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Birmingham City Council (202304360)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202304360

Birmingham City Council

9 June 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 handling of:
    1. Repairs to the intercom/phone system connected to the property.
    2. Repairs to the communal lighting at the property.
    3. Repairs to the communal stairs.

Background

  1. The resident has been the leaseholder of a property where the landlord holds the freehold for over 5 years. The property is a 1-bedroom flat on the first floor of a low-rise block.
  2. Between June 2023 and August 2023 the resident reported issues with the intercom/phone system for the property, with the safety of the communal stairs and with the lighting in the communal areas.
  3. On 31 August 2023 the resident raised a formal complaint about the landlord’s failure to repair the intercom system.
  4. On 28 September 2023 the landlord responded at stage 1 of its complaints process. It partly upheld his complaint, saying contractors had difficulty accessing the block. However, it said it resolved the issue on 25 September 2023.
  5. On the same day the resident asked to escalate his complaint to stage 2 of the landlord’s complaint’s procedure. He said there were also issues with the lighting in the hallway and with the condition of the stairwell. He referred to “numerous incidents of confusion and delays” with contractors.
  6. The landlord responded at stage 2 on 21 November 2023. It apologised for its delayed response and for not providing the service the resident expected. It apologised for confusing contact about the repairs from its contractors and said it had implemented further training. It considered it had responded appropriately to issues with the communal lighting and with the stairwell.
  7. The resident brought his complaint to the Ombudsman, reporting continued missed appointments and saying that the landlord’s approach was having a detrimental effect on his mental and physical health.

Assessment and findings

The Scope of the investigation

  1. The resident said this situation had a detrimental impact on his health and wellbeing. While he did not reference this in his complaints, in later communications he also said he had suffered an accident on the stairwell in 2022 which he said was caused by the landlord’s failure to repair the stairs. We cannot reach a view about whether any impacts on a resident’s health were caused by a landlord’s actions or inactions.
  2. The courts are the most effective place for disputes about personal injury and illness. This is largely because independent medical experts are appointed to give evidence. They have a duty to the court to provide unbiased insights on the diagnosis, prognosis, and cause of any illness or injury. When disputes arise over the cause of an injury, oral testimony can be examined in court. We have though considered any general distress and inconvenience which the resident may have experienced because of any service failure by the landlord.

On the landlord’s handling of repairs to the intercom/phone system.

  1. The landlord’s repairs policy categorizes repairs to “faulty door entry phones” as “urgent”. It says they should be completed within 3 to 7 working days. An intercom repair falls under this category.
  2. The resident complained that he had to raise a repair for the intercom 3 times, with his first report being on 28 July 2023. He said the landlord had told him it attended in August 2023 to complete a repair, but he disputed this and said it did not happen.
  3. In its 28 September 2023 stage 1 response, the landlord said its contractors had tried to contact the resident but not kept records of their attempts. While the landlord’s records report that a repair to the intercom was completed on 8 and 23 August 2023, it did not refer to those repairs in its complaint response, only referring to the repair completed on 23 September 2023.
  4. Because of that, it is not clear if the earlier repairs went ahead, and there is no certainty until the repair completed in September 2023. That was 41 working days after the resident’s initial report and well outside its timeframe of 7 days for urgent repairs.
  5. While the landlord said it had tried to contact the resident, it also said it had no records of those attempts. Therefore, as the evidence of any earlier repairs is unclear and as there was no evidence to justify a delay, the landlord’s response to the issues reported with the intercom was inappropriate.
  6. In its stage 2 response the landlord acknowledged that the resident had been concerned about antisocial behaviour at the block and the concern that because of the failings with the intercom system, strangers could enter the block. It also apologised for some confusing contact from a contractor about the intercom.
  7. The landlord did not consider an offer of compensation was appropriate. An apology was sufficient to remedy any confusion with contact from contractors, given there was no apparent impact or consequence. However, compensation was appropriate for the delay in making the repair to the intercom. This was a delay of 34 working days at a time when the resident was concerned about antisocial activity and strangers being able to gain access to the block because of the fault with the intercom.
  8. The landlord’s complaints policy says it should respond to stage 1 complaints within 10 working days. In this case, it took 20 working days, not responding until 28 September 2023. This was a further service failure. However, the landlord apologised for that delay, which was an appropriate remedy given the short length of the delay and, again, no apparent impact. 

On the landlord’s handling of repairs to the communal lighting at the property.

  1. In the resident’s request to escalate his complaint, he said that the landlord had taken 3 months to repair a flickering light in the communal hallway. In its stage 2 September 2023 response, the landlord said that it had addressed the resident’s report of the problem made in June 2023 on the same day. The records show that a report was raised and repaired on 20 June 2023.
  2. The landlord also said it had responded to a further report of a required repair to the communal lighting on 25 September 2023 that day. The records support its explanation. Therefore, on the available evidence the landlord’s response to the issue was reasonable.

On the landlord’s handling of repairs to the communal stairs

  1. In the resident’s request to escalate his complaint, he raised his concerns about the condition of the stairs in the building. He said they were “dangerous, slippy” and had no grip. The records show the resident reported the stairwell as being dangerous on 5 June 2023. The records show that the landlord raised a job to “make safe” the stairwell on the same day. However, it said that no work was required.
  2. The resident did not raise his concerns again until his September 2023 escalation request. On 17 October 2023 the landlord raised a further repair to install grips to the staircase outside the resident’s flat.
  3. The evidence does not show if the stairs were in the same condition in October 2023 as they had been in June 2023.  Nonetheless, the landlord explained that it would take some time to order the appropriate grips and arranged a further appointment to complete the repair. This was a reasonable response to the resident’s report and complaint. This was especially so as the resident did not raise the issue with the stairwell until his escalation request. The landlord was, therefore responding to a service request rather than a complaint.

Determinations

  1. On consideration of the complaint the Ombudsman has found, in accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme:
    1. There was a service failure in the landlord’s handling of repairs to the intercom/phone system.
    2. There was no maladministration in the landlord’s handling of repairs to the communal lighting at the property.
    3. There was no maladministration in the landlord’s handling of repairs to the communal stairs.

Order

  1. Within 4 weeks the landlord must pay the resident £150 compensation to acknowledge the distress and inconvenience in pursuing a repair to the intercom/phone system.