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Derby City Council (202419744)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202419744

Derby City Council

4 April 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 handling of the resident’s reports of an emergency repair to the front door lock.

Background

  1. The resident is a secure tenant of the landlord. It has a record of the resident’s physical and mental vulnerabilities on file. 
  2. The landlord’s repairs log shows that on 25 February 2024 it raised a repair to the front door lock and then cancelled it. The resident complained to the landlord on the following day about how it had handled his reports of an emergency repair due to faults with his front door lock and the impact this had on his wellbeing. He reported having to wait in the cold for several hours despite advising the call handler of his disability. He said he had had to employ his own locksmith at 6 am. He advised the cold to make his medical condition worse and he had to take time off work. He asked for compensation for the loss of earnings.
  3. The landlord responded at stage 1 of its complaint process on 13 March 2024 and advised its investigation had shown it had cancelled the job in error. The landlord said it had no note of the resident’s disability, apologised for its poor service and added £50 compensation to his rent account. The landlord agreed to reimburse the resident for the locksmith’s cost.
  4. The resident asked for the complaint to be escalated to stage 2 as he was unhappy with the level of compensation and that the landlord had stated it was not aware he had a disability.
  5. The landlord’s stage 2 complaint response provided on 21 May 2024 made an additional offer of £50 compensation (to what was already paid). It highlighted its policy stated that it would normally compensate £10 for a missed appointment. The landlord apologised and stated the increased offer was in recognition of the seriousness of its failure.
  6. The resident brought his complaint to the Ombudsman on 19 August 2024. He wanted to be compensated for loss of earnings and for the effect of the landlord’s failure on his health. He also wanted the landlord to improve its records for disabled people, so this did not happen to anyone else.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. Whilst the Ombudsman is an alternative to the courts, we do not have the authority and the expertise to establish legal liability or whether a landlord’s actions or lack of action have had a detrimental impact on a resident’s health. Nor can we calculate or award damages. In line with paragraph 42.f. of the Scheme the Ombudsman will not consider the personal injury aspects of the resident’s complaint and as such the claim for loss of earnings through any impact on the resident’s health. These matters are likely better suited to consideration by a court or via a personal injury claim. The resident may wish to seek legal advice if he wants to pursue this option.

The landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of an emergency repair

  1. The landlord’s compensation policy states the compensation for a missed appointment is set at £10.
  2. The compensation policy also states that compensation will not be provided for time off work in terms of missed appointments.
  3. The landlord’s financial redress policy classifies a minor remedy from £10 to £600 – this could include missed appointments or a succession of service failures and/or the problem is not resolved within a reasonable timescale with no permanent impact.
  4. There is no dispute there was a service failure in relation to the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of an emergency repair. The landlord appropriately acknowledged this and therefore it is left for the Service to determine whether the landlord provided proportionate redress in view of this error.
  5. When a landlord is at fault, it needs to put things right by acknowledging its mistakes and apologising for them, explaining why things went wrong and what the landlord will do to prevent the same mistake happening again. The landlord appropriately apologised, acknowledged its failings in his case, and explained how the service failure occurred. The Service has also seen evidence that in line with the Dispute resolution principles of being fair and putting things right the landlord compensated the resident £216 for the locksmith’s costs on receipt of the invoice.
  6. So far as possible, the landlord should seek to put the resident back to the position they would have been in if there had been no failure. Sometimes, however, it is not possible to do so, and, in these cases, financial compensation may be appropriate. In this case, the landlord has, in addition to the measures above offered £100 compensation for the distress and inconvenience caused by the failure.
  7. The amount was above the prescription in the landlord’s policies for missed appointment. As such, the landlord appropriately used its discretion. While it did not specifically state in its final response that it considered the resident’s vulnerabilities, the level of the compensation it offered demonstrated that it acknowledged the seriousness of the situation.
  8. As part of this investigation the Ombudsman has seen evidence that the landlord has highlighted the resident’s vulnerabilities in the telephone call notes from 13 March 2024.  While the landlord did not address this in its responses, it had demonstrated that it had a record of the resident’s disability. We have not seen, however, this had been forwarded in the job escalation to the contractors. I order to prevent any future errors as such happening to vulnerable residents, we have made some recommendations.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 53.b of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord has made a reasonable offer of redress which resolves the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of an emergency repair to the front door lock satisfactorily.

Orders and recommendations

Recommendations

  1. It is recommended that the landlord:
    1. Contacts the resident to re offer compensation of £100. This includes the £50 rent account credit, if not already done so.
    2. Reviews its emergency call handling processes to ensure a similar incident cannot happen again, which will help protect vulnerable residents.