One Housing Group Limited (202324626)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202324626

One Housing Group Limited

30 September 2024


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 the landlord’s handling of:
    1. repairs to the lifts.
    2. the resident’s report of a missed survey appointment for a new boiler.
  2. The Ombudsman has also investigated the landlord’s handling of the associated complaint.

Background

  1. The resident is the leaseholder under a shared ownership lease of a 2-bedroom flat. She lives in the property with her child. The flat is located within a 9-storey block of flats, the landlord is the freeholder for the block. The landlord does not hold a record of any vulnerabilities for the resident or her child.
  2. The resident originally complained to the landlord on 11 September 2023. In her complaint she told the landlord:
    1. both lifts in the building were out of service.
    2. though the landlord had previously assured her the emergency buzzers in the lift were working she had been trapped in the lift for 20 minutes on 8 September 2023 and the emergency buzzer did not work
    3. the landlord previously sent someone to carry out a survey to replace her boiler. A follow-up appointment had been arranged for 9 September 2023 but no-one attended.
  3. The landlord responded on 20 September 2023. It initially told the resident it would not log this as a new complaint as it had provided a final response to her in June 2023 regarding a previous formal complaint she made about lift outages. On 19 October 2023, following further correspondence with the resident, the landlord recorded it understood the resident’s complaint regarding the lift and emergency buzzer (emergency autodialler) was that the issue had reoccurred after the landlord told her it had fixed this. The landlord decided to respond further to this rather than decline the complaint.
  4. The landlord issued its stage 1 response on 3 November 2023, though it reissued an amended version on 9 November 2023 after the resident complained the landlord had not included the lift issue in the response. The landlord’s amended response said:
    1. it understood the resident was trapped in the lift with her child, and the emergency autodialler was not working. The resident was trapped for around 20 minutes until a neighbour helped her out.
    2. in the event of entrapment, the emergency autodialler should dial out to its contractor which should attend within 45 minutes in line with its service level agreement. The landlord acknowledged the entrapment caused the resident distress as the emergency autodialler was not working and her young child was with her. It apologised for this.
    3. following the resident’s email on 11 September 2023 it raised a repair to fix the emergency autodialler. It said it fitted a new SIM card for the emergency autodialler on 19 September 2023 and confirmed this was working. The landlord acknowledged the resident said the emergency autodialler was not working again and it had requested a full test of this.
    4. it had included the resident’s address in error on its planned program for replacing boilers. It accepted its contractor should not have told the resident it would be returning on 9 September 2023.
    5. as a remedy the landlord offered the resident £250 in compensation, consisting of:
      1. £150 for how it handled the resident’s complaint about the lift entrapment
      2. £100 for the inconvenience from its contractor incorrectly advising it would attend on 9 September 2023.
  5. The resident escalated her complaint on 12 November 2023 as she said the landlord had not addressed if it had fixed the emergency autodialler and she did not consider the compensation offer was sufficient.
  6. The landlord issued its stage 2 response on 12 December 2023. In this it stated:
    1. It had raised a repair for both lifts in the building. Its contractor had confirmed to it that though 1 lift was inoperative the other was functioning.
    2. The emergency autodialler in the working lift was fixed and it was awaiting parts to bring the other lift into service
    3. The landlord declined to offer additional compensation as it considered it had taken appropriate action to bring both lifts back into service and it was in the process of improving the service standards for lift repairs.
  7. The landlord issued a follow-up response to the resident on 29 January 2024. In this it said:
    1. as the resident was a shared owner of the property, she was responsible for any repairs or improvements to the boiler in her flat. It apologised if it did not make this clear to her.
    2. It would revisit the building on 29 January 2024 regarding the lift that was still out of service.
  8. The resident made further complaints to the landlord on 27 February 2024, 1 May 2024 and 3 July 2024 about the lifts being out of service and the emergency autodiallers not working. The landlord told the resident it would not respond further to these and considered she had exhausted its complaints process. The resident has asked this service to investigate these as she considers the landlord had not addressed the ongoing problem with repairs to the lift.   

Assessment and findings

Scope

  1. The resident told this service that in April 2024 she experienced a fall on the stairs due to both lifts in the building being out of service and the landlord leaving a trip hazard on the stairs. She says she injured herself from the fall and considered that the landlord’s delay in repairing the lift made it responsible. Often, when there is a dispute over whether someone has been injured or a health condition has been made worse, the courts rely on expert evidence in the form of independent medical reports. This will give an expert opinion of the cause of any injury or deterioration of a condition. This will be a more appropriate and effective means of considering such an allegation as the courts can test the evidence and have the benefit of an independent medical professional witness. If the resident wishes to pursue the impact on her health further, she should seek independent legal advice. The Ombudsman will still consider distress and inconvenience caused from the landlord’s actions.

The landlord’s record keeping

  1. The Ombudsman expects landlords to maintain a robust record of contacts, repairs, and services provided. This is because clear, accurate, and easily accessible records provide an audit trail and enhance landlords’ ability to identify and respond to problems when they arise.
  2. It is the Ombudsman’s opinion that the landlord has failed to maintain adequate records, which has impacted this service’s ability to carry out a thorough investigation, as highlighted at various points throughout this report. This was a failure by the landlord and contributed to the other failures identified in this report.

The landlord’s handling of repairs to the lifts in 2023

  1. Under the terms of the lease the landlord is required to maintain, repair, renew and (in the landlord’s reasonable opinion) improve service media, machinery and plant within all parts of the building which are not the responsibility of the leaseholder under the lease (or any other leaseholder under a similar lease).
  2. The landlord’s responsive repair policy categorises repairs into the following priorities:
    1. emergency repairs, respond within 4 hours and make safe within 12 hours. Where follow-up work is required it will complete this within the appropriate priority. Appendix 1 of the policy specifies that the landlord will consider a faulty lift or anything that may present an immediate health and safety risk as an emergency repair.
    2. urgent repairs, within 5 calendar days
    3. routine repairs, within 28 working days.
  3. There are 2 lifts in the communal areas of the building where the resident lives. The landlord is responsible for upkeep and maintenance of these lifts. In line with the landlord’s records we will refer to these lifts as as lift 1 and lift 2 for the rest of this report.
  4. Prior to the events complained about, the landlord completed lift maintenance as follows:
    1. It inspected lift 1 on 27 January 2023. It recorded the emergency autodialler failed to connect to the service provider and needed reinstatement. It stated another thorough examination of the lift must take place by 27 July 2023.
    2. It inspected lift 2 on 15 June 2023. This recorded the lift’s doors sill guides were worn and needed replacement. It stated another thorough examination of the lift must take place by 15 December 2023.
  5. Due to a lack of adequate records, there is no evidence to confirm whether the landlord complied with the recommendations from these reports or whether it reinstated the emergency autodialler. There is also no evidence that a further lift maintenance report was completed for lift 1 between 27 January 2023 and 27 July 2023. This was a failure by the landlord as there is no evidence it repaired the emergency autodialler in the 8 months before the events complained about happened.
  6. As set out, the resident reported being stuck in the lift on 8 September 2023. The available records indicate the landlord knew the lifts were defective and had not taken action to repair them. On 11 September 2023, following the resident’s email, the landlord raised a repair order to bring lift 1 back into service. The landlord recorded it brought the lift back into service on 13 September 2023 and requested a new SIM card for the emergency autodialler. There is no evidence of when this was completed. However, the landlord told the resident it fixed the emergency autodialler on 19 September 2023 and tested that this was working. This was not appropriate as it was not in line with the timescales for emergency repairs from the landlord’s policy.
  7. On 24 October 2023 the landlord also recorded that lift 2 was stuck and there was an issue with the lift’s doors. Due to a lack of adequate records, there was no record of whether the landlord addressed the issue with the doors of lift 2 that it identified on 15 June 2023 or if it carried out the recommended replacement of parts. This was a failure by the landlord.
  8. The resident told the landlord on 26 October 2023 that its acknowledgement of her complaint did not mention the issue with the emergency autodialler and that this was still not working.
  9. Though the landlord responded on 3 November 2023 and told the resident it would reissue the stage 1 response, it did not reply to the resident’s report that the emergency autodialler was not working until 9 November 2023. On 9 November 2023, it requested a full test of the emergency autodialler to confirm this was working and connecting to a call handler. The landlord completed this on the same day, 14 days after the resident reported the issue. This was not appropriate as the landlord’s actions were not consistent with its timescales for emergency repairs.
  10. The resident also complained on 3 November 2023 that the landlord had not fixed lift 2. In its stage 2 response of 12 December 2023 the landlord stated that it was awaiting parts to fix it and considered it was taking appropriate action to bring it back into service.
  11. From the landlord’s records it requested additional parts for lift 2 on 9 November 2023. Further parts were also requested on 24 November 2023, no information was given about why the landlord did not request these on 9 November 2023 or if it reprioritised the repair as a result of this delay. Though we recognise delays in repairs may be unavoidable if specialist parts are required, in the Ombudsman’s opinion the time taken for the landlord to repair lift 2 was not reasonable. The lift remained out of service 49 days after the breakdown and due to a lack of adequate records it is not known when the landlord resolved this. This was significantly outside of the timescales for routine follow-up repairs from the landlord’s repairs policy.

Repairs to the lifts in 2024

  1. As set out previously the resident made further complaints about the landlord’s handling of repairs in 2024. In summary she told the landlord:
    1. On 27 February 2024 she was trapped in lift 2 for 30 minutes and the emergency autodialler did not work
    2. On 1 May 2024 that both lifts were out of service and there had been repeated problems with these breaking down
    3. On 3 July 2024 that both lifts were out of service again and she reiterated there had been repeated problems with these breaking down
  2. The landlord declined to log these as formal complaints and told her the complaints process was exhausted. In the absence of a formal response from the landlord we have considered the landlord’s repair logs in investigating the resident’s complaints about its handling of repairs to the lifts in 2024.

Lift 1 repairs in 2024

  1. For lift 1 the landlord recorded:
    1. residents had reported both lifts as out of service on 27 February 2024:
      1. the landlord attended lift 1 on 4 March 2024 and found the contactors in the drive unit were jammed. The landlord recorded these were ‘freed’ but no further explanation has been given.
      2. It reset and tested the lift. The landlord found no faults so it left the lift in service. It recorded the emergency autodialler was working when it had completed the repairs.
      3. the landlord did not handle this repair appropriately as its actions were not consistent with its policy for emergency repairs.
    2. residents reported lift 1 as out of service again on 25 March 2024:
      1. the landlord attended on the same day. It found a potential fault with the contactors in the drive unit and recommended a further visit to investigate this. The landlord left the lift out of service pending further investigation.
      2. it attended again on 27 March 2024 and found the issues with the contactors were still present. It recorded a potential issue with the drive unit and recommended a further technical investigation. The landlord left the lift out of service pending further investigation.
      3. it attended again on 28 March 2024 and carried out tests (not specified in the repair log). It recorded it was unable to speak to the specialist about repairing the contactors. It recommended the contactor board in the main panel was changed. It left the lift out of service.
      4. it attended again on 18 April 2024 and fitted a new main panel. On testing the lift an additional fault was found with the drive unit in the elevator shaft. It contacted a specialist who advised they would replace the drive unit. It left the lift out of service. The landlord also recorded it checked the emergency autodialler and found it was not working.
  2. Due to a lack of adequate records it is not known what repairs it completed to resolve the repair issue from 18 April 2024, what action was taken to repair the emergency autodialler and when lift 1 was put back into service. As a minimum however the repair took 25 days.
  3. The landlord did not handle this repair appropriately. Though we recognise there was an unavoidable delay from requiring additional parts, there were multiple attendances that did not identify the extent of the repairs and additional parts required which prolonged this. In addition, we note the cause of the breakdown was similar to that which occurred on 27 February 2023 which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, could show that the repair carried out was not effective or long-lasting. 
  4. The landlord recorded that lift 1 was out of service again on 1 May 2024. The evidence shows that:
    1. The landlord attended on 2 May 2024 and found the lift had overtravelled the top floor. The lift was reset and tested, no faults were found and the lift was left in service. It checked the emergency autodialler when the repair was concluded and record it was working.
    2. On 6 May 2024 a resident reported a further lift breakdown, the landlord attended on the same day. It found the lift had broken down after overrunning the top floor again. It was switched off pending further work
    3. The landlord attended again on 7 May 2024 and reset the lift. It recorded that it identified no faults after running the lift for an hour and the lift was level with the floors. It put the lift back into service, it also recorded the emergency autodialler was working.
  5. The landlord did not handle this repair appropriately. The landlord responded to both reports in line with its timescales for emergency repairs. However, in the Ombudsman’s opinion as the lift outage happened twice within a week as a result of the same issue this shows it is likely that the first repair was not effective or long-lasting.
  6. A resident reported the lift was not working again on 13 May 2024 (the landlord’s records state this report happened within normal working hours). The landlord attended on 14 May 2024. It found the lift had been switched off in the pit area and at the controller. It reset and tested the lift and found no faults. It put the lift back into service, it checked the emergency autodialler when the repair was concluded and recorded this was working. The landlord did not handle this repair appropriately as it did not respond in line with its timescales for emergency repairs.
  7. A resident reported the lift was not working again on 21 May 2024. Due to a lack of adequate records there is no evidence about how the landlord responded to this repair request and when the lift was put back in service. This was a failure by the landlord.
  8. Residents of the block reported both lifts were out of service on 26 June 2024. The landlord contacted residents on 28 June 2024 and told them it had attended on 26 June 2024 and found an issue with the power supply to the lift. It stated that as it could not locate the exact cause it had isolated the lift on the advice of the fire brigade and would arrange a joint inspection to prevent any safety hazards.
  9. The landlord’s internal emails stated that as of 12 July 2024 it had left the lift in service (as lift 2 was not working) but it had disconnected the lift from the top floor whilst it sourced additional parts. Due to a lack of adequate records we have not seen a copy of the joint inspection referred to previously so it is not clear what this found, what repairs were carried out and when the lift was put back into service. This was a failure by the landlord.
  10. In the landlord’s stock condition assessment of 15 July 2024 it reported lift 1’s emergency autodialler was not working and logged an urgent repair request. Due to a lack of adequate records we have not seen what action the landlord took in response to this. This was a failure by the landlord.

Lift 2 repairs 2024

  1. Residents of the block reported both lifts were out of service on 27 February 2024.On 1 March 2024 the landlord attended and recorded that as both lifts remained out of service it would try to repair lift 2. It corrected a fault to adjust the level of the floor and recorded the lift required new safety edges. It left the lift out of service until it could replace these.
  2. Later that day (1 March 2024) a different engineer from the landlord attended. The landlord’s records do not detail why it requested this second attendance. The landlord recorded it found the lift was switched off at the car top. It reset and tested the lift and found no faults. It left the lift in service, checked the emergency autodialler when the repair was concluded and recorded this was working.
  3. The landlord’s handling of this repair was not appropriate as it was not consistent with its timescales for emergency repairs. Furthermore, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, the landlord’s decision to send 2 engineers on 1 March 2024 indicated a lack of a joined-up approach to resolve the repair. It was not clear if putting the lift back into service was reasonable considering the defect identified by the first engineer.
  4. A resident reported the lift was not working again on 10 April 2024 and the landlord attended on the same day. It found that the lift was working on arrival. It left the lift in service however it recorded that the emergency autodialler was not working. There is no evidence the landlord raised a repair request to resolve this, in the Ombudsman’s opinion this was inappropriate.
  5. A resident reported the lift was not working again on 15 April 2024. The landlord attended on the same day, it recorded that the lift was working on arrival and no faults were found.
  6. The landlord returned on 16 April 2024 in response to a follow-up call that the lift was not working. It found the fault was caused by the lift’s safety edges and new ones were required. It left the lift out of service, no further actions were specified on the repair log.
  7. Due to a lack of adequate records we have not seen what further action the landlord took in response to this repair request or when the lift was put back into service. This was a failure by the landlord. The landlord’s handling of this repair was not appropriate. The landlord identified the defect with the lift’s safety edges on 1 March 2024 but did not address this, which caused this later breakdown. In the Ombudsman’s opinion the fact that this defect was not noticed in the 3 attendances between 1 March 2024 and 16 April 2024 also shows the landlord did not adequately investigate the cause of the breakdowns.
  8. Residents reported both lifts were out of service on 26 June 2024. There are no records of the landlord response to this repair request. From its internal emails on 12 July 2024, it stated that lift 2 remained out of service due to requiring new car gates. Due a lack of adequate records we have not seen what action the landlord took to repair this, when it requested the additional parts and when it put the lift back into service. This was a failure by the landlord.
  9. In the landlord’s stock condition assessment of 15 July 2024 it reported lift 2’s emergency autodialler was not working and requested an urgent repair request. Due to a lack of adequate records we have not seen what action the landlord took in response to this. This is a failure by the landlord.

Conclusions on the handling of the repairs to the lifts

  1. In summary the Ombudsman’s view is that there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of repairs to the lifts following the resident’s complaint on 11 September 2023 in that it:
    1. did not keep adequate records of the repairs
    2. did not attend reports of lift breakdowns and the emergency autodiallers not working in line with the timescales of its responsive repair policy on multiple occasions
    3. did not carry out effective or long-lasting repairs to prevent further lift breakdowns and keep the emergency autodiallers in working order
    4. did not act on the recommendations from its lift maintenance reports in a timely manner
    5. has not evidenced that it has completed the action plan it told the resident it would carry out in June 2023.
  2. In terms of the impact on the resident she told this service that she was trapped in the lifts on 3 occasions and the emergency autodialler did not work. For the 2 occasions she complained to the landlord about (8 September 2023 and 27 February 2024) a neighbour freed the resident from the lift within 45 minutes, which would be consistent with the landlord’s service level agreement for responding to a report of an entrapment. Notwithstanding this, we recognise that the resident would reasonably have been caused distress about the possibility of being trapped within the lift for a longer period because of not being able to call for help using the emergency autodialler. Though we acknowledge the landlord’s statement that it cannot guarantee lift breakdowns will not occur, in the Ombudsman’s opinion the number of breakdowns and the time taken to respond to these would also have caused undue inconvenience to the resident.

The landlord’s handling of reports of a missed survey appointment for the boiler

  1. As set out previously the landlord told the resident that it included her address on its planned work for improving its tenants’ boilers in error. There are no available records to show how this happened or what the landlord’s contractor told the resident when it attended the property. Notwithstanding this, the landlord did not dispute the resident’s account that its contractor arranged an appointment to visit the property again on 9 September 2023.  
  2. The resident is a shared owner and, under the terms of the lease, the landlord is not responsible for carrying out improvements to the boiler in her property. In the Ombudsman’s opinion the information the landlord’s contractor gave her was inappropriate as the resident was not part of the planned improvement scheme and she was responsible for arranging improvements to the boiler herself if she wanted this.
  3. As the landlord was not responsible for improving the boiler in the resident’s property we have only considered the inconvenience caused to the resident from the contractor misadvising her it would carry out a survey on 9 September 2023. The landlord offered the resident £100 as compensation for inconvenience. It told her that, in line with its compensation policy, it would not reimburse for loss of earnings from waiting for the appointment as she had requested.
  4. In the Ombudsman’s opinion the landlord’s offer of compensation was fair. Ultimately, there is no evidence of lasting impact and the outcome is likely to be one of disappointment only.
  5. There is no evidence of any loss of income presented by the resident and therefore, there is no basis for the Ombudsman to award this. Even if there were such evidence, the lease places an obligation on the leaseholder to make the property available for access. In line with our guidance on remedies the Ombudsman would also not typically recommend compensation for loss of wages or time off work, and we would only consider this where a landlord had repeatedly missed appointments or failed to resolve a repair. As such the landlord’s offer of compensation would be similar to an award that would have been made by this service.  

The landlord’s complaint handling

  1. The landlord operates a 2 stage complaints process. Its complaints policy says that it will respond to a stage 1 response within 10 working days of it logging the complaint. It will respond at stage 2 within 20 working days of the resident escalating the complaint.
  2. The landlord’s complaint policy states that when it receives a complaint it will acknowledge this to understand the issues the customer raised, and outcome sought. If it decides not to accept a complaint it will provide the customer with a detailed explanation and set out the reasons why. The policy specifies that a reason why it may not accept a complaint is if it involves a matter fully considered through its complaints process.
  3. In the resident’s complaint of 11 September 2023 she specified that she had been trapped in the lift again on ‘Friday evening’ (8 September 2023). The landlord responded to this on 20 September 2023 and said in line with its policy it would not log a new complaint about the lift entrapment as it was a duplicate of a complaint it responded to in June 2023. This was inappropriate as the landlord did not acknowledge the complaint in line with the timescales of its policy or discuss the issues the resident had raised before it decided it would not respond. It is also not clear how the landlord could have responded to a complaint in June 2023 about an event that happened 3 months later in September 2023.
  4. Following this the landlord contacted the resident to define her complaint regarding the boiler on 13 October 2023. As part of this the landlord recorded the resident said she had been stuck in the lift recently and the landlord had not fixed the emergency autodialler. On 19 October 2023 the landlord decided that though it had originally told the resident it would not log the complaint about the lift it considered it should respond further as the issue had reoccurred since her previous complaint. The landlord ought to have reasonably been aware when the complaint was raised it was about new instances since June 2023. Whilst it later made the right decision, this was an unreasonable delay.
  5. The landlord issued its full stage 1 response on 9 November 2023, 43 working days after the complaint was raised. This was inappropriate as it was not in line with the timescales in its complaint policy.
  6. The resident escalated her complaint on 12 November 2023. The landlord issued its stage 2 response on 12 December 2023, 21 working days later. This was outside of the timescales in the landlord’s policy. However, in the Ombudsman’s opinion the impact on the resident would have been low due to the short duration of the delay.
  7. The resident complained on 27 February 2024 that she had been trapped in the lift and the emergency autodialler was not working. The landlord’s internal emails on 1 March 2024 stated that the resident had exhausted the complaints process. It recommended that it should contact the resident to discuss the new issue she had raised and visit the building due to the amount of reports she had made about the lifts.
  8. From the available records there was no evidence the landlord contacted the resident as it had suggested and the landlord did not respond further to this complaint. This was wholly inappropriate as the landlord did not contact the resident to acknowledge or try to understand her complaint before it decided it would not respond, as it should have done in line with its policy. In the Ombudsman’s opinion as the resident had raised a new incident of a lift entrapment it would have been consistent with the approach it took on 19 October 2023 if the landlord had opened a new complaint to address this. This was also consistent with its earlier decision-making in 2023 (as set out).
  9. The resident complained again about ongoing lift breakdowns on 1 May 2024 and said she wanted to make a new formal complaint. The landlord replied on the same day stating that it considered the resident had exhausted its complaints procedure and referred her back to its action plan from June 2023 as its response to her concerns. It told the resident it would not log a new complaint. In the Ombudsman’s opinion this was an unreasonable response. It was nearly a year since it had provided the resident with its action plan and the resident had ongoing concerns about how it was dealing with repairs to the lifts, it should have investigated these new concerns further.
  10. The resident contacted the landlord’s complaints team again on 3 July 2024. The landlord told her it would assist with new complaints but was unsure of the nature of the resident’s complaint. The resident said in response that there were ongoing problems with the lifts and she wanted details of the landlord’s service level agreement. From the available records the landlord did not reply further to the resident. This was inappropriate as, in line with its policy, the landlord should have provided the reasons why it was not going to accept this as a new complaint if it had decided it would not respond.
  11. In summary it is the Ombudsman’s opinion that the was maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling in that it:
    1. initially said it would not accept the resident’s complaint without discussing this with the resident beforehand
    2. did not respond to at either stage of the resident complaint in line with the timescales of its policy
    3. unreasonably refused to respond to the resident’s further complaints from 27 February 2024, 1 May 2024 and 3 July 2024.
  12. The Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles require landlords to: be fair, put things right and learn from outcomes. In this case, the resident (and other residents) had made reports about the lifts being out of service. The resident had sought to raise new complaints and the landlord ought to have listened to understand if they were wholly new complaints (about new instances of the lifts breaking down) or the same issues and incidents previously responded to. The landlord displayed a reluctance to consider the complaints and therefore learn from outcomes. This was not appropriate.
  13. In terms of remedy the landlord offered the resident £150 for its handling of her complaint about the lift entrapment that she made on 11 September 2023. In the Ombudsman’s opinion this was not a reasonable remedy to put things right for the resident considering the other complaint handling failures which the landlord has not acknowledged.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of repairs to the lifts.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 53.b. of the Scheme, there was reasonable redress by the landlord in its handling of the resident’s report of a missed survey appointment for a new boiler.
  3. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

  1. The landlord must within 28 days of this determination:
    1. issue the resident with a written apology. The landlord must recognise its failings identified in this report and the impact these had on the resident.
    2. pay the resident £850 (inclusive of the £150 it previously offered for its complaint handling) consisting of:
      1. £650 for the distress the resident experienced from the landlord’s handling of the repairs – this includes how it responded to her reports that she had been trapped in the lift on 2 occasions without a functioning emergency autodialler and for the inconvenience from the lift outages. This is likely to have caused some significant distress and inconvenience. The Ombudsman’s guidance on remedies sets out an award of £600 for maladministration where the landlord had made some attempts to put things right but failed to address the impact.
      2. £200 in recognition of the time and trouble of pursuing a complaint and the frustration caused by the failures in the landlord’s complaint handling.
    3. instruct an independent lift expert to complete full surveys of both lists. This is to identify any longer-term issues with the lifts and to understand any reasons why there may be persistent breakdowns. If the landlord cannot arrange this inspection within 28 days, it must set out to the resident (within 28 days of the date of this determination) when it will complete this. It must then use its best endeavours to ensure it completes the inspections within that deadline.
      1. upon receipt of the survey, the landlord must consider any recommended works or renewal and decide on a proposed approach to the lifts – taking into account its obligations to all leaseholders and value for money. It must complete this within 10 working days of the date of the survey. Copies of the survey and its decisions must be provided to the resident and the Ombudsman within 10 working days of receiving the survey.
  2. The landlord should provide the Ombudsman with evidence of how it has complied with all the above orders within 40 working days of the date of this determination.
  3. In accordance with paragraph 54.g of the Scheme, the Ombudsman orders that the landlord conduct a review of this case to identify learning and improve working practices: this must include comment on:
    1. how the delays in responding to the repair request occurred and how it will make improvements to reduce the likelihood of similar failings happening again
    2. set out why key information from the repairs’ records was missing
    3. comment on why the landlord repeatedly refused to accept the resident’s new complaints about the lift
    4. how it intends to use this learning to improve outcomes
  4. The landlord must produce a written report addressing these issues and supply it to the Ombudsman within 28 days of the date of this determination

Recommendations

  1. The Ombudsman recommends that the landlord pay the resident the £100 it previously offered for its handling of the resident’s report of a missed survey appointment for the boiler, if it has not done so already.

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