Orbit Housing Association Limited (201910103)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 201910103

Orbit South Housing Association Limited

19 March 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

1. The complaint is about the landlord’s offer of compensation, following a complaint regarding the absence of heating and hot water in the property for a period of two weeks, due to the gas not having been uncapped.

Background and summary of events

Background and policies

2. The resident has been an assured non-shorthold tenant of the landlord, at the property, from 22 November 2018, although he has stated that he moved into the property on 7 December 2018.
3. The landlord’s repairs policy states that the landlord aims to carry out emergency repairs within four or 24-hours, depending on the individual circumstances of the situation.  The situation in this case warranted an emergency repair in accordance with the police, with the landlord attending within four hours and carrying out the repair within 24 hours.
4. The landlord has a two-stage complaints procedure whereby the landlord aims to investigate and respond within 10 working days at stage one and where a complainant is dissatisfied with the outcome of their complaint and requests escalation of the matter to stage two, the landlord aims to carry out a review also within 10 working days.
5. The complaints policy states that the landlord will not escalate a complaint in circumstances where there is no request for escalation within 20 working days of receipt of the stage one response.
6. The landlord’s compensation policy provides for discretionary compensation being offered in response to a complaint, where there has been a service failure and where “excessive inconvenience or distress” has been caused as a result of the landlord not dealing with a matter quickly or efficiently. Specifically, for loss of heating and hot water, compensation should be calculated (for the time of year relevant to this complaint) at £4 per day, starting on the first day without the amenity. For service failure in general, a flat rate of £25 is specified, although there is discretion to offer a higher amount following internal escalation for approval.

Summary of events

7. On or shortly after the resident moved into the property, he contacted the landlord because there was no heating or hot water.  In response, the resident has stated that the landlord sent a number of operatives out to investigate the matter, but this went unresolved for a period of two weeks.  While the heating was not working, the landlord provided the resident with temporary electric heaters, although the running costs of these worried the resident.
8. The landlord’s records show an issue with the heating being logged on 12 and 13 December 2018 and notes the jobs being completed on the same dates. There is no detail, however and it is clear that the issue was not resolved for some time.
9. On Christmas Eve, the resident said that he telephoned the landlord to state that he still did not have heating or hot water and was told by the landlord that it was unable to help as its offices were closing for Christmas, although someone did ultimately attend and resolved the issue. The issue was found to be that the gas had not been uncapped. None of this information is documented in the repairs log provided to this investigation.
10. On 3 May 2019, following a complaint made by the resident about the delay in resolving the issue with heating and hot water, the landlord responded at stage one of its complaints procedure.  The landlord upheld the complaint, explaining that although it is a resident’s responsibility to contact its contractor to arrange the turn-on of gas when moving into the property, it had not advised him of this.  In recognition of this failing and the subsequent inconvenience and stress caused, the landlord apologised, also noting that it was a week before Christmas that the incident occurred and offered the resident £125 compensation.
11. The resident has stated that he did not receive the response and chased the landlord in regards to this, but no records of this could be found by the landlord and none have been provided to this Service.  The resident has explained that he was also very unwell for a period thereafter, which meant that his complaint was put on hold.  In any event, the resident later contacted the landlord about his complaint and having received the response, requested escalation of the matter through the landlord’s complaints procedure. 
12. On 10 November 2020 the landlord discussed the issues with the resident in a telephone call. During that call the resident stated that he was dissatisfied that the landlord’s stage one response had referred to “a week before Christmas” when in actual fact, the repairs were going on for two weeks before Christmas. He was also dissatisfied with the length of time it took for the landlord to carry out repairs, the delay to receiving its stage one response letter, delay in connecting the gas when he moved into the property and the level of compensation offered by the landlord.
13. On 12 November 2020 (incorrectly dated 2002) the landlord issued its review of the complaint at stage two of its complaints procedure. In respect of the landlord’s reference to the week before Christmas, it clarified that it meant that the repair was remedied the week before Christmas and not that repairs were only ongoing for a week. The landlord advised it would provide feedback and any relevant training to the complaint handler in this respect.
14. The landlord acknowledged that the complexity of the issues meant that the repair took longer than it would have expected and apologised for this. 
15. It also apologised for the resident not receiving its stage one response but explained that it had no record of him chasing this and it was unaware that he had not received it.
16. With regards to the delay in turning on the gas when the resident first moved into the property, the landlord advised that although there was delay, it is the resident’s responsibility to arrange a “turn on and test” with its contractors upon moving in.  The lettings officer who completed the resident’s sign up had since left the organisation so it could not clarify whether or not this had been communicated, but it apologised if this was not the case.
17. The landlord agreed that the level of compensation offered was insufficient, given the delays, distress and inconvenience caused and honoured the resident’s request for one month’s rent as a desired outcome.  Additionally, the landlord offered a further £150 for its poor complaint handling, bringing the total offer of compensation to £535.60.

Assessment and findings

18. It was the resident’s responsibility to arrange for the gas to be uncapped on moving into the property, although the landlord in its stage one complaint response, accepted that this was not done.  In having not been done, the resident contacted the landlord who attended to investigate and resolve the issue but despite an indeterminate number of visits did not do so, leaving the resident without hot water for a period of two weeks.
19. The resident has said that the lack of hot water left him unable to bathe for this period of time and the provision of temporary electric heaters, while appropriately offered, caused him stress insofar as he was concerned about the expense and affordability.
20. The landlord’s repairs policy states that the issue relevant to this case is one that should be resolved within 24 hours and this was not done. It was inappropriate that the landlord did not advise the resident to uncap the case and then could not establish that this was the root cause of the problem and further inappropriate that in then left him without gas for an inappropriately lengthy period of time.
21. This situation is particularly aggravated by the time of year, namely, winter, when temperatures were cold.  The landlord did not do enough to resolve the issue quickly, nor to provide an alternative solution where it could not do so, for example, to offer to decant the resident until the situation was resolved; offering temporary heaters did not go far enough.
22. The landlord’s stage two response to the complaint came significantly later than it should have done, in accordance with the landlord’s complaints policy, however, there are a combination of reasons for this; firstly, the resident has stated he did not received the stage one response, secondly, the resident has stated that he was unwell for a period of time which meant that the complaint was on hold and thirdly, the landlord does appear to have delayed in issuing the response for reasons unknown to this investigation.
23. In terms of the resident not receiving the response, the landlord was responsible for posting the letter but not responsible for what happened to it thereafter, which was the responsibility of Royal Mail.  While frustrating for the resident, the landlord cannot be held accountable for this.  The landlord missed an opportunity, however, to provide a courtesy telephone call to the resident to advise him that his complaint response had been sent, which would have demonstrated good practice.
24. There is a reasonable expectation, however, for a resident to also follow up on a complaint they have not heard about.  Although the resident has said that he did this on numerous occasions, it is not clear when and how many times this was done.  As an evidence-based Service the Ombudsman therefore cannot find fault on the part of the landlord for not acting on chasers from the resident and only for the overall delay, which even with the two identified factors, was inappropriately lengthy.
25. The landlord’s stage two response appeared to contradict its stage one, insofar as it stated it could not ascertain whether it had advised the resident about the gas or not, whereas at stage one it accepted that it had not.  The landlord’s conflicting findings did not lend itself to installing confidence in the integrity of its investigatory process.  Additionally, it is not clear what the landlord meant by the complexity of repairs where it was a case of uncapping the gas that was the issue.
26. Regarding its reference to “one week before Christmas” in its stage one response, it was appropriate that the landlord clarified what it meant by this and in doing so, demonstrated that it was not downplaying the impact or length of time the situation was ongoing for.
27. In terms of the compensation offered, the landlord’s honouring of the resident’s request for one month’s rent to be paid to him and its offer of a total of £535.60 was reasonable in all the circumstances.  This is not to say, however, that the situation was not stressful or inconvenient to the resident, because it clearly was. It was reasonable because irrespective of the service failures and missed opportunities by the landlord, including of not sufficiently expressing empathy for the situation, the level of compensation offered was in excess of the levels set out in its compensation policy and in excess of the amount that this Service would generally award for service failures of this kind. 
28. The Ombudsman’s published ‘Guidance on Remedies’ suggests compensation for service failure to be in the region of £50-£250 and the level of compensation offered in this case exceeds that, falling within the more serious maladministration bracket.
29. Resolving a complaint is not only about offering compensation.  It is about also about recognising failures, apologising for those and identifying learning, putting actions in place to help prevent a future recurrence.  The landlord has appropriately apologised for what went wrong although its complaints responses were in part contradictory and unclear.  Recommendations have been made in respect of the landlord’s complaints handling, for it to take forward, as well as in respect of its record keeping, given the lack of information and records provided and missing information on the repairs log.

Determination

30. Paragraph 55 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme states that “At any time, the Ombudsman may determine the investigation of a complaint immediately if satisfied that the member has offered redress to the complainant prior to investigation which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, resolves the complaint satisfactorily. This will result in a finding of ‘reasonable redress”.
31. In accordance with paragraph 55(b) of the Scheme, there was reasonable redress by the landlord in respect of the complaint.

Reasons

32. There was reasonable redress insofar as the landlord recognised there had been service failure in respect of the uncapping of the gas at the property in addition to the length of time it took to resolve the issue and that this was at a particularly inconvenient time of year.  It apologised for this and offered a level of compensation that was over and above that recommended in its compensation policy and that by the Ombudsman. 
33. In doing so, the landlord showed good will and demonstrated its wish to resolve the complaint to the resident’s satisfaction, by offering him the compensation he requested, even though this was in excess of what it ordinarily would offer in the circumstances.

Recommendations

34. If the landlord has not already done so, it should pay the resident the £535.60 it offered within the complaints procedure as the determination on this complaint is contingent of this offer of compensation.
35. The landlord to create a process whereby information conveyed to a resident at the tenancy sign up is documented, in particular, the responsibility of arranging for the gas to be uncapped.
36. The landlord to feedback to its repairs team/contractors with regards to the issue with the uncapped gas being the root cause of the problem, with particular emphasis on the need for gas-capping to be checked early on, where a situation such as this arises.
37. The landlord to review its complaints handling process in light of the findings in this report and to put together an action plan and/or training in respect of this.
38. The landlord to review its record keeping procedures, given the findings in this report, in particular, the missing information as to the reports the resident made about the gas not working on all of the dates he did so and the contractors attended, as well as the detail as to what was found and what action taken.