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Nottingham City Council (202005867)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202005867

Nottingham City Council

21 July 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 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 concerns the landlord’s handling of the resident’s report of the loss of hot water and heating following a water leak at her property.

Background and summary of events

Background

  1. The resident is a tenant of the landlord.

Summary of events

  1. The landlord’s records showed that the resident contacted the landlord to report a leak at her property on 20 July 2020. An out–of–hours plumber attended the property on the same day, determined that the leak was “coming from [a] heating pipe”, and advised that a gas engineer was required. Additionally, during the same visit, the landlord identified that the leaking pipe was located in the artex ceiling, which could not be removed without a specialist due to the presence of asbestos. The resident then informed it on 23 July 2020 that she was dissatisfied with the length of time that she and her four young children had been without heating and hot water since the above leak, and that it had told her that this would not be repaired until the following week.
  2. The landlord recorded that it attended the property again on 23 July 2020, but it could not carry out repairs to the hot water pipe, as it deemed that it could not access this because it needed a joiner to remove the laminate flooring upstairs before the pipework could be repaired.
  3. The landlord then noted that it contacted the resident on 24 July 2020 to arrange for a joiner to attend the property to remove a section of the upstairs laminate flooring for the leak that was inaccessible from underneath. However, its records showed that she “refused [it] access and refused to sign the disclaimer” to allow it to remove the flooring, as this required her to do so to cover any potential damage that would be caused to the flooring. As a result, the landlord arranged for a gas engineer to attend the property on the same day to “ascertain if an alternative access point could be found”, and advised that it then completed repairs to the hot water pipe on 25 July 2020, via the kitchen ceiling, with no further action required apart from repairing the ceiling.
  4. On 27 July 2020, the resident emailed the landlord to express her dissatisfaction with its handling of the water leak, the time that it took to complete the necessary repairs to this, and the fact that her and her children were left without a hot water supply for five days, so that they were unable to wash or bathe frequently during the corona virus pandemic.
  5. The landlord recorded this as a stage one formal complaint, and then issued a written acknowledgement of this to the resident on 29 July 2020. This was then followed by a stage one complaint response from it to her, issued on 3 August 2020, in which it acknowledged and apologised to her for the delays in completing the above repair work and for any inconvenience caused.
  6. On 20 August 2020, the resident wrote to the landlord to request for her complaint to be escalated to the next stage of its complaints procedure. In this letter, she mentioned that the immersion heater at her property was broken at the time that the leak had occurred, and that it did not take any action to repair this. Furthermore, the resident detailed the impact that this situation had on her mental ill-health and on her children from the lack of water to wash them during the corona virus pandemic, for which it had told her to boil a kettle.
  7. The resident also disputed that she had declined or delayed the landlord’s access to the property, and she requested an apology from it and an acknowledgement that her hot water could have been reinstated on the first day, as lifting or removing her upstairs laminate flooring was not necessary at all. She additionally asked it for compensation for the loss of her heating and hot water amenities for four days, and to reflect the level of distress and inconvenience experienced by her and her children, including in light of her mental ill-health. The landlord subsequently issued the resident with an acknowledgement letter for her final stage complaint on 27 August 2020.
  8. The landlord then issued the second and final stage complaint response to the resident on 12 October 2020, in which it advised that its previous offer of compensation of £50, which was previously offered to her separately following a claim made under its discretionary compensation policy, was final and was still valid. It explained that this was because its offer had exceeded the amount that it would usually pay under the right to repair policy for the loss of heating and hot water, which would have been £10 plus £2 per day until fixed i.e. £18 in total, and had been increased by it to £50 as a goodwill gesture.
  9. Additionally, the landlord explained that its decision to access the leaking pipe at the resident’s property through the floor upstairs, rather than via the kitchen ceiling, was made so that it would avoid further damage to the property’s decor. Although it acknowledged that her faulty immersion heater should have been addressed at the time to enable her to have had hot water sooner, and so it advised that it would make arrangements for the immersion heater to be repaired, in case this was not already done.
  10. The resident subsequently complained to this Service that she had been without hot water and heating for four days, and that the landlord had offered her £50 compensation for this. She was dissatisfied that it had taken this length of time to restore the hot water and heating when its specialist who had done so had restored this on the same day of their visit, with its advice to her to heat water from a kettle as a temporary measure not being feasible for her four children. The resident therefore explained that she required a higher level of compensation from the landlord for this, including because she reported that the incident had damaged her mental ill-health.

Assessment and findings

Repairs and maintenance service standards

  1. As part of its repairs and maintenance service standards, the landlord offers a 24/7 emergency repairs service and commits to attend emergency call outs either within 4 or 24 hours, depending on the “urgency of the situation”, including for the total loss of hot water or heating and leaks from water or heating pipes.
  2. In case of emergency repairs the landlord will “make safe to contain the emergency and if possible complete the repair whilst onsite.” In instances where it cannot complete the repair, it will arrange a follow–up appointment within the appropriate priority.

Discretionary compensation policy

  1. The landlord’s discretionary compensation policy states that it would consider making a payment in instances where it “failed to meet [its] own service targets”, and that “compensation is not automatic and won’t apply where the service failure or mistake has not caused any significant impact for the [resident] or where it can be easily remedied.”
  2. The discretionary compensation policy does not apply in instances where repairs were carried out under the right to repair policy or to personal injury claims.

Compliments, comments and complaints procedure

  1. The landlord’s compliments, comments and complaints procedure requires claims for damages for personal injury to be managed by its insurance and risk management team.

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s report of loss of hot water and heating following a water leak at her property

  1. It is noted that the resident has stated that she considers that the issue with the landlord’s handling of the loss of hot water and heating at her property following a water leak has exacerbated her medical conditions. However, it is beyond the authority and expertise of this Service to determine whether there was a link between its handling of the leak and her medical condition, or to award damages for this, in the way that a court or insurer might. This aspect of the resident’s complaint is therefore outside of the scope of this investigation.
  2. The resident reported a water leak that was followed by her loss of hot water and heating on 20 July 2020, for which the landlord attended on the same day. However, it could not complete the repair at the time due to a lack of access to the leaking pipe. This partially adhered to the landlord repairs and maintenance service standards, detailed above at paragraph 13, because it attended the property within 24 hours, but it failed to complete the remedial works within that timescale.
  3. The landlord then attended the property again on 23 July 2020, but it did not complete the repairs to the leak, hot water and heating for the same reason as above. It was unreasonable and ineffective of it to have re-attended the property without personnel that could facilitate access to the leaking pipe, especially considering that it had already identified that the leak was located within the kitchen ceiling, and that it was made aware of the presence of asbestos there on 20 July 2020.
  4. In order to avoid further damage to the property’s ceiling, the landlord contacted the resident on 24 July 2020 to arrange for a joiner to attend her property to remove the upstairs laminate flooring to allow access to the leaking pipe. In this instance, it acted in a reasonable manner because it tried to carry out the necessary remedial works without further considerable damage, and it was permitted to propose this alternative to enable it to do so. The landlord was therefore not responsible for the delay to the leak, hot water and heating repairs on 24 July 2020 because its records showed that the works did not go ahead on that date due to the resident’s disagreement with the proposed alternative, although she disputed that she had declined or delayed its access for this.
  5. The landlord confirmed that it completed the repair works and reinstated the resident’s heating and hot water supply on 25 July 2020. In a letter issued on 12 October 2020, alongside its final stage complaint response, it confirmed its offer of compensation of £50, offered under the right to repair and as a goodwill gesture, for the loss of this amenity.
  6. Considering that the resident was left without a reliable hot water source over the period of four days, the amount offered was reasonable and compliant with the landlord’s discretionary compensation policy, detailed at paragraphs 15 and 16 above. This is because it confirmed to her in the above correspondence that it had awarded her compensation for the loss of this in line with the right to repair policy for the loss of heating and hot water, i.e. £10 plus £2 per day until fixed giving a total of £18. The landlord also increased this to £50 as a goodwill gesture, recognising the distress and inconvenience that would have been experienced by the resident’s household as a result of this, which was appropriate.
  7. In this instance, it would additionally have been beneficial for the landlord to have provided an alternative hot water source, to ensure that the inconvenience experienced by the resident is minimised. This is particularly as she subsequently explained that her immersion heater had been broken at the time and that it had taken no action to repair this. However, taking into account the amount of visits carried out by the landlord to the property above to try to complete the remedial works to the leak, hot water and heating, the compensation offer above was reasonable.
  8. This is also because the landlord later agreed to put right the resident’s outstanding immersion heater repair on 12 October 2020 by arranging for this to be completed, as well as due to her seeking a higher level of compensation from it for the incident damaging her mental health. Under its discretionary compensation policy above at paragraph 16, compensation from it did not apply to such personal injury claims, and its compliments, comments and complaints procedure above at paragraph 17, instead required a claim from her for damages for this to instead be managed by its insurance and risk management team.
  9. The landlord has therefore been recommended below to re-offer the resident the £50 compensation that it previously awarded her, if she has not received this already, as well as to provide her with details to enable her to submit a damages claim for her mental ill-health to its insurance and risk management team.
  10. To conclude, this Service appreciates the inconvenience and distress experienced by the resident’s household. However, the landlord attended the property within the repairs and maintenance standards’ timeframe of 24 hours, there was the need for a specialist to remove the asbestos from the kitchen ceiling to complete the repair, and there was a dispute over the resident signing a disclaimer for any potential damage to laminate flooring, which would have allowed it to access the faulty pipe sooner. This, along with the number of visits made by it to the property between 20 and 25 July 2020, meant that it offered her reasonable redress for the leak, hot water and heating repair delay by completing the remedial works, and offering compensation of £50.

Determination (decision)

  1. In accordance with paragraph 55(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord has offered redress to the resident prior to investigation which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, resolves the complaint concerning its handling of her report of the loss of hot water and heating following a water leak at her property satisfactorily.
  2. This decision is dependent upon the below recommendations being followed by the landlord.

Reasons

  1. The landlord acknowledged its repair delay, made reasonable efforts to ensure that the repair was carried out in a timely manner, and then offered the resident suitable compensation for its delay in doing so that was in line with its policies.

Recommendations

  1. It is recommended that the landlord:
    1. Re-offer the resident the £50 compensation that it previously awarded to her, if she has not received this already.
    2. Provide the resident with details to enable her to submit a damages claim for her mental ill-health to its insurance and risk management team.
  2. The landlord should contact this Service within four weeks to confirm whether it will follow the above recommendations.
  3. The Ombudsman accepts that, because of the present restrictions due to the corona virus pandemic, the timing of the above actions will depend on what is reasonable in the light of Government guidance regarding the health of the resident and of the landlord’s staff.