Peabody Trust (202102181)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202102181

Peabody Trust

29 March 2022

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

This complaint is about the landlord’s handling of the capping of the resident’s gas meter.

Background and summary of events

Background

The resident is an assured shorthold tenant whose tenancy began on 21 June 2017. The property is a two-bedroom flat within a conversion that contains three households; the resident’s gas meter and mailbox are outside the communal front door of the building.
Under the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998, the landlord is required to maintain all gas appliances within the property and must arrange annual safety checks on such appliances.
The landlord has a gas safety policy that shows that it will:
1. carry out an annual gas safety check to every tenanted property
2. ‘make all reasonable efforts to offer appointments at a time to suit tenants’ needs’
3. offer two further appointments if it is unable to carry out the gas service visit on the first attempt
4. if the resident still does not provide access, it will check its records and ‘liaise with other departments for any communication or vulnerability issues’
5. where access is still not gained, it will offer a final appointment to the resident by hand delivering a letter advising that ‘if they do not provide access or contact…, a lock change may be carried out and the gas service carried out’.
The landlord has a complaints policy that sets out a two-stage complaints process. The landlord’s website shows that it is required to respond within 10 working days (at stage one) and 15 working days (at stage two) respectively.
The landlord has a compensation policy that shows that it can award compensation ‘when a person has experienced a delay or has incurred additional costs because of a service failure on our part or if we have failed to carry out a service within our published guidelines’.

Summary of Events

The resident has provided this Service with copies of historic requests she made for the landlord to communicate with her by email – she has provided evidence that she had made such requests to the landlord due to problems she had with her telephone (in March 2018 and October 2018) and the lack of a secure mailbox (in November 2018 and July 2019).
The landlord has advised the resident that it encountered difficulties in contacting her during December 2019 to January 2020 regarding an outstanding boiler repair. It later noted that this was because it held an incorrect telephone number for the resident.
The landlord has provided evidence in the form of copies of letters and photographs of the resident’s communal front door that show it wrote to the resident on several occasions to advise that it needed to conduct the annual gas safety check. It issued letters to the resident in advance of attempts to conduct the gas safety check as follows:
1. wrote to the resident on 12 February 2020, 17 February 2020, 18 February 2020 and 19 February 2020 and attended the property on 25 February 2020
2. wrote to the resident on 26 February 2020 and attended the property on 3 March 2020
3. wrote to the resident on 17 March 2020, advising that she had failed to allow access on two occasions so a final attempt appointment had been made for 24 March 2020
4. attended the property on 24 March 2020 and 15 April 2020.
The landlord’s records show that the gas meter to the resident’s property was capped on 8 June 2020. It left a notice attached to the meter showing that a ‘sealing disc’ had been fitted and giving the contractor’s name and contact details (there was no explanation of why the gas had been capped or information showing that the landlord was involved in this action).
The landlord’s internal emails show that it made a record on the resident’s file on 12 November 2020 that she preferred contact by email.
The landlord’s records show its contractor attempted to carry out a repair at the resident’s property on 15 December 2020 and it left a ‘no access’ card in the mailbox.
The resident wrote to her MP on 19 January 2021, copying the landlord into the correspondence. She explained she was in a dispute with her gas supplier over standing charges that it said she owed even though she had not had access to gas. The correspondence shows she was unaware at this point why her gas supply had been capped.
The landlord wrote to the resident on 8 February 2021. It confirmed that it had been responsible for capping the gas meter on 8 June 2020 for safety reasons as it had been ‘unable to get access to your home to complete the gas safety check that was due’ and added that it would not be able to clear the debt that had accrued due to charges while the gas was capped as it had followed its processes.
The resident wrote to the landlord on 11 February 2021. She said that the landlord was already aware of her contact preference for email and complained that the decision to cap her gas was aggressive and unnecessary.
The resident chased a response on 15 March 2021 – she explained that it was freezing cold inside her property.
The landlord acknowledged the resident’s complaint on 17 March 2021. The resident replied on 18 March 2021 to confirm that this was a complaint, not a service request, and that a related boiler complaint could not be resolved until this complaint about the gas supply was resolved; the landlord explained the same day why the complaint was at stage one, advised a repairs order had been raised to uncap the gas meter (but repairs would not progress if there was no credit on the meter), confirmed that ‘the reason the gas was capped is because they had made several attempts to contact you via phone and in writing to carry out a gas safety check and they did not get a response’ and provided evidence of letters it had sent.
The resident and landlord exchanged emails on 19 March 2021 as follows:
1. the resident said that the complaint should have been at stage one three weeks earlier, she had credit on the meter prior to the gas being capped, the landlord had refused to repair her mailbox which meant she had not received letters and she was in debt due to having to pay gas standing charges
2. the landlord apologised for the delay with the stage one, advised the contractor had made reasonable efforts to contact her and said it would not reimburse the resident for standing charges
3. the resident asked for the complaint to be escalated.
The landlord confirmed on 23 March 2021 that it would escalate the complaint. It asked the resident on 25 March 2021 to provide more details on the mailbox repair, reiterated that the boiler repair could not be completed until there was a gas supply and confirmed that it could not uncap the gas meter to complete the safety check until there was a credit on it.
The resident wrote to the landlord on 25 March 2021. She advised where the mailbox was located, that the lock was broken prior to her tenancy and that she had reported it to the landlord but they had told her that it would not be repaired. She added that the debt on the meter was for standing charges only (which she was not willing to pay) and the boiler issue should be investigated separately as this had been outstanding prior to the gas capping.
The resident confirmed to the landlord on 26 March 2021 that she was seeking for it pay the outstanding £103.13 gas supplier charge and that she would then add a credit to her pre-payment meter so the gas could be uncapped and boiler repairs completed.
The landlord issued its final complaint response to the resident on 13 April 2021. It concluded that:
1. the gas contractor took a photograph of the resident’s door when it tried to complete the gas safety check and, although there were no problems with the letterbox according to the photograph, it had raised a repairs order for a locksmith to attend
2. it had a set process to issue gas safety letters by post using a system where they could be sent at pre-defined intervals (which it said it was not possible to do by email)
3. it was unable to reinstate the gas supply until there was a resolution to the resident’s dispute with her supplier about the standing charges
4. it could not pay the resident’s standing charge as it was for the supplier to determine whether this charge was appropriate or not and compensation was not warranted as it had followed due process with the gas safety inspection
5. it awarded £75 compensation for its recent delay in raising the mailbox repair.
The resident wrote to the landlord on 19 April 2021 in response to the final complaint outcome. She raised continued concerns that:
1. the letterbox the landlord referred to was not the mailbox she had raised concerns about
2. she was not in dispute with her gas supplier as they had not cut off her gas supply
3. all appointments for her property are supposed to be made by email so she had been unaware of the landlord’s attempts to arrange the gas safety inspection
4. she had been left in freezing conditions during the pandemic.
The landlord wrote to the resident on 22 April 2021. It confirmed a repair had been raised for the mailbox, said it did not ‘have facilities in place to add a note to send your notification by email’ in regard to gas safety letters, explained the gas standing charge would not have been an issue had the resident contacted it once the gas meter was capped and confirmed it wished to uncap the gas supply to restore her heating.
The resident replied to the landlord on 23 April 2021. She advised that she thought her cooker was broken rather than her gas supply having been cut off and was on a debt management plan so would not be able to clear the outstanding gas standing charges.
The landlord’s records show that mailbox repair order was recorded as complete on 26 April 2021 with a note showing that ‘box lock was broken a new one was fitted… the letter box… has been damaged’ and only offered ‘low security’.
The resident approached this Service during April-May 2021, expressing continued dissatisfaction as:
1. the landlord had capped her gas on the grounds they were unable to arrange a safety check but she had received no notice of the landlord’s attempts to conduct checks (due to its failure to email her)
2. she had therefore been without a gas supply yet had to pay her supplier the standing charges for this which was £103 at that time
3. she was without heating and gas cooking facilities but the landlord was requiring her to pay the £103 charge before it would agree to reinstate her gas supply.

Assessment and findings

The landlord initially commenced its efforts to conduct an annual gas safety check at the resident’s property from early February 2020. This was in accordance with its obligations under the gas safety regulations.
Overall, the landlord made reasonable attempts to gain access to the property for gas safety checks by writing to the resident on six occasions and attending the property on four occasions before it decided to cap the supply at the meter. The landlord made frequent attempts to complete the gas safety check that it was required to carry out; indeed, it made four visits to the property instead of the three that it was obliged to attempt according to its gas safety policy, demonstrating that it was willing to use its discretion before capping the gas meter.
However, the landlord’s gas safety policy sets out that it will check its records and liaise with other departments for potential communications issues if its access attempts are unsuccessful – there is no evidence that the landlord did so in this case. The resident had made requests to the landlord during 2018-2019 that it contact her by email due to not having a phone number, which the landlord was also aware of through the difficulties it had in contacting the resident for boiler repairs during late 2019-early 2020. She also told it that there were problems with her post being stolen from an insecure mailbox which the landlord later attended to fix, albeit there is no evidence that the problem had been reported to the Police or post office. Although there is nothing to demonstrate that the six letters the landlord sent were not delivered to the property or were stolen, its failure to check its records, and for its internal departments to liaise on the matter, prior to capping the gas meter was inappropriate.
The landlord’s gas safety policy shows that it will force access to complete the gas safety check where it has exhausted its attempts to undertake the check. However, in this case, the gas meter was located outside the property; the landlord has advised that this was why the forced access recourse was not used. Given the landlord was able to cap the gas meter without accessing the resident’s property, this was a reasonable approach to take.
The landlord’s contractor did leave a notice on the meter so the resident should have been aware of the contact details that she needed to use to arrange the supply to be restored. However, the landlord has not evidenced that it wrote to the resident at the point the gas meter was capped to advise what had happened, explain why or inform her how to resolve the situation. It was unreasonable that the landlord failed to communicate directly to the resident on, or just after, 8 June 2020 given the inevitable impact of capping a resident’s gas supply.
There is no evidence of further action by the landlord or resident regarding the gas capping issue between June 2020 and January 2021. The resident has advised that she thought her cooker was broken and that she did not see the notice that the landlord’s contractor left tied to the meter. Nevertheless, the landlord was not contacted during this period – it therefore did not have an opportunity to inform the resident how the gas meter could be uncapped so there was no service failure on its part at this time.
The resident raised a complaint to the landlord in February 2021 and explained that she was in debt and did not have credit on her meter because she had incurred standing charges during the period when there was no gas supply. The landlord reasonably decided that it was not responsible for paying the resident’s gas bills and that she would have incurred a standing charge whether the meter was capped or not. It also made a compensation award for its failure to repair the mailbox which demonstrated that it was resolution-focused. The landlord has explained to this Service that it is not possible to uncap the gas meter and complete a safety check if there is no gas supply – it therefore needs to await confirmation that there is gas being supplied before it can remove the gas meter cap and check the relevant appliances as it is obliged to.
In summary, the landlord’s decision to cap the resident’s gas meter was reasonable as it had not been able to gain access to the property despite numerous letters and visits. However, it did not follow the process laid out in its gas safety policy to check its records for potential communication issues and it was unreasonable that it did not write to the resident on the date its contractor capped the meter.

Determination

In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in its handling of the capping of the resident’s gas meter.

Reasons

The landlord failed to communicate appropriately with the resident when it capped her gas meter.

Orders

The landlord to write to the resident to:
1. apologise for the service failures identified in this report;
2. renew its offer to remove the cap to the resident’s gas meter if it has not already done so, explaining how the process of uncapping and testing will work.
The landlord to pay the resident compensation of £200 in recognition of the inconvenience and distress caused to her by its handling of the capping of her gas meter.
The landlord to ensure its staff and contractors are aware of the process set out in its gas safety policy whereby they are expected to check their records and liaise with other departments to understand whether there are any communications or vulnerability issues before deciding to force access or cap a gas supply.

The landlord should confirm compliance with these orders to this Service within four weeks of the date of this report.

Recommendation

The landlord to consider whether it can provide the resident with alternative means of heating pending the reinstatement of the gas supply and advise her accordingly.

The landlord should reply to this Service, confirming its intentions in regard to this recommendation, within four weeks of the date of this report.