Waltham Forest Council (202111729)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202111729

Waltham Forest Council

31 May 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 concerns how the landlord responded to the resident’s repair reports.

Background

2. The resident is a secure tenant of the landlord. The resident’s tenancy started in May 2019.
3. The resident raised a complaint with the landlord on 16 December 2020. He described the elements of his complaint as:
   1. He was treated unfairly by the landlord when he first viewed the property and despite highlighting several outstanding repairs, these were not resolved by the landlord prior to moving in.
   2. He had to undertake various repairs himself and the property was not in a habitable state until these repairs were completed.
   3. He had received a poor level of service from the landlord and its contractors when reporting repairs.
4. The landlord opened a complaint, arranged inspections of the property for 18 December 2020 and 11 January 2021, then sent a stage one complaint response on 12 January 2021. It informed the resident that:
   1. The inspection on 11 January 2021 confirmed that all outstanding work had been completed except for the removal of rubbish from the back garden. An appointment had been agreed for 14 January 2021 to remove the rubbish.
   2. It apologised for the delay in completing the work and explained the restrictions its service had been under during the Covid-19 pandemic and national lockdowns, which had caused delays in completing non-emergency and urgent work.
   3. It also apologised for how that the resident felt he was treated when he was offered the property and explained that due to the time that had elapsed and that the staff member concerned no longer worked for the landlord, it would be difficult to investigate the specific claims made by the resident.
5. The resident was dissatisfied with the landlord’s response and escalated his complaint. He raised concerns that the landlord had not addressed the various repair issues he had raised from the start of his tenancy and it had not offered him any compensation.
6. The landlord sent a stage two response to the resident on 16 February 2021. It informed him that:
   1. Due to the length of time that had elapsed, that it would not investigate issues raised by the resident between May and November 2019. It noted that it had written to the resident on 25 June 2019 to inform him how to raise a complaint but received no response.
   2. Its records showed that a work order was raised on 30 October 2020 to repair the bathroom and bedroom doors and after failed appointments on 23 November 2020 and 10 December 2020 as a result of no access, the work was completed on 17 December 2020. These works were undertaken despite them being the resident’s responsibility.
   3. Work orders were also raised on 30 October 2020 to replace and dispose of the concreate flooring left by the previous tenant and to undertake repairs to the fencing. This was marked as completed on 15 December 2020; however, the rubbish was not cleared from the garden until 14 January 2021.
   4. It accepted that the work to remove the concrete and repair the fencing to the rear boundary should have been carried out when the resident took on the tenancy. Taking into account the delays caused by Covid-19, that it took 20 months to complete the work was not acceptable. It apologised to the resident for its service failure and offered £200 compensation.
7. The resident subsequently referred his complaint to the Ombudsman. He was dissatisfied that the landlord had refused to consider elements of the complaint from 2019 and was dissatisfied with the landlord’s compensation offer.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

8. In his correspondence with both the landlord and the Ombudsman, the resident has described the effect the situation has had on his family’s health and expressed his dissatisfaction that this was not considered by the landlord when calculating its compensation award. The Ombudsman does not doubt the resident’s comments regarding his family’s health, but is unable to draw conclusions on the causation of or liability for impacts on health and wellbeing. Matters of personal injury or damage to health, their investigation and compensation, are more appropriately addressed by the courts through a personal injury claim. Nonetheless, consideration has been given to the general distress and inconvenience which the situation may have caused the resident.
9. The resident also requested the landlord consider elements of the complaint relating to the condition of the property when it was offered to him, the conduct of a staff member during his first viewing of the property and how the repairs raised in 2019 were handled. This was declined by the landlord as these elements fell outside of the 12-month time period it would consider when the complaint was raised in December 2020.
10. The Ombudsman encourages residents to raise complaints with their landlords in a timely manner, so that the landlord has a reasonable opportunity to consider the issues whilst they are still ‘live’, and while the evidence is available to reach an informed conclusion on the events which occurred. This is in accordance with paragraph 39(e) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, which states that the Ombudsman will not consider complaints that were not brought to the attention of the landlord as a formal complaint within a reasonable period, which would normally be within six months of the matters arising. Therefore, it was reasonable for the landlord not to consider elements of the resident’s complaint that had occurred prior to December 2019. Accordingly, this investigation has focussed on the handling of repairs from 2020 onwards (internal doors, fencing and removal of concrete from garden).

How the landlord responded to the resident’s repair reports

11. The landlord’s repair records, internal correspondence, and correspondence between the resident and landlord show that:
    1. Following contact from the resident, the landlord’s Surveyor inspected the resident’s garden during August 2020. Following this, the Surveyor confirmed that various repairs would be carried out, including to break up the concrete flooring, although there could be a delay as only emergency and essential repairs were being completed at thAT time.
    2. The landlord was contacted by the resident on 30 October 2020 who informed it that a bedroom door had fallen off and the toilet door was not closing properly. Work orders were raised for repairs to the doors, to remove and dispose of the concrete flooring left by the previous tenant and to repair and renew sections of the fencing. The order relating to the concrete flooring and fencing was cancelled as it had been incorrectly raised on the landlord’s system.
    3. A new work order was raised on 11 November 2020 in respect of the concrete flooring and fencing. This was marked as completed on 15 December 2020.
    4. A new work order was raised on 10 December 2020 for the repairs to the doors. This was marked as completed on 17 December 2020 and the contractor confirmed that the bathroom door was rehanged and the bedroom door was overhauled. The contractor reported that access was not provided for these works on 23 November and 10 December.
    5. Following the complaint raised by the resident on 16 December 2020, the landlord called the resident to discuss the outstanding work. It agreed to raise a work order to complete the removal of the concrete floor debris from the garden and arranged an inspection for 18 December 2020 to identify any other outstanding issues.
    6. An internal landlord email stated that the inspection confirmed that all outstanding work in the property and the garden had been completed except for the removal of rubbish in the garden. A work order was raised on 11 January 2021 to remove the rubbish, which was completed on 14 January 2021.
12. In its complaint responses, the landlord acknowledged that it had not properly followed its repairs policy and that the resident had experienced unacceptable delays in waiting for the outstanding repairs to the concrete flooring and fencing to be completed. The landlord apologised to the resident and offered £200 for its service failures.
13. 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. In considering this the Ombudsman takes into account whether the landlord’s response was in line with the Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles: be fair, put things right and learn from outcomes, and whether any compensation offer was in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance.
14. The landlord acted fairly in acknowledging its mistakes and explaining what it did wrong. It put things right by apologising to the resident and awarding appropriate compensation. It looked to learn from its errors by raising the issues internally. The landlord has provided the Ombudsman with its internal correspondence and the correspondence between itself and its contractor where it discussed how the repairs were responded to and how to improve its service moving forward.
15. The compensation offered by the landlord was in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance. This suggests a payment of £50 to £250 in cases of service failure resulting in some impact on the complainant, such as where there has been a failure to meet service standards for actions and responses but where the failure had no significant impact. It is acknowledged that the outstanding works to the garden would have been inconvenient for the resident as a new fence to the rear boundary (backing onto another garden) was required, and concrete needed to be removed from an area of the garden. However, there is nothing to suggest that the resident was unable to use the garden while these works were outstanding. Considering this, and that some of the delay was outside the landlord’s control due to the Covid-19 restrictions, the landlord’s compensation offer was reasonable in the circumstances.
16. The landlord’s repairs policy confirms that repairs to the internal doors are the resident’s responsibility. Therefore, the landlord acted over and above its repairing obligations in completing repairs to the doors. However, having committed to completing the repairs, the landlord would be expected to complete them within a reasonable timescale. The contractor initially attended on 23 November 2020 and hence there was only a slight slippage in the landlord’s 21–day target to complete routine repairs. Due to a lack of evidence, it is not possible to determine whether the contractor failed to attend on the dates it says no access was provided. Considering this and that the landlord exceeded its obligations in completing the repairs, it was reasonable for the landlord not to award any compensation for this element of the complaint.

Determination

17. In accordance with paragraph 55(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord made an offer of redress to the resident which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, satisfactorily resolves the complaint.