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Lambeth Council (202310221)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202310221

Lambeth Council

16 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 of a leaking toilet cistern.

Background

  1. The resident is the secure tenant of the property owned by the landlord.
  2. The resident reported a leak from the toilet cistern to the landlord on 10 October 2022. The landlord’s contractor attended by 17 October 2022 and wrote a note saying it had mended the leak.
  3. On 24 November 2022, the resident complained to the landlord, through this Service, that the contractor had not mended the leak. In its stage 1 complaint response of 6 January 2023, it apologised to the resident for poor communication about the leak and said it had arranged an appointment for 1 December 2022 which should have solved the problem. It asked him to get in touch if the contractor had missed the appointment.
  4. The resident wrote to the landlord the same day and said the operative had not fixed the leak and he had to keep a container under it and empty it regularly.  He made several other reports of leaks over the next few months before asking for his complaint to be escalated to stage 2 on 13 April 2023.
  5. The landlord sent a plumber to the property on 28 April 2023. It sent a stage 2 response on 22 May 2023, stating that it had mistakenly closed the appointment of 1 December 2022 without attending, and apologised. However, it said its operative had found no leak during its visit of 28 April 2023 and that, therefore, it had dealt with the resident’s concerns.
  6. The resident asked this Service to investigate his complaint as the leak had continued for 9 months, and he was seeking compensation.

Assessment and findings

Scope of the investigation

  1. In line with paragraph 42(a) of the Scheme, the scope of this investigation is limited to the issues raised during the course of the resident’s formal complaint. This is because the landlord needs to be given a fair opportunity to investigate and respond to any reported dissatisfaction with its actions prior to the involvement of this Service. Any new issues that have not been subject to a formal complaint can be addressed directly with the landlord and progressed as a new formal complaint if required. We have referred to them in this report to provide context to the facts under investigation.

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of a leaking toilet cistern

  1. The resident’s tenancy agreement requires the landlord to keep toilet facilities in proper working order. Its repairs and damp policy says it will respond to emergency repairs within 1 working day. It will attend for routine repairs within 7 days of a report if the repair is a qualifying repair under the Right to Repair Regulations and within 28 days for other routine repairs. The repair of a leaking cistern can be a qualifying repair.
  2. The landlord’s contractor attended the first appointment within 7 days. A note on the landlord’s repairs schedule dated 17 October 2022 says that the contractor had mended the leak though they added that certain unrelated works might be necessary in future.
  3. The next report of a leak received by the landlord, on the available evidence, was through the complaints process on 25 November 2022. Although it was presented as a complaint, the landlord, rightly, treated it as a report of a repair requirement and arranged for a visit by a contractor on 1 December 2022. However, as it accepted at stage 2, it wrongly cancelled the visit. This was, clearly, a failure on the landlord’s part.
  4. Although the resident first told the landlord that its contractor had missed the December 2022 appointment on 6 January 2023, it did not send another contractor until February 2023. It made and then cancelled a visit for 14 February 2023. Then a contractor attended on 28 February 2023 but reported that no one was at the property.
  5. According to the records, the resident made a further report of a leak on 28 March 2023 and then asked for his complaint to be escalated on 13 April 2023 because the leak had still not been mended. From the foregoing, the landlord failed to send out a plumber within its service standard for any of the resident’s reports of leaks between November 2022 and April 2023. The landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of leaks during this period, therefore, was inadequate and did not comply with its policy.
  6. When a plumber attended the property on 28 April 2023, the notes state that they found the cistern was not leaking. In its stage 2 response of 22 May 2023, the landlord stated that it had now dealt with the resident’s complaint. This was an inadequate response to the resident’s reports of leaks between November 2022 and May 2023. The first time a contractor attended the property to deal with his concerns was in late April 2023, 5 months after the November report. Thus, it would have been appropriate for the landlord to acknowledge its delays, apologise for this and offer compensation to the resident at this stage.
  7. The resident denies that the leak was mended. He reported that there was a constant leak from the cistern requiring emptying on a daily basis if not more from October 2022. He said this caused water to drip through his kitchen ceiling. He told the landlord in April 2023 that it had never stopped even in October 2023. On the other hand, the landlord’s evidence suggests that its contractor mended the leak in October 2022 and, on the next occasion it attended in April 2023, there was no evidence of any active leak.
  8. For this Service to find that there was a leak between October 2022 and April 2023, and that, therefore, the resident suffered the ill-effects he claimed, we must rely on documentary evidence to support his claims. In this case, there is no such evidence. This Service cannot, therefore, accept the resident’s claims on this point.
  9. However, while the evidence is insufficient to support the resident’s claims of a constant leak, it does show that the landlord’s approach to the resident’s reports of a leak was poor. For this reason, in line with this Service’s guidance on remedies, we have made an order for compensation of £100 for distress and inconvenience caused by the missed visits and failures in service in early 2023. 

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was service failure in respect of the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of a leaking toilet cistern. 

Orders and recommendations

  1. Within 4 weeks of the date of this decision, the landlord must:
    1. Apologise to the resident for the failings identified in this report.
    2. Pay the resident £100 for the distress and inconvenience it caused.