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Waltham Forest Council (202221278)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202221278

Waltham Forest Council

23 May 2023

 

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 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 damage to the guttering and brickwork at her property.

Background

  1. The resident is a leaseholder of a flat in a communal building, and the landlord is the freeholder of that building. The resident does not live at the property but has a tenant residing there.
  2. On 11 January 2022, the resident’s tenant informed the landlord that part of the guttering that had been fitted to one of the property’s exterior walls had fallen off the wall, and this was now causing water to overflow. On 17 March 2022, the resident pursued this with it, and advised it that some of the exterior brickwork at the property also required repairs. On 25 March 2022, the landlord’s surveyor inspected the property and subsequently, on 5 April 2022, it issued instructions to its contractor to carry out repairs. The works were identified as guttering, plumbing, side elevation, balcony wall, and brickwork repairs. The guttering was re-fitted on 5 April 2022. However, the rest of the guttering, plumbing and elevation works, remained outstanding.
  3. On 1, 20 and 27 April 2022, the resident telephoned the landlord’s contractor, which advised her that no jobs had been raised for the outstanding works, although the jobs identified by the landlord were then raised during these calls. Its contractor subsequently attended the property on 3 May 2022, however the appointment was recorded as no access because the contractor had brought a cherry picker to reach the necessary areas of the building, but they were unable to use this because there were cars parked outside.
  4. Between 4May and 7June 2022, the resident continued to unsuccessfully pursue the landlord’s contractor on at least nine occasions, only being contacted by a contractor about a repair appointment once on 10 May 2022, and she then made a stage one complaint on 13 June 2022 to that effect. She wanted the landlord to investigate how her reports of outstanding guttering and brickwork repairs had been handled by its contractor, which had caused her time, trouble, distress and inconvenience in pursuing.
  5. The landlord’s stage one complaint response on 18 July 2022 explained why there had been some delay in completing the outstanding repairs due to industry-wide staffing shortages, and because its contractor had misread the job specifications, for which it apologised. Its surveyor had attended the resident’s property on 7 July 2022, and had noted that some of the works were underway after scaffolding had been erected that had required parking to be suspended.
  6. The landlord advised that it aimed to get all outstanding works completed within a fortnight, but for the resident to contact it if this had not been done by August 2022. It awarded £125 compensation in total, consisting of £100 for inconvenience and £25 for the delayed complaint response, and upheld the complaint.
  7. The resident then escalated her complaint to the final stage of the complaints procedure on 13 September 2022 because the works had not yet been completed or rescheduled since an unannounced contractor’s visit on 26 July 2022. The guttering and plumbing works were subsequently completed between 14 September and 20 October 2022, and the landlord issued its final stage complaint response on 21 October 2022.
  8. The landlord accepted that there had been delays in completing the outstanding works. It advised that the guttering and plumbing works had now been completed, but that the pointing repairs to the brickwork remained outstanding, and therefore it upheld the resident’s complaint again. The landlord apologised for the impact on her and increased its original compensation offer from £125 to £475, adding £200 for this failure and poor communication, £50 for distress, and £100 for time and trouble. It advised that it would ensure that the outstanding pointing repair to the brickwork was completed by 18 November 2022.
  9. The outstanding repairs to the property’s brickwork pointing were then recorded as having been completed on 4 November 2022, and the landlord took photographs of this on the day as evidence that the work had been completed. No other works remained outstanding as of that date, according to it.
  10. The resident’s insurer subsequently attended her property on 5 December 2022 regarding internal repairs there that required the external works to have been completed. However, their report found that there were sections of significant pointing wear, as well as gaps between the brickwork where damaged pointing had fallen away around the window location. The insurer therefore recommended that the landlord’s surveyor inspect the quality of the external repairs. The landlord and its contractor subsequently post-inspected the property’s external repair work as part of its repairs procedure, and they signed off on the work that was described as having been completed on 8 December 2022 as being as per spec on 13 December 2022.
  11. The resident then complained to this Service because she believed that there were still outstanding repairs at her property, based on her insurer’s report, and the landlord had not informed her that the repairs had been completed. She also stated that she did not want to be charged for the scaffolding that had remained in place while the repairs had been delayed.
  12. The resident advised this Service that she was anxious because her insurer had stated that they would not carry out any repairs inside her property until the outstanding external repairs had been completed by the landlord. This was due to the suspected external defects that were allowing moisture to enter the property and cause damage. On 21 February 2023, the resident advised this Service that the repairs were still outstanding and that the scaffolding was still up.
  13. It is noted that, on 13 March 2023, the resident made further complaints to the landlord following the inspection by her insurer, for which she reported that the landlord inspected the property on 13 April 2023, but that it had not contacted her about again as of 11 May 2023. Although it previously advised this Service on 22 March 2023 that it was proposing to waive her service charge for the scaffolding.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. While the resident, based on her insurers inspection for internal repairs at her property, disputes the landlord’s and its contractors’ reports that all works had been completed in November and December 2022, this is outside the scope of this investigation to consider. This is because this relates to a dispute that has arisen after the completion of the landlord’s complaints procedure, which it has not yet had the opportunity to try and resolve through the procedure, and is the subject of new complaints that are being investigated by it. Therefore, this is not yet something that this Service can investigate because, in accordance with the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, we may not consider complaints that are made prior to having exhausted the landlord’s complaints procedure. Although it has been recommended below to respond to the resident’s latest complaints, if it has not done so already.

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of damage to the guttering and brickwork at her property

  1. The landlord’s repairs policy states that, where works are unplanned capital works/elemental replacements and not day-to-day repairs such as significant repairs to walls, these must be recommended by its surveyor and be completed within 45 calendar days. The repairs to the resident’s property’s exterior walls would therefore have been expected to have been carried out under this timescale. This is because these were unplanned capital or elemental works that included significant external wall repairs, and landlord sent its surveyor to the property, who then recommended the specific repairs.
  2. 84 calendar days after being informed of external wall guttering repairs by the resident’s tenant on 11 January 2022 that the resident pursued with brickwork repairs on 17 March 2022, the landlord instructed its contractor on 5 April 2022 to carry out guttering, plumbing, elevation and brickwork repairs. It did so after arranging its surveyor’s inspection of the property on 25 March 2022. However, the landlord’s inspection was 73 calendar days after the resident’s tenant’s report, and so was also contrary to the 45-calendar-day timescale in its repairs policy. The guttering at the resident’s property was then re-fitted after 84 calendar days of the report on 5 April 2022, when the other repairs remained outstanding.
  3. The outstanding brickwork and other repairs raised by the resident on 17 March 2022 were additionally still not completed by 3 May 2022, and so were also later than the repairs policy’s 45-calendar-day timescale from the date of this report. Therefore, there was a failing by the landlord to follow the timescale set out in its repairs policy.
  4. The landlord’s stage one complaint response on 18 July 2022 acknowledged that it had failed to carry out the works within an acceptable time, and it was appropriate that it acknowledged this. As a mitigating factor, it explained that there had been industry-wide staffing shortages that had left its contractor unable to hire any workers to carry out the repairs. It added that, because its contractors had misread the job specifications, they had brought a cherry picker to carry out the repairs rather than scaffolding, and it had also had staff shortages in its staff who dealt with complaints and enquiries.
  5. The landlord nevertheless reassured the resident that scaffolding had now been erected and that it expected all of the outstanding works to be completed within a fortnight. This was an appropriate response by it at that time, as it explained the mitigating circumstances and it then reassured her that the correct procedure had been subsequently followed by using scaffolding. The landlord also managed the resident’s expectations by giving her a timeframe by which she could expect the outstanding repairs to be completed.
  6. The landlord also awarded the resident £100 compensation for the inconvenience caused to her. Under its compensation policy, it states that distress also includes detriment such as anxiety, inconvenience, frustration, worry, outrage, raised expectations, lost opportunity and uncertainty. This also states that compensation awarded for distress is often between £100 and £300. Therefore, the £100 compensation that the landlord awarded the resident for the inconvenience that she had experienced between 11 January and 18 July 2022 may have been in line with its compensation policy at that time.
  7. This is because all of the outstanding plumbing, elevation and brickwork repairs were outside of the resident’s property, and the work itself did not require either her or her tenant to be present. The works, while necessary, were not an emergency nor urgent, and therefore the fact that the works were delayed may not have had a major impact on the resident’s or her tenant’s day-to-day life. There is also no evidence that there was a health and safety risk to her tenant from the delayed works. This Service’s remedies guidance additionally states that, where there is a failure by the landlord that does not have a major impact on the resident, then between £50 to £100 compensation is an appropriate recognition of its failing.
  8. However, the landlord’s compensation policy also specifically covers time and trouble payments. It states that this should only be paid when the time and trouble taken by the resident in pursuing the complaint exceeds the minor costs that would routinely be expected, and that time and trouble payments are not the same as distress caused by its actions. This states that the compensation for time and trouble is unlikely to be less than £100 or more than £300.
  9. The resident reported that, between 17March 2022 and her stage one complaint of13 June 2022, she contacted the landlord and its contractors at least 13 times in pursuit of updates on the outstanding repairs. The landlord did not dispute her description of this, and it also considered herchronology of these eventsin her case while investigating her complaint at the final stage of its complaints procedure. The resident would additionally not routinely be expected to pursue its contractors for updates, especially so many times, and yet it was left to her to do so, which was not appropriate.
  10. While there is evidence that the landlord also pursued its contractors for updates, the resident indicated that she was only contacted by a contractor once, on 10 May 2022. There is not evidence that she was contacted by the landlord at all from at least 20 April to 13 June 2022, and this was a failing by it. This is because it failed to keep the resident updated, which had an impact on her as she had to pursue its contractors at least 13 times for updates. However, even then, the landlord and its contractors still failed to provide her with any updates on their timescale for completing the outstanding in response to her contact, until she made her stage one complaint, which was unreasonable.
  11. The landlord should have therefore also awarded the resident a minimum of £100 compensation for the time and trouble experienced by her because of her chasing of it and its contractors, due to its delays in completing the outstanding repairs, in order to resolve her complaint, as per its compensation policy. It nevertheless did subsequently acknowledge the time and trouble experienced by her, as well as its failure to keep her updated, in its final stage complaint response of 21 October 2022. The landlord awarded the resident £100 compensation for the time and trouble, £200 compensation for its outstanding repairs and poor communication, and £50 for her distress, which was appropriately in line with its compensation policy’s above recommendations for these items.
  12. Under this Service’s remedies guidance, the £450 compensation awarded to the resident by the landlord for its failings in its handling of her reports of damaged guttering and brickwork was proportionate to recognise such failings that adversely affected her. According to the guidance, an appropriate amount of compensation in recognition of this failing is between £100 to £600 compensation.
  13. In this case, the resident was adversely affected by the landlord’s poor communication because its failing resulted in her having to pursue it and its contractors herself many times. Its compensation award to her for this was therefore in line with how much this Service’s remedies guidance would have recommended awarding her for this in recognition of its failing, and so this was an appropriate amount. This was also proportionate to recognise the further delays that the landlord acknowledged in it completing the guttering and plumbing repairs by 20 October 2022, and the brickwork repairs by 18 November 2022, in accordance with its compensation policy’s and our remedies guidance’s above recommendations.
  14. When the resident then complained about the landlord to this Service, she advised that part of the outcome that she was looking for was for it to waive any charges relating to the scaffolding that had been erected, because the outstanding repairs had been delayed. While it did subsequently advise us that it was proposing to waive her service charge for the scaffolding, which was reasonable, it would also have been helpful if it had advised her of this at the same time.
  15. Therefore, the landlord has been recommended below to pay the resident the £475 compensation and waive her service charge for scaffolding that it previously awarded her, if she has not received these already. It has also been recommended below to review its staff’s and contractors’ training needs regarding repair communication to ensure that they keep its residents regularly updated about the status of outstanding long-term repairs, and to respond to their requests for such updates promptly.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 53(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord has offered redress to the resident prior to investigation which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, resolves the complaint satisfactorily.

Recommendations

  1. It is recommended that the landlord:
    1. Contact the resident to respond to her latest complaints about outstanding repairs at her property, if it has not done so already.
    2. Pay the resident the £475 compensation and waive her service charge for scaffolding that it previously awarded her, if she has not received these already.
    3. Review its staff’s and contractors’ training needs regarding repair communication to ensure that they keep its residents regularly updated about the status of outstanding long-term repairs, and to respond to their requests for such updates promptly.