas re-run was booked in and would only take a day, so there was no reason to decant the residents. The gas team reiterated that the original issue was out of its control. This information was relayed to the resident, who was told to contact the Housing Ombudsman if he wanted to escalate his complaint.
On 14 February 2020 contractors attended to re-run the gas pipes into the resident’s first floor property, re-connecting the gas mains to the boiler and capping off the old pipes. Then on 23 March 2020 the landlord carried out a gas safety check.
As the resident’s carbon monoxide alarm was still recording high readings, he contacted the downstairs tenant who rang the gas company on 30 March 2020. The resident says that the gas company confirmed that the tenant had a faulty appliance. The resident has noted that the high carbon monoxide readings stopped upon the gas company attending the downstairs flat on this date.

Assessment and findings

The landlord has failed to provide detailed records of events relating to the complaint, despite the Ombudsman’s requests to do so, and the notes that it has provided are limited. This is of concern as the Ombudsman would expect the landlord to routinely capture and store such information on its repairs system. In the absence of adequate records from the landlord, the Ombudsman has considered it reasonable to rely on the submissions of the resident when considering this complaint.

The landlord’s response to reports of a gas leak from a neighbouring property and its handling of remedial works relating to the leak

Although the resident says that he was constantly reporting ‘stale air’ from when he moved in, from the available evidence, the first time this is mentioned is on 19 July 2017 where the resident himself is attributing the smell to causes other than a potential gas leak. Carbon monoxide is considered to be odourless. The Ombudsman appreciates that the resident’s wife suffered ill health during some of this period, but based on the available evidence, the Ombudsman is unable to conclude that there were issues with the gas supply prior to November 2019 and that the resident specifically reported them as such.
The landlord cannot be held responsible for the downstairs tenant failing to report any potential problems or for choosing to have repairs to her boiler completed by someone other than the landlord, without its knowledge.
The resident had asked for details from the landlord of maintenance and repair requests from the downstairs neighbours and the outcomes of these. The landlord correctly declined to provide the information due to data protection legislation.
The landlord knew that the gas supply had been capped on 15 November 2019. There is no evidence that it had any direct contact with the gas supplier to gain an understanding of the situation or if any further works were required. However, the landlord must have had some appreciation of the situation because the resident has talked about ‘proposed major works’ and the Ombudsman can only assume that the proposal came from the landlord. It is suggested that works were originally due to take place on 20 November 2019 but presumably it could not happen at that time as the mains gas had not yet been restored to the building. The resident had assumed that the gas pipe re-run would require the lifting of the floor and removal and refit of the kitchen units and so would be a long job. The resident was bearing in mind his experience of a kitchen refurbishment in 2018 which had significantly over-run. He was therefore requesting that the landlord carry out a health-based risk assessment specifically in relation to the work that was due to happen and also requested alternative accommodation during the period of the works. From the landlord’s point of view, the gas re-run was a one day job and so no decant would be required. When the gas re-run did take place in February 2020, it was completed in one day. The landlord did not respond to the resident’s request for a temporary move, however, as the landlord had assessed the work as being a one day job, it would have been a disproportionate response to agree to the resident’s request to be placed in hotel accommodation.
As already mentioned, the landlord knew that the mains gas had been capped on 15 November 2019. It then does not appear to have kept abreast of the situation as the gas re-run was booked in for 20 November 2019 even though the mains gas had not been reinstated to the building. The landlord failed to show any concern about the circumstances in which the family were living during the coldest months of the year and there is no evidence that it offered any assistance to alleviate matters. In total, the family was without heating and hot water for 91 days. There is no evidence that the landlord followed its own procedure in requiring a responsible person to have an overview of the situation. There is also no evidence that the corporate health and safety team were informed of the gas leak incident or that the housing management team was contacted by the gas team in relation to the gas having been capped off.
The gas supply was reinstated to the downstairs flat on 21 December 2019. Without information to the contrary, it is assumed that this is also the earliest date that the landlord could have carried out the pipework re-run to the resident’s first floor flat. However, it was not until 14 February 2020 that the work was finally done. There were subsequently several days during which the resident and his family had to go without heating and hot water which might have been avoided had the landlord acted sooner.
With the mains gas being disconnected there would be no possibility of carbon monoxide leakage and so clearly there was nothing that the landlord could have done during that period to respond to the resident’s belief that there had been a slow gas and carbon monoxide leak, perhaps going on for years, prior to the gas being capped. However, the resident told the landlord that he had evidence of high carbon monoxide readings on 25 January 2020, subsequent to the downstairs flat being reconnected. The resident also says that he showed this evidence to the engineer who attended on 27 January 2020. As already mentioned, the landlord has failed to provide notes of this visit, but according to the resident, the engineer dismissed the idea that fumes originating in the ground floor flat could be rising into the resident’s flat. The resident has suggested that these fumes were originating from a faulty boiler downstairs which was resolved by the gas company when they attended. There is no evidence that the landlord took the issue of high carbon monoxide levels seriously or investigated the issue at all. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, this appears to show a serious lack of concern for the health of the resident’s household and for the downstairs neighbour.
In summary, the landlord failed to follow its own procedures in relation to the gas leak and to the gas being capped off. There seems to have been a lack of joined up working with the gas team being unaware of actions being taken by its contractor, leaving it unaware that the gas remained capped, even though the resident must clearly have been liaising with someone about arranging for the pipework to be re-run. Equally, the Ombudsman cannot see that any consideration was given to the resident and his family being without heating and hot water over three months of winter, despite the resident repeatedly reminding the landlord of this. There was also a lack of concern shown for the possible presence of high carbon monoxide at the property.

The landlord’s complaint handling and the level of compensation offered.

It is unacceptable that the letter of complaint that the resident handed in on 20 November 2019 took until 6 December 2019 to reach the right office and then until 19 December 2019 to reach the correct person to deal with it. Even then, the complaint was not acknowledged. There was some internal activity and attempts at information gathering after the resident emailed the chief executive on 23 December 2019, however the complaint was not acknowledged until 23 January 2020 after this Service had contacted the landlord on the resident’s behalf. The landlord finally provided its stage 1 response on 28 January 2020, over two months after the resident had first made his complaint. This delay was excessive and well outside the landlord’s own advertised timescales.
The landlord appears to have dealt with the complaint as a purely administrative exercise, with no apparent focus on resolving the resident’s prevailing issues and no concern for the welfare of the resident and his family. The stage 1 response failed to address the resident’s specific complaint points (made in the original complaint and in subsequent follow up emails) about wanting a temporary decant, unsafe carbon monoxide levels and having no hot water and heating for over a month. It is difficult to tell if the landlord appreciated at this point that the gas was still cut off. However, the landlord did accept that its complaint handling had been poor.
There was a lack of proper investigation of the resident’s complaint. For example, the landlord appeared to believe that the gas company was responsible for completing further works when in fact it was for the landlord to re-run the gas pipes within the boundary of the property. It was only when the resident responded to say that his complaint had not been fully responded to at stage 1, that the landlord then said that it would seek further information from its gas team. The response from the gas team was, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, defensive in tone, focusing purely on the gas leak in November 2019 and that being the responsibility of the gas company. There was no mention of the carbon monoxide issue that had become apparent upon the downstairs flat being reconnected. On 4 February 2020 the gas team said ‘I believe that the supply was off for some time and out of our control’ when in fact the gas supply to the resident’s flat was still off at that point and not reconnected until 14 February 2020. Again, there appears to have been complacency about the resident’s situation, particularly in regard to their lack of hot water and heating and feelings of being unsafe in the property.
The landlord told the resident that the escalation of his complaint would not change the outcome. This denied the resident the chance for a more senior member of staff to look at it and pre-empted the outcome of any stage 2 complaint investigation. There is no evidence that the complaint was reviewed with a manager to determine whether escalation was appropriate. As the resident had made it clear which parts of his complaint remained unaddressed, the refusal to escalate the complaint was in contravention of the landlord’s own complaints policy.
In summary, the landlord failed to understand the full basis of the resident’s complaint or the ongoing situation. Its investigation was insufficient in fully understanding the extent of the issue and although it apologised for poor complaint handling and offered £20 compensation, this was an insufficient remedy for the errors that had occurred.
When considering appropriate remedies for identified failings, the Ombudsman has regard to its own Guidance on Remedies and the terms of the landlord’s Compensation Policy. This Service’s compensation awards are not punitive and are designed to put the complainant in the position they would have been in but for the landlord’s failings, rather than putting them in a more favourable position. The remedy should be proportionate to the errors identified and reaching an amount will involve assessing a range of factors including any particular distress and inconvenience caused by the issues, the amount of time and effort expended on pursuing the matter with the landlord and the level of detriment caused by the landlord’s actions.
Under the landlord’s compensation policy, the maximum award for delay in responding to a complaint is £10. Therefore, by offering £20 the landlord has acknowledged the extremely poor service experienced by the resident.
The landlord has not offered any compensation for the resident being without heating or hot water for 91 days. Some of that time was outside of the landlord’s control, however it also failed to show any concern for the situation, particularly as the resident had a young child and a wife with a known health condition. Under the landlord’s compensation policy, the maximum award is £100 per defect, such as no heating. As there was no heating and no hot water, the landlord should pay the resident £200 for this part of the complaint.
The compensation policy states that, where there is evidence that a tenant has incurred reasonable extra costs because of service failure, that amount should be reimbursed. The resident has told us that he had to buy electric heaters to try and keep warm. Therefore, the landlord should reimburse the cost of any additional equipment the resident needed to make up for the lack of heating and hot water, upon production of receipts by the resident.
The compensation policy allows for a discretionary time and trouble payment where appropriate. The resident contacted the landlord on a number of occasions and then had to spend time chasing matters as his letters and emails were not responded to. He also had to spend time responding to contact from the landlord to clarify the situation and to request that all of the issues he raised be answered. Overall, the ombudsman considers that £100 would be an appropriate amount for the landlord to pay the resident for time and trouble.
The landlord did not compensate the resident for any distress and inconvenience incurred. From the resident’s point of view, he had serious concerns that he and his family might be subject to unsafe levels of carbon monoxide and gas leakages from the flat downstairs. The resident was also under the impression that they would be subjected to a disruptive level of remedial work in their property that would make it impossible to continue to live there whilst it was carried out. The landlord failed to directly address those concerns or to alleviate the resident’s fears over the whole period that the resident was trying to engage with it on these matters. In deciding what an appropriate level of compensation would be, consideration has been given to the fact that the resident’s child was being home schooled and was therefore spending the majority of their time in the flat and also that the resident’s wife had pre-existing health issues. These things would have contributed to the level of anxiety that the resident and his family experienced. On balance, the Ombudsman considers that the landlord should pay the resident £200 for distress and inconvenience.

Determination (decision)

In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was maladministration by the landlord in relation to its response to reports of a gas leak from a neighbouring property and its handling of remedial works relating to the leak.
In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was service failure in respect of the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint and the level of compensation offered.

Reasons

Although the landlord was not responsible for the gas being capped in November 2019, it failed to oversee the situation appropriately and did not follow its own procedures in relation to when such an event happens. At times the landlord appears not to have known that the gas was still disconnected and that it was responsible for re-running the pipework. It showed an apparent lack of concern for the resident being without heating and hot water over the coldest months of the year and his fears about a possible carbon monoxide leak from the downstairs flat. Furthermore, its complaint handling, both in terms of timeliness and getting to the bottom of the resident’s complaints, was poor.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

The landlord is ordered to
1. pay the resident a total of £500 compensation for loss of amenity (£200), time and trouble (£100) and distress and inconvenience (£200). This replaces its previous offer of £20.
2. reimburse the resident for any equipment that the resident purchased to alleviate the lack of heating and hot water in the property, upon production of receipt(s) from the resident.
The landlord should ensure that these payments are made within weeks of the date of this report.

Recommendations

The landlord should carry out a review of both how the repairs/reports from the resident, and the complaints process, were handled in order to identify what went wrong and why and implement any remedial action. This review should look at why the landlord was unable to provide detailed information to the Ombudsman.
The landlord should carry out further checks to satisfy itself that there are no current safety issues with the gas supply to the building. Assuming everything is in order, it should pass on these assurances to the resident. The resident will need to appreciate that the landlord will be unable to provide details of any checks or work carried out in the downstairs neighbour’s flat.