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Westminster City Council (202217291)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202217291

Westminster City Council

23 August 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:
    1. A bathroom leak resolved in January 2022.
    2. A request to replace the bathroom floor.

Background

  1. The resident is a secure tenant of the landlord, which is a local authority. The property is a 2-bedroom ground floor flat. Both the resident and her daughter communicated with the landlord in relation to this complaint. For the purposes of this report, both are referred to as ‘the resident’.
  2. The landlord’s repair records show an out of hours repair raised on 13 January 2022 to make the bathroom light safe as the plastic case had filled with water. It is not clear when it attended, but the records from the next day said the light was safe to use with no water around it.
  3. The landlord attended the property above the resident’s on 18 January 2022 and re-sealed around the bath. 
  4. The resident raised a formal complaint on 27 February 2022. She said: the landlord had not addressed leaks (dating back to 2016) sufficiently; repairs were “patched; water had dripped through her bathroom ceiling since 31 October 2021 and subsequent damp had ruined her furnishings and paint; and on the occasions its contractor attended, it could not find the source of the leak so “could not do anything.” The landlord replied the next day and said it would arrange for a surveyor to attend due to the reported damp.
  5. The surveyor and landlord’s head of repairs attended the next day on 28 February 2022 but could not find any sign of a leak (no surveyor reports from the visit were provided to this Service). The landlord emailed the resident on 3 March 2022 and said a further inspection had been raised to advise on repairs, and it would contact her.
  6. The resident emailed the landlord on 14 March 2022. She said the surveyor and head of repairs had visited, but they said damp was caused by the hot shower and bathroom window being closed. She was not happy with this assessment and showed the surveyor a video of water leaking through the bathroom light from above. Having seen the video, the surveyor said further investigation was required (no evidence of this conversation or surveyor reports provided), but no further investigation had taken place. The landlord replied to the resident and said it would it chase up.
  7. The resident emailed the landlord again on 27 March 2022 to chase a complaint response. She said someone had come to look at the bathroom ceiling (unclear precisely when), but there had been no further contact. The landlord replied a few days later and again said it would chase a response.
  8. The landlord’s surveyor attended again on 29 March 2022 but could not see any sign of a leak.
  9. The landlord issued its stage 1 response on 8 April 2022. It said:
    1. It had no repair records for the bathroom leak before 13 January 2022, and it completed repairs at the property above her on 18 January 2022.
    2. It completed surveys of the resident’s property on 28 February and 29 March 2022 but could not see any signs of leaks. Tests were also carried out at the property above, and it was found the bath was dry underneath.
    3. The surveyor recommended ensuring the extractor fan is used and window open. This would aid ventilation to mitigate the chance of condensation and water droplets, which could be mistaken for a leak.
    4. Repairs were completed to the resident’s bathroom on 1 April 2022 and decorative works on 4 April 2022.
    5. The resident should claim for damaged personal belongings, including flooring, through her own contents insurance policy.
    6. It offered £250 compensation for failure to meet service standards in relation to decorative works and CCTV camera issues (CCTV issues not investigated as part this complaint).
  10. The resident emailed the landlord on 10 April 2022 and asked it to repair the bathroom flooring. She said just because there was no evidence of a leak when the surveyor attended, should not mean the investigation should conclude, particularly when there was video evidence of a leak through the ceiling. She requested further compensation. The landlord replied the next day and said it would respond once it had an answer.
  11. An internal landlord email of 12 May 2022 showed it escalated the resident’s request for bathroom flooring and considered whether further investigation of the leak was required. It then raised the flooring replacement job on 25 May 2022 with an appointment scheduled for 22 June 2022.
  12. The landlord issued its stage 2 complaint response on 15 June 2022. In relation to the intermittent leak, it said it completed a dye test at the above property which confirmed water from the bathroom above did not leak into the resident’s property. A senior surveyor had attended and said the leak had been resolved and no water had leaked since repairs were completed at the property above. In relation to the bathroom flooring, it agreed to replace the flooring and an appointment was arranged for 23 (sic) June 2022. It said the flooring should have been replaced as part of remedial works following the leak, which it apologised for.
  13. The resident emailed the landlord on 21 June 2022 and said she had received 2 text messages saying that its contractor would attend the following day. She said less than 24 hours was not acceptable notice and nobody would be home.
  14. The landlord emailed its contractor on 22 June 2022 and said the resident had cancelled the appointment, as she had been advised it would attend on 23 June 2022. The appointment was rescheduled, and the bathroom flooring was replaced on 27 June 2022. 

Events after the end of the landlord’s complaints process

  1. The resident reported a kitchen leak on 7 August 2022 which flooded the kitchen and living room. The landlord’s contractor attended the same day but could not access the above property. It found the cause of the leak the following day and completed repairs.
  2. The resident reported a further bathroom leak on 3 November 2022 which resulted in water in the bathroom light’s plastic case. The resident raised a complaint with this Service the same day. The repairs logs showed the landlord said it could have been water overspill from the property above. Although the landlord arranged to trace and remedy the leak promptly, the resident advised the leak had already stopped. It called the resident a few days later to follow-up but the resident said there was no leak.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. The Ombudsman acknowledges there were issues with repairs to a broken window and CCTV cameras. In a call with this Service in May 2023 the resident confirmed these repairs had been resolved, and no further action was required in that regard. As a result, this matters are not considered within this report.
  2. The resident has also referred to historic leaks and a leak that started in October 2021. The landlord has provided detailed repair records dating back to 7 April 2021. The first evidence of the resident reporting the bathroom leak was 13 January 2022, and there was no record of a formal complaint raised until 27 February 2022. Therefore, this investigation is focused on events from January 2022 until the end of the complaints process (in June 2022).
  3. There was also a kitchen leak in August 2022 and a further bathroom leak in November 2022. It is evident that the further leaks were distressing for the resident as there were 3 leaks in the space of a year. However, the kitchen leak was entirely separate to the bathroom leak and was not investigated as part of the formal complaint. There is also no evidence to suggest the second bathroom leak, 10 months later, was linked to the first. This Service can only investigate complaints which have completed the landlord’s complaints process. If the resident was unhappy at the landlord’s handling of subsequent leaks, she had the opportunity to raise a separate complaint, but there is no evidence she did so.

Landlord’s handling of a bathroom leak resolved in January 2022   

  1. The tenancy agreement sets out that the landlord is responsible to repair the services and equipment that supply water, drains and sanitary fittings. It says repairs which pose an immediate health and safety risk (which includes an unsafe light socket or electrical fitting) should be made safe within 24 hours. Examples of immediate repairs are floods or leakage of water from plumbing or heating service.
  2. The evidence showed the landlord attended the property within the timescale set out in its policy. It then attended the property above a few days later and carried out further repairs to stop water leaking from the upstairs resident’s bathroom. There is no evidence the leak continued after these repairs.
  3. After the complaint was raised, the landlord acted promptly and reasonably by sending a surveyor the next day. It is not clear if the landlord informed the resident of the repairs to her upstairs neighbour’s bath, but it would have been good practice to update her as this may have avoided the subsequent complaint. The resident was left feeling frustrated as she believed there had been insufficient investigation into the cause of the leak. However, the source of the leak had already been identified and resolved. Her frustration was exacerbated by the surveyor suggesting damp could have been caused by her own actions, when she had video evidence of the leak. 
  4. Following the surveyor’s attendance, the resident emailed twice as she had been told the cause of the leak needed further investigation but had not heard anything further. This caused her some inconvenience having to chase. However, the landlord again acted promptly and sent its surveyor who conducted further tests 2 days later.
  5. Overall, the landlord dealt with the leak promptly. Following the leak, it conducted follow-on surveys and tests, which was reasonable. There was some minor inconvenience caused to the resident which may have been avoided had its communication been better. The landlord used the complaints process to explain its position and actions it had taken, by which point the substantive issue had already been resolved. There was therefore no maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the bathroom leak resolved in January 2022.   

Landlord’s handling of the request to replace the bathroom floor

  1. The tenancy agreement says residents are responsible for flooring repairs. It therefore does not set out an expected timescale to repair/replace flooring. However, it says replacing vinyl flooring in communal areas is a non-urgent job, which should be completed within 28 working days. Whilst the landlord was not obliged to replace the resident’s bathroom flooring, it agreed to do so following the leak, which was a reasonable approach for it take.
  2. The resident requested the landlord replace the flooring on 10 April 2022 and the work was completed on 27 June 2022, 51 working days later. It is not clear why the landlord took no action in relation to the flooring between the resident’s request for it to be replaced and raising the repair, and this represents a failing. However, it took the opportunity of the complaint process to apologise for the delay, and completed the flooring repairs within 28 working days of the job being raised, which was reasonable.
  3. Unfortunately, there appeared to be a typo in the stage 2 response, which led the resident to believe the flooring would be replaced on 23 June 2022 (rather than the originally scheduled date of 22 June 2022). This caused frustration and inconvenience to the resident as she received 2 text messages confirming the contractor would attend on 22 June 2022 when she was not expecting it to attend until 23 June 2022.
  4. Although the flooring was replaced within the landlord’s timescale for non-urgent repairs (once the repair job was raised), the month delay coupled with the frustration and inconvenience caused by the typo represent a service failure, which it did not appropriately acknowledge or redress. To put things right, the landlord should pay the resident £50 compensation in line with this Service’s remedies guidance. 

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was:
    1. No maladministration in the landlord’s handling of a bathroom leak resolved in January 2022.
    2. Service failure in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s request to replace the bathroom floor.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks of the date of this report, the landlord is ordered to:
    1. Pay directly to the resident £50 compensation.
    2. Provide evidence of compliance with the above order to this Service.

Recommendations

  1. The Ombudsman recommends that the landlord should try to keep residents updated if repairs are carried out to a neighbouring property which directly would impact their own property, as in this case.