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London Borough of Lambeth (202441008)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202441008

London Borough of Lambeth

10 July 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 reports of a leak from above into her property.

Background

  1. The resident is a secure tenant of the landlord. The property is a 3-bed ground floor flat. She lives in the property with her daughter and grandson.
  2. The resident reported a leak from above between June and August 2024. She made a complaint on 6 September 2024. She said the landlord had disconnected the bathroom light and 2 kitchen sockets, but had not resolved the leak. She said the property smelled damp, and she had to throw food and utensils away because of mould.
  3. The landlord issued a stage 1 response on 13 September 2024. It said:
    1. It had raised works orders on 21 and 23 August 2024. Its operative isolated a light and some sockets, and said a plumber was needed to resolve a leak from another property.
    2. It would not give her any information about the leak because of GDPR.
    3. It would repair any damage to her property once it had resolved the leak, and referred her to insurance (her contents insurance and its liability insurance) for any damage to belongings.
  4. The resident escalated her complaint on 8 October 2024. She said there had been no progress with the leak. She said the property was becoming unsafe, with damp everywhere and tiles falling off the walls. She said there was no light in the bathroom, which was dangerous.
  5. The landlord issued a stage 2 response on 21 November 2024. It said:
    1. The leak was from a property above. It needed to trace the source of the leak before it could resolve it. It completed the works to resolve the leak on 18 November 2024.
    2. As the leak was now fixed, it could now complete works to her property.
    3. It had booked an appointment for that day to repair the bathroom light, and would renew the tiles on 2 December 2024.
    4. It said the works took longer than expected because of the need to identify the source of the leak.
  6. The resident was unhappy with the landlord’s response, so referred her complaint to us. She said the landlord did not care there was damp and mould in her property.

Events post-complaint

  1. The landlord attended the property on 12 December 2024 to complete internal repairs. Its contractors identified that there was another leak from above. Its records show this was from a different flat to the leak it originally identified, and it could not carry out the scheduled works until that leak was resolved. The resident told us on 10 April 2025 that the leak had stopped.
  2. The landlord attended in May 2025 to complete the internal works, but found a new leak from above had started. It resolved that leak on 16 June 2025, and the internal works for the resident’s flat are booked for 6 August 2025.

Assessment and findings

Scope of the investigation

  1. The rules which govern our Service say we may not investigate complaints which have not gone through the landlord’s complaints process. Any events which were not part of the resident’s initial complaint (including events after the stage 2 response) have not completed the complaints process, so we cannot consider them as part of this investigation. This includes complaints about damp and mould following the leak, and the landlord’s handling of repairs to the resident’s property once it had resolved the original leak (which were impacted by further unrelated leaks which have not gone through the complaints process). However, we may refer to events after the stage 2 response for context.
  2. The resident has also referred to the effect of the leak on her grandson’s health. She said he was hospitalised due to the condition of the property. We cannot draw conclusions on the causation of, or liability for, any impact on health and wellbeing. That would be a matter for the courts, who can consider medical evidence and reach binding decisions on personal injury claims. However, we can consider any distress or inconvenience the resident experienced as a result of any failings by the landlord.

The landlord’s handling of the leak

  1. The resident said the leak in her property started in June 2024. However, a landlord’s repair obligations only begin when it is on notice of a repair issue. The resident has not been able to provide any evidence that she reported the leak to the landlord in June 2024, and the landlord’s repair records start from 16 August 2024. We have made further enquiries of the landlord, and it confirmed it holds no records of any reports beyond those starting from 16 August 2024. In the absence of any evidence of an earlier report, we can only find that the landlord was on notice of the leak from 16 August 2024 onwards, and assess its actions from that date.
  2. On 16 August 2024, the landlord logged a works order for its contractors to attend and inspect a leak into the resident’s property. Under its repairs manual, the leak was a ‘R1’ repair, which it would need to resolve within 7 days (with any damage as a result of the leak to be resolved within 90 days as a planned repair). The landlord attended on 21 August 2024, which was within a reasonable timescale and in line with its policies. The operative’s notes say tiles were coming off the walls because of a leak from above. The notes say the operative inspected 1 of the flats above, but there was no answer from the occupiers of the second flat, which they thought could be the source of the leak.
  3. Leaks from above can be hard to trace and diagnose, and it’s not always possible to identify and resolve a leak at the first appointment. A landlord can also only stop a leak from a flat above when the occupants give it access to do so, and it cannot force access to a flat without a court order. As the landlord was unable to access 1 of the flats above during its visit, it was unable to confirm the cause of the leak. While unfortunate, this was not a failing on the landlord’s part.
  4. The landlord’s repair logs show the resident reported that the electrics kept tripping on 21 August 2024. It logged an emergency repair to isolate the bathroom light, which it completed within 24 hours. This was in line with its repairs policy. It then raised a works order on 23 August 2024 to make the kitchen electrics safe, which it did on the same day. These were reasonable steps to ensure the resident’s safety until it could resolve the leak. However, we have seen no evidence that the landlord offered or provided any temporary lighting for the resident’s bathroom at that time. We would have expected it to do so to reduce any risk to the resident and her family once it isolated the light in her bathroom. Its failure to do so was unreasonable.
  5. Following the initial visit on 21 August 2024, the landlord raised a works order on 27 August 2024 for an inspection of the second property above. Its repair records show it completed the inspection on 18 November 2024 and identified the cause of the leak as a faulty waste under the bath. It completed the repair the same day. The records show it promptly resolved the leak once it identified the cause. However, it has provided no explanation for why it took nearly 3 months to inspect the other property.
  6. As set out above, this was a ‘R1’ repair which the landlord was required to resolve within 7 days. While it could not identify the leak at the initial appointment due to access issues, it has provided no evidence of any attempts to speak to the occupier of the other property, or to arrange an appointment within a reasonable time. Without that evidence, we can only reasonably conclude that there was no good reason for the nearly 3 month delay.
  7. The landlord has also provided no evidence of updating the resident on its progress with the leak during that time. When she raised a complaint, the landlord said it could not give any information because it would be a breach of the neighbour’s personal data. It has provided no explanation for how it reached that conclusion, as it did not need to divulge any personal data to provide a meaningful update on the repair. As such, its lack of communication regarding the repair exacerbated the situation.
  8. In its stage 2 response, the landlord said it had not been able to complete works in the resident’s property until it had traced the source of the leak and resolved it. It therefore did not uphold the resident’s complaint.
  9. As set out above, while the landlord could not resolve the leak at the first appointment through no fault of its own, there were some failings in how it handled the leak. There was an unreasonable delay of just under 3 months in tracing the leak. Its communication in that time was lacking, and it failed to leave the resident with any temporary lighting in her bathroom until it could restore her bathroom light. We find there has been maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the leak. We have therefore considered what it needs to do to put things right.
  10. The unexplained delay of just under 3 months in inspecting the neighbouring property was time in which the resident had to unnecessarily live with an ongoing leak. During that time she said the leak caused a strong smell of damp in the property, as well as tiles coming off the walls, and mould and flies in the kitchen. She also had no light in her bathroom (which she said made her feel unsafe in her home), as well as being unable to use multiple kitchen sockets. This would inevitably cause distress and inconvenience. In addition to an apology for these failings, the landlord should pay the resident compensation for the distress and inconvenience caused.
  11. Taking into account all the circumstances of this case, the landlord must pay the resident £300 compensation for the distress and inconvenience caused by its handling of the leak up to the point of its stage 2 response. This is in line with our published remedies guidance for failings which adversely affect a resident but have no permanent impact.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there has been maladministration in the landlord’s handling of a leak from above into the resident’s property.

Orders

  1. 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 £300 compensation for the distress and inconvenience caused by the failings identified in this report.
  2. The landlord must provide us with evidence of compliance with the above orders within 4 weeks of the date of this determination.

Recommendations

  1. If it has not already done so, we recommend that the landlord do the following within 2 weeks of the date of this determination:
    1. Arrange a full damp and mould survey of the resident’s property and provide her with an action plan for resolving any damp and mould that would not be resolved by the planned works to the kitchen and bathroom.
    2. Log a stage 1 complaint about its handling of repairs to the resident’s flat, including its handling of damp and mould in her property, following its stage 2 response on 21 November 2024.
  2. The landlord should write to us to confirm its intentions with regard to the above recommendations within 2 weeks of the date of this determination.