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Hyde Housing Association Limited (202339705)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202339705

Hyde Housing Association Limited

22 January 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 landlords handling of:
    1. The resident’s reports of no hot water in the property.
    2. The associated complaint.

Background and summary of events

  1. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord. The tenancy began in 2023. The property is a 3-bedroom flat. The resident has a physical disability which the landlord is aware of.
  2. The landlord outsources the heating and hot water supply to the property through a heat network, operated and maintained by an external provider. The heat network provider is referred to in this report as the supplier. The resident pays for her use of the heat network directly to the supplier.
  3. The resident complained to the landlord on 7 December 2023 that she had been without hot water for over a week. She said she had spent hours on its telephone line and was concerned it was not treating the matter seriously. She mentioned her disability and reported that she had 3 children including a newborn baby living with her.
  4. The landlord upheld the resident’s stage 1 complaint on 11 January 2024. It arranged for a plumber to visit the property to carry out repairs. It recognised that it should have acted sooner to arrange that repair. It awarded the resident £100 in compensation. That amount included £50 for its handling of the repair and £50 for its delay in responding to her complaint.
  5. The resident contacted the landlord on 11 January 2024 and asked to escalate her complaint to stage 2 because she still had no hot water. It escalated her complaint to stage 2 the same day.
  6. The landlord wrote to all affected residents on 18 January 2024 to apologise for the disruption to hot water in the area. It said it had identified the issue and the supplier was completing the required repairs.
  7. The landlord provided its stage 2 response on 6 February 2024. It said its contractor had completed repairs at the property and had told her that there was disruption to hot water on the estate. It apologised and said that it should have moved forward with repairs quicker.
  8. The resident contacted this Service on 6 February 2024 because she was unhappy that she still had no hot water. She wanted the landlord to restore the hot water supply.

Assessment and findings

No hot water in the property

  1. The tenancy agreement says that the landlord is responsible for keeping all fixtures and fittings for water, gas, electricity, space and water heating repaired and in working order.
  2. The landlord’s repairs policy states that during the call where a repair is first reported it should establish who is responsible for the repair. It should also establish if the resident has any vulnerabilities that require reasonable adjustments and/or reprioritisation. It sets out 3 classifications of repair:
    1. Emergency are where the repair is required to sustain the immediate health, safety or security of the tenant.  The landlord should attend emergency repairs within 4 hours and make them safe within 24 hours. Its policy gives examples of emergency repairs as being a total loss of gas, water, or heating.
    2. Anytime (routine) repairs are any responsive repair that is not an emergency repair and should be completed within 20 working days.
    3. Major repairs are undertaken in line with its stock investment policy and procedures.
  3. The resident told the landlord on 7 December 2023 that she had been without hot water for over a week. She said she had tried to arrange a repair using its telephone line but did not feel it had taken the matter seriously. The landlord did not dispute these telephone calls in its stage 1 response.
  4. In the evidence provided, it does not appear that the landlord was aware of any wider issues on the estate at that time. In line with its responsibility, outlined in the tenancy agreement, it should have raised a job to investigate what was causing the issues with the hot water. Given the issue with no hot water had been raised in winter, the landlord had vulnerabilities recorded for the resident, and she had mentioned having a newborn baby in the property, it may have been appropriate to investigate the issue as emergency repair in the first instance. It was unreasonable that the landlord failed to raise any type of repair following either the telephone calls or the 7 December 2023 complaint. This action would likely to have served to undermine the resident’s confidence in the landlord.
  5. The resident telephoned the landlord on 28 December 2023 repeating her concerns about the lack of hot water. As the hot water is supplied through the heat network it arranged for the supplier to complete an inspection on 2 January 2024. The supplier attended and told the landlord the issue was with the bath taps, which the landlord was responsible for maintaining.
  6. The landlord arranged for a contractor to visit the property on 5 January 2024. The contractor did not fix the bath taps and told the resident that the disruption to hot water was due to a wider issue on the estate. It told the resident that the supplier or water company would need to resolve the problems. It is not recorded that the contractor shared its findings with the landlord but the resident told it about the outcome of that repair visit on 8 January 2024. It told her that it would rearrange to repair the bath taps on 10 January 2024 but did not mention the wider issue on the estate. There is no evidence the landlord confirmed with the contractor its assessment that the issue with the hot water, was in relation to wider issues impacting the local area.
  7. A contractor repaired the bath taps on 10 January 2024 but reported to the landlord that the supplier needed to investigate further issues with the hot water. They said it had found water supply to have low pressure and when it turned on all taps in the property there was a loss of hot water.
  8. Within the landlord’s stage 1 complaint response on 11 January 2024 it acknowledged that there had been delays in responding to the repair for no hot water. It awarded the resident £50 in compensation for the distress and inconvenience caused by the delay in responding to her repair request. The landlord’s compensation procedure states that it should consider the severity of the distress, number of people affected and length of time involved. When it considered a delay to have had a low impact it can pay up to £100. That increases to a maximum of £250 for medium impact. Given the vulnerabilities of the resident, amount of people in her household including a newborn baby, and that it had taken over a month to repair the bath taps it would have been appropriate to award her a higher amount.
  9. The landlord wrote to all affected residents on 18 January 2024 to apologise for the disruption to the hot water supply. It said a water leak on the heat network was causing the issue. It told residents that it was present on the estate along with the supplier. It had engineers available to attend individual homes to flush out or check individual systems. It also offered temporary heating if required. While it was appropriate for the landlord to offer reassurance and provide temporary solutions to the affected residents it would likely have acted sooner had it investigated the issues raised by the resident over a month earlier. 
  10. The supplier completed a patch repair on 8 March 2024 and permanently replaced the damaged pipework on 7 May 2024. That action resolved the issues with the hot water in the area. The landlord wrote to all affected residents in June 2024 and apologised for the inconvenience caused by the disruption to the hot water supply. It explained that there were times were it had to close the entire heat network to complete repairs and that caused occasions where residents had a permanent loss of heating and hot water. It repeated that it had made electric heaters available, cleared localised blockages, and visited properties to check the domestic systems were working as they should.
  11. The landlord awarded all affected residents £500 in compensation for the distress and inconvenience incurred by the disruption to hot water. In line with its compensation policy it credited the £500 compensation to the resident’s rent account on 26 June 2024. It was appropriate it compensated affected residents. However, in awarding equal amounts it did not reflect the specific inconvenience experienced by the resident from its failings during the period before the wider issue was identified.
  12. While the landlord acted reasonably following the diagnosis of the wider issue causing disruption to the hot water supply in the property there has been maladministration with its handling of the residents reports of that issue. It did not respond promptly in the period where the disruption to the resident’s hot water supply was undiagnosed and it was not appropriate that she had to make a complaint for it to arrange a repair. It also did not evidence that it had considered the vulnerabilities of the resident. In addition to that, had it acted sooner it may have been able to diagnose to wider issue with the heat network and notify the residents quicker than it did. In not upholding the resident’s stage 2 complaint based on the issues being out of its control the landlord missed an opportunity to recognise the failings and make an appropriate offer of redress.
  13. When deciding on an appropriate remedy, this Service’s remedies guidance had been considered. It is apparent that the landlord’s failure to respond to resident’s reports of no hot water in the property adversely affected her before the wider issue was diagnosed. We will therefore order that the landlord pays the resident £250 compensation in recognition of this. This amount replaces the £50 previously offered at stage 1. It is recognised that the effects of the landlord’s failings had no permanent impact and the amount relates only to the period until it had identified the disruption to hot water was a wider issue. This amount falls within the maladministration banding of this Service’s remedies guidance. It also falls within the landlord’s banding for a medium impact delay.

Complaint handling

  1. The landlord’s complaints procedure says it will acknowledge a complaint within 5 working days. A stage 1 response will be issued within 10 working days and a stage 2 response within 20 working days after the day a resident requests escalation of their complaint.
  2. The resident complained to the landlord on 7 December 2023. The landlord should have acknowledged the complaint by 14 December 2023 and provided its stage 1 response by 21 December 2023.
  3. The landlord did not acknowledge the stage 1 complaint until 26 December 2023 and did not provide its response until 11 January 2024. It awarded her £100 compensation broken down as £50 for the delay in responding to her repair request and £50 for the delay in responding to the complaint. The resident refused the compensation offered by the landlord so it did not make the payment.
  4. The landlord acknowledged and responded to the stage 2 complaints within the timescales set out in its complaints procedure.
  5. The compensation offered by the landlord in its stage 1 complaint for its complaint handling delays was reasonable. However, during stage 2it missed an opportunity to explain that the compensation awarded at stage 1 remained available for the resident to accept. That may have led to the resident believing the compensation had effectively been rescinded. That was not reasonable because there had been service failure in dealing with the stage 1 complaint. It would have been appropriate to remind the resident that the compensation offered at stage 1 remained open for her to accept.
  6. It was appropriate that the landlord apologised and awarded compensation at stage 1 for its delays in acknowledging and responding to the resident’s complaint. However, the Ombudsman has found service failure in its failure to explain to the resident in its stage 2 response that the compensation it offered at stage 1 remained open for her to accept. The landlord is ordered to pay the resident an additional £50 in compensation to recognise that failing. This would bring the total amount of compensation for its complaint handling to £100.

Determination (decision)

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was maladministration with the landlord’s handling of the residents reports of no hot water in the property.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was service failure with the landlord’s complaint handling.

Orders

  1. The landlord should make a total compensation payment of £350. This amount replaces the £100 previously offered by the landlord. It is broken down as:
    1. £250 for its failings in dealing with the residents reports of no hot water in the property.
    2. £100 for its failings in dealing with the resident’s complaint.
  2. The payment should be made directly to the resident within 4 weeks of the date of this report. It should not be used to offset any rent arrears. The landlord should provide this Service evidence it has made the payment.