London & Quadrant Housing Trust (202107191)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202107191

London & Quadrant Housing Trust

4 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 the resident’s report of a leaking bath.

Background and summary of events

The resident held a secure tenancy with the landlord. Since making her initial complaint, the resident moved to alternative accommodation in October 2021.
The resident told this service in July 2021 that the landlord’s £960 offer of redress that it made in the final stage of its complaints process was not sufficient taking in to account the history of disrepair at her former property and the length of time she had waited for repair issues to be resolved which she said was over five years.
The resident has described to this service the impact on her mental health of the historical disrepair issues. These issues were in summary a boiler leak and boiler explosion, living with condensation and water puddles which the resident says were ‘3 or 4 cm in depth’, and a cockroach infestation which the resident says went on for over a year as well as multiple leaks from the bathroom and toilet affecting both neighbours and her own accommodation.
The landlord’s repair records provide clear evidence of these events as described by the resident. A cockroach infestation was noted in both 2018 and May 2019. A boiler leak was noted in 2018 and there is a consistent pattern of leaks occurring in both the bathroom and kitchen from 2014 onwards. The leaks are often described in the records as ‘heavy’ but ‘containable’. The boiler (causing the leak in the kitchen) was replaced in October 2020.
In May 2019, the landlord responded to a report from the resident’s downstairs neighbour that a leak was coming from upstairs. Although contractors recommended replacing the bathtub, the landlord was only willing to approve repairing the existing bath. Since the repair request was not approved, a delay in processing was caused and the work order was eventually cancelled. There is therefore evidence that the landlord was aware of a reported leak issue coming from the resident’s bathroom since May 2019. The leak was evidently at least temporarily patched up but re-occurred several months later.
The first record of a complaint being made by the resident about disrepair issues is from 5 February 2020. The complaint arose after contractors attended following another bathroom leak. The leak caused damage to the flooring, tiles and skirting boards and the resident said it was causing problems with the neighbours downstairs.
A works order was again drawn up by the contractors for a replacement bath but this was not approved by the landlord since it included costs for replacement flooring in the hallway which the landlord said was the resident’s responsibility to replace. The lack of approval on the works order again caused a delay and the order was subsequently closed which caused the resident to complain.
The landlord says that the complaint was made to one of the landlord’s repair contractors rather than to the landlord directly and for this reason it was not followed up or referred by the contractor to the landlord’s complaints procedure. The landlord says this contractor is no longer being used by the landlord.
On 21 Feb 2020, the landlord sent a text message to the resident providing details of an appointment made to repair the bath. However, this appointment was cancelled due to the Coronavirus pandemic and the works were then put on hold for the ‘lockdown’ period from February 2020 until July 2020.
Following the ease of government Coronavirus restrictions, the resident’s repairs were referred to the landlord’s Covid recovery scheme in July 2020. This was put in place to clear a backlog of repair requests from other tenants of the landlord which had formed during the lockdown period.
The landlord next visited the property on 23 February 2021 – a waiting period for the resident of approximately seven months since the end of the lockdown restrictions. A small hole was found in the bath outlet and another appointment was made to renew the bath on 25 March 2021.
The landlord failed to attend the appointment of 25 March 2021. The landlord says this was due to a member of staff taking emergency leave and no cover being available. The landlord has acknowledged that the resident was neither informed of the cancellation or provided with a missed appointment voucher. At this time, the landlord said the next available appointment was on 3 June 2021.
The resident made a formal complaint to the landlord on 29 March 2021. The operative handling the call noted the concerns as being about
1. The missed appointment on 25 March 2021.
2. The next available appointment being not until 3 June 2021 which the resident said would cause further distress and inconvenience.
3. The bath leak continuing to cause damage to the bathroom.
4. A request for more urgency and consideration for the length of time the resident had been waiting.
The landlord sent the resident a stage one complaint response on 31 March 2022. The landlord apologised for the missed appointment and said that Coronavirus had caused a backlog and delays with repairs. The landlord brought the repair appointment forward to 4 May 2021. The landlord said that it would continue to monitor the repair as part of the complaints process and said the resident’s complaint had been upheld.
The appointment scheduled for 4 May 2021 was also missed. The landlord says that the reason for this was due to an issue with the process it was using to outsource larger repairs as part of efforts to deal with a backlog of repairs. This involved a review and suspension of any repairs jobs taking longer than four hours.
Work to replace the bath was completed in June 2021 although an exact date of completion is not noted on the landlord’s repair records. This resolved the issue of the leak affecting the resident’s flat, the downstairs flat and shops underneath. A number of other repairs were still needed to the bathroom due to the damage previously caused, this included damage to the flooring, sink and taps as well as the toilet.
On 9 July 2021, the landlords sent its final stage complaint response. In its response:
1. The landlord apologised for the delays and missed appointments
2. Accepted that ‘improvement was needed in repair services and in communication with residents’
3. Accepted that the works should have been given higher priority from the time they were reported by the resident.
4. Said that “although the pandemic caused a huge delay to our repair services, it does not account for the delays and service failures you experienced before and after the pandemic”
5. Offered a total of £960 compensation which it said was comprised of £40 in respect of missed appointments, £200 due to service failures, £500 for the distress and inconvenience caused, £200 for time and effort, and £20 for the lateness of the stage two complaint response.
Repairs records indicate that the follow-on repair items after the bath replacement were completed on 30 July 2021.
In August 2021, the resident viewed a property in a different city and moved there in October 2021.

Assessment and findings

Under Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, the Landlord has an obligation to ensure the ‘structure and exterior of the dwelling house’ is kept in good repair. The leak from the bath which is at the heart of this complaint was caused by a small hole in the bath which the landlord is responsible for maintaining.
The resident’s occupancy agreement states that the landlord “will make sure all fixtures and fittings for water, gas, electricity, space and water heating are kept repaired and in working order.”
The Housing Health and Safety Rating System (the HHSRS) is concerned with avoiding or minimizing potential hazards. Under this rating system the landlord has a responsibility to keep a property free from category one hazards, this includes damp and mould as well reducing the risk from falls associated with baths and other hazards such as pests.
The landlord’s repairs policy in its ‘service standards’ section, does not specify a timeframe for repairs but says that “We want to provide residents with a reliable, modern and effective repairs service that undertakes repairs for which we have a responsibility to a good standard in a reasonable timeframe. For routine day to day repairs, we will aim to complete the repair at the earliest mutually convenient appointment.” For emergency repairs, the response commitment is within 24 hours.
It is not disputed by the landlord that it failed to meet its repair obligations over an extended period. The resident has now moved elsewhere and the outstanding issue of the complaint is therefore the level of redress offered by the landlord.
The landlords compensation policy provides a list of example circumstances where a payment of compensation is appropriate. The following are all relevant in this case:
1. failure to follow our policies, procedures or guidelines
2. loss of facilities/amenities in the home e.g. heating or hot water
3. failure to complete repairs to agreed response times
4. failure to respond to or process a complaint within our target times
5. loss of facilities, amenities or disruption due to building works
6. failure to attend a booked appointment
The same policy also indicates that a payment of £20 is appropriate for each missed appointment and says that “after installing new kitchens and bathrooms, for example, we will assess each case individually and according to its circumstances before offering compensation.”
The focus of this investigation is on events after May 2019 when the landlord became aware of the bathroom leak. The resident made her first recorded complaint about this leak in February 2020 and it is an important part of our process that we investigate matters where the resident has made a complaint about a particular issue and the landlord has been given the opportunity to put things right via their complaints process. T
No evidence has been seen by this service indicating that the resident made a complaint prior to 2020, although there is evidence of quite severe leaks and other issues such as cockroach infestation going back to 2014. It should therefore be noted that this investigation is limited to only matters that were complained about and addressed during the landlord’s internal complaints process. The months prior to the complaint from May 2019 onwards are also relevant since the decisions made by the landlord during this time (such as not to approve replacing the bath) are partly what gave rise to the complaint.
The delay in repairing the bath can be split into avoidable delay and unavoidable delay due to the disruption of the Coronavirus pandemic. The landlord became aware of a possible leak from the bath in May 2019 when the neighbours downstairs complained of a leak. From May 2019 to February 2020 is a period of 9 months but there is no record of the leak being active during this time or of a complaint being made by the resident during this time.
This was followed by a period of 6 months of unavoidable delay from February 2020 until the easing of lockdown restrictions in July 2020. It was not possible for the landlord to carry out the repair during these months due to central government restrictions on working practices.
Repair records indicate that the bath and all other associated repairs such as the flooring, skirting boards, toilet and taps were completed by 31 July 2021. There was therefore a period of 12 months of avoidable delay in carrying out the repair from July 2020 to July 2021.
The amount of compensation should therefore be based on the considerable distress and inconvenience caused by 12 months of avoidable delay in addition to a further 9 months (from May 2019-Feb 2020) when the landlord was aware of the issue but failed to resolve the matter. For this period, the leak appears to have had less impact and so a reduced rate per month has been proposed below.
There is no evidence of any progress at all being made on the repair in the period from the end of lockdown in July 2020 until February 2021, seven months later. It is accepted by this service that the Coronavirus pandemic placed unprecedented strain on landlords and caused backlogs of repair requests. However, the repair was clearly not treated with the correct priority or urgency by the landlord. The repeated pattern of missed appointments, even after the resident had made a stage one complaint is a cause for concern.
Taken in the round, the landlord’s total compensation offer of £960 compensation equates to approximately £60 for each of the months of avoidable delay (£720) plus half that rate for the months between May 2019 and February 2020 (£270)
On that basis, the landlord has offered reasonable redress since the impact on the resident was quite severe. The resident had limited washing facilities, had problems with her neighbours as a direct result and suffered from issues associated with damp such as mould growth.
The amount of £960 compensation is also in accordance with Housing Ombudsman guidance on remedies which suggests payments of £1000 and over where ‘the landlord repeatedly failed to provide the same service which had a seriously detrimental impact on the resident.’
The landlord’s proposed payments of £40 for missed appointments and £20 for a late stage two complaint response are appropriate and in accordance with its own compensation policy.

Determination (decision)

In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman scheme, the landlord has offered reasonable redress for its acknowledged service failures in responding to the resident’s report of a leaking bath.

Reasons

The landlord has acknowledged delays and communication failures when dealing with the leak in the bathroom. There was avoidable delay in carrying out repairs and repeated mistakes such as missed appointments. However, the amount of compensation offered by the landlord equates to approximately £60 for each month of avoidable delay on the repair and is therefore reasonable redress.

Orders and recommendations

It is recommended that the landlord re-offer the resident a total of £960 compensation and provide this service with an update on payment within four weeks.