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Waltham Forest Council (202111996)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202111996

Waltham Forest Council

9 January 2024


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. This complaint is about the landlord’s handling of requests for information from its external insurance provider.
  2. The Ombudsman has also considered the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

  1. The resident is a secure tenant, and the property is a 2-bedroom ground floor flat. The resident lives with her son.
  2. The property had a problem with mould prior to this complaint. The landlord rectified the cause of this and there are no further concerns related to mould. The resident made a complaint previously to her landlord in April 2021 and requested £1,000 compensation for damage caused to her belongings by the mould. This included damage to her clothes, shoes, wardrobe, and bed. It told her to raise an insurance claim through its internal insurance team and gave advice on how to do this.
  3. The resident submitted an insurance claim to the landlord’s internal insurance team on 17 May 2021. The resident asked the landlord to help raise the insurance claim as she had not received any acknowledgement after submitting the claim. It said it could not do this, and advised her to send the insurance claim request via post instead, which she did on 3 June 2021. It was signed for by the landlord the following day. The resident contacted this Service after not receiving any communication from the landlord, and we wrote to the landlord. This prompted the landlord to consider the resident’s complaint and in its informal response on 25 November 2021, it said the insurance claim had now been accepted and passed to its external insurance provider on this date.
  4. In its formal stage 1 complaint response on 1 December 2021, it offered the resident £200 compensation in recognition of the delay in setting up the insurance claim, any distress caused by the uncertainty of the claim and her time and trouble in pursuing the matter. This is a separate complaint and is included for context but is not being assessed.
  5. On 24 February 2022, the resident was told by the external insurance provider that it could not conclude the insurance claim until the landlord provided information it had requested. She contacted the landlord on 24 February 2022 and asked it to provide this. She repeated this on 7 April 2022. Following her dissatisfaction with the matter not being resolved, she contacted this Service on 7 June 2022. We advised the resident that if she was not happy with the landlord’s stage 1 response, the next stage was for her to escalate the matter to stage 2.
  6. The formal stage 1 complaint, which was ultimately taken through the landlord’s internal complaints procedure, was made by the resident on 20 June 2022. She said that the landlord was not providing information that the insurer needed to process the insurance claim and asked it to do so. She did not receive a response to this complaint and so requested her complaint be escalated to stage 2 on 30 July 2022. In her escalation request, she said she had not received any communication.
  7. The resident contacted this Service again on 1 November 2022. She said that the landlord had not provided the information that had been requested. We wrote to the landlord on 24 November 2022 and asked it to provide a response at stage 2 of its internal complaints procedure within 20 working days.
  8. The landlord provided its stage 2 response on 10 January 2023, and it upheld the complaint. It apologised for the delay in providing its response and for the uncertainty that this may have caused to the resident. It offered her £250 compensation, made up as follows:
    1. £150 for distress and inconvenience caused by the delay of 8 months (from 14 April 2022 to the date of the final complaint response on 10 January 2023) to provide the clarification requested by the external insurance provider.
    2. £100 for time and trouble caused by not receiving a formal response to the complaint made on 20 June 2022.
  9. The resident asked this Service to investigate her complaint on 12 January 2023. She remained unhappy with the complaint response because she felt that the landlord would continue to not provide the information required for the external insurance provider to conclude her insurance claim.
  10. This Service requested further information to understand whether the information requested had now been provided to the external insurance provider. The landlord did not respond to this Service. It is understood, through the resident, that at the time of this investigation the information required by the external insurance provider has still not been provided.

Assessment and findings

The landlord’s handling of requests for information from its external insurance provider

  1. The property had mould which was remedied by the landlord prior to this complaint. In a previous complaint, the resident asked the landlord for £1,000 compensation for damage caused to her personal belongings by the mould and it told her to submit an insurance claim. It was appropriate for the landlord to consider this request as an insurance claim so that liability could be assessed for the damage of the belongings. It is also in line with its own compensation policy whereby requests for compensation of over £200 for damage to belongings should be directed to its internal insurance team. This is to provide context for the complaint that was brought to this Service.
  2. While the insurance claim was accepted and passed to the landlord’s external insurance provider on 25 November 2021, the resident continued to experience severe delays with progressing her claim. On the same date, 25 November 2021, the external insurance provider asked the landlord to provide information relating to the date that repairs were completed for the mould treatment. The landlord responded to this information request on 8 December 2021, but it was asked to clarify the date due to conflicting information being provided. It responded again on 30 December 2021 with a different date of when the repairs were completed. The external insurance provider contacted the landlord to confirm which of the two dates it had provided (for the date that all repairs were completed) was correct.
  3. The landlord’s internal insurance team had been asking its housing team for this information repeatedly since at least 14 April 2022. The landlord has not provided any evidence to this Service of what events were occurring between December 2021 and April 2022. It is evident that the resident was aware of the landlord not providing the requested information to the external insurance provider and that she contacted the landlord about this.
  4. On 15 July 2022, the housing team responded to the internal insurance team, who contacted the external insurance provider, by forwarding the email it had sent on 30 December 2021. It did not confirm any date but stated that it had already responded and attached the original email. It was unhelpful of the landlord to respond in such a manner as this extended the duration of the insurance claim while the dates were investigated. The external insurance provider continued to contact the landlord to ask for this information. The landlord’s records show that its internal insurance team contacted its housing team on 4 further occasions between July 2022 and December 2022 to ask for this information to be provided.
  5. Throughout the complaint, the resident was not kept updated and did not receive proactive communication from the landlord. While the landlord’s internal records show that it had made an attempt at providing information, from the resident’s perspective, she did not know of any action being taken which understandably left her frustrated and distressed. The resident was contacted by the external insurance provider who said that it aimed to conclude all insurance claims within 90 days but they could not conclude the insurance claim until the landlord provided information that they had requested.
  6. The resident contacted the landlord on 24 February 2022 and told it what the external insurance provider had told her and asked it to escalate her complaint as she was becoming upset with the length of time it had taken to consider her insurance claim. It responded on the same day and advised her it would provide the information to the external insurance provider immediately to progress the claim. However, the resident still did not receive any communication from the landlord which left her contacting both the landlord and the external insurance provider frequently to establish the progress and push for updates.
  7. The repeated lack of response from the landlord when the resident made contact both via formal complaints and via email correspondence showed a lack of willingness from the landlord to put things right and learn from its mistakes. It had already upheld a complaint in December 2021 and offered compensation related to its inaction to progress the insurance claim to the external insurance provider. From 25 November 2021, it had then failed to appropriately respond to the requests for information from the external insurance provider which delayed the conclusion of her claim.
  8. The landlord did not meaningfully engage with the resident, and the external insurance provider, following the various requests for the information to be provided. The resident was left to contact both the external insurance provider and the landlord to understand the progress of the insurance claim. This would have understandably resulted in a lack of confidence in the landlord from the resident and caused significant distress and inconvenience to her.
  9. In its stage 2 complaint response, provided on 10 January 2023, the landlord acknowledged it had not provided the information that had been requested by the external insurance provider and it upheld the complaint. It also provided a chronology to the resident within its response which outlined its repeated failure to provide the requested information.
  10. The stage 2 complaint response offered compensation of £250 in total. It offered £150 towards the distress and inconvenience caused by its delay of 8 months in providing the clarification requested by the external insurance provider. It specified this as being from 14 April 2022 to the date of its response, on 10 January 2023. The landlord has since confirmed to this Service that it had first received the request for information from the external insurance company on 25 November 2021. While it did provide some information, it did not respond to the request with the required information and at the time of this investigation, it is believed that it has not provided the information to the external insurance provider.
  11. The £150 compensation offered for the distress and inconvenience caused to the resident is not proportionate. At the time of the final complaint response on 10 January 2023, the resident had been waiting for her insurance claim to be concluded for 14 months, since the claim was accepted and passed to the external insurance provider on 25 November 2021. While delays with insurance claims can occur, it is evident that the landlord held up the progress of this claim unreasonably which significantly impacted the resident with regards to distress, time and trouble. There were multiple missed opportunities for it to proactively seek further clarification from the external insurance provider to ensure it had the information to process the claim for the resident and prevent unnecessary delays.
  12. This matter is believed to be ongoing with the insurance claim still pending because the landlord has not provided the information to the external insurance provider, a year after its final complaint response. Therefore, the compensation awarded towards the resident’s distress and inconvenience is not sufficient. In line with this Service’s remedies guidance, and considering the issue being unresolved, an order of £700 compensation would be appropriate. This is to acknowledge and offer redress for the significant and prolonged emotional impact that this would have understandably caused to the resident. The landlord had multiple opportunities to put things right and provide the information requested to the external insurance provider. It would not have been an onerous task to put things right by reviewing its repair logs and providing the date that had been requested of when the repairs were completed. The redress needed to put things right at this stage is now more substantial than it would have been if it had put things right at any of its earlier opportunities to do so.

The landlord’s complaint handling

  1. On 20 June 2022, having contacted this Service for advice, the resident made a stage 1 complaint to the landlord as it had not provided the information that the external insurance provider had requested, but it did not acknowledge or respond to this. She requested her complaint be escalated to stage 2 on 30 July 2022 due to a lack of response from the landlord, but it again did not respond. The resident was understandably frustrated with the length of time this insurance claim had taken and that she was not receiving communication about when it would likely be concluded.
  2. The resident should not have to seek external assistance to make a complaint. However, due to the landlord not following its complaint procedure and not acting in accordance with this Service’s Complaint Handling Code, the resident had to contact us, on 1 November 2022, to get an acknowledgement of her complaint. On 24 November 2022, we requested the landlord to respond to the stage 2 escalation request made by the resident on 30 July 2022 and to provide this response within 20 working days.
  3. The resident was understandably distressed when she contacted this Service. She had been trying to get a response from the landlord for a significant length of time and had spent time and trouble pursuing this through this Service, her landlord and the landlord’s external insurance provider. The resident expressed her concern as to why the landlord told her to make an insurance claim if it knew it would not be willing to cooperate or provide the necessary information to its external insurance provider.
  4. Despite this Service requesting the landlord provide its stage 2 complaint response within 20 working days, it did not do this. It emailed the resident on 25 November 2022 with an acknowledgement of the complaint being logged and that it would respond to the stage 2 request, as asked by this Service. It said it would not provide a response within 20 working days, as this Service had requested, because its own complaints procedure allows 25 working days to respond. It said it would start the 25 working days timescale from the date of its email. This is not compliant with the Code. The landlord had already had significant time to respond to the complaint and it was unreasonable for it to further extend this delay.
  5. It is acknowledged that the landlord self-assessed against the Code in September 2022. In its self-assessment, it stated it would not reduce its complaint response times to be in line with the Code because it would be unfair to other complaints that allow a longer response time under different Ombudsman jurisdictions. Its complaint responses remain non-compliant with the Code with a 20 working day response time for stage 1 complaints and a 25 working day response time for stage 2 complaints. The landlord should complete a further self-assessment against the Code to ensure its complaints procedure is compliant in preparation for the new statutory Code that is to be introduced from 1 April 2024.
  6. The stage 2 complaint response was provided by the landlord on 10 January 2023. This was 29 working days after it had acknowledged the stage 2 complaint escalation request by this Service. While this was not significantly over the 20 working day response time outlined in the Code, given the lack of communication and updates the resident had already experienced, and her time and trouble with escalating the complaint, it was not appropriate for it to continue to delay its final complaint response. The resident contacted the landlord again on 5 January 2023 to ask it for an update with the complaint response as it had gone over the timeframe it had said, but it failed to respond to her until 10 January 2023.
  7. In the final complaint response on 10 January 2023, the landlord apologised for the delay in providing the response and for the uncertainty this would have caused. As part of its £250 compensation offered, it awarded £100 of this towards the resident’s time and trouble for not receiving a response to her formal complaint made on 20 June 2022.
  8. The landlord did not agree any steps as to how it would put things right and resolve the complaint in its formal complaint response. While it upheld the complaint and acknowledged that there was a significant failure to respond to the external insurance provider’s information request, it did not state that it would provide this information nor offer a timescale for doing so. This shows a lack of appropriate complaint handling by the landlord as it did not identify how it could put things right for the resident, especially given that its response acknowledged that from it still needed to give a more detailed response regarding the same information that the external insurance provider had been requesting. It also would have been good practice and appropriate for it to outline points of learning on how it could prevent similar issues occurring again in the future.
  9. It is therefore established that considering its poor complaint handling, with the time taken to provide a response, its response being prompted by this Service and its response not establishing how it would put things right to resolve the complaint, the £100 compensation offered for the resident’s time and trouble pursuing the complaint is not sufficient redress. This complaint had been ongoing since the resident made the stage 1 complaint on 20 June 2022 and it took the landlord 7 months to respond.
  10. The resident had spent a significant amount of time repeatedly following up on her complaint and had to seek assistance from this Service, as well as emailing individuals within the landlord’s staff to try to understand what was going on with her complaint. The process of logging a complaint should be accessible and a complaint should not unreasonably be refused or ignored. The resident understandably felt ignored in her pursuit of her complaint about the length of time taken to provide information to the external insurance company. In line with this Service’s remedies guidance, compensation of £500 would be reasonable to account for the landlord’s multiple failures in acknowledging, responding, and addressing her complaint. This would better reflect the resident’s time and trouble in pursuing the complaint.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of requests for information from its external insurance provider.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

  1. Within 28 days of the date of this determination, the landlord is ordered to:
    1. Apologise in writing to the resident with regards to its failure to agree steps and commit to providing the information requested by the external insurance provider within a reasonable timeframe. It should also include an apology for its continued and ongoing failure to provide the information after the final complaint response was given on 10 January 2023.
    2. Pay £700 compensation for its delay in providing the information to its external insurance provider. This includes the £150 previously offered by the landlord in its final complaint response from 10 January 2023. If it has already paid the £150 it had offered, it is ordered to pay only a further £550.
    3. Pay £500 compensation for the failures in its complaint handling. This includes the £100 previously offered by the landlord in its final complaint response from 10 January 2023. If it has already paid the £100 it had offered, it is ordered to pay only a further £400.
    4. Liaise with the external insurance provider to provide the requested information to ensure the claim is processed.
    5. Review its complaint response times to ensure it is compliant with the Complaint Handling Code. This is required for fair complaint handling. This should be done by self-assessing against the Complaint Handling Code.
  2. The landlord should reply to this Service with evidence of compliance with these orders within the timescale set out above.

Recommendations

  1. The landlord should consider paying the £200 compensation that it offered in its stage 1 complaint response from 1 December 2021, if it has not already done so. This is for the initial delay in the landlord accepting and passing her claim to its external insurance provider.
  2. The landlord should consider creating a new procedure, or amending its compensation procedure, to include how it should respond to requests for information from its external insurance providers. This should include agreed timescales and the relevant responsibilities between its teams to ensure delays are not repeated in the future.