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Southwark Council (202308022)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202308022

Southwark Council

23 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 the resident’s reports of hot water loss.
  2. We have also considered the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

  1. The resident is the leaseholder of the property, a 3-bedroom maisonette. The landlord, a council, is the freeholder. The resident lives with his wife and 2 young children. The property has a district heating system and all properties within the block share the same heat source, which distributes hot water to the properties and radiators.
  2. The resident complained to the landlord on 13 March 2023, saying he was unhappy with delays in repairing his hot water since 2 October 2022, and he wanted an immediate repair. He asked for a refund of all major works and paid service charges relating to heating and hot water for the past 2 years.
  3. In the landlord’s stage 1 response of 3 May 2023 it said:

a.     It acknowledged the resident reported there was no hot water since 5 October 2022 and he reported his radiators were lukewarm on 31 January 2023.

b.     The water heating was reinstated on 1 February 2023, but it recognised he reported further issues with rattling pipes and no hot water after this date, which were being managed under its repairs system.

c.      There were missed repair appointments which it would investigate further and it would review if further compensation should be paid.

d.     It would not refund any service charges or major works costs for the hot water or heating.

e.     It offered £85 compensation for the time and trouble caused by the delays at £5 per week for 17 weeks.

  1. The resident escalated the complaint on 5 May 2023 as the landlord had not investigated it properly (it had provided the wrong date of a repair attendance in February 2023). The landlord declined to escalate the complaint until its appointments team confirmed whether there were missed appointments. It then accepted the complaint escalation on 26 July 2023.
  2. The landlord issued its stage 2 response on 20 December 2023 saying:

a.     The delay to repair the water heater was caused by parts being unavailable. Additional parts were required on 10 and 24 August 2023, and there were delays activating the water pump between 24 August and 28 September 2023.

b.     The resident’s reports of hot water issues in his kitchen taps on 2 October 2023 were not a communal repair and were his responsibility to repair as a leaseholder.

c.      The resident should complete its liability insurer’s claim form to submit a claim for damage to his property caused by its contractor.

d.     It acknowledged there were delays to complete the repair, which caused the resident to chase for updates, and offered a further £50 compensation for time and trouble.  

  1. In its letter of 26 April 2024 the landlord outlined its compensation award:

a.     It apologised for the delay in awarding compensation due to the resident’s allocated complaints officer leaving the business, and it not getting notified of his emails.

b.     It accepted there were communication failings which had not been identified in its stage 2 response. It did not act in response to the resident’s chasers since he reported the hot water loss in October 2022, until it was repaired on 28 September 2023.

c.      It explained the resident’s reimbursement of service charges was not considered within the scope of the complaints process. It referred him to the First Tier Tribunal if he wanted to dispute the charges.

d.     Its records did not indicate a full loss of service, but it agreed to pay compensation on this basis between 5 October 2022 and 28 September 2023, the total sum being £1,762 comprising of:

  1. £1,077 for hot water loss at £3 per day.
  2. £235 for repair delays.
  3. £200 for 4 missed appointments. 
  4. £250 for time and trouble pursuing a resolution of the complaint.
  1. The resident referred his complaint to us on 3 June 2023. He said he and his young family were caused distress due to the length of the delays and wanted compensation to reflect the impact.

Assessment and findings

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of hot water loss

  1. The landlord has accepted its poor service levels in its complaint responses, and the delays in fully reinstating the hot water between October 2022 and September 2023. It has also accepted that it should have offered compensation for the failures it identified. Therefore, the question before us is whether those failings amount to maladministration and, if so, whether any redress remains outstanding to put things right.
  2. It is unclear from the evidence whether there was complete hot water loss or it was intermittent. The property repair records note there was intermittent hot water pressure in the kitchen and bathroom in February 2023. However, there is no further entry in this record, which confirmed the status of the hot water, or if it was reinstated within the property, at any point until the repairs were completed in September 2023. While the landlord’s communal repair records referred to the reinstatement of the water, this was at a communal level and did not satisfy the status of the supply in the property specifically.
  3. The resident sent several chaser emails to the landlord, which reported he had no hot water since February 2023. In this case, while we appreciate it is unclear if there was full hot water loss, there was certainly a prolonged period that the resident was without consistent hot water, and this clearly impacted his enjoyment of the property. It was, therefore, appropriate for the landlord to recognise this in its April 2024 response by offering compensation on the basis of a full loss of service. As a result, we have considered the level of redress in line with the landlord’s calculations.
  4. The available evidence supports the failings highlighted by the resident and accepted by the landlord. While the landlord instructed inspections and ordered parts, there is no evidence it acted promptly and this prolonged the time the resident was without hot water for approximately 12 months. Some repair appointments were booked but these were either cancelled, had to be rescheduled, or were left incomplete on attendance.
  5. The landlord was aware of the presence of young children in the property and the resident wrote several emails about the difficulties they had without hot water (such as boiling water in a kettle to wash). It should, therefore, have acted promptly and proactively to address the issues identified, but it did not.
  6. The landlord explained some of the delays were due to awaiting parts to complete the repairs, and it also needed to manage some of the repairs with other residents in the building. While we acknowledge these circumstances can delay repairs, the overall delay was significantly outside of the landlord’s repairing timescales, which it appropriately acknowledged. It also did not keep the resident updated about its plans, or the reasons for its lack of progress, despite his regular requests for updates.
  7. In February 2021 we produced a spotlight report on Cold Comfort: complaints about heating, hot water, and energy in social housing. This report made a number of recommendations about how landlords might best manage these complaints and minimise the impact on residents. As a number of the recommendations made in that report are relevant to the facts of this case, the landlord may find it helpful to review the report to identify potential learning points.  
  8. The landlord’s failings in this case amount to maladministration. It has apologised and paid compensation for its repair delays, hot water loss and missed appointments, in line with its compensation policy. While this went some way to recognise its failings, it has not recognised the time and trouble, and distress and inconvenience caused to the resident and his young family by the hot water loss, and the time it took to investigate rattling pipes which caused a leak into the property. It also did not explain how it would learn from the complaint to prevent future mistakes. This was not in line with our Dispute Resolution Principles: be fair; put things right; and learn from outcomes.
  9. The landlord’s compensation policy states:

a.     For medium impact cases it would pay a maximum of:

  1. £500 per annum for distress and inconvenience; and
  2. £250 per annum for time and trouble.

b.     The payment of hot water loss was an additional compensation, for the reasonable costs incurred by residents for additional electricity usage.

c.      The missed appointment charge was additional compensation for the inconvenience of the missed appointments.

  1. Therefore, where the resident’s issues were outstanding for 12 months, the landlord’s compensation policy supports that he should be awarded £750 additional compensation for the distress and inconvenience and time and trouble caused by the impact of the hot water loss. This sum also falls within our financial remedy scale for maladministration. We have made an order for the landlord to pay this to the resident.
  2. We cannot assess whether the resident is due a refund of the service charges paid for the period he was without hot water. The landlord was correct to advise him to raise this request to the First Tier Tribunal (FTT), as the organisation that deals with challenges to service charge levels and increases. However, we have made an order for the landlord to calculate the cost to the resident for the period he was without hot water, and provide this calculation to him. Should the resident have concerns about the information provided by the landlord, he may wish to consider raising these with the FTT.

Complaint handling

  1. The landlord appropriately issued its stage 1 response within 15 working days, in line with is complaints handling policy. 
  2. The resident asked to escalate his complaint in May 2023, but the landlord refused while it investigated the missed appointments and considered additional compensation. The landlord’s complaints policy did not specify circumstances where it would refuse to escalate a complaint, and the resident’s main concern was to resolve the hot water issues. It was unreasonable for the landlord to refuse to escalate the complaint, preventing the resident from achieving an earlier resolution.
  3. The stage 2 complaint was ultimately accepted in July 2023, but the landlord did not issue its formal response until December 2023, 5 months later. This was inappropriate and outside of its policy timescales of 25 working days. Further, it did not contact the resident to discuss compensation in January 2024 as promised within its stage 2 response. This caused him additional distress and inconvenience before compensation was finally offered in April 2024.
  4. The landlord’s handling of the stage 2 complaint was unreasonable and amounts to maladministration. It left him in the complaints process without a clear timeframe to expect a resolution of his complaint. This prolonged the issues and did not demonstrate that it treated the complaint in line with our Dispute Resolution Principles.
  5. While the landlord offered £250 for the resident’s general time and trouble, it did not recognise the impact of the specific complaint handling failings identified within this report. We have therefore ordered it to pay an additional £100 for the distress and inconvenience caused to the resident for its complaint handling delays, in line with our financial remedy scale for maladministration.
  6. On 8 February 2024 we issued the statutory Complaint Handling Code (the Code) which sets out the requirements landlords must meet when handling complaints in policy and practice. The new Code applied from 1 April 2024 and we have a duty to monitor compliance with it. We are aware the landlord has updated its complaints policy and, as a result, no specific order is made on this case with regard to the landlord’s compliance with the Code, and the contents of its policies and procedures in that regard.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s:

a.     Reports of hot water loss.

b.     Associated formal complaint.

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks the landlord is ordered to provide evidence that it has:

a.     Apologised to the resident for the failings identified in this report.

b.     Paid directly to the resident (and not offset against any arrears) £2,612 compensation, as follows:

  1. £1,762 offered during the complaints process (if not done so already).
  2. £500 for the distress and inconvenience caused by its handling of the hot water loss.
  3. £250 for the time and trouble caused by its handling of the hot water loss.
  4. £100 for the distress and inconvenience caused by its complaint handling.

c.      Reviewed the hot water charge included in the resident’s service charge between 5 October 2022 and 28 September 2023, and confirmed the outcome of this in writing to him. This must include why he is being charged for this and what service he received in respect of it. If the landlord identifies that the resident has been incorrectly charged, it must tell him whether it will refund any amounts paid in error. If the resident is dissatisfied with the outcome of this review, he can raise this directly with the FTT for further consideration.