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Westminster City Council (202106311)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202106311

Westminster City Council

17 November 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 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 handling of repairs to a fire door in the basement of the resident’s building, and the level of compensation offered by it to him for delaying this.

Background and summary of events

  1. The resident is a leaseholder of a flat in a building on an estate managed by the landlord. The building’s communal entrances and areas are also managed by the landlord.
  2. The resident contacted the landlord via email on 17 December 2020 to make a stage one complaint about a broken fire door in the basement area of the building, which he said that he had last reported to the landlord on 20 November 2020. He explained that there was no lock to the door and that a report was initially logged with the landlord in June 2020. The landlord had outlined that emergency repairs to make the door safe were carried out on the same day that the repair was reported.
  3. The resident stated that he had then made four calls to the landlord following on from the above emergency repairs to the basement fire door, as it had not returned to permanently repair this but had “nailed it up”. He did not provide the dates of the calls that he was referring to, and there was no record of the telephone calls in the landlord’s records. The landlord had nevertheless advised him after he had contacted its repairs team on 20 November 2020 that the job was in hand to be completed, but the resident stated there had been no progress with this after four weeks.
  4. A contractor had previously contacted the landlord via email on 24 November 2020 after the resident had raised the above concerns with its repairs team, and they provided a breakdown of the work that would be carried out to replace the basement fire door and door frame, as well as materials required, for its approval.
  5. The landlord subsequently sent out an acknowledgment email of the previous stage one complaint to the resident on 7 January 2021. The resident was advised that the complaint would be reviewed and passed on for investigation.
  6. The landlord’s records showed that, between 8 January and 31 March 2021, a contractor was in contact with the landlord multiple times via email. Their communications showed that there were queries regarding the authorisation of work to be carried out, and the ordering of the parts needed for the repair to the basement fire door from the manufacturer.
  7. On 11 January 2021, the landlord sent another stage one complaint acknowledgement email to advise the resident that his complaint had been assigned for investigation. He was advised that, if there were any further delays in getting a response to his complaint, he would be informed of the reasons for this and of any progress. The landlord also confirmed that the description that it had previously recorded for the repair to the basement fire door had been incorrect, which had caused confusion, but that it had now booked an appointment for this for 22 January 2021.
  8. Internal records on 12 January 2021 from the landlord showed that there were ongoing discussions by it internally regarding arranging an appointment to carry out the above basement fire door repairs, as this had now escalated to a complaint.
  9. On 25 January 2021, the landlord advised the resident via email that there would be a delay to his stage one complaint response until 29 January 2021, which was due to a backlog of complaints that it was working through.
  10. On 26 January 2021, however, the landlord responded to the stage one complaint by sending a letter to the resident. It stated that, due to the corona virus pandemic, only emergency repairs were responded to by it in June 2020, including to the basement fire door on the same day on 3 June 2020. It explained that the landlord’s contractor had also previously attended the door on 23 November 2020. They had found that, as “the doorframe was metal and needed replacing, the job would have to be passed to a metal working contractor to manufacture one as they were not available for purchase.” The resident was therefore offered an apology and £130 compensation in recognition of the distress, inconvenience, time and trouble caused to him by this.
  11. The landlord confirmed that it had upheld the resident’s complaint because there were delays in passing the job order between the relevant parties to its metal sub-contractor. It outlined that this had not been picked up by the sub-contractor until 21 January 2021, and so it had attended the basement fire door over the weekend of 16 and 17 January 2021 to make this safe again until a new door could be installed, which it hoped would prevent any further issues with this in the meantime. As the door was currently being made, the landlord explained that this normally took around six weeks and that it would seek to install the door as soon as possible when this arrived.
  12. The resident made a request to have his complaint escalated to the final stage two of the landlord’s complaint procedure on 27 January 2021. He explained that he was not satisfied with the above stage one complaint response. The resident stated that the basement fire door was not actually made secure by the landlord on the same day that this was reported. He mentioned that two further failed visits were made by a contractor for this in June 2020, and that the door was not made secure until a third visit when this was nailed shut and a follow-up visit was agreed after he had made several calls to the landlord.
  13. The resident reported that youths had then been able to gain access to his building by forcing the poorly secured basement fire door on 20 November 2020, and that he had since made six or more calls to chase this up as risk from potentially infected people gathering in an unventilated basement. He described the landlord as referring to this as “not urgent” while agreeing to chase the repair up, with adults using the door to access his building and congregate in the basement on 10 January 2021, which its repairs team agreed to repair on the same date but did not do so. A temporary lock was subsequently fitted over the weekend of 16 and 17 January 2021.
  14. The resident therefore rejected the offer of £130 compensation made by the landlord on 26 January 2021, as he explained that it had left the basement fire door without a lock for eight weeks during a lockdown, contrary to its responsibility to protect its residents. He added that he did not accept that the repair job was not picked up by it until 21 January 2021, as he had reported this to its antisocial behaviour and repairs teams from 20 November 2020 and had received weekly calls checking on the progress of this from the former, having then submitted his stage one complaint on 17 December 2020. The resident also queried the landlord’s above repair delays, the condition of the door being left without locks by it being overlooked, and whether this had been risk assessed.
  15. The landlord’s records showed that, on 9 February 2021, it contacted a contractor to find out about a job that was raised regarding the new basement fire door, as it had previously been advised that the door was ordered on 14 December 2020. The records showed that an explanation was sought by it regarding the order, with it stating that this normally took four to eight weeks to be delivered, so that an update on this was requested by it.
  16.  The contractor responded to the landlord on 16 February 2021, explaining that there had been an additional four-week delay in the production of the new basement fire door by the manufacturer. There was another email response from the contractor on 18 March 2021, advising the landlord that the door would be ready in a week.
  17. The resident subsequently expressed concern, via an email to the landlord on 21 March 2021, that his above request to escalate to the final stage two of the complaints procedure had not been responded to by it for two months. He also expressed concerns that the basement fire door had still not been replace by the landlord.
  18. The landlord responded by email to the resident with an apology on 23 March 2021 stating that it was in the process of following up the outstanding replacement basement fire door with the contractor, and that it would update the resident on this within two days. The resident was advised that if he had any further queries regarding his complaint, he could let the landlord know.
  19. On 24 March 2021, the landlord informed the resident by email that the work for the new basement communal door would be completed in the week commencing 29 March 2021. This was because the metal door and frame were described by it as still being manufactured, and so it agreed that the progress regarding the work would be monitored by it. The resident was also advised that all of the issues raised in his stage two complaint would be addressed in the landlord’s final complaint response to him.
  20. A final response to the stage two complaint was sent to the resident on 4 May 2021 by email. The landlord explained that a new metal basement fire door and door frame had been installed and post-inspected for quality compliance in the first week of April 2021. It reiterated that temporary repairs had previously been carried out to the door by it on 2 June 2020, on the same day that the resident had reported the repair.
  21. The landlord stated that the original basement fire door was left secure while awaiting further repairs. It also said that, on receipt of the stage one complaint, it had recognised the error and further work was carried out to secure the door that should have been progressed earlier as a risk during the corona virus lockdown. The landlord explained that there were then further repair delays to the door because a specialist sub-contractor was used, and the parts for this were having to be made to order.
  22. The landlord acknowledged that, because of the complaint, it had “instigated a review of the process for monitoring completion of fire safety repairs to ensure that they are carried out in a timely manner and to the required quality standard.” Internal processes would be looked at for the role of its compliance team and their interaction with its repairs service to select repairs for post inspection, and staff would be re–trained to ensure that fire doors were adequately tested during their block inspections and to follow up incomplete jobs with surveyors. A fire risk assessment due in August 2021 would also be carried out at the resident’s building, following the previous assessment there on 4 February 2019 before the above issues arose.
  23. The resident’s final stage two complaint was therefore upheld by the landlord, and it stated that the complaint review had highlighted a weakness in the landlord’s processes for monitoring the satisfactory completion of health and safety related repairs, which it was now addressing.
  24. The resident responded to the stage two final complaint response from the landlord on 6 May 2021 by email. He explained that he was happy that the basement fire door was finally replaced by it in the first week of April 2021, albeit after ten months and at least 12 telephone calls from him to the landlord. The resident additionally acknowledged the changes that the landlord was making to improve its processes and prevent the same issues from happening again in the future. He further stated that he had partially accepted the stage two complaint response.
  25. However, the resident mentioned that, in view of how his complaint was dealt with by the landlord, he was requesting that its call out and repair service charges be removed or refunded for the ineffective basement fire door repairs carried out by it from June 2020 up to April 2021, when the door was replaced. He also said that, if it did not do so, he would refer the matter to the Ombudsman, and he subsequently brought the complaint to us, when he outlined the above.

Assessment and findings

Agreement, policies and procedures

  1. The resident’s lease obliges the landlord to keep the main structure, exterior, common areas and all doors, except those giving access to individual flats, in the resident’s building and estate in good and substantial repair and condition, for which he is obliged to pay it service charges.
  2. The landlord’s tenant handbook outlines the timescale for the repairs that the landlord is required to undertake to such communal areas. These include repairs to shared areas of the building, such as corridors, stairways and entrances, including outside doors and fire doors. The response times for repairs are provided in the tenant handbook. For emergency repairs requiring an area to be made safe for issues which pose an immediate health and safety risk such as from fire, this should be within two to four hours.
  3. The landlord’s compensation and payment schemes confirm that it will consider if the resident suffered financial loss, additional expense, time and trouble, as well as distress and inconvenience. It will also consider if a goodwill gesture would help to resolve the complaint.
  4. Under the compensation and payment schemes, the one-off compensation rates indicate that an offer of between £50 to £250 can be made by the landlord for residents’ time and trouble in pursuing a complaint

The landlord’s handling of the fire door repair and compensation

  1. The landlord’s repair records indicated that it received a report from the resident on 2 or 3 June 2020 regarding the basement fire door which needed to be secured. It also showed that emergency repairs were carried out to make this safe on the same day, on 2 or 3 June 2020, while a more permanent solution was being sought by it. Although the resident disputed that the emergency repairs had taken place until a third visit on a later date, after he reported that he had to repeatedly chase the landlord for these.
  2. The landlord, therefore, eventually carried out reasonable actions to remedy the concerns that the resident had expressed regarding the security of the basement fire door, while a more permanent solution was being sought for this, in accordance with the above obligation for it to do so from his lease. However, it is of concern that its stage one and stage two final complaint responses of 26 January and 4 May 2021, respectively, gave the above different dates to him for its emergency repairs to the door. This also supported the resident’s assertion that these were only completed later, contrary to its above tenant handbook’s two to four-hour timescale for such emergency making safe works for immediate health and safety risks from fire.
  3. However, it was also unclear why, after the above temporary works were in place, there was no work order raised by the landlord regarding providing a permanent replacement basement fire door, given that the door needed to be secure enough to comply with health and safety requirements. The records provided by it to this Service indicated that the resident had to make a follow–up call to it for this on 20 November 2020, as there was no further communication from the landlord about this after June 2020. He sent another follow up email to the landlord on 17 December 2020, as he had also not received a response to his communication of 20 November 2020. The work was then completed in the first week of April 2021, which was approximately ten months after the repair was first reported on 2 or 3 June 2020.
  4. The landlord explained in its above stage one and stage two final complaint responses to the resident that it needed specialist parts to be ordered from the manufacturer for the completion of the permanent repairs to replace the basement fire door, and it cited the corona virus pandemic as a factor in the delay. It stated that the latter had meant that it was only able to carry out emergency repairs in June 2020, and it added that it had mistakenly not identified the door as a risk requiring an earlier repair during the pandemic that its sub-contractor had not picked up until 21 January 2021.
  5. The landlord therefore apologised for the delayed responses to the basement fire door repair, and to the complaint about this, and it offered the resident compensation of £130 on 26 January 2021 in recognition of the distress, inconvenience, time and trouble caused to him by this.
  6. There was, however, no communication provided from the landlord indicating that the order of parts was made as soon as it became aware that the basement fire door would need to be replaced in June 2020, or records of exactly when this was initially reported by the resident and made safe by the landlord. Internal communications from the landlord instead indicated that contact with the contractor for this was only made after the resident raised a concern on 20 November 2020, which was followed by the contractor providing a breakdown of the necessary work for this on 24 November 2020.
  7. The landlord explained in its above complaint responses that the subsequent further delays in replacing the basement fire door had been caused by the fact that the door was made to order from a specialist sub-contractor. The timescale given to produce the door was six weeks. The landlord had no control over the length of time that it took for the required parts to be obtained by the sub-contractor. Its records additionally showed that the landlord was in communication with the sub-contractor throughout the process of waiting for the parts that were being made to order from 8 January to 31 March 2021, which was appropriate.
  8. The landlord’s stage two final complaint response also acknowledged its failings regarding health and safety, as the repair involved a basement fire door. It explained that it would be reviewing the process of monitoring the completion of fire safety repairs, so that they were carried out on time. Staff were additionally provided with re–training, and a fire risk assessment was due to be carried out at the building in August 2021. This was appropriate because the landlord identified and sought to put right its failures in the resident’s case with relevant actions to seek to prevent their recurrence.
  9. The landlord’s apologies for the late responses to the basement fire door repair, and its offer to the resident of £130 compensation on 26 January 2021, in recognition of the distress, inconvenience, time and trouble caused to him by this, were proportionate to recognise these failings on its part. This is due to its compensation offer being in line with the above compensation and payment schemes’ recommendation of £50 to £250 compensation covering one-off payments for time and trouble. This also partly acknowledged any distress and inconvenience caused to the resident by an outstanding permanent repair to a door in the basement of his building, and not in his property, that had been temporarily made safe.
  10. A further request was nevertheless made by the resident that the call out and repair charges be removed from his service charges by the landlord, as a way of fully recognising the inconvenience caused by the delay in the basement fire door repairs being carried out. This was not addressed by the landlord in its responses to him. However, the resident was obliged as a leaseholder to contribute towards the cost of maintaining such communal areas by his lease. It should also be noted that complaints that relate to the level, reasonableness, or liability to pay service charges are not within the jurisdiction of the Ombudsman to consider.
  11. The amount of compensation offered by the landlord was nevertheless only partially in proportion to any the distress, inconvenience, time and trouble that the resident might have experienced from all of its failings in his case. This is because it did not keep appropriately timely, full, accurate or up-to-date records of correspondence, reports, inspections, orders and works of the basement fire door repair, including for the original emergency repair that he reported for this on 2 or 3 June 2020. The resident explained that this caused him to have to repeatedly chase the landlord to temporarily make the door safe after a third visit, and this also meant that it subsequently delayed ordering a permanent repair to the door, as outlined above.
  12. However, the landlord’s compensation award to the resident did not acknowledge its above record keeping failure in his case. The £130 compensation that it offered him was also not proportionate to fully recognise its total repair delays in his case from June 2020 to January 2021, when it awarded him the compensation and began to progress the permanent basement fire door repair with its sub-contractor, whose subsequent delays were outside of the landlord’s control. This is due to its above compensation and payment schemes permitting it to award the resident up to £250 compensation in full recognition of this, and the fact that it did not then consider offering him further compensation for this in its stage two final complaint response to him of 4 May 2021.
  13. The landlord has therefore been ordered below to pay the resident additional compensation in recognition of its poor record keeping and total repair delays, as well as to review its record keeping and demonstrate its above health and safety repair improvements, in light of its above failings.


Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in respect of its handling of repairs to a fire door in the basement of the resident’s building, and the level of compensation offered by it to him for delaying this.

Reasons

  1. The landlord took steps to apologise to and offer the resident compensation for distress, inconvenience, time and trouble, which partly resolved the basement fire door repair issue prior to its further delay in completing this, being outside of its control due to its specialist sub-contractor awaiting parts. There was also an acknowledgement from the landlord regarding the health and safety concerns raised as a result of the delayed repair. The landlord took steps to capture learning from the complaint to improve its monitoring of fire safety related repairs, and by ensuring that its staff were adequately trained for these. It additionally explained that fire risk assessments were regularly carried out, and so it demonstrated that it had learnt from the outcome of the resident’s case to avoid making similar errors in the future.
  2. The landlord nevertheless did not keep appropriately timely, full, accurate or up-to-date records of correspondence, reports, inspections, orders and works of the basement fire door repair, including for the original emergency repair that the resident reported for this. Its initial offer of compensation to him did not acknowledge this or fully recognise any resulting distress, inconvenience, time and trouble that he experienced from this or its total repair delays from June 2020 to January 2021. However, the landlord did not subsequently consider offering the resident additional compensation in order to do so, despite being permitted to by its compensation and payment schemes.

Orders

  1. The landlord is ordered to:
    1. Pay the resident compensation totalling £250 within four weeks, which is broken down into the £130 that it previously awarded him, if he has not received this already, plus £120 additional compensation to fully recognise any distress, inconvenience, time and trouble that he experienced from its poor record keeping and total repair delays from June 2020 to January 2021, when it offered him the above compensation.
    2. Contact the resident and this Service within four weeks to provide details confirming that its reviews of its processes for monitoring the completion of health and safety related repairs have been implemented, that its staff have been re-trained for these, and that a fire risk assessment has been carried out at his building.
    3. Confirm to this Service within four weeks that it will review its record keeping practices to ensure that timely, full, accurate and up-to-date records of correspondence, reports, inspections, orders and works are kept by it for emergency and health and safety related repairs.
  2. The landlord shall contact this Service within four weeks to confirm that the above orders have been complied with.