Paragon Asra Housing Limited (202312109)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202312109

Paragon Asra Housing Limited

18 April 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 the resident’s:
   1. Reports about his water supply.
   2. Formal complaint.

Background

2. The resident occupies a 2-bedroom flat, with his daughter. He is an assured short-hold tenant of the landlord, which is a housing association. The tenancy is a starter tenancy which commenced on 16 February 2023.
3. The resident moved into the property a week after his tenancy commenced and shortly afterwards the water supply ceased. He reported this to the landlord, on 3 March 2023, and it sent a contractor to attend out of hours. The contractor located the stop valves within the property, which were open. They attended again the following morning and located further stop valves outside the property, one of which had been closed off. This was turned on and the water supply was restored.
4. The landlord recorded a formal complaint on 20 March 2023, following a telephone call with the resident in which he expressed concern that he and his daughter had been drinking and using water that had been sitting in the boiler and pipes for a long time. He reported that he had been feeling unwell lately and had concluded that this had been caused by the stagnant water.
5. The landlord responded to the complaint on 4 April 2023. It did not uphold the complaint as it had responded promptly on 3 and 4 March 2023 and restored the water supply. It explained that the main stop valves outside the property were the responsibility of the water company. It provided no response to the resident’s claim that he had consumed stagnant water, which had made him and his daughter unwell.
6. The resident responded to the landlord the same day and said the matter was ‘not finished’. He said the water company claimed there was no need for it to have turned the water off and deduced this had most likely been the fault of the landlord’s contractors. He said the water company had also told him the landlord should have ‘flushed the system’ through when the water supply returned, which it failed to do. He felt let down and was still having to boil his water before drinking it, due to paranoia that it remained stagnant.
7. The landlord logged a stage 2 escalation request on 23 May 2023, following a call with the resident in which he said the landlord was failing to take any accountability. He felt compensation was appropriate considering the impact on him and his daughter.
8. The landlord issued its stage 2 response on 27 July 2023, following a prompt from this Service the previous day. The landlord apologised for the delay in responding and offered £80 compensation for this. It reiterated its position that it had responded appropriately on 3 and 4 March 2023 and was not responsible for the external stop valves. It explained that the cold water supply was mains supplied by the water company and it considered it very unlikely that it was contaminated. It suggested the resident contact the water company if he was concerned about the quality of the water supplied to the kitchen tap and have it tested. It directed him to submit a claim, with appropriate evidence, to its insurer, if he felt the water had made him unwell.
9. The resident was unhappy with the landlord’s response and referred his complaint to this Service. He is seeking compensation for the impact the situation had on his and his daughter’s health and reimbursement for costs incurred buying bottled water.

Assessment and findings

Scope of Investigation

10. The resident submits that the landlord’s actions regarding the water supply resulted in his family’s consumption of stagnant water, making them unwell. It is beyond the remit of this Service to determine whether there was a direct link between the landlord’s actions and the family’s ill health. The resident may wish to seek independent advice on making a personal injury claim if he considers that his family’s health has been affected by any action or failure by the landlord. While the Ombudsman cannot consider the effect on health, consideration has been given to any general distress and inconvenience which the resident experienced as a result of any service failure by the landlord.

Landlord’s handling of reports about the water supply

11. Under the terms of the tenancy and section 11 of the the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 (LTA), the landlord is obliged to keep the structure and exterior, as well as the installations, including for the supply of water and sanitation, in repair and working order.
12. Under the landlord’s ‘maintenance policy’, responsive repairs are classed according to their priority. Emergency repairs are to be responded to within 4 hours and resolved within 24 hours. The policy recognises ‘loss of water supply’ as a ‘qualifying repair’ under the government’s ‘right to repair scheme’, which requires that this is resolved within 1 day.
13. The records show the landlord acted in accordance with its policies and the relevant legislation in responding promptly to the resident’s reports that he had no water. Its contractor attended within 2 hours. While it was unable to locate the stop valves and restore the water supply during the initial visit, it offered bottled water, and returned within 24 hours to resolve the issue.
14. The resident considered the landlord at fault for the stop valve being off. All parties accept that the external stop valves were the domain of the water company. Both the landlord and water company claim they did not turn the valve off. The landlord’s maintenance policy includes a ‘lettable standard’ which states that the ‘plumbing and water system will be tested to ensure it is in working order’ and that there is ‘cold drinking water from the mains supplied to the kitchen sink’. Based on this, we might consider that, regardless of whose domain this was, the landlord should have identified the closed stop valve during the void period.
15. However, we do not know when the valve was turned off. Unfortunately, given it was possible for anyone to access the external valves, and in the absence of any evidence, it is not possible to determine responsibility here. However, it is recognised that this was to the detriment of the resident, who had no water supply, through no fault of his own.
16. Upon moving into the property, the resident had access to water for a few days, but this quickly stopped. The water he consumed during these few days was what remained in the pipes after the external stop valve was turned off. We do not know how long the water had been in the pipes. The resident was concerned that this water was stagnant and said the landlord’s contractor agreed this could be the case.
17. While the landlord’s job notes do not contain details of this conversation, the Ombudsman accepts the resident’s account. The job notes refer to the tenant now having ‘clean’ drinking water, which infers the operative may have considered the previous drinking water to have been unclean.
18. However, the landlord’s Water Services Manager did not consider this to be the case. In internal communications, and as also explained in the stage 2 response, he noted that the cold water supply was mains fed and not stored in a water tank. He explained that mains water contains halogens (chlorine and fluorine) that control the levels of bacteria present in the water to ensure a safe drinking level. He acknowledged, ‘if water had sat in the pipes for several months there is a small risk some bacteria may be present’, but considered this unlikely as it had not been exposed to the elements.
19. The Ombudsman cannot determine whether the water was, in fact, stagnant and made the resident unwell but accepts the landlord’s position that this was unlikely based on the evidence it presented. It was confusing, and undermined the landlord’s later position, that the contractor had alluded to the water being potentially stagnant.
20. It was also unreasonable that it took until the stage 2 complaint for the landlord to communicate this position. The resident had expressed this concern as early as 4 March 2023, when the contractor had attended. He also communicated this during his ‘tenancy starter review’ on 7 March 2023, and it formed the basis of his stage 1 complaint. The landlord did not respond to this concern in its response, focussing solely on its efforts and success in restoring the water supply.
21. In its stage 2 response, the landlord suggested the resident supply any medical notes regarding how the water had made him unwell and advised him to report any concerns to the water company so it could test the supply. This was reasonable, but again, some time after the fact. Had the landlord engaged with the resident about the issue sooner, and directed him accordingly, it might have afforded him more opportunity to do so and helped to clarify any cause of illness.
22. In his escalation email of 4 April 2023, the resident claimed the water company informed him that, when the water supply resumed, the system should have been ‘flushed through’. It is not clear what the water company meant by this. Whether this involved professional action by a plumber, or simply running the taps for a couple of minutes. However, the resident chased the landlord on 16 May 2023 and said he was waiting to hear if it was sending someone to do this. The resident had spoken of his paranoia and said he was boiling and cooling water before consumption. While the resident did not make a clear request for the landlord to act on this in his initial email, the landlord should have contacted him to make further enquiries, or at the very least, acknowledged his email and logged his complaint. It took a further week before it did so.
23. The resident has requested that the landlord reimburse him for bottles of water when he had no water supply. The records show that the contractor who visited on 3 March 2023 offered to provide these. The resident declined the offer and was informed he could retain receipts for reimbursement. This was appropriate given the circumstances behind the lack of supply were unknown, and the landlord’s responsibility for maintaining a water supply under the LTA and terms of tenancy. Given the issue was ultimately found to be related to the external valve, which was not the landlord’s domain, the landlord cannot be considered liable for this and any reimbursement is made at its discretion.
24. Overall, the landlord cannot be held responsible for the water supply being turned off, but there were issues with its engagement with the resident on the matter which amount to maladministration. It missed early opportunities to engage with the resident and offer reassurance that it considered the water he had consumed to be unharmful, including in its stage 1 response. It should also have been more prompt in directing him to the water company, to test the water, and in exploring his concerns that the water remained harmful and the system needing flushing through.
25. This caused the resident undue stress and a loss of confidence in the landlord at an early point in the tenant-landlord relationship. The landlord should pay the resident £150 compensation for the distress caused, in line with this Service’s remedies guidance.

Landlord’s handling of the formal complaint

26. The resident complained to the landlord on 20 March 2023 and it responded on 4 April 2023, after 11 working days. The landlord’s complaints policy, in line with the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code), requires that it responds to complaints at stage 1 within 10 working days. This is not considered a significant delay, but the landlord should have informed the resident it needed a further day to respond. It should also have formerly acknowledged the complaint within 5 days.
27. In its response, the landlord acknowledged the complaint to be about the ‘ongoing water issue including stagnant water in the boiler pipes’. This did not accurately reflect the resident’s complaint, which was about him drinking stagnant water and becoming unwell. As discussed above, this was a missed opportunity to explore and address his concerns. It was also a complaint handling failure. The Code requires that all points be addressed in a complaint response and it was to the frustration of the resident that it did not acknowledge his grievances.
28. The resident responded on 4 April 2023 and explained the matter was not finished. This email was a clear expression of dissatisfaction and the landlord should have escalated the complaint to stage 2 on that basis. There is no evidence the landlord responded to this email, resulting in the resident contacting it again, on 16 May 2023, and stating he deduced from this that it did not care. It took another week and a further call from the resident for it to log the escalation request.
29. The resident contacted this Service on 4 July 2023 as he had still heard nothing from the landlord. Following a request from the Ombudsman on 25 May 2023, the landlord responded the following day. The landlord’s policy and the Code require that complaints be responded to within 20 working days at stage 2. This was 46 working days since the complaint was logged and 77 working days from the date the complaint should have been logged.
30. The landlord apologised for the delay, acknowledged it was ‘unacceptable’, and provided £80 compensation. However, it did not explain why there had been a delay and what it would do to address this issue in future. Considering the failings at stage 1, the initial failure to log the escalation, and the significant delay in responding at stage 2, this offer was not sufficient. Given there were several failures in complaint handling, this amounts to maladministration, and the landlord should pay £150 to reflect the undue frustration caused.

Determination

31. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s:
    1. Reports about his water supply.
    2. Formal complaint.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

32. Within 4 weeks of this report the landlord should pay the resident £300 compensation (£150 for the distress caused by its handling of the resident’s reports about the water supply, and £150 for delays in its complaint handling). If the sum previously offered to the resident during the complaints process has already been paid, it can be deducted from this total.

Recommendations

33. Within 4 weeks of this report the landlord is recommended to:
34. Review its complaint handling policy in line with the guidance and requirements outlined in the Ombudsman’s updated Code.
35. Review its void inspection reports and ensure that it routinely checks all stop valves are open and there is adequate water supply to properties before they are let. It should keep signed and dated copies of this check to evidence its actions.