One Housing Group (202219246)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202219246

One Housing Group

3 May 2023

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:
   1. The landlord’s handling of leaks at the resident’s property.
   2. The landlord’s handling of the associated complaint.

Background

2. The resident is a tenant of the landlord and occupies a flat within a block of flats (the property).
3. The resident experienced a leak into his property from his neighbour on 28 March 2022. He raised a stage one complaint with the landlord the next day about the its response to his report. He said that since reporting the leak, it had attended but said it would return in the morning, but he had not been able to get a response to his enquiries about when it would arrive. The resident said that in the meantime, the leak had continued to damage his possessions, in particular his carpet. He highlighted that this was the third leak he had experienced and contended that the landlord had failed to fix the leaks properly.
4. The landlord attended the neighbour’s property on 31 March 2022 to halt the leak. It issued a stage one complaint response to him on 8 April 2022 which upheld his complaint. The landlord explained the actions it had taken to remedy the recently reported leak and offered £50 compensation for the resident’s “right to repair” and a goodwill gesture of £50 towards the cleaning of his carpets. The resident responded later that day to question elements of the stage one response and sought assurances that the leak was definitely resolved, highlighting that he had experienced similar leaks previously.
5. The resident escalated his complaint with the landlord to the final stage of its internal process on 13 May 2022 after another leak from the neighbouring property into his, two days previously. He said that he had experienced difficulty in arranging for the landlord to investigate the cause of the leak from the neighbour. He felt the landlord had not fixed the previous leak properly and was unhappy with its communication since its stage one response.
6. The landlord issued its final response to the resident on 15 June 2022 in which it detailed the work it had undertaken to fix the two recent leaks and repeated its earlier offer of compensation. It noted that it had since carried out a professional clean of the resident’s carpet, but re-offered its previous total offer of £100 compensation.
7. The resident informed the Ombudsman on 23 November 2022 that he remained dissatisfied because he had since experienced a further leak, which was the third in a year. He said he had experienced distress and inconvenience in dealing with the repairs, damage to his possessions, and asserted that the landlord had failed to complete repairs properly, which resulted in the recurrent leaks.

Assessment and findings

The landlord’s handling of leaks at the resident’s property

8. The landlord’s tenancy agreement with the resident confirms that it is responsible for the repair and maintenance of the structure of the property, and the installations within for the provision of water and sanitation. Where a leak originates from an adjoining property, a landlord would be expected to intervene to address the leak, whether the other resident is its tenant or otherwise.
9. The landlord’s repairs and maintenance policy confirms that it is the landlord’s responsibility to repair water leaks in the property, while it is the resident’s responsibility to contain leaks which can be contained and prevent water damage. This policy confirms that the landlord will attend emergency repairs – those which pose an immediate danger to people – within four hours and make safe the repair within 24 hours. The policy also confirms that non-emergency routine repairs will be attended to within 28 days.
10. While undoubtedly unpleasant and distressing for the resident, there was no evidence that the first leak that affected his property posed an immediate risk to himself or others, therefore, in accordance with the policy above, there was no requirement for the landlord to treat this as an emergency repair. There was no report of this leak penetrating into any electrical installations or that it was uncontainable.
11. The landlord, therefore, responded reasonably to his report of a leak on 28 March 2022 by attending his property within 24 hours, gaining access to his neighbour’s property two days later, and prevented further leaks by requesting his neighbour not to use their shower until it completed works to seal around the bath, which was found to be cause of the leak. While these works were not completed until 22 April 2022, the landlord made reasonable efforts to halt the leak by giving instructions to the neighbour. The leak would have only occurred while the neighbour showered within two days of the resident’s report of the leak.
12. In response to the resident’s report of a leak on 11 May 2022, the landlord resolved the leak by 19 May 2022. This should have been made safe within 24 hours as an emergency repair as this leak was water from a back-surging waste pipe. As this was a potential health hazard, there was a failure by the landlord to remedy this leak in a timely manner.
13. While the landlord did not complete the repair to the second leak in a timely manner, it made reasonable efforts to put things right for the resident by carrying a professional clean of his carpet. It also upheld its previous offer of £100 compensation to him. Given that the delay in resolving the second leak was relatively short, the professional carpet clean, in conjunction with the £100 compensation, represented a reasonable offer of redress to the resident which proportionately recognised the distress and inconvenience caused to him by the delay.
14. The landlord’s offer of redress was in accordance with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance, available to view online, which provides for awards of £100 to £600 compensation where there has been a failure by the landlord which caused detriment to the resident which was not permanent.
15. The Ombudsman understands that the resident experienced another leak after the conclusion of the complaint and felt that this indicated that the landlord had failed to resolve the leaks fully the first time around. While the effects of leaks may be similar, this alone is not evidence that the leaks were improperly addressed. The landlord’s repairs log shows that the leak the resident experienced in March 2022 was the result of water not being properly contained in the neighbour’s bath, due to defective sealing. The repairs log showed that the second leak in May 2022 was the result of a shared waste pipe becoming blocked and back-surging into multiple properties. There was no evidence that these leaks were connected and therefore, it cannot be determined that the landlord failed to remedy the leaks properly at the time.

The landlord’s handling of the associated complaint

16. The landlord’s stage one complaint response incorrectly identified the source of the leak as an upstairs neighbour instead of an adjoining neighbour’s property. Given that it was not disputed that the landlord attended the correct property to address the source of the leak, this error had no bearing on the overall outcome of the complaint. It was reasonable for the landlord to note this, in its final response to the complaint, and apologise for the error.
17. The resident highlighted, in his complaint escalation request on 13 May 2022, that the landlord should not have closed his stage one complaint while he was still communicating with it about the matter. It replied later that day to advise that this was “more of an administrative task” as it had set out actions in its stage one response which it would continue to follow up. This was reasonable as, once a landlord has provided its formal response at stage one of its complaints procedure, it is reasonable for it to close the complaint at that stage and proceed with any proposed resolutions it offered in its response. The landlord would be expected to reopen the complaint and respond at stage two of its process once the resident asked to escalate his complaint.
18. However, prior to the resident’s escalation request, he contacted the landlord on 8 and 19 April 2022 to dispute points made in the landlord’s stage one response. It responded to him on 20 April 2022 to say that it was collating the information and would respond to him in due course; there was no evidence that it did so. When a resident expresses dissatisfaction with, or disputes, a landlord’s stage one complaint response, they should be provided with the opportunity for these issues to be escalated to the next stage of its complaints procedure. Therefore, there was a failure by the landlord to respond to the resident’s concerns at the time and to escalate his complaint when it was aware that he remained dissatisfied with its response.
19. Paragraph 5.4 of the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code), which all member landlords are required to comply with, states that a landlord should consider older reports of an issue as part of the background of the complaint, when the issue is recurrent. Paragraph 5.6 of the Code states that landlords must address all points raised in the complaint.
20. The resident’s stage one and final stage complaints both relayed that he had experienced difficulty in arranging for the landlord to attend the leaks from his neighbour. Neither of its complaint responses addressed this. It was unreasonable that it did not consider the communication difficulties described by the resident as these were likely to have led to frustration for him. Furthermore, the resident’s stage one complaint mentioned that he had experienced previous leaks; this was also not addressed in the landlord’s complaint responses.
21. It was therefore a failure of the landlord’s complaint handling that it did not address the resident’s report of recurrent leaks, and that it did not address the difficulties he said he had in arranging repairs for his leaks. Had the landlord addressed these issues, it may have aided in clarifying the situation for the resident and provided him with some reassurance that there was not an underlying problem with the landlord’s handling of leaks at the property. Compensation of £100 should be paid to the resident for this failure which was likely to have prolonged his distress and inconvenience while pursuing the complaint.

Determination

22. In accordance with paragraph 53(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord made an offer of redress to the resident which, in the opinion of the Ombudsman, resolves the complaint satisfactorily concerning its handling of leaks at the resident’s property.
23. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in its handling of the associated complaint.

Orders

24. Within four weeks, the landlord should:
    1. Pay the resident £100 compensation for its failures in the handling of his complaint.
    2. Write to the resident to clarify the circumstances of the leaks he experienced and clarify any connection between them.
25. The landlord should provide evidence to the Ombudsman, within four weeks, to confirm that it has complied with the above orders.

Recommendations

26. The landlord should:
    1. Pay the resident the £100 compensation it offered him in its final response, if it has not done so already.
    2. Review its complaint handling procedures to assess what steps it will take to ensure that all issues raised by a resident in a complaint are addressed appropriately.