Magenta Living (202230503)
REPORT
COMPLAINT 202230503
Magenta Living
12 July 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 how the landlord responded to reported leaks and related issues in:
- The rear bedroom of the property.
- The front bedroom of the property.
2. The Ombudsman has also considered:
- How the landlord responded to the leaks and related issues which occurred during its repair of the roof.
- The landlord’s complaint handling
- The landlord’s record keeping.
Background
3. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord, a housing association. The property is a 3-bedroom end of terrace house in which the resident lives with her son.
4. The resident reported a leak in the rear bedroom (bedroom A) in July 2022. The resident explained she uses this room as a spare bedroom for guests. The landlord investigated and found a fault in the rear roof of the property which was causing the leak. The landlord had not repaired this by 21 November 2022 and so the resident logged a complaint on this date. The landlord provided a stage 1 response on 25 November 2022 and apologised that the repair was still pending. It offered her £100 in redecorating vouchers and £25 for the inconvenience caused by a missed appointment in November 2022. The landlord then repaired the roof on 29 November 2022 which resolved the leak.
5. Soon after this the resident reported a leak in the ceiling of her son’s bedroom at the front of the property (bedroom B), which then collapsed at the site of the leak on 13 January 2023. The resident raised a stage 2 complaint on 23 January 2023 because she considered the landlord had failed to address the collapsed ceiling and failed to suitably address the leak before this point. She also complained the landlord had failed to offer suitable compensation for delays in repairing the leak in bedroom A.
6. The landlord then completed a “temporary repair” to the roof on 9 February 2023, which stopped the leak. The landlord provided its stage 2 response on 7 March 2023. It apologised for the delays in addressing the leak in bedroom B but stated that this leak was distinct in cause from the bedroom A leak. It explained it had completed a temporary repair and “made-safe” the bedroom B ceiling, and that it was waiting on its contractors to confirm a date for the roof restoration required to fully resolve the issue. It explained that the required works were extensive and stretched across 3 properties, so it was unable to provide an exact timescale. It offered £250 compensation for the delay and the inconvenience this had caused. It also offered to repaint all bedroom ceilings once the roof repairs were completed.
7. The landlord then began the roof repairs in early May 2023. On 8 May 2023, new and severe leaks began in bedroom A, and the resident’s bedroom (bedroom C). It is our understanding the landlord resolved these within 24 hours of the resident reporting them. However, the ceilings in both bedrooms were left cosmetically damaged. The landlord then missed a scheduled appointment to repaint the ceilings on 5 June 2023, and the resident opted to pay for this to be done herself. She raised another complaint on 19 June 2023 about the leaks on 8 May 2023 and the missed appointment. On 30 January 2024, the landlord offered to reimburse her redecorating costs to address the missed appointment but has to date not responded to her complaint about the 8 May 2023 leaks.
8. The resident feels the landlord failed to address the leaks in bedrooms A and B as urgently as it should have from July 2022 to May 2023. She considers it failed to suitably compensate her for delays in repairing the roof at the front and rear of the property. She also considers the landlord communicated poorly with her about the repairs from July 2022 to June 2023. To resolve her complaint, she would like the landlord to pay her a greater sum of compensation than it has so far offered.
Assessment and findings
Scope of investigation
9. The resident would like us to consider how the landlord responded to the leaks which occurred on 8 May 2023 while the roof repair was ongoing. The landlord has not addressed this complaint. Section 42.a of the Scheme states we may not consider complaints which have not exhausted a landlord’s complaint handling procedure unless we can see evidence of a complaint handling failure where the landlord has failed to respond. We can see the landlord was given the opportunity to address this on 19 June 2023 but failed to do so. It is also directly related to the substantive issues of the leaks and associated repairs. Therefore, in the interest of completeness, we will consider this complaint as part of our assessment.
10. The resident has also asked us to consider a missed appointment on 5 June 2023. This has been addressed by the landlord, but she did not raise this with us as part of her original complaint. We would normally be inclined to treat this as a separate complaint. However, we can see the landlord has responded to this. In the interest of completeness, we have therefore considered it in our assessment.
How the landlord responded to reported leaks and related issues in the rear bedroom of the property
11. The landlord’s repairs and maintenance policy states that repairs will be prioritised according to the amount of inconvenience an issue is causing the resident and others in the home, the resident’s health and safety, and the risk of further damage to the property. It defines ‘planned routine repairs’ as those which are non-urgent and may require a pre-inspection, or time to order materials. It says the landlord will address these kinds of repairs within 60 working days.
12. The landlord categorised the roof repair as a planned repair, and we consider this was reasonable. The landlord organised scaffolding on 14 September 2022 to investigate and diagnose the issue, and further scaffolding was then required on 29 November 2022 to complete the repair.
13. The resident reported the leak in bedroom A on 25 July 2022, and the landlord repaired the rear roof (which then resolved the leak) 90 working days later on 29 November 2022. The landlord therefore failed to meet the timescale set out in its policy. The resident said she was unable to use this room from 25 July 2022 until the repair was completed as the leak was continuous throughout the period. The landlord’s records of the repair, and of visits related to this leak, are relatively scarce. The only related photographs we have seen in its records are of the external roof. Considering this, and given the urgency with which the resident chased the repair, it is reasonable to accept the resident’s statement regarding the severity of the leak.
14. We must accept that sometimes a particular repair, due to complexity, novelty, or other complicating factor, may take longer than 60 working days to complete. When this happens, the landlord’s repairs policy states it will keep residents informed of the progress of the works. The Ombudsman also expects landlords to communicate regularly and meaningfully with residents about any delays. We expect landlords to do so as a means of mitigating any impact that a delay causes a resident.
15. There is no evidence in the landlord’s records of it communicating with the resident about the progress of the repair, or the delay, from 22 July 2022 to 25 November 2022. There are repeated internal exchanges in the records describing the resident as “asking for an update” throughout this period, but no evidence the landlord provided any. The landlord missed a scheduled appointment to complete the repair on 21 November 2022 and did not offer the resident any explanation about this, or whether it intended to reschedule, until its stage 1 response on 25 November 2022. This lack of meaningful communication was not in keeping with our expectations, or the landlord’s own repairs policy. Its communication during this period was poor, and we consider this likely caused the resident inconvenience and distress.
16. The resident also claims that the landlord regularly sent contractors to attend who had no understanding of the issue or what previous visits had already established. She said this meant she often received contradictory information about what was going to happen which confused and distressed her. The internal records we have seen corroborate her view.
17. For instance, we can see scaffolding was erected to diagnose and scope the rear roof on 14 September 2022. There are then notes from a visit on 27 October 2022 which state the ceiling was “not leaking even after all the rain we have had…putting up another scaff [sic, scaffold] will not find anything”. Then there are notes from a visit on 2 November 2022 which state the property “needs roof inspection as still leaking”. The fault in the roof had already apparently been diagnosed on 14 September 2022, and so the landlord was aware of the cause of the leak from this date. Therefore, it is unclear why the contractor suggested another inspection was warranted on 2 November 2022 on account of the ceiling “still leaking”.
18. Based on this, we share the resident’s view that the landlord provided conflicting information, and we accept this likely further aggravated her distress and inconvenience while she waited for the repair. Ultimately, the Ombudsman considers the landlord both failed to meet its obligations to complete the repair within 60 working days, and then failed to mitigate the impact of this by meaningfully communicating with the resident about progress of the works.
20. We will also order the landlord to pay compensation to the resident for the loss of use of bedroom A during the period of delay. We have calculated this based upon 15% of the total rent charged for these periods, and this is based on our understanding that the monthly rent from June 2022 to the end of April 2023 was £405. The leak in bedroom A was repaired 42 days late. The total rent paid during this period was £558, so we will order the landlord to pay the resident £84 to remedy this.
How the landlord responded to reported leaks and related issues in the front bedroom of the property
21. The resident has told us that she reported the leak in bedroom B in October 2022. We have not seen evidence of this report in the landlord’s records, and neither has the resident been able to evidence this. We note that the landlord, aside from complaint responses and notes taken at repairs visits, has been unable to provide any records of direct communication with the resident during the entire period. We have, however, seen records which show the landlord attended the leak on 7 December 2022, and it is noted that the roof needed repairing to address it. There are no repair logs related to this leak before this date. Therefore, we will treat 7 December 2022 as the date the landlord was made aware of the issue.
22. The resident has told us the landlord completed the roof repair on 15 May 2023. The landlord has provided no evidence to show when (or how) the works were completed, so we will accept the date given by the resident. We note that there are no records at all related to the external roof repair in May. The resident has told us that once the works were completed, the leak was permanently resolved.
23. The roof repair required scaffolding to diagnose the issue, which we understand was erected for this purpose on 2 March 2023. We understand the actual repair was extensive and involved restoring the roof across 3 different properties. For these reasons we consider it was reasonable for the landlord to categorise this as a planned repair. The landlord therefore was obliged to complete the repair within 60 working days, which it failed to do by 47 working days.
24. Given such an extensive period of delay, the landlord should have communicated regularly and meaningfully with the resident throughout about the progress of the works as per its policy. The records do not indicate it did so. There are repeated internal records of the resident making contact and being clearly confused as to what was meant to be happening and when, but very limited records of meaningful updates being given to her in response. There are notes recorded on 16 December 2022 and 16 January 2023 which explain the resident had been advised there were 2 separate repairs booked for the internal ceiling and the roof. However, beyond this, there is no record of any communication or explanation until the 7 March 2023 stage 2 response. Following this complaint response there is no record of any contact until the repair logs from early May 2023.
25. The resident has also complained about how the landlord responded to the more urgent problems caused by the leak in bedroom B from December 2022 to January 2023, and we have considered this.
26. The landlord’s repairs policy states it will address emergency issues which present danger to the resident or the property within 4 hours.
27. On 30 December 2022, the resident reported that the leak had worsened considerably and was causing the ceiling to bow. The landlord correctly categorised the repair as an emergency, attended the same day, and recorded that the ceiling had been made “secure for now.” The landlord has no record of the resident’s report, so we are unable to say for certain whether it attended within 4 hours. However, the resident has indicated that it attended the property urgently. In any case, the records also do not explain what was done to make it safe, and the resident says she was not afforded any insight into this either. Therefore, while we accept the landlord likely attended within the timescale stated in its policy, it failed to suitably inform the resident about the works.
28. On 13 January 2023, the resident reported that the leak had deteriorated further, and the ceiling looked likely to collapse. The landlord correctly categorised this as an emergency repair. However, there is no record of the resident’s report so we again cannot say for certain whether it was attended within 4 hours. However, the resident has indicated it was attended urgently, and so we have no reason to believe the landlord failed to attend in line with the emergency timescale.
29. The records indicate that when the visiting contactor attempted to affix a plank to the ceiling to make it safe, it collapsed. The landlord then removed the affected section of the ceiling, which it said made it safe. The resident told us the landlord returned on 9 February 2023 to complete a “temporary repair” of the roof to make it watertight, which then stopped the leak. There is no evidence of this repair in the landlord’s records, and the resident says she was not told what had been done.
30. For this reason, we have been unable to consider how the landlord categorised this repair. We also do not know how severe the leak was until it was resolved on 9 February 2023 as we have no documentary evidence of it. There is therefore no objective evidence we can rely on to reach a view on whether the time it took the landlord to complete this repair was reasonable or in line with the relevant section of its policy. It is disappointing the landlord is unable to evidence what action it took.
31. There is no evidence the landlord communicated with the resident to update her on what was happening from 13 January until 2 February 2023, at which point we can see it corresponded with her to organise the repair. The landlord should have been maintaining regular and meaningful contact with the resident, and its failure to do so for 3 weeks following the ceiling collapse likely aggravated her distress.
32. We are therefore of the view that the landlord’s communication from December 2022 to May 2023 about the repair was scarce and uninformative. This was not in keeping with our expectations or its repairs policy, and we consider this likely compounded the distress the resident was already likely caused by the leak during this period.
33. The landlord’s omissions from December 2022 to May 2023 appear similar in frequency and impact to those we identified between July 2022 and November 2022. Therefore, we will order the landlord to pay another £200 compensation, which we have also calculated according to our own guidance.
34. We will also order the landlord to pay compensation to the resident for the loss of use of bedroom B during the period of delay. The front roof repair was completed on 15 May 2023, which we understand was the long-term solution to stopping the leak. Although the landlord completed a temporary repair on 9 February 2023 which resolved the leak in bedroom B, it did not restore the ceiling until 3 May 2023, and the resident says her son was unable to use the room until this point. She said that, despite the leak stopping from 9 February 2023 onwards, the room remained cold and damp due to the incomplete ceiling. We accept that this rendered the room uninhabitable.
35. Therefore, we will treat 3 May 2023 as the date the use of the room was restored. The resident reported the leak on 7 December 2022, which means the landlord was late to resolve this issue by 62 days. The total rent paid during this period of delay was £810, and so we will order the landlord pays £122 to remedy this.
36. The resident also complained that the landlord should have diagnosed the fault at the front of the roof when it was surveyed in September 2022. She considers that, had it properly investigated both sides of the roof at this time, it could have repaired the entire roof back in 2022 and prevented the leak in bedroom B.
37. While we recognise the resident’s frustration that the fault was not diagnosed in 2022, we cannot reasonably find fault with the landlord for this. It would not be reasonable to have expected the landlord to forensically survey the entire roof when the only issue present in September 2022 was a leak restricted to the rear of the property, and it had been advised by its contractors that this was where the issue was originating from. For this reason, we do not consider the landlord is at fault for not diagnosing the issue in September 2022.
How the landlord responded to the leaks which occurred during the roof repair
38. The resident complains that, while the roof repairs were ongoing, contractors mistakenly left a section of it open to the elements, and that this caused profuse leaks in bedrooms A and C on 8 May 2023.
39. There is very limited evidence available to us to robustly assess what happened on 8 May 2023. We have seen no records related to the external roof repair, and the only records supplied by the landlord relate to the repairs of the internal ceilings during this period. We can see from the landlord’s records that it attended on the same day and recorded before photos showing water running down the light fittings. There are no after photos from this date. Due to this lack of evidence, we are unable to reach a view on whether the leaks were caused by a mistake by its contractors.
40. However, the resident has advised that the leaks were resolved the same day and have not recurred. Therefore, we are of the view that the landlord likely acted reasonably to address the leaks once they occurred.
41. The resident complained that the landlord failed to attend a 5 June 2023 appointment to repaint the ceilings in bedrooms A and C which were damaged by these leaks. The landlord has acknowledged this failure and offered to reimburse the resident for the costs she then incurred having the ceilings repainted privately. We consider this sufficient to remedy the service failure here and will recommend the landlord reoffer this to the resident.
Complaint handling
42. The landlord’s complaint handling policy obligates it to provide a stage 1 response within 10 working days, and a stage 2 within 20 working days. It explains it may have to extend both stages by 10 working days, when necessary, but that it will maintain regular contact with residents when this occurs.
43. The landlord addressed the resident’s stage 1 response within 3 working days as per its policy. Its stage 2 response was provided after 31 working days which exceeded its timescale. There is also no indication the landlord updated the resident during this period. While we recognise the landlord has not met its obligations here, the period of delay, and therefore it’s likely impact, is relatively slight. For this reason, we will only recommend that the landlord reflects on these obligations for future complaints.
44. The resident also raised a separate complaint on 19 June 2023 about the leaks on 8 May 2023, and a missed appointment to repaint the ceilings on 5 June 2023. The landlord did not respond to this complaint until 30 January 2024, when we requested the records for this investigation. It apologised for failing to attend the 5 June 2023 appointment and offered to reimburse the resident for the costs she incurred having the ceilings repainted herself. It did not address the complaint about the leaks.
45. While we consider the landlord took a positive step toward remedying the missed appointment by offering to reimburse the resident, it did so 7 months after the original complaint. Given the complaint was about new issues, the landlord should have logged it as a stage 1 complaint and responded to both issues within 10 working days. It failed to do so, and it is likely this caused the resident some distress. Therefore, we will order the landlord pays £50 compensation to remedy this.
Record keeping
46. While the Ombudsman was able to determine this case based on the evidence provided, there were gaps and omissions in the landlord’s records, as highlighted throughout this report. The Ombudsman would expect a landlord to keep a robust record of contact and evidence of its actions relating to each casefile, which can be provided to the Ombudsman upon request.
47. Significantly, we have seen no records of the external roof repair in May 2023, and so we have not been assured that this repair is sufficient to fully resolve the leaks. For this reason, we will order the landlord to provide evidence to demonstrate what this repair achieved, and to also pass this onto the resident.
48. There are also internal emails we have seen which appear to indicate a lack of clarity on the landlord’s part regarding the progress of each repair or which contractor was responsible for them. We are of the view that the landlord’s poor record keeping likely played a role in this lack of clarity. We will therefore recommend that the landlord reviews its record keeping processes.
49. Landlords who fail to create and record information accurately, risk missing opportunities to identify that its actions were wrong or inadequate and contribute to inadequate communication and redress. Overall, the landlord’s record keeping and information management was inadequate, which made the Ombudsman’s investigation more difficult.
Determination
50. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was maladministration in how the landlord responded to leaks and related issues in:
- The rear bedroom of the property
- The front bedroom of the property.
51. In accordance with paragraph 53.b of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was reasonable redress in how the landlord responded to the leaks and related issues which occurred during its repair of the roof.
52. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was maladministration in:
- The landlord’s complaint handling
- The landlord’s record keeping.
Orders
53. The landlord to apologise to the resident for the failings identified in this report.
54. The landlord to pay the resident £656, inclusive of the £250 it has already offered. This comprises:
- £400 for the poor communication between 25 July 2022 and 15 May 2023.
- £206 for the loss of use of bedrooms A and B.
- £50 for failing to address the resident’s 19 June 2023 complaint.
55. The landlord to offer a meeting with the resident. The purpose of the meeting is to re-establish the relationship between the landlord and resident. It will be an opportunity to discuss the repair completed in May 2023 and offer the resident assurances that the issues covered in this report are resolved. The resident is not obliged to attend if she does not wish to.
56. The landlord should provide the Ombudsman with evidence of compliance with the above orders within 4 weeks from the date of this report.
Recommendations
57. The landlord to self-assess against our Spotlight Report on: Knowledge and Information Management (KIM). This will give it the opportunity to consider how it can improve its record keeping to avoid repeating the omissions we identified in this report.
58. The landlord to reflect on its obligations to respond to complaints in a timely manner.
59. The landlord to reoffer to reimburse the resident’s decorating costs she incurred from painting the ceilings in June 2023.