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Southwark Council (201915518)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 201915518

Southwark Council

26 February 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 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. reports of a loss of heating and hot water
    2. the alleged conduct of an operative 
    3. repeated reports of a blocked and leaking toilet
    4. the associated formal complaint.

Background and summary of events

Background

  1. The resident is a secure tenant in respect of the property, which is a district-heated dwelling with a single toilet. The resident lives with a young child, who was under the age of five at the time of these events.
  2. The tenancy agreement states: “We shall renew, repair or keep in proper working order all of our installations, whether inside or outside the property, that directly or indirectly supply water, gas and electricity to, and for, sanitation to your home (including basins, sinks, baths and other sanitary items) or for heating the water supply and property.” 
  3. The tenants’ handbook sets out the following target response times for repairs:
    1. Emergency repairs – 24 hours for a ‘make safe’ service. This includes cases where the only toilet in the property is blocked. 
    2. Urgent repairs – within three days for repairs that can be a serious nuisance if not repaired. This includes loss of heating or water heating between 31 October and 1 May.
    3. Non urgent repairs – within 20 working days. 
  4. The right to repair scheme provides that heating or hot water not working between 31 October and 1 May should be responded to within 1 working day and assigns a response time of 3 working days for loss of heating between 1 May and 31 October.  
  5. The landlord has a two-stage complaint process, with a time limit of 15 working days for the first response and 25 working days for the second stage review. The landlord’s complaint policy provides the following guidance for awarding compensation where there has been delay in delivering a service and/or for the recognition of distress:
    1. Low impact (£250 per annum or £5 per week): The complainant has just cause but has not suffered significant inconvenience or distress as a result of the events. The impact is not greater than a reasonably tolerant person could be expected to accept. 
    2. Medium impact (£500 per annum or £10 per week): The events are clearly an injustice to the complainant and the service has failed to meet the required standards. A repeated failure to address the shortcoming, even of a low impact event, could give rise to consideration of medium impact level of compensation.
    3. Major impact (£1000 per annum or £20 per week) per week:  A serious failure in service standards. It could either be the severity of the event or a persistent failure over a protracted time or an unacceptable number of attempts to resolve and address the complaint.

Summary of events

  1. On 10 December 2018, the resident complained that she had been without heating and hot water since 6 December 2018, and that the heater she had purchased did not provide sufficient warmth.  She also expressed concern that she was asked by an attending engineer if she was a child minder because she did not have the same skin colour as her daughter. Lastly, she stated that the toilet had been leaking for almost a year without resolution.
  2. According to the repair notes, an operative attended on 6 December 2018 and confirmed that the radiators were functioning correctly. This raised the suspicion that the issue was with the communal boiler house. On 8 December 2018, it was found that that the gas booster of boiler two was no longer operating. Owing to the need for replacement parts, heating was not restored until 10 December 2018.
  3. The resident again reported a loss of heating and hot water on 23 January 2019. An entry shows that an appointment was booked for 24 January 2019. The following entry, dated 28 January 2019, states: “no access on previous visit and no contact details – please extend as cold call [appointment] being booked”. The next attendance was on 7 February 2019, but work was unable to be completed as the long hose required two people and the resident either did not wish to assist or chose not to proceed. The repair was marked as completed on 18 February 2019. It is not clear whether the property was without heating for the entirety of this period.
  4. In relation to toilet repairs, the record shows that:
    1. the resident raised issues with a leaking flush cone on 28 February 2018, 14 April 2018, 20 September 2018, 1 November 2018, and 6 December 2018.
    2. blockages and flushing issues were reported on 1 February 2018, 24 September 2018, 20 December 2018, 31 December 2018, 25 January 2019, and 11 February 2019.
  5. The landlord provided its stage one response on 27 March 2019. It apologised for a “significant failure” in communication and acknowledged that this had exacerbated the delays she had experienced. It understood that works had been completed.
  6. The resident escalated the complaint on 24 April 2019, and a stage two response was issued on 14 June 2019. The landlord acknowledged that the stage one response did not meet the 15-day target for a response and was approximately 12 weeks late.
  7. In formulating its additional response, the landlord reviewed the repairs history from December 2017 (12 months prior to the formal complaint). It acknowledged that the number of required repairs to the toilet was excessive. It said that although remedial action had been taken each time the resident reported an issue, it could have arguably taken more effort to identify the underlying causes rather than relying on a more reactive approach. This was hindered by its record keeping – most entries were silent on the cause of the blockages, aside from the jobs in December 2018 and February 2019, which attributed the problem to wet wipes. It said that it would arrange an inspection to ascertain the extent of any works required. The landlord apologised for the inconvenience and frustration caused to the resident and said that it would make an offer of compensation following the completion of works.
  8. In relation to the alleged comment made by the engineer, the landlord advised that it had raised this with the Gas Contract Manager and the company’s senior staff. The landlord assured the resident that it took such matters seriously and that there is a clear code of conduct that contractors are expected to follow; however, it was difficult to form a view on what had occurred.
  9. The Ombudsman has viewed an email from the contractor on 12 June 2019, advising that it had spoken to both operatives, who had denied making the alleged comment. The landlord has explained that the contractor’s findings were provided relatively late in the drafting process, and that it had omitted to update the complaint response. The landlord was unable to find evidence that it communicated the contractor’s findings to the resident at any point, which is consistent with the resident’s reports that she did not hear back.
  10. The resident reported further toilet blockages on 24 June 2019, 20 July 2019, 1 August 2019, 8 August 2019, and 17 September 2019. These were responded to within 24 hours. An order for CCTV to the soil pipe was raised on 21 August 2019 and this was completed on 12 September 2019. The landlord advised that the issue was traced to a blockage in the drain run in the downstairs neighbour’s garden, and that it had some difficulty obtaining access for remedial works.
  11. At the time of this report, the landlord had yet to make the resident an offer of compensation.

Assessment and findings

Loss of heating and hot water

  1. The landlord’s operative attended on the same day as the resident’s initial report of a loss of heating and hot water. It was appropriate that the issue was treated as a priority as it was in the middle of winter; however, the heating was not restored until four days later. The landlord did not provide an explanation of the delay in its complaint responses; however, the repairs record shows that the communal boiler house was examined on 8 December 2018 and that replacement parts were required. The record does not give any indication of why the boiler house was not inspected until two days after the report of a heating malfunction.
  2. The resident’s second report of loss of space and water heating during wintertime was resolved after 26 days. This was significantly outside the response time for repairs of this nature; however, it is noted that landlord was not wholly responsible for the lack of urgency in carrying out the repair. The landlord’s records show that a next-day appointment was scheduled but operatives were unable to gain access, and that the resident deferred some of the works on 7 February 2019. It is unclear if the long gaps between the appointments were caused by the contractor’s limited availability, difficulties in contacting the resident, or if the resident requested those specific dates. It is also not known whether the resident was without heating and hot water for the duration of this period, or if the problem was intermittent. It is noted that there is no evidence of the resident chasing repairs in this time. 
  3. There is no evidence that the resident was offered a portable heater or any other practical assistance in December or January, and she was not offered any compensation for the additional costs incurred. Although the resident had purchased a heater by the time she lodged her complaint, this expense could have been avoided had the landlord provided an portable heater after it failed to restore her heating on the first visit. The landlord did not, in its complaint responses, acknowledge the impact the loss of heating had on the resident or attempt to put it right. 

Operative’s conduct

  1. As the landlord did not have a direct contractual relationship with the operatives who attended the resident’s property, it was appropriate that it referred the complaint about the alleged offensive comment to the contractor for investigation. However, the landlord failed to communicate the outcome to the resident.  Although it can be difficult to make a finding on what occurred when there are conflicting accounts of events, an update would have provided the resident with some assurance that the matter had been looked into.

Toilet leaks and blockages

  1. The landlord’s records show that the resident reported issues with her toilet on 11 separate occasions from February 2018 to February 2019.  The landlord’s operatives appropriately attended on all occasions and carried out repairs; however, the issue is the frequency at which the issues recurred rather than the timeliness of the repairs.
  2. The landlord recognised that the number of required repairs was excessive and that it had missed an opportunity to establish the root cause of the toilet leaks and blockages, which would have averted some of the inconvenience and disruption experienced by the resident. It is appropriate that the landlord acknowledged this and proposed to investigate further. However, it did not follow through with the offer in a timely manner, and it was not until the resident reported four further toilet blockages that an order was raised for a CCTV investigation of the soil pipe. Given the lengthy history of toilet issues at this property, the wait was unreasonable.
  3. The landlord expressed an intention to compensate the resident for the inconvenience caused by its failure to take a more proactive approach to the continued reports of a blocked and leaking toilet; however, it had not made an offer two years on. 

Complaint handling

  1. There was a delay of over three months at stage one of the complaint procedure and an additional delay at stage two. It does not appear that the landlord kept in regular contact with the resident over this time, and no explanation was provided for the time taken to respond. Although the landlord acknowledged that it failed to meet its own timescales, it failed to provide any redress for this service failure and has therefore failed to put this right.
  2. As detailed in paragraph 21, the landlord did not provide a comprehensive response to the resident’s concerns about the loss of heating in either of its responses. 

Determination (decision)

  1. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was a service failure in respect of the landlord’s response to:
    1. reports of a loss of heating and hot water
    2. the alleged conduct of an operative.
  2. Additionally, there was maladministration in respect of the landlord’s response to:
    1. repeated reports of a blocked and leaking toilet
    2. the associated formal complaint.

Reasons

Loss of heating and hot water

  1. The resident was without heating and hot water for multiple days in the wintertime. Although it was established early on that the issue was likely with the communal boiler house, there was a minor delay in undertaking further investigations. There were large, unexplained gaps between appointments the second time the resident reported a loss of heating; however, the Ombudsman recognises that there were also delays for which the landlord was not responsible.  
  2. No practical assistance was offered to the resident on either of the occasions that she reported a heating outage.

Conduct of an operative

  1. It was appropriate for the landlord to refer the allegation of an offensive comment to the contractor to investigate as it had no direct contractual relationship with the operatives. Although the contractor was unable to substantiate the complaint, the landlord should have nevertheless updated the resident about its findings.

Toilet leaks and blockages

  1. Despite the resident’s repeated issues with the sole toilet in her property over a year and a half, the landlord did not investigate the root cause of the issue in a timely manner.

Complaint handling

  1. There were significant delays in the landlord’s responses to resident’s complaint, and the landlord failed to address her concerns about a loss of heating and hot water.

Orders and recommendations

  1. The landlord is ordered to pay the resident a sum of £500, comprising:
    1. £300 for the inconvenience, time and trouble experienced by the resident for the repeated issues with the toilet over one and a half years, as well as the periods when she and her young daughter had no heating 
    2. £50 towards increased heating costs
    3. £50 for the distress and inconvenience caused by the lack of update about the outcome of the investigation into the operative’s conduct
    4. £100 for the delays in responding to the resident’s complaint, and the frustration caused by its inadequate explanations and lack of timely follow-up on proposed actions.
  2. It is noted that the timescale set out in the tenant handbook for responding to a loss of heating and hot water over the winter months differs from that listed in the right to repair scheme. The Ombudsman recommends that the landlord bring the tenant handbook into alignment with the right to repair scheme used by all local authorities.