The Riverside Group Limited (202109560)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202109560

The Riverside Group Limited

16 December 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 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 decision not to replace the resident’s living room and kitchen flooring damaged by flooding.

Background and summary of events

2. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord. The property is a two bedroomed house.
3. The landlord’s records show that the resident first reported a problem with the drains in December 2018 and the drain was found to be blocked. It was cleared by the landlord’s contractor. (The note for December was recorded on 2 January 2019). Between December 2018 and 28 April 2020, the resident reported numerous problems with the plumbing and drains, and the drain outside the property was cleared at least four times during that period.
4. The resident did not make any further reports of the drains being blocked in 2020 but did report water backing up in the sink when the washing machine was on and draining slowly on 9 November 2020, which resolved itself. On 20 January 2021 the landlord’s records show that the resident reported a blocked drain and overflowing toilet. There is no further information recorded for this report other than that no access was available to the contractors who visited the property.
5. On 22 March 2021 the landlord’s records show that the resident reported that the toilet was overflowing. The drain was found to be blocked and was cleared by the landlord’s contractor.
6. The landlord has explained that the resident complained on 22 March 2021 that “she was advised the laminate flooring in the lounge would be replaced but was then advised that this wouldn’t be the case.”
7. On 23 March 2021 the landlord inspected the flooring and took photos.
8. On 29 March 2021 the landlord discussed the complaint with the resident. Its notes of the call state “The customer stated that the Foreman said he was going to “push” to have the living room flooring replaced for her. This was disputed by the Foreman who said that he’d advised the customer that he had no influence over the decision”. The landlord advised the resident that this could not be seen as a promise to replace the flooring. Nonetheless, the landlord said it would replace the floor in the toilet because it had installed that floor originally (in the landlord’s notes this flooring is referred to as both “toilet flooring” and “bathroom flooring”. For consistency we refer to it in this report as toilet flooring). The resident said that she had installed the toilet floor, but the landlord explained that “it is a Riverside installed floor”. The notes also state that home insurance was discussed, which the resident said she understood. The landlord advised that it would look into the flooring issue further, but that the response may be the same.
9. The landlord’s records from 9 April 2021 show a telephone conversation with the resident in which it confirmed that the living room and kitchen flooring would not be replaced. The resident argued that there had been a history of drainage issues at the property and therefore she felt the leak could have been prevented. The landlord explained that the previous repair issues had been resolved, and there was nothing to indicate her recent leak was linked. It said that, regardless of the cause of the leak, the resident should have insurance to protect against damage to personal goods such as the laminate flooring, The landlord advised the resident that it would contact her with a date for replacement of the toilet floor.
10. On 19 April 2021 the landlord’s records confirm that it had called the resident to advise that the toilet floor would be replaced on 23 April 2021. It agreed to keep the complaint open until that had been completed.
11. On 4 May 2021 the landlord’s records state that the resident was happy with the replacement of the toilet floor and was therefore happy to close the complaint.
12. The landlord sent its stage one complaint response on 4 May 2021. It stated that it was pleased that the issue had been resolved and that the required works had now been successfully completed.
13. On 10 May 2021 the resident asked to escalate her complaint. We do not have a copy of her request. An internal note on the same day states that the resident had installed the flooring in the kitchen and living room herself.
14. On 19 May 2021 the landlord contacted the resident by telephone to advise her that it had considered the flooring situation again, but had not changed its decision. The resident was not happy and again referred to the history of drainage issues at the property. The notes state “She said we’ve been out about 9 times and that [a manager] has advised her to keep making complaints because there are plenty of jobs on the system for the drainage issues.”
15. The landlord sent its stage two complaint response on 28 May 2021. It acknowledged that the resident was disputing its decision not to replace the other floors. It explained that it attended a drainage repair in April 2020, when its contractor cleared the rear drains, but then received no further reports of blocked drains until March 2021, when the contractor attended again and cleared another drain blockage. It said that had there been an ongoing problem issue with the drains, this would have been reported more than twice during that timescale.
16. The landlord explained that “Following our contractors attendance in March this year, our Foreman attended the property and took photographs of the flooring but did not advise you that it would be replaced. The photographs were shared with the Supervisor, who agreed that the flooring would not be replaced. You will need to claim off your home contents insurance should you wish to replace your laminate flooring.” The landlord concluded by explaining how the resident could escalate her complaint to a tenants panel, or to this Service, if she remained dissatisfied.

Assessment and findings

17. The landlord’s repair policy confirms that the landlord is not responsible for repairs or replacement of flooring that the tenant has fitted themselves. This is the tenant’s responsibility. Therefore, the landlord had no obligation to repair or replace any of the damaged flooring that had been fitted by the resident.
18. The landlord agreed to replace the toilet floor, as it believed that floor was the original one it had installed. That decision was to the resident’s benefit, because if the floor had been installed by her, as she explained, the landlord would not have been obliged to replace it.
19. A landlord would only be expected to consider compensating a resident for damage to their belongings (and flooring) if there was reason to believe that the landlord’s actions, or inaction, had in some way led to or contributed to the damage. In this case, while there was a previous history of drain and leak problems, including a toilet overflow two months prior to the flood, nothing in the evidence indicates that the flood could have been anticipated by the landlord, or that it was due to poor repairs or maintenance by the landlord. Because of that its decision not to replace the resident’s own flooring was reasonable.

Determination (decision)

20. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was no maladministration by the landlord in respect of the complaint.

Reasons

21. The landlord acted in a reasonable manner by not replacing the living room and kitchen flooring because it was not obligated to replace the flooring that had been fitted by the resident. The landlord replaced the flooring in the toilet as it believed this was flooring that it had originally fitted.