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Peabody Trust (202219452)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202219452

Peabody Trust

31 May 2024


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:

a.     The resident’s reports of repairs to her windows.

b.     The resident’s reports of heating loss in her property.

c.      The resident’s complaint.

Background

  1. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord. She occupies a 2 bedroom property with her 4 children. 
  2. The landlord’s records show that the resident first reported that her windows were draughty and in need of repair in March 2022. 
  3. She raised the same repair again twice in October 2022. The landlord undertook a temporary repair to make the windows safe by securing them closed in October 2022.
  4. The resident says that she made a complaint to the landlord around this time, but she did not receive an acknowledgement to the online form she completed. She referred her complaint to this Service in November 2022. On 15 December 2022, this Service made a new stage 1 complaint to the landlord, on behalf of the resident. The complaint was about a loss of heating and that the landlord had not repaired her draughty windows. This was having an impact on the health and wellbeing of her household.
  5. The landlord’s contractor tried to contact the resident 3 times in December to arrange to complete the window repairs but was unsuccessful.
  6. On 3 January 2023 the landlord issued its stage 1 response to the resident’s complaint. It said that:

a.     It had taken steps to make the windows safe in October 2022, and had inspected the windows again in November 2022, and then raised repairs. There were issues with access in December, however, it had made a new appointment for the windows to be repaired in January 2023. 

b.     It was initially unclear what had caused the issue with the heating. The contractor had since confirmed that it was an issue with the radiators and not the central boiler. The landlord had raised repairs to resolve this.

c.      It accepted that there were failings in its service delivery and that it would assess compensation on the completion of the works.

  1. The resident asked for the landlord to escalate her complaint on 3 January 2023.
  2. The contractors contacted the resident in January 2023, and they completed the window repairs on 20 January 2023.
  3. On 12 December 2022, the resident reported that radiators in her child’s bedroom, the living room and kitchen were not working. 
  4. The following day the landlord arranged an inspection. It raised a job for contractors to attend to resolve the issue.
  5. Initially the wrong contractors attended to undertake the works. Then, as an external managing agent (EMA) looked after the building, the landlord contacted them in early January 2023 to ask that they repair the radiators. There was a delay in the EMA responding. When they did respond in February 2022, they said that the issue was the landlord’s responsibility as it affected only the resident’s flat and not the other properties.
  6. The landlord then arranged for different contractors to attend in February 2023, and following the appointment it raised an order to replace the radiators. It provided the resident with temporary heaters until it had completed the works.  
  7. The landlord issued its stage 2 response on 16 February 2023.  It said that:

a.     It acknowledged the delays in it completing the window repairs, although it was satisfied that they had been repaired in January 2023. 

b.     It conceded that the repairs to the resident’s radiators had been delayed due to internal communications between the landlord and its contractors. 

c.      It offered the resident £339 in compensation which comprised of:

  1. £150 for her time, trouble and inconvenience for the protracted progress of the repairs.
  2. £50 because the initial repair was closed without works being undertaken.
  3. £189 for loss of heating for the relevant period.

Post-complaint

  1. On 10 March 2023, the landlord replaced 2 radiators in the resident’s home. However, it found that there was a fault with the Heat Interface Unit (HIU).  This left the resident without heating or hot water. The resident chased this with the landlord on 27 March, 30 March, 4 April 2023 and 11 May 2023.
  2. The landlord arranged a further inspection on 24 May 2023. During this appointment, it restored the resident’s hot water, but it noticed that 3 of the radiators were still not working. It repaired all the radiators in the property on 8 June 2023, except the radiator in the resident’s daughters’ bedroom.  
  3. On 22 November 2023, the resident contacted the landlord. She said that she  had been waiting 7 to 8 months for the landlord to replace the radiator in her daughters’ room. The landlord told her that it had raised the works in September 2023, but it had cancelled the job in error and that it would raise a repair again.
  4. There were further delays with arranging the works, with appointments made in January 2024. The landlord installed the radiator in February 2024. 

Assessment and findings

The landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of repairs to her windows

  1. The landlord’s repairs policy outlines its responsibility for repairs and provides target response timescales for different priority repairs. It says it will undertake emergency repairs, those that present a risk to the household or property, to make the property safe within 4 to 24 hours. All other repairs are routine repairs, which it should respond to within 28 days.
  2. The landlord delayed by 7 months in raising the window repairs. This was because it had closed the repair in error. Keeping an accurate audit trail is an important part of a landlord’s service delivery. The landlord should have systems in place to keep up to date repair records, so that it knows when a resident has reported repairs and when it has completed them. This administrative error led to a lengthy delay in it raising these repairs. As a result, the resident and her family had to live in a cold and draughty property for an extended period. This Service has recently made a wider order addressing the landlord’s record keeping under case 202217713.
  3. When the landlord re-raised the works, it undertook repairs to draught-proof the windows and make them safe, within the target timescales outlined in its policy. The landlord was unable to carry out follow-on repairs in December as it had not been able to gain access to the property. This was outside of the landlord’s control. It completed the works on 20 January 2023.
  4. In its complaint responses the landlord was right to acknowledge service failure because of its delays in completing the works. While it apologised, it did not offer compensation to the resident in its stage 1 response, however the landlord said that it would calculate compensation once it had completed the works. This was a reasonable approach for the landlord to take.
  5. In its stage 2 response, the landlord offered £100 in total in relation to the window repairs:

a.     £50 for the resident’s time and trouble (half of £100 which the landlord had offered for protracted progress of repairs)

b.     £50 for the resident’s trouble and inconvenience because the landlord closed the first repair in error.   

  1. The landlord’s compensation policy says that in calculating compensation it will consider whether its service failure affected anyone in the household with vulnerabilities. The compensation offered by the landlord was within the tariff in its policy where there has been a minor disruption that has had no impact on the resident. As the delays to these works had a significant impact on the resident and her household, this Service considers that the compensation offered was insufficient. This is because, in assessing the compensation, the landlord did not apply its policy correctly.
  2. The resident has said that the property was cold. This was because her windows were draughty. It was affecting her 4 young children. Her circumstances meet the landlord’s compensation tariff for moderate disruption. The Ombudsman therefore orders that the landlord pay the resident an extra £200. This follows the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance where there has been maladministration that has had a significant impact on the resident. The compensation also includes an uplift, because the presence of young children in the property was an aggravating factor in the impact on the household.

 

The landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of heating loss in her property

  1. The Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS) is a risk-based evaluation tool to identify potential risks and hazards to health and safety in properties. Excess cold is a category 1 hazard to either be eradicated or minimised in line with the HHSRS. The HHSRS guidance says that “Excess cold in a property can exacerbate respiratory conditions like pneumonia or bronchitis and be particularly harmful to the young and the elderly”. Landlords should be aware of their obligations under HHSRS and are expected to carry out additional monitoring of a property where potential hazards are identified.
  2. The landlord’s records show that the resident first reported the faulty radiators in December 2022. The landlord inspected the property within its target response times. However, there was a delay in the landlord arranging repairs. This was because it thought that the repairs were the responsibility of the EMA, who looked after the building. The landlord would not have known that the lack of heating only affected the resident’s flat and was not a wider issue in the building. The EMA only provided confirmation of this in February 2023. It was reasonable, therefore, for the landlord to find out if the EMA should do the repairs. However, as it was the resident’s landlord, and not the EMA, with repair obligations towards its tenants, it should have acted sooner to resolve this. When it did not get a response to its email to the EMA, it took a month to follow this up. It later discovered that it had sent the email to someone who no longer worked for the EMA.
  3. The landlord had failed to keep its records up to date, which led to delays in it completing the works. Given the urgency of the repairs, when the EMA had not responded to its email, it should have followed this up without delay and, in the meantime, put emergency measures in place for the resident.
  4. Loss of heating is a priority repair, particularly during winter months when there are young children in the household. There was no evidence that the landlord took urgent steps to resolve this. While the landlord sought to mitigate the impact on the resident by providing temporary heaters, it delayed in doing so until February 2023, almost two months after the resident had reported the problem.
  5. The landlord’s communication with the resident was poor. Despite the landlord saying that it would keep the resident updated with the progress of the repairs, she had to chase it regularly for information. Between March and May 2023, the landlord did not respond to her calls and emails.
  6. While the landlord restored the heating on 8 June 2023, it took 12 months to install the radiator in the resident’s daughters’ room, which was unsatisfactory.
  7. The landlord accepted that its service delivery fell short of its service standards. It offered the resident an apology and said that it would review its service delivery to prevent this from happening again. It offered the resident an amount of £289 in compensation. It reviewed this amount after it had restored her heating in June 2023, and offered a further £316 which included an amount of £216 for loss of heating and £100 for her time, trouble and inconvenience.
  8. It was positive that the landlord looked to review its compensation once it had completed the repairs. We have therefore looked at whether, in doing so, it put right its earlier failing with the heating issues, as part of our assessment of whether it had offered sufficient redress. 
  9. The landlord offered the resident £150 in total for her distress and inconvenience. However, the landlord’s compensation policy says it can award an amount of between £301 and £400 for distress and inconvenience, where a resident has experienced extensive disruption. In the resident’s case, it had taken over a year for the landlord to fully restore her heating. There was also no evidence that the landlord had assessed compensation taking into consideration the impact on her young children.
  10. Overall, this Service finds the landlord’s failings amount to maladministration and orders the landlord to pay the resident an added amount of £450 in compensation. This amount includes an uplift because of the household’s vulnerabilities, in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance.
  11. The landlord had offered an amount in compensation to the resident for loss of heating. However, there was also a period of 74 days between 10 March 2023 and 24 May 2023 when the resident was without hot water. It had not offered the resident compensation for this. Under its compensation policy, £1 is payable per day per occupier up to a maximum of £5 outside of its emergency response times. As there are five people in the household including the resident, the landlord should therefore pay the resident £5 per day for 74 days, a total of £370.

The landlord’s complaint handling

  1. The resident says that she made a complaint using the landlord’s webform in 2022. Neither the resident nor the landlord has provided a copy of the webform or the date of the complaint to this Service. The Ombudsman therefore cannot make a finding in relation to this.
  2. The landlord responded to the resident’s stage 1 complaint within its target response timescales. In its response, it acknowledged its service failures, offered and apology and outlined lessons that it had learned from the complaint.
  3. The landlord also acknowledged the resident’s complaint escalation request within its target timescales. It acted in line with its policy by agreeing an extension to the deadline of 8 February 2023 with her. It issued the response by the agreed deadline and addressed all the points in the resident’s complaint. The landlord reviewed the compensation on completion of the works, which was reasonable. Overall, its complaint handling was in line with its policy and therefore this Service makes a finding of no maladministration. 

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in its handling of repairs to the resident’s windows.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in its response to the resident’s reports of heating loss in the property.
  3. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was no maladministration by the landlord in its complaints handling.

Orders and recommendations

  1. Within 4 weeks of the date of the report the landlord is to pay the resident £1678 in compensation as follows:

a.     £658 previously offered by the landlord.

b.     £200 for her distress and inconvenience due to delays in repairing her windows.

c.      £450 for her distress and inconvenience due to delays in replacing her radiators.

d.     £370 because the resident did not have hot water between 10 March and 24 May 2023.  

If the landlord has previously paid the resident £658, it should deduct this amount from the total and pay the resident the balance of £1020. The landlord should pay this amount direct to the resident in full and it should not be set off against any rent arrears or tenancy debt.