Platform Housing Group Limited (202413460)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202413460

Platform Housing Group Limited

28 February 2025

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:
   1. Handling of reports of a faulty boiler.
   2. Response to the resident’s request for compensation for her energy usage.
2. We have also considered the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

3. The resident has been an assured tenant of a 1-bedroom flat since December 2015. The landlord is a housing association which owns and manages the property. The landlord has recorded vulnerabilities for the resident in relation to her mental health.
4. The resident first reported an issue with her boiler not heating the property shortly after moving in. Over more than 7 years the landlord logged 21 requests for repairs to the boiler from the resident.
5. The resident contacted the landlord on 20 October 2023 asking for help concerning her boiler. She stated that she was being overcharged for energy as a result of it being faulty. She requested a letter to confirm that her boiler was faulty that she could provide to her energy provider to discuss her high bills. The landlord recorded this as a stage 1 complaint.
6. The landlord sent its stage 1 response on 10 November 2023. It acknowledged that the boiler had experienced problems over the years but it had always repaired it. Due to the number of historical call outs, the landlord offered to replace the boiler. It also recommended that the resident contact her energy provider about the high cost of her energy. The landlord offered the resident £150 in compensation for the inconvenience of the large number of repair visits. The landlord also recommended that the resident use the stage 1 complaint response letter as the letter she was seeking to give to her energy provider.
7. The resident escalated her complaint to stage 2 on 28 February 2024. The landlord acknowledged the resident’s stage 2 complaint on 7 March 2024. However, it wrote to the resident 3 times to request an extension to its complaint response deadline, finally responding on 20 June 2024. It offered an increase in compensation from £150 to £350 for the inconvenience resulting from multiple repair visits, and £250 for the delay in sending its stage 2 response.
8. In referring the matter to this Service, the resident stated that she was seeking a replacement boiler and for the landlord to pay her compensation equal to the amount of the additional energy that she has been charged. She wanted an apology from the landlord, and further compensation for the distress and inconvenience caused to her over the duration of the boiler faults. She also wanted the landlord to review its policies and procedures.

Assessment and findings

Scope of the investigation

9. While in communication with this Service, the resident has advised that the situation has had a detrimental impact on her mental and physical health. The courts are the most effective place for disputes about personal injury and illness. This is largely because independent medical experts are appointed to give evidence. They have a duty to the court to provide unbiased insights on the diagnosis, prognosis, and cause of any illness or injury. When disputes arise over the cause of an injury, oral testimony can be examined in court. While the Ombudsman cannot consider the effect on health, consideration has been given to any general distress and inconvenience which the resident experienced because of any service failure by the landlord.
10. Part of the resident’s stage 1 complaint was that her belongings were damaged in a flood in the property, which she says took place in 2022. The landlord did not respond to this issue in its complaint responses. The landlord has informed us that it has no record of a flood in the property. The resident says that the flood affected the whole block of flats, but no further detail has been provided by either party. This Service has therefore been unable to investigate the flood as part of the landlord’s repairs handling, but it has been considered as part of the landlord’s complaints handling.

The landlord’s handling of reports of a faulty boiler.

11. The landlord was under an obligation to the resident in accordance with section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 to keep in repair and working order the installations for space heating and heating water. A repair was required to be completed within a reasonable period. The occupation agreement also confirms this.
12. The landlord’s repairs and maintenance policy states that total loss of heating will be dealt with as an emergency within 24 hours. All other repairs (excluding planned works) will be completed within 28 days. Of the 21 repair visits logged before the stage 1 complaint was made, 20 of these were responded to within the appointed timeframe. A significant number were attended to on the same day that they were reported by the resident. It is evident that the landlord’s response to individual repair requests was timely and appropriate.
13. It is reasonable for the landlord to have the opportunity to repair installations rather than to replace where possible. However, the landlord had received repeated requests for boiler repairs and reports from the resident of insufficient heat in the home. It would have been reasonable for the landlord to adopt a proactive approach to ensure the works it had undertaken had fixed the problem. It did not do this. Its response was instead reactive and dependent on the resident’s repeat reports. This approach is likely to have caused the resident distress and inconvenience.
14. When there are failings by a landlord, as is the case here, the Ombudsman will consider whether the redress offered by the landlord put things right and resolved the resident’s complaint satisfactorily in the circumstances. In considering this the Ombudsman takes into account whether the landlord’s offer of redress was in line with the Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles; be fair, put things right and learn from outcomes.
15. The landlord acted fairly by apologising to the resident for the high number of heating repairs she had experienced.
16. Following the stage 1 complaint the landlord offered the resident a replacement boiler, but the resident refused access for the new boiler installation and said she would not provide access until the landlord confirmed in writing that there was issue with the boiler. The landlord’s offer of a new boiler to rectify the on-going repair issues was reasonable and proportionate and demonstrated its intention to put things right.
17. The landlord’s remedies and compensation policy states that any compensation offered will take into consideration whether any reoccurring issues, such as boiler failures, have had a cumulative impact on the resident. It also states that it will take any known vulnerabilities into account when considering the overall impact and this would be reflected in any remedy.
18. The landlord offered £350 as compensation in its stage 2 complaint response for the inconvenience of having multiple repair visits. This is within the range of awards set out in the landlord’s guidance for compensation where there has been a series of service failures causing moderate to high levels of distress and inconvenience, such as the resident experienced. This amount is also in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance. Therefore, we find that the landlord has offered reasonable redress in its handling of the resident’s reports of a faulty boiler.

The response to the resident’s request for compensation for her energy usage.

19. The resident reported difficulty in heating the property from 2016. The landlord’s repair log detailed that the resident reported high bills as part of a repair request on 26 January 2021. A further 11 repair requests were made after this date, before the resident made her stage 1 complaint to the landlord in October 2023.
20. Excessive energy bills could be the result of a variety of issues, and not necessarily only 1 main cause. For example, the resident raised concerns about having a faulty meter in addition to a faulty boiler. Energy meters are the responsibility of the energy provider, not the landlord.
21. The resident requested help from the landlord to resolve her energy debt and excessive bills when making her stage 1 and 2 complaints. In her stage 2 complaint she directly requested that the landlord reimburse her for her financial losses.
22. In its stage 1 and 2 complaint responses, the landlord described not being able to make contact with the resident to discuss the complaint. The landlord’s stage 2 response offered the resident support from its successful tenancies team to help resolve the energy issue if she made contact.
23. The landlord also stated that the resident’s energy bills were calculated using estimated readings. It would be reasonable for the landlord to require meter readings to consider compensation for excessive energy use at the property. Whilst this Service has seen evidence of the resident’s fuel debt, it has not seen evidence that meter readings were provided to the landlord. Therefore, there is no basis on which we could ask the landlord to pay any increased utility usage to the resident.
24. It was open to the resident to provide evidence to the landlord that that boiler had caused an increase in energy usage – so it could consider this.

The landlord’s complaint handling.

25. The landlord’s remedies and compensation policy say that it will ask the resident what their desired outcome is and work towards achieving this as far as possible. The landlord’s difficulty in making contact with the resident had an impact on the landlord’s ability to thoroughly investigate and resolve her concerns.
26. The landlord has a 2 stage complaints process. Its complaints procedure in use at the time of the complaint said at stage 2 it “will aim to respond in writing within 20 working days. Some complaints are more complex and may need more time, we will make sure that we discuss this with you and keep in regular contact”. The landlord acknowledged the resident’s stage 2 complaint on 7 March 2024, but it wrote to the resident requiring an extension to the response deadline on 9 April 2024, 23 April 2024, and 19 June 2024. It sent its final stage 2 complaint response on 20 June 2024, which was more than 3 months instead of the required 20 working days.
27. This Service’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code) states that any extension must be no more than 20 working days without good reason, and the reason(s) must be clearly explained to the resident. The landlord said the reason for the delay in sending the stage 2 response letter was because it was unable to make contact with the resident to discuss the complaint. However, the landlord failed to make this clear to the resident when it repeatedly wrote to her asking for an extension.
28. The resident sent an email of dissatisfaction to the landlord on 24 April 2024 concerning its delay in responding to her stage 2 complaint. Two months after receiving communication from the resident about this complaint handling issue, the landlord sent another request for a deadline extension to the resident. This is further evidence that the landlord did not appropriately manage the resident’s complaint.
29. Although the landlord told us that it was unable to make contact with the resident during the complaints process, it did not keep a record of these attempts. This was a failing of the landlord to keep accurate records. Since this complaint the landlord has implemented a new case management system where all contact during complaint handling is recorded.
30. In addition, the resident reported in her stage 1 complaint letter about the impact of having her belongings damaged in a flood caused by her boiler in 2022. The landlord did not address this part of the resident’s complaint in its response. Since it was part of the resident’s complaint, not doing so was a breach of the Code, which states that “landlords must address all points raised in the complaint definition”.
31. The landlord has acknowledged its failing in sending out its stage 2 response late and offered £250 compensation for the delay. However, given we have identified additional complaint handling failings, the offer was not proportionate to the failings identified by our investigation. We have ordered the landlord to pay an additional £75 compensation. This award is within the range of awards set out in our remedies guidance where there was a minor failure by the landlord in the service it provided and it did not appropriately acknowledge this or fully put it right.

Determination

32. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was reasonable redress in the landlord’s handling of reports of a faulty boiler.
33. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there no maladministration in the landlord’s response to the resident’s request for compensation for her energy usage.
34. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure in the landlord’s complaint handling.

Orders

35. Within 4 weeks, the landlord is ordered to:
    1. Pay the resident compensation of £325 comprising:

i.        £75 for the time and trouble the resident was likely to have incurred as a result of the landlord’s complaint handling failures. This money is to be paid direct to the resident and not used to offset any monies she may owe the landlord.

ii.    £250 previously offered to the resident if not already paid.

2. Contact the resident to explain the process she should follow, including what evidence is required, to submit a request to the landlord for compensation for high energy bills resulting from a faulty boiler.
3. The landlord’s Successful Tenancies team must contact the resident directly to offer support to resolve the issue of her high energy bills and fuel debt.

Recommendations

36. We recommend that:

i.          The landlord pays the resident £350 as originally offered to the resident for its handling of reports of a faulty boiler (if not already paid).

ii.         The landlord contacts the resident to book in the previously offered replacement boiler installation.

iii.       The landlord explains the process the resident should follow to claim damage to her personal belongs following any flood at the property.