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Clarion Housing Association Limited (201913880)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 201913880

Clarion Housing Association Limited

27 January 2021


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:
    1. report of a leak into his property;
    2. associated formal complaint.

Summary of events

  1. The resident is a leaseholder who lives in a flat on the top floor of a three–storey building. Water stains on his ceiling, close to one of two light fittings, were first noticed on 3 October 2019 after heavy rain. An engineer attended that day who disconnected the ceiling light.
  2. The resident rang the landlord the next day and says he was told that the damaged ceiling in the lift lobby and pooling water on the floor by the lift after rain, was caused by a faulty trapdoor to the roof. He says he was also told that the renovation of the roof was carried out by a sub-contractor and may still be under warranty, so that the cost of any repairs would be borne by the sub-contractor.
  3. Having heard no more, the resident again rang the landlord on 23 October 2019. He was given a job number and told that the work would be escalated. On 29 October 2019 the resident rang the landlord again and was told that the property had been visited on 4 October 2019. When he rang again on Friday 8 November 2019 it was clarified that the previous job number only related to the lift lobby damage and was not about visiting his flat to assess the damage to his ceiling. He was told that more information would be available the following Monday.
  4. On 12 November 2019 the resident was visited by the roofing sub-contractor who said that the leak had been due to a football blocking an unguarded rain drain which had prevented rainwater from leaving the roof, which had then pooled and leaked into the resident’s flat. The sub-contractor also confirmed that the damage to the lift lobby was due to a defective roof access door and not a leaking roof. The resident says he was told to call the landlord on 14 November 2019, by which time it would have received the sub-contractor’s report. On 14 November 2019 the resident rang the landlord, to be told that the sub-contractor’s report had not yet been received.
  5. As well as the above contacts, the resident says that he also tried to ring the landlord on five other occasions but gave up after being held in a queue for more than fifteen minutes. He also says that he was promised a call back on three occasions but this did not happen.
  6. On 18 November 2019 the resident sent the landlord his formal complaint by recorded delivery (which was received on 20 November 2019). He said his complaint was about the landlord’s complete lack of attention over the previous seven weeks, after which time he was still living in a gloomy room following the removal of one of the ceiling lights by the electrician. He also emphasised that the pooling water on the floor near the lift was a danger to anyone using the lift. He said that it had not been disputed that the landlord was responsible for both the damage to his ceiling and the damage to the lift lobby and that the landlord was in clear breach of his lease agreement.
  7. Also on 18 November 2019, the sub-contractor contacted the landlord with its findings following its inspection on 12 November 2019. It said that there was a blocked outlet which had been cleared and that the tankroom door did not shut and was letting water into the building.
  8. On 12 December 2019 the landlord emailed the resident to acknowledge his complaint. It said that it had tried to phone him on 4 December 2019 but was unable to get through, so it asked him to provide full details of his complaint so that it could be investigated further. The resident responded that he had returned the call on 4 December 2019 and was told that the relevant person would call back when she was off the phone, but she never did. He had also rung on 5 December 2019 to request a direct phone number or email address but was told that this was not possible. He then referred the landlord to his written complaint of 18 November 2019 and explained which office he had sent it to. He concluded that the most practical means of communication going forward should be email.
  9. On 16 December 2019 the landlord spoke to the resident on the phone. The resident stated that, whlist there was currently no water ingress through the ceiling, the light had been disconnected to make it safe and there was brown staining on the ceiling. He was anxious to get the repairs completed as he wanted to replace the carpet and cover up the water stains but was unable to do so until the leak had been resolved. He was aware that the delay might be due to warranty issues with the roof and that the relevant sub-contractor might need to return to follow up on repairs. The landlord said that it would add a note and ask the relevant person to contact him and the resident reiterated that he would like contact via email.
  10. In the landlord’s stage 1 response of 19 December 2019, it stated that the surveyor had confirmed that the development contractor had inspected the roof and no leak had been identified. However, the fire escape door to the roof was damaged and that is where water had been coming in. The surveyor had raised a works order for this with an appointment booked for 10 January 2020. It went on to say that, although the damage to the communal areas would be repaired, as a leaseholder, the resident would need to claim for any damage on his insurance policy. Damage to personal possessions would normally be made on a contents insurance policy, but if the resident wished to pursue a claim against the landlord, he would need to answer certain questions in order to submit a claim, including why he felt there had been negligence. Contact details for the landlord’s insurance team were then provided.
  11. The resident did not receive the stage 1 response and therefore, on 23 January 2020, he made another complaint. He said that this was necessary due to a complete failure of communication and went on to give a chronology of the times when he had spoken to the landlord and been promised updates or calls back which had then not happened. He said he had received a message on his phone on 18 December 2019 about the ‘closure’ of his complaint and commented that his requests for communication via email had been constantly ignored. He had managed to speak to someone after that who told him that a letter had been sent to him on 19 December 2019. However, despite making two further requests for a copy, he had not received anything.
  12. On 7 February 2020 the landlord acknowledged the resident’s stage 2 complaint and said that it aimed to provide a response within 20 working days. It also asked him to make contact to make it clear what he was not accepting and what he wished to be considered as a desired outcome. In response the resident referred the landlord back to his correspondence of 18 November 2019 in which he had set out that he wanted a written report on the state of the roof, to know how the problem was to be resolved and when the work was going to be undertaken. He also wanted compensation for being without one ceiling light since 3 October 2019, during the darkest months of the year, and for the ‘woeful’ handling of his concerns. He also referred the landlord back to his correspondence of 23 January 2020. It was apparent that the resident had still not received a copy of the stage 1 response at this point
  13. On 28 February 2020 the landlord contacted the resident to acknowledge his complaint again. It said it aimed to provide a response within 10 working days but was currently experiencing high volumes and so the response might take longer than normal and thanked the resident in advance for his patience.
  14. In the landlord’s stage 2 response of 24 March 2020 it reiterated its stage 1 finding that an inspection had found no problems with the roof but the roof door was damaged and allowing water to enter the building. It noted that the works to the door had been completed and the resident had been advised that he would need to claim on his own insurance policy. It noted that, following the closure of the complaint, the resident was dissatisfied with the complaint handling and the repairs. With regard to complaint handling, it accepted that it had not kept the resident informed and that it had called him when it had been clearly noted that he had requested email/written communication. It acknowledged that it could have communicated more effectively and managed his expectations better and offered £50 for this failure. Regarding repairs, it explained that the roof had been inspected by its surveyor, along with the sub-contractor, and the cause of the leak (into the communal area) had been rectified on 31 January 2020.
  15. On 24 July 2020 the landlord left the resident a voicemail about payment of the £50 compensation. On 29 July 2020 the resident called the landlord and followed this up with an email. He said he had no idea what the £50 compensation related to and that he had not heard anything from the landlord since 28 February 2020 when it said that it would try to respond to his complaint within 10 days but that there might be delays. He said that the person he had spoken to earlier had referred to the landlord’s letter of 24 March 2020 but he had not received this letter. He speculated that it may never have been sent due to the first coronavirus lockdown having been announced at that time. He said it had now been ten months since the problem occurred and it was obvious that the landlord had no intention of addressing it. He said that he had had no option but to treat the damaged and discoloured area of the ceiling himself and that he had no idea if any repairs had been carried out to the flat roof above his property.
  16. The resident contacted this Service on 11 October 2020 to escalate his complaint. It was apparent that, by this point, he had seen a copy of the stage 2 response as he referred to what he considered to be inaccuracies contained within it. He said that, although the roof access door had apparently been repaired on 31 January 2020, he had not been told that and the problem of rainwater being deposited on the lift lobby floor was still present. He said that he had not been advised to claim from his insurers for damage to his ceiling and that he did not have buildings insurance, only contents cover. He further said that he had reconnected the ceiling light himself but the landlord had not contacted him about that at any point. Given the circumstances, he thought that the offer of £50 was insulting as a decorator would have cost the landlord much more.

Policies and Procedures

  1. The landlord has set out its repair responsibilities on its website. In relation to leaseholders, it explains that a leaseholder is responsible for maintaining and repairing the inside of their property. The landlord is responsible for communal areas and the structure of the property, including gutters and drains.
  2. The landlord’s Repairs and Maintenance Policy states its aim to ensure that repairs are carried out in a timely and efficient manner. It states that appointments will be offered within 28 calendar days of the repair being reported.
  3. The landlord’s complaints procedure says that its teams will initially resolve customer enquiries where possible before a complaint is recorded. If a matter does become a complaint, the landlord aims to resolve stage 1 complaints within 10 working days and stage 2 complaints within 20 working days. It further states that its purpose is, amongst other things, to:
    1.       put things right as quickly as possible in line with its customer charter;
    2.       keep the customer informed;
    3.       follow its policies and procedures;
    4.       use lessons learned from the complaints to improve our service and prevent complaints
  4. The landlord’s compensation policy sets out that discretionary payments can be made to maintain good relations with residents where an inconvenience has been caused by the landlord’s actions or failure to act. Examples include the time taken to resolve a complaint and any inconvenience suffered or a degree of disruption to the household. The policy states that the amount should be worked out on the basis of £100 for each compensatory issue for every year the issue has taken to resolve. When offering compensation it will consider issues such as the length of time it took to resolve the problem and difficulties the resident experienced when making their complaint. The policy states that compensation will not be offered in circumstances where the resident could make a claim against their insurance policy.

Assessment and findings

Repair handling

  1. The landlord attended the resident’s flat to disconnect the ceiling light on 3 October 2019, so it was aware that there had been water ingress into the flat from the roof. However, when it visited the next day, it apparently only investigated the reasons for the leak into the lift lobby and did not inspect the wider roof area to see why the resident’s flat was also being affected. This was an oversight on the part of the landlord.
  2. Although the electrics in the resident’s flat had been made safe, the source of the leak had still to be identified. Even if classed as a non-emergency, this should still have been carried out within 28 days. However, the sub-contractor did not attend to inspect the roof until 12 November 2019, some 40 days after the problem was first reported.
  3. The sub-contractor provided his findings to the landlord on 18 November 2019. Therefore the landlord had the opportunity at that time to contact the resident to confirm that the leak was due to blocked drainage that had been cleared and that there was no underlying problem with the roof itself that required a repair. It could also have taken the opportunity to explain the procedure that the resident would have to follow as a leaseholder, to claim on the buildings insurance. After that, according to the resident’s chronology, he had contact with various people in the landlord’s customer services team, by phone or email, on six different occasions prior to the stage 1 response being sent out. However, these contacts appeared to relate solely to the progress of the resident’s complaint, rather than informing him that no repair was required to the roof.
  4. The advice, had it been provided, that the resident should claim on the buildings insurance is correct. The resident does not believe that he has buildings insurance, only contents cover. The building is of course insured, and the resident pays towards it as part of his service charge. This is set out in his lease. Damage to communal parts, including the roof, is the responsibility of the landlord. Damage to the resident’s demised area, as set out in his lease, is his responsibility, regardless of the cause, but he can make a claim on the insurance if he is minded to do so.
  5. Had the resident been informed at the earliest opportunity that there was no repair required to the roof and that the reason for the leak had been resolved, he could have reconnected his ceiling light. However, being under the impression that a further leak might occur, he took the precaution of leaving it disconnected for many months.
  6. In summary, the landlord’s response to the repairs issue was un-coordinated initially, with an order being raised with regard to the leak into the communal lift lobby but not for the leak into the resident’s flat. The visit to look at the roof did not take place within the landlord’s repairs policy timescale of 28 days. Further, the landlord failed to communicate to the resident that the reason for the leak into his flat had been resolved. As a consequence the resident was under the impression that a repair to the roof was still required and that it would be dangerous for him to re-connect his ceiling light until that had happened.
  7. Overall, the Ombudsman considers that this amounts to a service failure on the part of the landlord. Although the landlord has offered the resident £50 compensation for its poor complaint handling, it has not taken into account the way it dealt with his substantive issue of reporting water ingress. This Service takes the view that a further amount of compensation should be awarded to cover this issue. When considering appropriate remedies for identified failings, the Ombudsman has regard to its own Guidance on Remedies and the terms of the landlord’s Compensation Policy (including that compensation will not be awarded where someone can claim on an insurance policy).
  8. This Service’s compensation awards are not punitive and are designed to put the complainant in the position they would have been in but for the landlord’s failings, rather than putting them in a more favourable position. The remedy should be proportionate to the errors identified, and reaching an amount will involve assessing a range of factors including any particular distress and inconvenience caused by the issues, the amount of time and effort expended on pursuing the matter with the landlord and the level of detriment caused by the landlord’s actions. With this in mind, a compensation award of £50 is made in respect of the failings identified in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports and for the inconvenience caused to him in being without full lighting in his flat and his time and trouble in having to pursue the complaint.
  9. The resident has said that a new water mark appeared on his ceiling in November 2020 and that rainwater was again able to enter the communal lift lobby in October 2020. The Ombudsman is unable to conclude that these issues relate to any defects that were already present in October 2019. The outcome of the sub-contractor’s inspection in November 2019 was that there was no damage to the roof and the landlord was entitled to rely on that expert opinion. A repair was also carried out to the roof door on 31 January 2020. The resident would need to report these new incidents to the landlord so that it can inspect the roof and door hatch for any damage that may be present now.

Complaint handling

  1. The landlord’s complaints policy states that it will try to resolve issues informally prior to the need for a resident to complain. Opportunities to do this were missed by the landlord, as set out above.
  2. The resident’s stage 1 complaint letter was received (according to the recorded delivery evidence) on 20 November 2019. The landlord’s complaint policy sets out its aims to deal with stage 1 complaints within 10 working days. Therefore, it should have responded by 4 December 2020, but it did not do so until 19 December 2019.
  3. The resident’s stage 2 complaint letter is dated 23 January 2020. The landlord’s complaints policy is that it should aim to respond to stage 2 complaints within 20 working days. Allowing a couple of days for the resident’s complaint letter to have been delivered, the landlord should therefore have responded by 20 February 2020. The landlord did contact the resident to say that it was unusually busy and so the response might take longer. However, the response was not sent until 24 March 2020, over a month outside the landlord’s target response time.
  4. It is unclear why the resident did not receive either the stage 1 or 2 complaint responses. The landlord cannot be held responsible for any problems the resident has with his postal deliveries. However, had the landlord acted on the resident’s requests to have contact by email, it could have emailed both letters to him and there would not now be the confusion that has been caused by the resident believing that he had simply been ignored.
  5. The Ombudsman is unclear why, when the resident sent in detailed accounts of his dissatisfaction and what he expected the landlord to do, the landlord contacted him after he sent in his stage 1 and 2 requests asking him to clarify his complaint.
  6. Setting aside that the resident did not receive the stage 1 complaint response, the Ombudsman finds the wording in relation to insurance unhelpful. Most residents of blocks of flats will not have given much thought to their buildings insurance as they have not had to arrange it themselves, as attested to by the resident’s comments that he does not have building insurance. The landlord could therefore have taken the time to explain that it was an insurance policy that it held that would have to be claimed on. Telling the resident that he would have to make a claim on his buildings insurance against the landlord and that he would have to say why he felt there had been negligence, gives the impression of an adversarial process whereby the resident’s own insurer would somehow have to challenge the landlord’s insurer.
  7. The Ombudsman has not seen the terms and conditions of the insurance policy. However, negligence is not usually a necessary requirement for making a successful claim on such policies, which tend to cover things like accidental damage. Regardless, the resident should have been provided with proper information so that he could make an informed decision about whether to claim under the insurance or not.
  8. Despite the resident requesting copies of the stage 1 response on 10 and 17 January 2020, this was not done and the resident pointed this out in his stage 2 request. It should therefore have been obvious to the landlord, at the point of drafting the stage 2 response, that the resident had still not seen the stage 1 response. However, the landlord simply made reference to the stage 1 response without providing a copy of it.
  9. The landlord acknowledged that it did not keep the resident sufficiently informed and that it called him despite it being clearly noted that he had requested emails. However, it then continued to call the resident after it had sent its stage 2 response, most notably on 24 July 2020, when it left a message for him about the £50 compensation. The landlord’s complaints policy states that it aims to learn from complaints it receives. However, it has clearly failed to do so in this instance.
  10. The landlord’s offer of compensation was in relation to failing to keep the resident informed and not communicating with him by email. Further failings in the landlord’s complaint handling have been identified, which in this Service’s view warrant an increase in the amount.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Scheme there was maladministration by the landlord in respect of its handling of the resident’s reports of a leak.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Scheme there was service failure in the handling of the associated formal complaint.

 

Reasons

  1. The landlord failed to keep the resident fully informed about the status of the repairs issue, resulting in him having to make a complaint. The communication failings continued throughout the period that the landlord was looking at the resident’s complaint, exacerbated by a number of failings in its handling of the complaint itself.

Orders

  1. The Ombudsman orders the landlord to:
    1.       pay the resident a total of £250 (£150 compensation in respect of its poor handling of the repairs issues and £100 for failings in the complaint handling)
    2.       provide the resident with written details of how to pursue a retrospective claim on the buildings insurance, including details of the policy and the process he would need to follow.

Recommendations

  1. The Ombudsman recommends that the landlord should consider how more prominence can be given on its systems to its residents’ preferred method of contact to ensure that these are consistently adhered to.