Tower Hamlets Homes (202217228)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202217228

Tower Hamlets Homes

8 September 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 leaseholder 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 handling of a hot water outage in the leaseholder’s property.

Background

2. The complainant is a leaseholder of a one bedroom, ninth floor flat. He has advised that the property is tenanted and he does not reside there himself.
3. The leaseholder’s hot water is supplied via a main tank within the block of flats which provides water to his own hot water tank in his property.
4. The leaseholder contacted the landlord to report issues with his hot water system on 6 April 2022. The leaseholder logged a stage 1 complaint on 25 July 2022, following a number of visits to the property by contractors. He was dissatisfied that he paid a total of £5,000 to replace various parts of the boiler following contractors’ advice, and his tenants still had no hot water in the property.
5.  The landlord issued its stage 1 response on 30 August 2022 which said:
   1. Contractors attended the leaseholder’s property on 7 occasions between April 2022 and June 2022. During this time the hot water was intermittent.
   2. When the contractor attended to further reports of no hot water on 4 May 2022, the landlord noted the cause as being a blockage from the riser going into the property.
   3. Upon attendance to the property on 22 June 2022, the landlord noted the leaseholder’s plumber had replaced the elson tank and the pipework had been installed incorrectly. The landlord advised it had not recommended the leaseholder to replace the elson tank. It subsequently advised that due to the badly installed pipework, a pump would need to be installed to prevent air locks.
   4. The landlord attended on 29 June 2022 and the hot water was left in working order.
   5. The landlord apologised for the stress and inconvenience caused by misleading advice from different contractors and time taken to rectify the matter. It advised the issue would be addressed with the contractor.
6. The leaseholder requested to escalate his complaint as he felt the landlord failed to address his request for compensation or reimbursement. In addition, he was dissatisfied with the time taken for the landlord to resolve the matter and advised he had followed contractors’ advice when replacing theelson tank.
7. The landlord’s final response was issued on 13 October 2022. It reiterated that contractors did not recommend the leaseholder to replace the elson tank and that the landlord would therefore not be compensating the leaseholder for costs incurred for this work.
8. The leaseholder referred his complaint to this Service on 10 April 2023 and remains dissatisfied at the landlord’s decision not to reimburse him £5,000 for the costs incurred when replacing various parts of his boiler. In addition, he believes all repairs carried out were unnecessary and the only repair required was to fit an additional hot water pump for £160. As a resolution to the complaint, the leaseholder is seeking to be reimbursed £5,000 for the costs of replacing the parts for his boiler.

Assessment and findings

The landlord’s handling of a hot water outage in the leaseholder’s property

9. Landlord records show it attended the leaseholder’s property in a timely manner in response to the reports of hot water outages within his property. An initial report of a hot water outage was made on 6 April 2022, with contractors attending the property on the same day. Further reports of hot water outages were made until it was repaired in July 2022. The landlord responded to these in line with its repair policy timescales whereby emergency repairs including loss of hot water should be responded to within 24 hours of the report.
10. However, the hot water frequently failed after the landlord completed repairs which resulted in repeat visits. The landlord completed repairs including reinstating the drain cock valve and flushing out the system via the drain cock. It took 3 months and 7 contractor visits until the hot water was fully functioning. The repeat visits and time taken would have caused frustration to the leaseholder who had tenants residing in the property.
11. From 21 April 2022, the landlord recorded the issue as being an internal problem with the leaseholder’s boiler. The lease agreement states that the landlord is responsible for maintaining and renewing any existing hot water apparatus in the building other than that contained in and solely serving the property. The repairs to the leaseholder’s boiler were therefore his responsibility as the boiler supplied hot water to his property only.
12. After the landlord identified the repairs were the leaseholder’s responsibility, contractors continued responding to reports of hot water outages and attended the property to complete further repairs. For example, on 27 April 2022 and 4 May 2022, the landlord flushed the system again. Despite the repairs not being the landlord’s responsibility, this was in line with its repair policy whereby the landlord will undertake repairs to leaseholders’ properties where there is a contractual or other legal obligation, for example maintaining the supply of services to each flat. The landlord correctly applied its policy when re attending the property at this time. However, the system continued to fail after these repairs.
13. The leaseholder paid foran independent plumber to replace a 3 port valve, re-pipe the communal supply to the leaseholder‘s tank, and to replace the elson tank. He explained that this was as per contractors’ advice.The landlord failed to create a clear record of what it deemed the boiler fault to be, or to maintain clear records of what repair recommendations were made to the leaseholder. This Service’s Spotlight report on ‘Knowledge and Information Management’ outlines that landlord records should tell the full story of what happened, when and why including, any decision made, and the reasons for it. The landlord notes provided to this Service were lacking information and only outlined what repair it completed following each visit. This was insufficient.
14. In light of the landlord’s lack of records, this Service contacted the landlord asking what it deemed to be the cause of the hot water outages and asked what repair recommendations it had provided to the leaseholder. The landlord advised that its contractors diagnosed the hot water outages as being caused by the unvented cylinder having major installation faults. The landlord said it recommended the leaseholder to reroute the pipework and install safety valves to meet regulatory standards. The leaseholder followed this advice and continued experiencing hot water outages which would have caused him frustration.
15. Within the landlord’s stage 1 complaint response, it apologised to the leaseholder for the stress and inconvenience caused by misleading advice and the time taken to rectify the matter. It continued that the period he had to wait for the matter to be resolved was unacceptable, and that conflicting advice exacerbated the situation. It said a manager would address this directly with the contractors. However, at stage 2 the landlord made no mention of any failings. In addition, no remedy was offered to the leaseholder for the failings it had identified at stage 1. This was unacceptable and evidenced a lack of consistency in the landlord’s responses.
16. Throughout stage 1 and 2, the landlord maintained it had not recommended the leaseholder to replace his elson tank or carry out any works to it. It advised in its stage 2 response that the replacement of the leaseholder’s elson tank had been completed at his own accord by his plumber. However, the leaseholder said he followed the landlord’s advice when replacing the elson tank.
17. Internal communication from a contractor advised the landlord on 23 September 2022 that, “replacing an elson tank in a leaseholder’s property would be their responsibility, we only maintain and are responsible for the primary supply to the indirect coil if it has one. As mentioned earlier it was a recommendation and the leaseholder did not have to get it done.” Contrary to the landlord’s complaint responses, this evidences that the contractor did recommend the leaseholder to replace the elson tank. The landlord failed to take accountability for this recommendation or log this advice at the time. The inaccurate complaint responses evidence a lack of investigation into the matter and could have been avoided had the landlord retained clear records. Further, this would have caused the leaseholder to lose confidence in the landlord’s ability to resolve the matter.
18. Although the landlord was following its repairs policy by continuing to attend the leaseholder’s property, it was inappropriate for the landlord to provide recommendations to the leaseholder for boiler repairs at this stage. The landlord had determined that the repair responsibilities were with the leaseholder, and the landlord was overstepping its obligations by offering further advice. It is evident that the landlord provided misleading information about what repairs were required, which damaged the landlord tenant relationship.
19. The hot water was reinstated back to working order on 29 June 2022 after the leaseholder paid for a replacement hot water pump. He felt that this was the only repair that had been required from the start as per the advice he sought from an independent plumber. He advised that the plumber informed him that having inspected the issue, only the water pump required changing due to a lack of pressure from the communal boiler. The leaseholder felt the other repairs recommended by the landlord were unnecessary, and he requested reimbursement from the landlord of £5,000 for the costs incurred when replacing the various boiler parts.
20. As the boiler repairs were the leaseholder’s responsibility in accordance with his lease agreement, it was ultimately his decision which repairs to carry out to the boiler. He took the decision to instruct his plumber to complete the repairs recommended by the landlord. In turn, the costs incurred for the repairs were his responsibility. Therefore, the landlord’s response not to reimburse the leaseholder £5,000 for the replaced boiler parts was reasonable.
21. Overall, due to the time and trouble caused to the leaseholder for the matter to be resolved, misleading advice on what repairs needed to be completed, poor record keeping and a lack of accountability for advice provided to the leaseholder, there was maladministration regarding the landlord’s handling of a hot water outage to the leaseholder’s property. In accordance with this Service’s remedies guidance, the landlord is ordered to pay the leaseholder a total of £550 compensation to reflect the failings.

Determination

22. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration with regards to the landlord’s handling of a hot water outage in the leaseholder’s property.

Orders

23. The landlord is ordered to pay the leaseholder a total of £550 compensation comprising of:
    1. £150 for the landlord’s poor record keeping in relation to the boiler repairs.
    2. £300 for the landlord’s poor communication with the leaseholder, including misleading advice regarding repairs and the landlord’s lack of accountability for the recommendation to replace his elson tank.
    3. £100 for time and trouble caused to the leaseholder for delays in the landlord identifying the cause of the hot water outage.
24. The landlord is ordered to apologise to the leaseholder for the failings identified in this report.
25. The landlord should share compliance of the above orders with this Service within the next 4 weeks.

Recommendations

26. The landlord is recommended to carry out a review of its record keeping, particularly with external contractors to ensure that it creates and maintains adequate records.
27. The landlord is recommended to maintain clear boundaries on when it completes repairs and offers recommendations depending on whose responsibility as per terms of the lease the repairs lie with.
28. The landlord is recommended to read this Service’s Spotlight report on Knowledge and Information Management which was published in May 2023.