Milton Keynes City Council (202230208)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202230208

Milton Keynes City Council

21 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

The complaint is about the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports about responsibility for repairs.

Background

The resident is a leaseholder of the landlord at the property. The lease started in September 1990. The property is a 2–bedroom flat in a block. The landlord confirmed it had no vulnerabilities recorded for the resident.
The landlord visited the resident’s property in November 2022 following a report of an ingress of water. The resident’s ceiling and light fixture was damaged. The water ingress had been caused by damage to the balcony floor of a neighbouring landlord owned property. The landlord attended the resident’s property to make safe the light. It returned once the area had dried out to reinstate the ceiling fixture.
The resident raised a complaint to the landlord on 12 January 2023. The resident said she had written to the landlord on 26 October 2022 about it’s contractor’s duty of care and providing leaseholders with an electrician in certain circumstances. She asked the landlord to confirm if its contractor had been instructed of the landlord’s duty of care to leaseholders.
The landlord responded to the resident’s complaint on 17 February 2023. It said the following:
1. It apologised for any misunderstanding and inconvenience caused.
2. It was aware it had repaired an internal light at the resident’s property previously as a gesture of good will, not because it was the landlord’s responsibility.
3. It had a responsibility to maintain and repair the structure of the block and communal services.
4. Internal works were the responsibility of the leaseholder.
5. When a leaseholder reports a leak has damaged their electrics, the landlord’s contractor will attempt to investigate if the issue is the landlord’s responsibility to repair.
6. It had highlighted this information to its contractor following raising the resident’s complaint with them.
The resident escalated her complaint on 20 February 2023. She said it was not apparent that the landlord’s contractor had understood the circumstances she was referring to. She said the following:
1. The circumstances she was referring to were when it was suspected by a leaseholder that an ingress of water was from an external source outside of the property, such as a landlord owned flat, the roof, downpipes, drains and gutters.
2. There was little point in a leaseholder appointing an electrician to make electrics safe when the cause of water ingress was not always immediately clear.
3. In February 2020 the resident had experienced an ingress of water through her hallway ceiling into the electric circuit box. The landlord’s contractor had refused to send an electrician to the property because it said the electrics were internal.
4. The water ingress in February 2020 was due to a neighbour’s leaking toilet cistern. The landlord repaired this but would not make safe the resident’s electrics.
5. She could accept the reinstating of the ceiling fixture was a good will gesture but did not accept the landlord did not have a duty of care to make the electrics safe in such circumstances.
6. The landlord had previously attended many reports of ingresses of water into her property. The resident said the landlord had always attended to make the electrics safe.
The landlord responded to the resident’s complaint escalation on 24 February 2023. It said it would not be taking the resident’s complaint any further. The landlord said this was because there was no further evidence that the outcome would change after further investigation. It confirmed its response at stage 1 was its final decision. The landlord said if the resident had any issues around liability she could take this forward through her insurers.
The resident remained dissatisfied with the landlord’s response. She contacted this Service and her case was accepted for investigation in March 2023. The resident told this Service she had experienced an ingress of water through her electrics a number of times. She said that since a different contractor had taken over the repairs for the landlord, it had disputed its duty of care to repair electrics. The resident wanted the landlord to instruct its contractor to acknowledge the landlord’s legal obligation and to instruct its call staff centre to acknowledge this.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

The resident’s complaint included a concern about the landlord’s liability in relation to repairs. This Service cannot investigate matters concerning liability and/or duty of care, nor do we make findings on such matters. Such matters require a binding decision from a court or consideration via an insurance claim. This service can, however, consider the landlord’s response to the resident and if it had acted fairly and reasonably, and in line with its policies and procedures.

The landlord’s response to the resident’s reports about responsibility for repairs.

The lease agreement says the leaseholder agrees with the landlord to keep the interior of the property in good repair. The agreement says the landlord agrees with the leaseholder to keep in repair the structure and exterior of the property and the building, including drains, gutters, and external pipes, and to make good any defect affecting the structure.
The leasehold information section of the landlord’s website says a leaseholder is responsible for servicing, maintaining, and repairing things that are inside the property, such as fixtures and fittings. It says generally, the landlord is responsible for maintaining and looking after the areas outside a property, including internal and external communal areas, fixtures and fittings.
The landlord does not have a repairs policy. The repairs information on its website says repairs are to be reported to its contractor. It says it aims to fix emergency repairs within 24 hours, and routine repairs within 28 days.
The landlord’s compensation policy says discretionary payments of compensation for time and trouble, distress and inconvenience will be dependent upon the severity of any service failure and associated impact. For minor impact it can award up to £350, for moderate impact it can award up to £1000 and for severe impact up to £10000.
The landlord has a 2-stage complaints process. If the landlord believes the stage one response answered all of the points in a residents complaint escalation, there will be no further action and it will not progress the complaint to a stage two investigation.
From the evidence provided to this Service, the initial advice provided to the resident on reporting the water ingress to the landlord’s contractor was not clear. During the time of the water ingress into the resident’s property in October and November 2022, the resident raised the issue of the landlord attending to any repairs to the electrics in her property caused by the water ingress. It was evident the landlord had agreed to send an electrician to check the electrics following an investigation of the cause of the water ingress. This investigation had established the leak was caused from a fault to the balcony of the property above, which the landlord owned.
It was evident the landlord had visited the resident’s property in November 2022 due to an ingress of water from one of its properties which had affected a ceiling light. Following this incident, the landlord arranged for an electrician to attend the resident’s property as requested by the resident. The resident raised a complaint to the landlord on 12 January 2023. The resident said the works had been completed but her query regarding the landlord’s repair responsibilities to leaseholders was unaddressed.
The landlord told the resident in its stage 1 response it had a responsibility to maintain and repair the structure of the block and communal services such as the water pipes and electricity. It said internal works would be the responsibility of the leaseholder. This response was appropriate. it informed the resident of the process the landlord’s contractor followed in the circumstances of a report of damage to electrics due to a leak.
The landlord’s complaint response also demonstrated that it had addressed the resident’s concerns with its contractor following her experience of reporting this type of occurrence to the landlord previously. The landlord confirmed it had highlighted the process to the contractor following the resident’s complaint, to the department which managed the repairs contact centre. This demonstrated the landlord had taken action to learn from the complaint.
The landlord confirmed to the resident in its complaint response that when a leaseholder reports a leak has damaged electrics in their property, its contractor will attempt to investigate if the issue is the landlord’s responsibility to repair. This response was reasonable. Given the landlord may not be aware of the cause of any water ingress when first reported. It is fair for the landlord to investigate the causes prior to confirming if it is responsible for a repair.
This Service cannot determine liability as this requires a binding decision from a court or consideration via an insurance claim. This Service recognises that the cause of water ingress is not always immediately obvious and can require an investigation to determine the cause and liability. It is acknowledged that the resident was referring to a specific circumstance in which there are many variables. Due to the variable circumstances in these types of occurrences, it was reasonable for the landlord to confirm to the resident that it will investigate the cause of the leak prior to confirming liability for repair of both the leak and any repair work required to the resident’s property.
The resident told the landlord in her complaint escalation that she had previously experienced water ingress into her property prior to her reports in October 2022. The resident said that previously the landlord had attended to make the electrics safe. This Service understands that given the history of the occurrence of water ingress, the resident was concerned about it happening again. However, the landlord had provided a reasonable response to the resident’s concerns in line with the lease agreement.
The landlord told the resident on 24 February 2023 that it was not going to take her complaint any further. The landlord said this was because there was no evidence that the outcome would change following further investigation. This was in line with its complaints policy. This stated that no further action would be taken if the landlord believed its stage 1 response had answered the resident’s points raised at escalation of the complaint.
In summary, the landlord had responded to the resident appropriately. It had explained the process its repair’s contractor undertakes and confirmed it investigates each case to determine if it has a repair liability. The advice it provided was in line with the terms of the lease agreement. It is reasonable for the landlord to investigate the cause of any water ingress to determine if it is responsible for the repair prior to arranging for any repair works to take place. Therefore, there was no maladministration in the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports about responsibility for repairs.

Determination

In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was no maladministration in the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports about responsibility for repairs.