Westminster City Council (202223455)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202223455

Westminster City Council

20 July 2023 (amended at review 20 October 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 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 the landlord’s handling of a leak that affected the resident’s home.

Background

2. The resident is the leaseholder of his property which is a two-bedroom flat. The landlord is the freeholder.
3. The resident made a complaint to the landlord on 31 May 2022. His complaint concerned a leak that affected his property which he had reported on 19 May 2022. He was dissatisfied as he believed the landlord’s contractor had not taken enough action to investigate and remedy the leak. The resident said that when he first detected the leak there was a small amount of water staining to a cupboard ceiling, but that the leak now affected his hallway, lounge and kitchen.
4. The landlord investigated the matter on 9 June 2022. It established that the leak originated from a waste pipe between two neighbouring properties above. It noted that intrusive works were needed to resolve the situation due to the location of the pipe. Due to the nature of work required, the landlord decided it would need to decant the resident’s neighbour. When the landlord issued its stage one response on 11 July 2022, it explained it was having trouble gaining access to the neighbouring property, and said it would seek legal intervention, which there would be time constraints associated with. Access was eventually gained and the repair work was completed on 9 September 2022.
5. The landlord issued its final complaint response on 28 October 2022. It acknowledged there had been delays resolving the leak and its service had fallen below its expected standards. It offered the resident £140 compensation overall. £120 related to its handling of the leak and £20 for the delay in issuing its stage two response.
6. The resident referred his complaint to this Service as he was dissatisfied with the landlord’s response. He believed the landlord should have obtained a court order to gain access to the neighbour’s property sooner. He wanted the landlord to put processes in place to prevent the situation from happening again and to increase its compensation.
7. Following correspondence with this Service, the landlord reconsider its compensation. It wrote to the resident on 5 May 2023, and apologised as it said that it had not previously offered a fair amount of compensation. It revised its total offer to £525. £450 of this related to its handling of the leak, and £75 for the “delay in complaint handling”.

Assessment and findings

Investigation scope

8. The resident has mentioned how the overall situation had an impact on his life due to the stress this caused him. The Ombudsman cannot draw conclusions on the causation of, or liability for, impacts on health and wellbeing, as this would require assessment by an insurer or a binding decision from a court. Nonetheless, consideration has been given to any general distress and inconvenience which any failings by the landlord may have caused.

The leak repairs

9. There is no dispute that the landlord was responsible for investigating and resolving the leak that affected the resident’s property. Once the landlord is notified of a leak, it has a duty to resident to respond to the matter and complete repairs within a reasonable timeframe. It also has a duty to comply with its repair responsibilities for any other properties it manages, such as those of the resident’s neighbours. There is no statutory definition of a ‘reasonable’ time in which to undertake repairs, and this may depend on the particular circumstances of a case.
10. The landlord established the cause of the leak on 9 June 2022, which was thirteen working days following the resident’s initial report of the issue on 19 May 2022. It should be noted that it can take more than one attempt to resolve issues such as leaks as it can be difficult to identify the cause of issue at the outset. In some cases, different attempts to determine the cause may need to be made before the matter can be resolved. This would not necessarily constitute a service failure by the landlord.
11. The accounts of the landlord and resident agree that the landlord attended the resident’s property to view the water staining on the day it was notified of the leak. Given that the resident said that the only apparent sign of the leak at that time was small staining in a cupboard area, and that the leak had no immediate apparent source, the landlord responded promptly to the matter. The evidence shows that it attended again the following day on 20 May 2022, and began investigations into a number of properties in the resident’s block. This involved dye testing (a method of leak detection). The evidence indicates that the landlord was not able to gain access to all of the relevant properties on that day, but shows that all relevant flats had been accessed and dye tested by 24 May 2022, which was shortly thereafter.
12. During that time, the landlord also investigated an issue with a shower tray in one of the neighbouring properties. The resident was of the view that the location of this property meant that it could not have caused the leak which affected his home. Although it was subsequently determined that the shower tray was not the cause of the leak in this case, the landlord’s consideration of this was prudent. It is evident that other properties in the block, besides the resident’s, were also affected by leak activity around that time. In such circumstances, the landlord would reasonably be expected to consider all possible causes and to consider if the leaks were connected in some way.
13. In response to the resident’s complaint the landlord acknowledged that there had been service failure on its part due to its delay attending a job raised on 24 May 2022 to investigate the leak further. This was attended to, and the source of the leak determined, on 9 June 2022. It is not apparent from the evidence why this visit was delayed. Given that the resident reported that the leak had worsened and the damage had spread to various parts of his property by the time he raised his complaint, it was appropriate for the landlord to acknowledge it should have carried out its subsequent investigations more urgently, and to offer compensation for its delay.
14. When considering how it would best undertake the work recommended as a result of leak detection team’s visit, the landlord decided that it would need decant the resident’s neighbour. This was a reasonable decision and supported by the evidence. Arranging a decant is not an easy or speedy process, as a landlord would understandably need to provide reasonable notice, consider the needs of its other tenants, make suitable arrangements, and make reasonable adjustments in light of any difficulties that arose. In this case, the evidence shows that the landlord experienced difficulty in agreeing access to the relevant property to begin the works at that time. The landlord appropriately explained this to the resident in its initial complaint response. It also managed the resident’s expectations by explaining that it needed to seek legal assistance to progress the repair work, and how long that might take. Ultimately, the landlord eventually arranged access to carry out the necessary repairs, which it completed just under two months later.
15. During this period the resident understandably experienced inconvenience and frustration living with and trying to mitigate the effects of the unresolved leak. Unfortunately, the difficulties the landlord experienced gaining access to the neighbouring property added time to the process of resolving the leak. Based on the evidence seen for this investigation, the landlord took reasonable steps and considered reasonable adjustments, as was its responsibility, in an effort to arrange a decant for the neighbour and gain access to carry out the necessary repair work. It also took necessary steps to gather the appropriate evidence before considering taking legal action. Taking legal action to gain access would only be an option of last resort, and any court would usually want to be certain that all other avenues had been exhausted already. It is not apparent how access was eventually gained, but the landlord’s actions resulted in it eventually being able to repair the leak and to meet its obligations.
16. It is important to appreciate that while a leak into a home is distressing and frustrating, a landlord would usually only be expected to consider providing compensation if there was evidence that its action, or inaction, helped cause the leak, or that it’s efforts to repair it were lacking in some way. Overall, in this case nothing in the evidence provided for this investigation shows that the time taken to fix the leak (after the initial delay and once the cause had been determined), was a result of any apparent service failing by the landlord.
17. In its final complaint response the landlord offered the resident £120 compensation for its handling of the leak. The failing by the landlord was its delay attending the resident’s property between 24 May 2022 and 9 June. The £120 it offered in light of that was reasonable, and in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance for a failing in service where there is no apparent permanent impact but may have adversely affected the resident. Accordingly, the landlord offered redress that resolved its handling of the leak satisfactorily.
18. The landlord considerably revised its compensation to a total of £450 after the completion of its complaints process. It said that it understood the amount of inconvenience the situation caused the resident and his family, and that it felt its previous offer had not fairly reflected this. As the evidence shows the time taken to resolve the leak was mostly due to the difficulty faced in arranging access, and the compensation offered in the landlord’s final complaint response was reasonable, it appears the landlord subsequently used its discretion to increase its compensation. This ultimately demonstrates that the landlord remained resolution focused in its approach and was sympathetic to the resident’s situation.
    

Determination

19. In accordance with paragraph 53(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord has made an offer of redress prior to investigation which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, resolves the complaint satisfactorily.