Sovereign Housing Association Limited (202014730)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202014730

Sovereign Housing Association Limited

04 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. The complaint is about the landlord’s:

1.  response to reports of a leak from the roof and chimney.

2.  handling of the complaint.

Background

2. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord. The property is a two-bedroom flat on the first floor. The resident says that her son, who has a diagnosis of autism, lived with her until about two years ago and had to move out of the property due to its condition.
3. The resident has reported a leak into her bedroom and living room on an intermittent basis since 2014. She raised a complaint about the landlord’s handling of the matter in November 2019 and then again in November 2020. She said she wanted the leak fixed as well as compensation. During December 2020, the landlord offered to move the resident temporarily, but she declined this due to her son’s needs.
4. The resident later detailed the compensation she was seeking; £5000 for the stress caused to her and her family, £350 for ruined plaster that she paid for; £365 in additional heating costs; £1020 for loss of her living room for one year; £3570 for the loss of half of her living room for 7 years; £828 for time off work; and £743 for damaged furniture and wallpaper.
5. The landlord issued its stage two response on 24 March 2022. It apologised for the delay in completing the repairs and for its poor communication. It confirmed that it had carried out a survey in March 2021 and completed repairs following this: rafters were bolted to the ceiling joists in August 2021 to help resist roof spread; and plastering repairs to the cracks in the living room were completed in January 2022. It offered £650 to acknowledge the inconvenience over an extended period. It said it was unable to award compensation for damage to health and belongings under its compensation policy and referred the resident to its public liability insurers. It said it did not agree the living room was uninhabitable.
6. The resident remained dissatisfied and contacted this service in May 2022. Her desired outcomes were for the repair works to be completed and for the landlord to provide her with additional compensation.

Scope of the investigation

7. It is acknowledged that the resident has reported the leak on an intermittent basis since 2014. As the substantive issues become historic it is increasingly difficult for either the landlord, or an independent body such as the Ombudsman, to conduct an effective review of the actions taken to address those issues. Residents are therefore encouraged to raise formal complaints within a reasonable period of the matter complained about occurring. While the historical leaks provide context for the complaint, this investigation has focused on the handling of the leaks reported from 2019 onwards, when the resident raised her first complaint about the landlord’s handling of the matter.
8. The resident explained in her complaint to the landlord that the leaks in the property have affected her mental health and impacted on her son’s health. This service does not doubt the resident’s comments in this regard. However, it is beyond the remit of this service to determine whether there was a causal link between the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of leaks and the impact on her health. If the resident wishes to pursue this aspect of her complaint further then she may wish to seek legal.

Assessment and findings

The landlord’s response to reports of a leak from the roof and chimney.

9. The resident’s tenancy agreement and Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 place an obligation on a landlord to maintain the structure and exterior of a property.  In accordance with this obligation the landlord was required to investigate the resident’s reports of a leak into the property and to put right any issues it identified which were its responsibility.
10. The landlord’s repairs and maintenance policy states that for structural issues or work needing complex diagnostics it will carry out a pre-inspection. It will keep in touch, updating residents on the progress of their repairs, including any changes to an agreed appointment. It will endeavour to complete all responsive repairs within 28 calendar days.
11. The landlord’s repairs log confirms that the leak into the resident’s living room was reported again on 19 September 2019. Following this, scaffolding was erected and repairs to the roof were completed during December 2019.
12. The next contact from the resident on file was on 29 May 2020 when she requested an update on the repairs, for the scaffolding to be removed and for a date for when the hole in her living room ceiling would be fixed. The landlord’s records confirm that it spoke to the resident on 2 June 2020 and confirmed the actions it would take to complete the repairs, although the details are not known. Although the evidence indicates that the leak was not ongoing at this time, the resident had been left with a hole in her living room ceiling for a significant period of time by this point.
13. In November 2020, there was a re-occurrence of the leak and a job was raised to erect scaffolding, repair the chimney and roof, and apply waterproof coating. The repairs were recorded as complete later that month, and therefore, within target. Although the landlord took steps to repair the leak again, the leak had been reported on at least 8 occasions by this point and the landlord should have taken more robust action to fully investigate and provide a lasting remedy to the leaks. It therefore missed opportunities to put things right.
14. The landlord took appropriate action in this regard in March 2021, when it instructed a chartered building surveyor to inspect the property. The survey found that the flashings to the chimney stacks were leaking, and there was cracking to the wall in the living room likely to be due to roof spread. Various repairs were recommended, including reforming of the lead flashings, bolting of the rafters to ceiling joists, plaster repairs and repair of the hole in the living room ceiling.
15. During May 2021, the landlord contacted the resident to inform her that it was obtaining quotes for the roofing works and once they were underway it would raise an order for plastering works. During August 2021, the resident reported that the roof was leaking again into her bedroom, over her bed. Therefore the evidence indicates that the leak continued on an intermittent basis until the roof repairs were completed later that month.
16. Despite the landlord committing to complete the internal repairs once the roof repairs were complete, there was an unreasonable delay in it doing so. The repairs were not raised until October 2021 and were recorded as complete on 7 January 2022. No explanation has been offered for the delay in completing these repairs. The resident also says that various inspections for the repairs were carried out which required her to take more time off work.
17. The resident says that she was unable to use her living room for a year prior to the internal repairs being completed. She says this was because the walls needed plastering, she was unable to lay her carpet until the repairs had been completed, and she had to store the items from her living room in another room. Given the nature of the outstanding works, it is reasonable to conclude that they had a significant impact on the living conditions in the property.
18. Furthermore, the landlord committed to updating the resident once a week until the repairs had been completed but the resident says the updates stopped in June 2021 when her property manager left the organisation. No evidence has been provided by the landlord to show that it kept the resident regularly updated between June 2021 and January 2022, when it completed the internal repairs. This would have caused further distress and inconvenience to the resident.
19. It was therefore appropriate that the landlord upheld the resident’s complaint, apologised and offered compensation to her. However, the compensation offer was inadequate considering the impact the leak and outstanding repairs had on the living conditions in the property, and the time and trouble the resident went to in facilitating access for inspections and in pursuing the repairs with the landlord.
20. Furthermore, the landlord failed to adequately address many aspects of the resident’s compensation claim, for example the plastering repairs she paid for, the time she needed to take off work, and the increased heating costs. While the landlord was not necessarily obliged to offer the full amount the resident was seeking, it should have clearly explained its reasons for not agreeing all elements of the resident’s claim. It also could have offered a fuller explanation for why it did not consider the resident’s living room to be uninhabitable.
21. There was some evidence of learning in the landlord’s complaint responses, as it acknowledged the shortcomings in its communication with the resident and said it had put learning outcomes in place. However, this focused on the handling of the repairs following the departure of the property manager in June 2021; there was no evidence the landlord had taken steps to ensure recurring repair issues are investigated and remedied at the earliest opportunity.
22. Lastly, it should be noted that the resident informed this service during May 2022 that some of the external repairs, including pointing and to brickwork, remained outstanding. It is understood from the landlord’s stage 2 response that these repairs would be carried out as part of its cyclical maintenance programme that year. Therefore, the landlord has been ordered to update the resident on the status of these repairs and if they remain outstanding, to confirm when they will be completed.

Complaint handling

23. The landlord has a 2-stage complaints procedure. At stage 1 it aims to agree a solution with the resident within ten working days and at stage 2 it aims to respond within 20 working days. These are also the timeframes set out in the Ombudsman’s Complaints Handling Code (the Code), which member landlords are obliged to comply with. The Code confirms that where a landlord needs longer to respond fully then this should not usually exceed 10 working days. If longer than this is needed then this should be agreed by both parties.
24. The resident is unhappy with the landlord’s complaint handling. She states that her complaints have been closed without her being given any updates or responses. The resident’s initial complaint raised in November 2019 was dealt with by the landlord informally and closed on the basis that repairs to remedy the leak would be carried out. Given that no evidence has been provided to show that the resident took this complaint further at that time, this investigation has focused on the landlord’s handling of the more recent complaint raised on 28 November 2020.
25. The landlord’s internal communications show that following receipt of the resident’s complaint, it decided it would not re-open the complaint as it was already working on the repairs. The landlord failed to appropriately acknowledge the complaint or provide an update to the resident. On 10 February 2021, the resident chased the landlord for an update on her complaint and in response the landlord confirmed it had closed the complaint and would ask its property manager to discuss what was outstanding. No evidence has been provided to show that the landlord contacted the resident again and she contacted the Ombudsman for assistance with progressing her complaint.
26. Between March and May 2021, the Ombudsman wrote to the landlord asking it to respond to the resident’s complaint in writing. While the landlord contacted the resident in March 2021 in relation to her compensation claim, it did not provide a stage 1 response until 21 May 2021, nearly 6 months after receiving the resident’s complaint. This was an unacceptable and excessive delay.
27. The resident escalated her complaint to stage 2 on 6 December 2021. She subsequently sought assistance from the Ombudsman again who asked the landlord to respond to the complaint. The stage 2 response was provided on 24 March 2022, therefore exceeding the target by around 11 weeks. The landlord failed to acknowledge or offer any redress for the significant failings in its complaints handling. To put things right the landlord is ordered to pay the resident compensation and to take the necessary remedial action to improve its complaint handling going forward.

Determination

28. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of:
    1. reports of a leak from the roof and chimney.
    2. the complaint.

Orders

29. Within four weeks of the date of this report, the landlord must:

a.     Pay the resident a total of £900 compensation (repairs and complaint handling).  This is comprised of £600 for its failures dealing with the repairs and £300 for its complaint handling failures. This is to be paid in addition to the £650 already paid as a goodwill gesture.

b.     Assist the resident in making an insurance claim with its public liability insurers.

c.      Update the resident on the status of the external repairs referred to its cyclical works programme, and if they remain outstanding, confirm when they will be completed.

d.     Review its handling of the repairs in this case and implement the necessary remedial action to ensure the same service failures do not recur. The findings should be provided to both the resident and the Ombudsman.

e.     Review its complaint handling in this case and implement the necessary remedial action to ensure the same service failures do not recur. The findings should be provided to both the resident and the Ombudsman.