Peabody Trust (202200039)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202200039

Peabody Trust

10 August 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. This complaint is about the landlord’s:
   1. Handling of repairs to the lift and external lights of the building.
   2. Handling of the resident’s associated formal complaint.

Background

2. The resident was an assured tenant of the landlord at the property, a three-bedroom flat, which is accessible via a communal lift. The resident lived at the property with her son, a wheelchair user, and a daughter who is autistic.
3. The resident reported issues with the lift and the communal lighting not working in March 2021. Whilst the landlord attended and resolved temporarily, no permanent solution was provided, and the issues persisted. In March 2022, the resident complained about the landlord not taking her reports seriously, not acknowledging her complaints and the affect this had on her family. The landlord acknowledged her formal complaint on 7 April 2022 following a request from this service. In its stage one response issued on 16 June 2022, it apologised for the delay responding to her complaint.  The landlord explained the steps it had taken diagnosing and fixing the issues and committed to improve its communication to residents during lift service issues. It offered her £250 compensation comprising of: £150 for service failings relating to delays of the lift repairs, and £100 in relation to its complaint handling.
4. The resident asked for an escalation on 27 June 2022. The resident said she did not consider the stage one response recognised all elements of her complaint.  It did not acknowledge the length of time the lift had been out of service for, and her attempts to make a complaint at an earlier stage. She said communication was unacceptable and her landlord did not recognise the impact on her family or injuries that had been sustained. She highlighted further times the lift had been out of service after the landlord had said it was fixed. She expressed disappointment about how she was treated and that she was not offered a ground floor property in relation to her son’s deteriorating mobility.
5. In its final response of 13 July 2022, the landlord acknowledged the resident’s concerns of lift issues since March 2021, but found no evidence that she had complained prior to June 2021. Due to its time limiting policy for complaints it said this would be immaterial to the outcome. Of its visit during August 2021, it said she had agreed to notify further issues and did not recall her requesting a formal complaint. It explained it replied on the content of the request from this Service to investigate her complaint. This resulted in it concentrating on a resolution to fix the lift rather than address the impact on her children’s disabilities or refer to anxiety or harm she had reported. Whilst it apologised, it said it could not draw conclusions on liability or causation and signposted her on how to pursue a personal injury or insurance claim. It advised it received no further reports about the lift being out of service after it had attended and fixed the lift on 24 June 2022.
6. The landlord informed the resident that whilst it could not guarantee there would be no further failures, the possible causes of the issues had been resolved. It addressed her request to be rehoused to a ground floor property and stated this was a separate issue to the repairs to the lift and out of scope for this complaint. It apologised about the issues and delays repairing the lift whilst acknowledging the difficulties this caused. It considered the compensation offered at stage one was fair and thus it did not increase its offer. 
7. The resident moved to another property in August 2022 and in September 2022 asked this Service to investigate her complaint. She explained she did not feel the review at stage two had been done “factually or fairly.”

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

8. Whilst this service is an alternative to the courts, it is unable to establish legal liability or whether a landlord’s actions or lack of action had a direct link to a detrimental impact on a resident’s health. Nor can it calculate or award damages. The Ombudsman is therefore unable to consider the personal injury aspects of the resident’s complaint. These matters are likely better suited for consideration by a court or via a personal injury claim.
9. As such, this is outside the scope of this investigation to consider in accordance with paragraph 42(g) of the Ombudsman’s Scheme. Should the resident wish to pursue a claim for personal injury, she can seek assistance from Citizens Advice or an independent solicitor. However, this Service can consider the impact the landlord’s handling of the lift and external lights repair had on the family, and whether the landlord’s response to this was reasonable.
10. Whilst it appears that the issues raised by the resident dated from March 2021, and there were multiple reports of the lift out of order, there is a considerable amount of time that has elapsed since. This makes it difficult for this Service to assess all the circumstances due to the gap in time and the associated lack of evidence. Additionally, the resident had an opportunity to bring those issues to the Ombudsman at an earlier stage, whilst the issues remained ‘live’.
11. Given the time that has elapsed, it is difficult to now rely on the landlord having retained sufficient evidence such that a reliable and thorough investigation of its response at the time can take place. It is essential that residents raise matters with landlords within a reasonable timeframe and then progress these issues to the Ombudsman in a reasonable timeframe thereafter if they are not satisfied with how a landlord responds. In this case, this did not happen, and it has therefore limited the extent to which this Service can now investigate. This is in accordance with paragraphs 42 (a) and 42 (b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme.
12. While there is no dispute that the issues with the lift dated since March 2021, there is no indication that a formal complaint was made to the landlord about its handling of repairs until March 2022. The resident had an opportunity to do so or bring the complaint to this Service, but there is no evidence of this. As such, this investigation will focus on the events for the period from about 6 months prior to the complaint raised on 1 March 2022 until the end of the landlord’s complaints process.
13. Throughout her complaint the resident expressed frustration at not being offered a ground floor property suitable to the needs of her family due to the ongoing impact of the lift issues. She has not asked this Service to investigate her landlord’s handling of rehousing issues and in accordance with paragraph 42(p) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, we are unable to consider complaints which “concern matters where the complainant is seeking an outcome which is not within the Ombudsman’s authority to provide”. The Ombudsman would not be able to order the landlord to offer the resident a property as this is not something within the Ombudsman’s authority to provide. It is also noted that the resident has secured alternative accommodation since the end of the landlord’s complaints process.
14. This investigation will instead focus on the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of repairs to the lift and external lights and its handling of her associated complaint.

Handling of repairs to the lift and external lights of the building.

15. The landlord’s repairs policy highlights its responsibility to repair lifts and communal lights and assesses them as “essential” repairs. Its repairs policy does not set out timescales for completion of repairs to lifts and communal lights. However, out of order lifts and communal lightings not working are issues which may cause high health and safety risk, particularly in cases where the landlord is aware of tenant vulnerabilities that may be impacted by the lack of such facilities. As such, it would be reasonable for these issues to have been categorized as emergency repairs. Appropriately, it is evidenced that in the landlord’s repairs log most of these repair issues were marked as emergency repairs. According to the landlord’s repairs policy emergency repairs should be attended and completed within 4 hours and recalls should be attended within 5 calendar days.
16.  Due to the number of the reports this investigation will not look into each of them but will highlight the main issues. While the landlord was responsive to each individual report and often sent contractors to deal with the issue immediately, it was not always the case that the lift was reinstalled within the required timeframes. 
17. In its stage one response the landlord listed the dates the lift broke down between 1 October 2021 and 13 June 2022 where it reported it had fixed the issues on each occasion. It noted between 1 October 2021 to 1 January 2022; “there were no reported breakdowns.” This is contrary to the repairs log which indicates the lift went out of service on 29 September 2021 and was still out of service on 04 October 2021. It is unclear whether the lift was reinstated on 27 October 2021 when it noted that it had identified issues with water corrosion, but on 04 October 2021, the landlord noted that it had “called [contractor] for an update on this repair has been on going for nearly a week”.
18. Between 11 June 2021 and 11 January 2022, there were multiple separate reports of lift failures of which the lift was out of service for unknown periods of time. It is noted on several callouts the contractor reported no fault found and the lift was reinstated. And while the landlord responded to the individual reports as isolated incidents the issues were persistent, and no permanent solution was provided.
19. The landlord commenced an active investigation into the lift faults from 12 January 2022. For the period January 2022 until June 2022 there were a further nine reported failures. The duration of the disruption is unclear from the evidence submitted to this investigation. However, it was clear that there were multiple instances during May to July 2022, where the lift was not working for longer than a few days at a time. This was outside of the timeframes of its policy.
20. In February 2022, the landlord attempted to address the continual failures to the lights and lift by resolving leaks to the building. Its investigation suspected the faults were caused by water ingress after heavy rain. These works were completed on 8 March 2022, however the failures continued. The landlord attempted to resolve the lift failures by replacing the main processor to the lift between 9 June 2022 and 13 June 2022 following which further failures were reported. The evidence log ends on 27 June 2022 and the landlord reported to this Service there were no further issues. Overall, in such a situation it would have been reasonable for the landlord to take a more proactive approach and investigate those repeated failures at an earlier stage in order to provide a permanent solution. This was not done, and the repair was not permanently resolved for over a year.
21. There is evidence that the frequent incidents with the lift being out of service and lighting failures in the block impacted the resident and her family significantly. She reported her concerns about health and safety when the block was in darkness and the lift out of service leaving her children scared and anxious. She advised her landlord how this impacted on her ability to take her children out due to the challenges she faced transporting her son resulting in “occasions we have been trapped at home with no way of accessing outside.”  This Service finds that the landlord did not acknowledge these issues fully or actively try to resolve the issues in a timeous manner. This is not reasonable and evidences the landlord failing to consider the resident and her household’s individual circumstances in its overall handling of the situation.
22. In its final response, the landlord admitted failures in communication and delays in resolving the issues. The landlord apologised for its delay repairing the lift and acknowledged it would have been difficult for the resident and her family. It reassured her that the issue with the lift should be resolved, and that it would review its communication with residents during lift problems. The landlord offered compensation of £150 for the element of her complaint relating to the time, trouble and inconvenience caused by the repairs to the lift.
23. When there are failings by a landlord, as is the case here, the Ombudsman will consider whether the redress offered by the landlord (apology, compensation and details of lessons learned) put things right and resolved the resident’s complaint satisfactorily in the circumstances. In considering this the Ombudsman takes into account whether the landlord’s offer of redress was in line with the Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles; be fair, put things right and learn from outcomes. This service will also consider the resulting distress and inconvenience and the resident’s circumstances will be taken into account.
24. Overall, the landlord resolved the issue, albeit after some considerable time; it also said that it acknowledged the impact of the frequent lift failures to the resident’s family. However, the landlord’s offer of compensation was low, comparable to the Ombudsman’s understanding of cases involving low level service failures. In this case a vulnerable family reported significant and protracted detriment, with access, security and health all impacted. Additionally, it did not account for considerable delays evidenced in its repairs logs. As such the level of compensation was not proportionate to the failures identified and the detriment caused to the resident. The delay in actively investigating the issues resulted in further disruption, inconvenience, and stress to the resident in managing the mobility of her son.
25. Additionally, the landlord explained, “As a result of complaint the landlord is reviewing the communication provided to residents during lift problems as affects a number of residents and can be very disruptive if not resolved quickly.” It is important for landlords to learn from complaints as this will reduce the risk of similar issues re-occurring in the future. Whilst this improvement is welcomed, the findings of the review have not been shared with this service and it is unclear what steps have been implemented. An order has been made for the landlord to share its findings of the review with this Service.
26. In recognition of the delays in investigating the issues and the detrimental impact faced by the resident, this Service finds the landlord has not gone far enough to put things right. Therefore, an award of compensation commensurate with a determination of maladministration and the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance will be ordered to reflect this.

Handling of the resident’s associated formal complaint.

27. The landlord’s complaints policy provides in clause 3.1, “3.1 We define a complaint as an expression of dissatisfaction, however made, about the standard of service, actions or lack of action by the organisation, its own staff, or those acting on its behalf, affecting an individual resident or group of residents. 4.3 When an expression of dissatisfaction is received, we would first look to resolve the matter locally via our contact centre or with the relevant service area or contractor and this initial stage of the process is called an ‘Expression of Dissatisfaction’. 4.4 If this approach has not reached the desired resolution, or it is deemed inappropriate, it can be registered and dealt with as a formal complaint by contacting the local team or registering a formal complaint as per 4.6.”
28. The Housing Ombudsman’s Complaints Handling Code stipulates, “The Ombudsman encourages the early and local resolution of issues between landlords and residents and recognises that there may be times appropriate action can be agreed immediately. Any decision to try and resolve a concern must be taken in agreement with the resident and a landlord’s audit trail/records should be able to demonstrate this. Landlords must ensure that efforts to resolve a resident’s concerns do not obstruct access to the complaints procedure or result in any unreasonable delay.”
29.  The landlord’s complaints policy submitted to this investigation is silent on its timeframes for responding to complaints. However, the Complaints Handling Code instructs landlords to respond to a complaint within 10 working days of the complaint being logged at stage one and within 20 working days at stage two. Exceptionally, landlords may provide an explanation to the resident containing a clear timeframe for when the response will be received. This should not exceed a further 10 days without good reason.
30. In an email of 1 March 2022, the resident explicitly asked the landlord what steps to take to progress her concerns about the reoccurring issues; she also said she felt she was not being taken seriously with the issue left unresolved. The landlord apologised for the inconvenience and advised its contractor was working hard to resolve the issue. However, it failed to acknowledge her dissatisfaction with the service provided or raise a formal complaint, which would have been a reasonable approach in the circumstances. The landlord acknowledged her formal complaint only following this Service’s intervention from 7 April 2022. This was not appropriate and delayed the early resolution of the matter.
31. Additionally, the landlord did not issue its stage one response until 16 June 2022, 48 working days after it acknowledged the complaint on 7 April 2021. There is no evidence the landlord managed the resident’s expectations or provided an explanation or a clear timeframe with regards to its delay in responding to her complaint. This was unreasonable and contrary to the Complaints Handling Code. Whilst the landlord apologised for the delays and offered compensation, its final response did not acknowledge the impact of the lengthy delay or explain the reasons for it. This was not a resolution orientated approach.
32. On 26 June 2022, the resident escalated her complaint. The landlord acknowledged this on 01 July 2022 and issued its final response on 13 July 2022 which was within the target required by the Complaints Handling Code.
33. In her request to escalate the complaint, the resident explained that the landlord failed to recognise the fact that her son was a wheelchair user and as such was dependent on the lift to be able to leave their second floor home. She explained the impact caused “significant anxiety and harm” to her son and that the landlord should have acknowledged this along with the injuries she reported he sustained.
34. In its final response, the landlord explained it based its stage one response on the complaint it received from the Housing Ombudsman in which it narrated the resolution was to fix the lift rather than recognise that her son was a wheelchair user. This Service considers this to be inappropriate and does not demonstrate that the landlord fully understood or investigated the issues around her complaint and took into account the full impact of its action to a vulnerable resident. There was ample evidence the resident had already raised those concerns to the landlord and provided information about the impact on her family.
35. Whilst it is correct that the resident desired an outcome of fixing the lift, it was appropriate that the landlord acknowledged the overall impact the situation caused. As such the landlord could not demonstrate that it handled the complaint in a reasonable and fair manner. The Complaints Handling Code stipulates, “Landlords must address all points raised in the complaint and provide clear reasons for any decisions” as such, it is reasonable to expect the landlord to issue a full response and acknowledge all elements of the resident’s concerns which the landlord failed to do.
36. The resident reported an injury sustained by her son and her frustration that this was not acknowledged by her landlord. In an email of 02 March 2022, the landlord apologised and asked about the wellbeing of her son during its update about lift repairs, which demonstrates that the landlord was aware of the injury at the time. However, it is unclear whether the injuries sustained were logged and investigated fully. As such, the landlord could not demonstrate that it has taken appropriate action or dealt seriously with those reports. Later in its final response, it advised the resident, “I am sorry to hear how this affected your son, but I am unable to draw conclusions on the causation of, or liability for, impacts on health and wellbeing. This would be more usually dealt with as a personal injury claim through the courts or as an insurance claim. Nonetheless, I acknowledge general distress and inconvenience the situation has caused.” Whilst signposting to personal injury or an insurance claim was reasonable, it is acknowledged that it would have been appropriate to have provided this information earlier when the resident reported the injury.
37. The landlord acknowledged the delay in responding at stage one and offered £100 compensation. However, this compensation is not proportionate to the failures identified in this investigation. In addition to the delay at stage one, the landlord failed to raise a formal complaint in March 2022. A formal complaint was only raised after the involvement of this service. Furthermore, it failed to consider the resident’s vulnerabilities when making an attempt to put things right and as such did not offer a proportionate compensation reflecting the detriment caused to the resident and her vulnerable family. 
38. For the above reasons, there was maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling and in line with The Housing Ombudsman’s guidance on remedies, an order to increase the offer of compensation is made.

Determination

39. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration with regards to the landlord’s handling of repairs to the lift and external lights of the building.
40. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration with regards to the landlord’s handling of the resident’s associated formal complaint.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

41. Within four weeks of the receipt of this report, the landlord is required to provide evidence to this Service of compliance of the orders as follows:
    1. Pay the resident, inclusive of its previous offer of compensation, the total sum of £1,000 comprising:
       1. £250 that was offered during the landlord’s complaints process.
       2. Additional £550 in recognition of the inconvenience caused by its failures in the handling of repairs to the lift and external lights of the building.
       3. Additional £200 in recognition of the inconvenience caused by its failures in the handling of the resident’s associated formal complaint.
    2. To provide its review of resident communications in relation to lift and lighting service issues as a result of this complaint.

Recommendations

42. Review its staff’s training needs in relation to their application of its complaints policy to prevent future complaint handling delays.