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Leeds City Council (202230864)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202230864

Leeds City Council

29 April 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 the resident’s reports that the communal lighting to her building was not working.

Background

  1. The resident holds a secure tenancy to the property, a 8th floor 2-bedroom flat, since 8 August 2016. The landlord is the property’s owner. The landlord has confirmed it has an alert on its systems regarding the resident’s mental health.
  2. On 14 October 2022 the resident contacted the landlord to report that the internal communal area and external lighting was not working. The landlord attended the same day but was unable to undertake repairs at that time.
  3. The resident wrote to the landlord on 16 November 2022 to make a formal complaint about its handling of the repair. The resident said that when she contacted the landlord she was informed it was an emergency repair and would be undertaken within 24 hours. However, the lights were still not working. The landlord responded at stage one of its complaints process on 27 November 2022. The landlord accepted it should have undertaken the repairs sooner and upheld the resident’s complaint. It said that the works had been completed on 25 November 2022 and the lights were now working.
  4. On 10 December 2022 the resident wrote to the landlord requesting her complaint was escalated to stage two. The resident said that she reported the lights had worked for a short period following the landlord’s repair but were off again later on 25 November 2022. She said that the repair was not completed until 5 December 2022 and requested compensation for all residents in the building. The landlord responded on 18 January 2023 accepting that it had failed in respect of the time taken to complete the job. It apologised for this but did not offer any compensation.
  5. In bringing her complaint to this service the resident has said:
    1. The lack of lighting caused the residents, including herself, anxiety and fear.
    2. The landlord should pay compensation to affected residents.

Assessment and findings

Policies and procedures

  1. The landlord’s repairs policy states “Emergency Repairs … we will attend within three hours, and complete an emergency repair within 24 hours”
  2. The landlord’s repairs policy also states “During the repair we will … keep you informed of work progress especially if the job cannot be completed in one visit.”
  3. The landlord’s complaints policy confirms stage one complaints “relating to housing will be responded to within 10 working days” and stage two complaints “relating to housing will be responded to within 20 working days”.

Scope

  1. As part of her complaint to this Service the resident has requested that the landlord compensate all residents of the building. The Housing Ombudsman Scheme (the Scheme) sets out that the Ombudsman considers complaints from individuals and does not deal with collective or group representations. However, paragraph 26 of the Scheme sets out that the Ombudsman can accept an individual complaint as a lead case, so that any decisions made in connection with it may – in certain circumstances and where the lead resident is clearly representing named individuals – also apply to others in the same circumstances.
  2. In this case however it would not be appropriate for this to be considered a lead case. This is because throughout the landlord’s complaints process the resident has not provided any evidence she was also representing other named individuals and had their consent to do this. It would also be inappropriate as whilst the repairs to the lights would have affected all residents it would have affected them in different ways. For example, an elderly disabled resident is likely to have been impacted in a much greater way than for example someone with no disabilities.
  3. Given this, the Ombudsman has considered how the landlord’s handling of the communal lighting affected the resident, rather than its impact on all residents in the block.

Communal lighting

  1. On 14 October 2022 the resident contacted the landlord to report the landing, staircase and external security lights to her building were not working. The landlord raised an emergency repair and its contractors attended the same day. During this attendance it was identified that the repair would involve working at heights and no works were undertaken. The landlord’s repair policy confirms emergency repairs will be attended within 3 hours and repairs undertaken within 24 hours. As such, it was unreasonable the landlord did not follow up and undertake repairs the next day following its attendance.
  2. On 24 November 2022, the landlord’s contractors returned and reinstated the internal lights. On 25 November 2022, the landlord’s contractors reinstated 6 of the 8 external security lights. The landlord has said it was unable to repair all the external lights at this time due to a portacabin blocking the location. This was reasonable however the delays in undertaking the works it was able to complete was not. There was a delay of 40 days against the landlord’s target timescale of 24 hours. This was unreasonable and caused distress and anxiety to the resident. Further the Ombudsman has not seen any evidence that the landlord provided updates to the resident during this period, which was also unreasonable and not in-line with the landlord’s repairs policy.
  3. In her complaint the resident has said whilst the lights did work for a short period around 24 November 2022 by the evening of 25 November 2022 the lights had stopped working again. This is evidenced in the landlord’s repairs records which show it was required to return on 4 December 2022 and 5 December 2022 as the external security lights were not working. Its notes confirm that the external lights were repaired on 5 December 2022 and left in operational order.
  4. As part of its responses to the resident’s complaints the landlord has accepted that “follow on works should have been booked in sooner than 6 weeks after their initial visit” and apologised for the delays in undertaking the works. The distress caused to the resident was exacerbated by her mental health issues which the landlord was aware of. The resident has informed this Service that she was petrified returning to her home after dark whilst the lights were not operational. The landlord has acknowledged that the lack of lighting was causing the resident concern but has not offered any redress for the failing or distress caused to the resident.
  5. It is positive the landlord has identified and acknowledged failings in its complaints responses to the resident. However, given the failings identified an apology was not sufficient put things right. The Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles sets out to be fair, put things right and learn from complaints. Therefore, it would have been reasonable for the landlord to consider putting right the distress and inconvenience caused by way of financial redress.
  6. Overall, the Ombudsman has found there was maladministration because the landlord did not undertake follow on works in a timely fashion after its initial inspection on 14 October 2022, did not provide any progress updates to the resident while the lights were defective and has failed to show the learning it took from its errors.

Determination

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

Orders

  1. The landlord should take the following action within the next 4 weeks and provide evidence of compliance with these orders to the Ombudsman.
    1. Pay the resident £200 compensation for the distress caused by its delay in repairing the communal lighting.
    2. Write to the resident re-iterating its apology and outlining the learning the landlord has taken from this case.