London Borough of Islington (202325132)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202325132

Islington Council

16 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. This complaint is about how the landlord handled the resident’s repair requests.
2. We have also considered how the landlord handled the resident’s complaint.

Background

3. The resident is a former secure tenant of the landlord. He bought the property under the Right to Buy Scheme on 15 August 2022. The property is a 3-bed first floor flat.
4. The resident reported a bathroom leak in or around May 2022. He raised a complaint about how the landlord handled the repairs on 13 June 2023. He said the landlord had not completed the repairs, and had ignored his emails.
5. The landlord issued a stage 1 response on 27 June 2023. It said it had arranged for a plasterer to hack off the plaster and booked a follow-up appointment for 29 November 2022. It said the plasterer attended that appointment, but could not complete the works until the tiling was complete. It said it completed the tiling on 13 December 2022, and there had been no further service requests for it to complete the plastering. It acknowledged delays in completing the tiling, but said its investigation into the complaint was inconclusive.
6. The resident escalated his complaint on 2 July 2023. He said he had delayed completing his purchase until the landlord had confirmed it would carry out the repairs after completion. He said the landlord had started the works after completion, but never finished them, and that various departments had ignored all contact from him. He escalated the complaint again on 30 August 2023 after receiving no response from the landlord.
7. The landlord issued a stage 2 response on 21 September 2023. It did not uphold the complaint. It said most non-essential repairs stop when there is a Right to Buy application, and that the condition of the property was reflected in the valuation. It said there was no legally binding agreement to carry out the repairs after completion, and its repairs team were probably not aware the resident had purchased the property when the works started. It offered £25 for delays in its response, and £100 for the time and trouble to make a complaint.
8. The resident was unhappy with the landlord’s response, so referred his complaint to us. He said the landlord had confirmed before completion that it would carry out the works after completion, but it had never completed the works. He said to put things right he wanted the landlord to complete the works.

Assessment and findings

9. After the resident submitted his Right to Buy application, the landlord was no longer required to carry out certain repairs. This is because the valuation of the property was based on its condition at the date of valuation, and any non-essential repairs or improvements would affect the value of the property. However, it was still required to carry out the repairs required under s11 Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 until the purchase completed.
10. When the landlord became aware of damp and mould in May 2022, it appropriately arranged an inspection. It inspected the leak and damp on 7 July 2022, and identified that there was a leak from the tiles around the bath area. Its operative said this allowed water penetration into the wall between the bathroom and the toilet. The landlord identified this as its repair responsibility, and raised a works order to remove the tiles, hack off the plaster, apply a new render, and re-plaster and re-tile the wall once it had dried out.
11. However, while it was reasonable for the landlord to arrange an inspection, the appointment was more than 20 working days after the landlord was on notice of the damp and mould, and the resident’s reports of a leak. This was not in line with its repairs policy, which says routine repairs must be completed within 20 working days.
12. Its repair records refer to an earlier appointment on 30 June 2022, for which the resident did not provide access. However, this was also more than 20 working days after it was on notice of the damp, and it has provided no evidence that it had notified the resident of that appointment in advance. In the absence of that evidence, we can only reasonably conclude that the resident was not properly notified of the previous appointment, and the delay in completing an inspection was both unreasonable and avoidable.
13. Following the initial inspection, the landlord removed tiles on 4 August 2022, logged a works order on 8 August 2022 to re-tile and redecorate, hacked off the plaster on 27 September 2022, and booked a follow-on appointment to complete the replastering on 29 November 2022. Its records show it could not complete the repair in November 2022 because it had failed to book the appointment for the retiling, which its operative confirmed needed to be completed first. It then completed the retiling on 21 December 2022, but did not complete the plastering works after this.
14. The landlord’s records show it needed to book multiple appointments for repairs, and its operative confirmed the wall would need 10 days to dry out. However, there is nothing in its records to explain why it took 7 months to complete the majority of the works. This was clearly unreasonable.
15. Despite accepting in its stage 1 response that there were unreasonable delays, the landlord found it was ‘inconclusive’ whether there had been a service failure. In its stage 2 response, it said there was no failing because it was not required to complete certain repairs once the Right to Buy process started, and there was no agreement to complete the works after the resident completed his purchase.
16. When a resident purchases a property, their decision to complete the purchase generally means they accept it in the condition it is in at the time of purchase. At that point, the resident becomes responsible for any repairs or maintenance the landlord is not required to complete under the terms of the lease.
17. In this case, however, the resident wrote to the landlord before completing the purchase. He told the repairs team that he was in the middle of the Right to Buy process. He confirmed the intended completion date, and asked if the landlord would still complete the bathroom repairs after completion. The landlord’s repairs team confirmed that ‘the works already raised following the inspection by surveyor, which are on the job reference J1WT4L will still be carried out’. The resident then completed his purchase after getting that confirmation from the landlord.
18. It is not within our remit to determine whether or not that promise was legally binding on the landlord. However, the landlord accepted responsibility for the works while the resident was still a tenant, which it then unreasonably delayed. The evidence shows those unreasonable delays were the reason the works were not completed before the resident’s purchase. It then confirmed before completion that it would carry out the outstanding repairs post-completion, and it started but did not finish a number of those works after the resident purchased the property. It also failed to make good after it carried out works such as hacking off the plaster (which would not have been reflected in the valuation). This was not in line with its policy or standard industry practice.
19. The landlord’s records and its summary to this Service indicate it failed to re-book the November 2022 plastering appointment in error, rather than because it did not intend to carry out the works. This is entirely at odds with its summary in its stage 2 response. The landlord’s reasoning and decision-making for why it believes there was no service failure is inconsistent and flawed. It is also not supported by evidence, and based on an assumption that the repairs team did not know about the purchase (which the evidence shows was not the case).
20. We find there has been maladministration in the landlord’s handling of repairs at the property. We have therefore considered what the landlord needs to do to put things right.
21. Had the landlord acted reasonably, it would have completed the works (including the plastering works) within a reasonable time. While the resident completed his purchase in the middle of the works, the landlord expressly confirmed it would carry out the works post-completion. It did so when it was aware the resident was about to complete the purchase. We would therefore expect it to either complete the works, or to reimburse the resident for the cost of him doing so. This would put the resident in the position he would have been in but for the landlord’s failings as set out above.
22. The resident has confirmed that he has not yet completed the relevant works himself. As such, there is not currently any financial loss for the landlord to reimburse. The landlord must therefore write to the resident to confirm whether it will complete the relevant works itself, or will pay the reasonable costs of him arranging the remaining works following this determination. An order to that effect is set out below.
23. We have also considered whether the landlord should pay the resident any compensation for its failings in handling the repairs. The resident said he was embarrassed to have friends to visit because of the condition the landlord left the bathroom in, and that it was also harmful to his daughter’s health. We do not award damages in the way a court does, and it is not within our remit to assess any impact on health or wellbeing. That would be a matter for a court to decide. However, we do consider any general distress and inconvenience caused by a landlord’s failings.
24. Taking into account all of the circumstances of this case, we consider the landlord should pay the resident £450 compensation for the distress and inconvenience caused by its failings as set out in this report. This is in line with our published remedies guidance for failings which adversely affect a resident.  This sum takes account of the 6 month delay in carrying out most of the repairs, as well as the distress and inconvenience caused by its handling of the remaining repairs up to the point of its stage 2 response. Any delay after the stage 2 response has not completed the landlord’s complaints process, so is outside of the remit of this investigation.

Complaint handling

25. The landlord is required under both its complaints policy and the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code to issue stage 1 responses within 10 working days of logging a complaint (which it must do within 5 working days of receipt). It is also required to issue a stage 2 response within 20 working days of an escalation request.
26. The landlord’s stage 1 response was issued within a reasonable time. However, despite finding failings in its handling of repairs, the landlord did not confirm whether or not it upheld the complaint. Instead, it said its findings were ‘inconclusive’ and that it would issue a further stage 1 response later. It also then failed to issue the further response it promised. This was not in line with its complaints policy or the Code.
27. The resident sought to escalate his complaint on 2 July 2023. The landlord failed to escalate the complaint, which was not in line with either its policy or the Code. It failed to take any action until he escalated his complaint a second time on 30 August 2023, and issued a stage 2 response on 21 September 2023. This was 58 working days after the resident escalated his complaint (more than double the time allowed under the Code).
28. In addition to being unreasonably delayed, the landlord’s stage 2 response does not demonstrate that it fairly and reasonably investigated the complaint. For example, it did not respond to all parts of the resident’s complaint (there was no mention of communication, which was part of the original complaint and the escalation request). It also made an assumption that its repair team did not know about the purchase, when the evidence shows that assumption was incorrect. It has provided no evidence it ever spoke to the team in question, rather than making assumptions. This was clearly unreasonable.
29. The landlord offered £125 compensation for its complaint handling. This was £25 for delays, and £100 for time and trouble. This sum is in line with our published remedies guidance. However, this is not enough to put things right, as it does not recognise the failure to fairly or reasonably investigate the complaint, instead issuing a response based on assumptions. We therefore find there has been maladministration in its handling of the resident’s complaint.
30. We do not consider that the additional failings merit further compensation, as the £125 offered is sufficient taking those additional failings into account. However, the landlord should apologise to the resident for its poor complaint investigation.
31. Since the landlord issued its stage 2 response for this complaint, we have published a Special Report about the landlord. This included an investigation into its wider complaint handling, which identified a theme of poor quality complaint investigations with little evidence of meaningful or effective investigations into complaints. As part of that report, we set out a number of recommendations for ways the landlord should improve its complaint handling. In light of those recommendations, we have not made any further learning orders around this particular complaint.

Determination

32. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there has been maladministration with regard to the landlord’s handling of the resident’s repair requests.
33. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there has been maladministration with regard to the landlord’s complaint handling.

Orders

34. Within 4 weeks of the date of this determination, the landlord must:
    1. Issue a written apology to the resident for the failings identified in this report.
    2. Pay the resident £575 compensation for the distress and inconvenience caused by the failings identified in this report. This is inclusive of the compensation offered during its complaints process, and is broken down as follows:
       1. £450 for the distress and inconvenience caused by its poor handling of repairs.
       2. £125 for the distress and inconvenience caused by its poor complaint handling.
    3. Write to the resident to confirm whether it will either complete the remaining works itself, or will reimburse his reasonable costs of completing the works. If it intends to complete the works itself, it must give the resident its intended start date for the works, and the contact details for its appointed contractor.
35. The landlord must provide this Service with evidence of compliance with the above orders within 4 weeks of the date of this determination.