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London & Quadrant Housing Trust (L&Q) (202305058)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202305058

London & Quadrant Housing Trust (L&Q)

28 January 2025


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 is about the landlord’s:
    1. Handling of the resident’s reports about hot water service failures, and the level of compensation it subsequently offered her.
    2. Handling of the associated complaint.

Background

  1. The resident and her husband hold an assured tenancy on a 2-bedroom flat in a residential block owned by the landlord.
  2. In its final complaint response, the landlord explained that the resident had not had hot water since November 2022. However, no evidence of her original report or the landlord’s initial response has been provided. The resident raised the issue as a formal complaint in February 2022. The landlord responded on 2 March 2023, saying it had ordered a replacement part to repair the heating system. It expected the part to arrive on 13 March 2023. It said it would address the complaint once the repair was completed.
  3. The part did not arrive, and on 31 March 2023, the landlord ordered a complete system replacement. It asked its operatives to attempt a temporary repair in the meantime. They managed to restore the hot water service on 26 April 2023. However, the water temperature could not be regulated, meaning the water would fluctuate rapidly from cold to very hot. For safety reasons, the family resorted to having baths instead of showers, and the resident’s children had to be supervised during bath time.
  4. The resident escalated her complaint to stage 2 on 7 June 2023. She said the landlord failed to complete the repair, failed to respond to her stage 1 complaint, and failed to offer compensation. She contacted this service in August 2023, and we intervened and asked the landlord to escalate the resident’s complaint.
  5. The landlord sent its final response letter on 12 September 2023. It recognised that the resident had experienced issues with the hot water service since November 2022. It explained that the delay was due to the availability of spare parts and confirmed it would replace the entire system on 13 September 2023. It said it would leave the complaint open until the repair was completed and offered compensation of £1,676.
  6. The date when the repairs were completed is not clear. However, there were no further reports about the loss of hot water after 12 September 2023, including in correspondence the resident had had with this service since. She asked this service to investigate her complaint because she did not feel the compensation adequately reflected the distress she had experienced. She said the landlord had promised to refund her rent for the period during which there was no hot water in the property.

Assessment and findings

Investigation scope

  1. The resident was dissatisfied with the compensation offered by the landlord, and she explained that this was, in part, because of how she believed the loss of hot water had affected the health of her family.
  2. It is outside of the Ombudsman’s remit to establish links between a landlord’s actions or inaction and alleged health impacts. Matters of liability for damage to health are better suited to a court or liability insurance process to determine. This is in line with paragraph 42.f of the Scheme, which says the Ombudsman may not consider matters where the Ombudsman considers it quicker, fairer, more reasonable, or more effective to seek a remedy through the courts, other tribunal, or procedure. Because of that the resident’s health concerns are not considered in this report.

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports about the hot water service and its subsequent compensation offer.

  1. In its final complaint response, the landlord stated there had been no hot water in the resident’s property since November 2022. Nothing in the evidence it has provided gives any details about the resident’s original report of this issue or any action the landlord took in response. The first references to it taking action were in its first complaint response on 2 March 2023, when it stated it was waiting for a part due in mid-March. It is not apparent from the evidence when the landlord had inspected the hot water problem or when it had ordered the part. In the absence of such information, it is not possible to conclude that the landlord initially acted reasonably.
  2. The resident accepted that she had to wait for the replacement part. She agreed with the landlord that it would contact her to schedule the installation once the item was delivered.
  3. The evidence shows that the landlord’s contractors updated the resident about a delay in obtaining the part, after which the landlord approved the contractor’s recommendation to replace the heating system rather than repair it. The landlord updated the resident on 31 March 2023 about its intentions and that it was investigating interim solutions until the replacement was complete. It was then able to restore hot water at the end of April, but there were limitations on regulating it in the shower. These were appropriate and reasonable actions to take in response to the resident’s complaint. The delays the resident experienced at that point appear to be primarily due to the availability of parts and the scale of the issue rather than any missed opportunities by the landlord.
  4. The evidence provided for this investigation shows subsequent delays in completing the work, initially due to technical challenges in May 2023, but for unclear reasons after that. The lack of a resolution was one of the grounds for the resident’s escalated complaint in June and the landlord’s lack of compensation. In its final complaint response, the landlord explained the actions it had been taking and confirmed it would shortly arrange a further appointment. There were no further reports about the loss of hot water after 12 September 2023, including in correspondence the resident had with this service since.
  5. In her complaint to the Ombudsman, the resident complained that the landlord had verbally told her it would refund her rent for the duration of the period she had no hot water. No evidence of such a promise has been seen in this investigation. In any case, a landlord would usually only be expected to consider providing a rent rebate if parts of the property were unusable due to their condition or state of repair. In this case, while the resident did not have hot water on demand until April 2023, there is no indication the property was partly or fully unliveable. It was therefore not unreasonable that the landlord did not consider a rent rebate and provided compensation instead.
  6. The landlord offered total compensation of £1,676 comprising of:
    1. Loss of service £606
    2. Distress and inconvenience £960
    3. Time and effort £80
    4. Review of stage two decision £30
  7. The compensation offered by the landlord was in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance in circumstances where there have been repeated failings and a significant impact, but where the landlord has acknowledged its mistakes and attempted to put things right. It reasonably reflected the length of time the repair issues had continued unresolved and demonstrated the landlord’s appreciation of its failings. In the further circumstances of some of the delay being outside the landlord’s control, and the restoration of hot water in April 2023 (albeit with only limited control) the compensation offered to the resident was reasonable and proportionate to the poor service the landlord had identified.

The landlord’s handling of the associated complaint

  1. The Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code) says: “A complaint response must be provided to the resident when the answer to the complaint is known, not when the outstanding actions required to address the issue are completed. In its stage 1 and stage 2 complaint responses, the landlord said it would leave the complaint “open” and return to address this once the repair was completed. That was not in line with the Code.
  2. The resident asked to escalate her complaint to stage 2 on 7 June 2023. She contacted the Service 44 working days later. We intervened, and the landlord escalated the complaint to stage 2. It sent its final response letter 25 working days later, meaning its response took 69 working days against a target of 20 working days. This was a service failure. However, the landlord recognised that in its final response letter, and some of the compensation was specifically for its complaint handling. However, it did not acknowledge its inappropriate decision to leave the complaints unresolved until the repairs were complete because its poor complaint handling was not fully remedied.

Determination

  1. 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 resident’s complaint about the hot water service and its subsequent compensation offer reasonably.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure in the landlord’s handling of the associated complaint.

Orders

  1. This service published a special report about the landlord in July 2023. The report addressed repairs and complaint-handling failures, such as those identified in this investigation, and made recommendations for the landlord. The landlord wrote to its residents on 21 July 2023, explaining how it would improve its services. It then worked closely with the Ombudsman until April 2024. Major policies and procedures were overhauled. The landlord introduced annual staff training and met all the recommendations in the special report. As the period of the special report overlaps with the events in this investigation, no further orders have been made here because they would duplicate those already made.

Recommendation

  1. If the landlord has not already paid the compensation of £1,676 to the resident, it should do so within 4 weeks from the date of this report.