Southern Housing Group Limited (202106100)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202106100

Southern Housing Group Limited

22 April 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

1.     The complaint is about the landlord’s response to:

1. The resident’s reports of drainage issues in the property and the level of compensation offered.
2. The associated complaint.

Background

2.     The resident is a tenant of the landlord. The property is a ground floor flat.

3.     During April 2021, the resident raised a complaint about the landlord’s handling of repairs to his drainage system which had been overflowing. He said that the drains had been problematic since February 2021 and felt the landlord had been negligent due to its failure to rectify the issue. He said that his flat had been flooded on 4 April 2021 but no one had attended until 11pm and he had needed to spend time cleaning urine and faeces from the drains which had come into the property. He advised that the same issue occurred the following day and the issues were affecting his family’s mental health. He wanted compensation for his damaged belongings as well as a refund of rent so that he could begin to carry out repairs. He also wanted to be relocated to another property.

4.     In response to the resident’s complaint, the landlord confirmed that it did not compensate for damaged personal belongings and the resident would need to raise a claim via his own contents insurance. In response to his request to be rehoused, it explained that it would not be able to arrange transfers through its complaints process and recommended contacting other housing associations or local authorities as he had not met the requirements for a transfer to another of the landlord’s properties. It explained that the issue had been attended to within a reasonable timescale and the blockage was removed from the stack pipe on 5 April 2021. It completed a CCTV survey of the drains on 26 April 2021 and found no structural defects. It apologised for the inconvenience caused to the resident and offered £50 compensation in view of this. It also arranged for the property to be inspected on 14 September 2021 to arrange any follow on works and cleaning required.

5.     The resident referred his complaint to this Service as he was dissatisfied with the level of compensation offered by the landlord and wanted the landlord to waive the rent for six months. He added that the drainage issues in the property had affected his children’s mental health and he had lost multiple personal items due to the water damage.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

6.     The resident has said he considers that the issues affecting his property have impacted his family’s health. The Ombudsman does not doubt the resident’s comments.  However, it is beyond the remit of this Service to decide on whether there was a direct link between the drainage issues and the resident’s family’s mental health. The resident therefore 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 lack thereof by the landlord. Whilst we cannot consider the effect on health, consideration has been given to any general distress and inconvenience which the resident and his family experienced as a result of any errors by the landlord.

The landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of drainage issues in the property and the level of compensation offered.

7.     The resident’s tenancy agreement confirms that the landlord is responsible for repairs needed to the drains, waste pipes and overflow systems except in cases where the blockage had been caused by misuse by the tenant. Where the landlord supplies furniture, fixed floor coverings or equipment as part of the tenant it would be responsible for keeping them in good working order. The agreement recommends that a resident takes out their own insurance policy to protect their belongings in the event of damage or loss. The resident would be responsible for the internal decorations of the property as well as repairs needed to any white goods and floor coverings.

8.     The landlord’s repairs policy states that emergency repairs, such as blocked drains or major plumbing issues, should be ‘made safe’ within 24 hours and follow on appointments may be required. The policy does not provide specific timescales for completing routine repairs, however, its website states that due to the impact of Covid-19 its routine repairs were taking longer than usual to complete with a wait time of up to three months in some cases.

9.     As part of his communication with both the Ombudsman and the landlord, the resident stated that he felt the landlord had been negligent in its handling of the drainage issues at the property. It is not the role of this Service to determine liability for the damage caused to the resident’s property or determine whether the landlord had been negligent in a legal sense. This would be more appropriately dealt with as an insurance claim or through the courts. However, the Ombudsman has considered whether the landlord has followed its own policies and procedures correctly and acted in line with industry best practice in its response to the resident’ repair reports.

10.  Under the terms of the tenancy agreement, it would be the resident’s responsibility to ensure that his personal items were insured against damage due to flooding. The landlord acted appropriately by advising the resident to raise a claim through his own contents insurance in the first instance. However, it would have been appropriate for the landlord to have signposted the resident to its own liability insurer, as he had made clear that he believed it was, at least in part, liable for his damaged items, but there is no evidence to suggest it had done so.

11. The resident has stated that the drainage issues were ongoing since February 2021, however, there is a lack of documentary evidence to suggest that the issues had been ongoing or reported previously. As such, the Ombudsman is not able to decide on whether the landlord should have carried out any repairs sooner. In this case, the landlord acted appropriately by arranging for the property to be attended initially within 24 hours after the repair was reported. This issue was then referred to a drainage specialist who attended the following day. This was completed within a reasonable timescale and there is no evidence to suggest that the resident had reported any further issues at the time.

12. The landlord also acted appropriately by arranging a CCTV survey of the drains to establish whether there was any underlying issue which may be causing the drainage issues in the property.  it is, however, noted that the landlord did not arrange for the property to be inspected or cleaning to take place until 14 September 2021, which was a significant time after the incident in April 2021. It would have been appropriate for the landlord to have carried out an environmental clean of the property and determine if there was underlying damage that the landlord would be responsible for at an earlier date. The landlord has not provided the Ombudsman with information regarding the inspection on 14 September 2021. As such, it is not clear whether any remedial work was required and has since be completed following this inspection. The delay in completing the clean and inspection is likely to have caused inconvenience to the resident who may have needed to wait before carrying out repairs to the decoration of the property.

13. The landlord would not be expected to offer the resident a rent reimbursement or a free rent period in view of the circumstances. The landlord’s compensation policy states that the landlord would only offer a partial reimbursement of rent when it had been confirmed that the resident had lost the use of a room or cooking and bathing facilities. Whilst it is noted that the overflow had affected several rooms in the resident’s property, there is no evidence to suggest that the rooms were confirmed as being uninhabitable during this period.

14. Overall, the landlord’s offer of £50 compensation is not considered proportionate to the inconvenience caused to the resident by the delay in carrying out an environmental clean, arranging an inspection of the property following the overflow and its failure to provide the resident with relevant information regarding its insurance provider so that the resident could raise a liability claim if he wished. In view of the additional service failures identified, the landlord should offer the resident a further £100 in recognition of the inconvenience caused. This is in addition to the £50 previously offered and is in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance (published on our website) which states that amounts in the range of £50 to £250 are appropriate where there has been service failure by the landlord of a short duration which may not have affected the overall outcome of the complaint.

The landlord’s handling of the associated complaint.

15.  The landlord’s complaints policy states that it has a two-stage formal complaints process. At stage one, the landlord should respond within ten working days. If the resident remains dissatisfied, they can escalate their complaint to stage two. At stage two, the landlord may either complete a compensation review or a complaint review. A compensation review should be issued within ten working days and a complaint review should be issued within 20 working days. If, at any stage, there is likely to be a delay, the landlord would be expected to contact the resident, explain the reason for the delay and provide a new timescale.

16. In this case, the resident asked for a complaint to be raised on 6 April 2021. The landlord issued its stage one complaint response on 20 April 2021, which was within its published timescales. The resident provided the landlord with his reasons for dissatisfaction on 23 June 2021. The landlord acted appropriately by arranging for a compensation review to take place, however, did not issue its stage two complaint response until 13 September 2021. This was 48 working days outside of the landlord’s ten working day timescale at this stage. The landlord acknowledged and apologised for the delay in its stage two complaint response but did not offer any form of redress at this stage. It is noted that the landlord acknowledged its complaint handling delays in February 2022 and offered the resident £100 compensation in view of this.

17. Where there are admitted failings by a landlord, the Ombudsman’s role is to consider whether the redress offered by the landlord put things right and resolved the resident’s complaint satisfactorily in the circumstances. The landlord acted fairly in acknowledging its mistake and apologising to the resident. It put things right by offering £100 compensation. The compensation award was in line with the Ombudsman’s own remedies as set out above. The landlord offered compensation that the Ombudsman considers was proportionate to the distress and inconvenience experienced by the resident in relation to the landlord’s failings. It would have been helpful for the landlord to have offered compensation to the resident at an earlier stage, however, overall, the amount was proportionate in view of the landlord’s failings.

Determination

18.  In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in respect of its response to the resident’s reports of drainage issues in the property and the level of compensation offered.

19. In accordance with paragraph 55 (b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord has made an offer of redress prior to investigation in relation to its handling of the associated complaint which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, resolves the complaint satisfactorily.

Orders

20. The Ombudsman orders that the following actions are carried out within four weeks:

21. The landlord is to pay the resident a £150 in recognition of the inconvenience caused by its failure to carry out an environmental clean, arrange an inspection of the property or provide the details of its own insurers to the resident within a reasonable timescale. This includes the landlord’s previous offer of £50 compensation which can be deducted from the total of £150 if it has already been paid.

Recommendations

22. It is recommended that the landlord pays the resident £100 as previously offered in recognition of the inconvenience caused by its poor complaint handling if this has not already been paid, as the Ombudsman’s finding of reasonable redress was based on the understanding that this would be paid.

23. The landlord should consider carrying out staff training for complaint handlers to ensure that residents are adequately updated when there is likely to be a delay in responding to a complaint.