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Clarion Housing Association Limited (202226370)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202226370

Clarion Housing Association Limited

25 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 how the landlord responded to the resident’s loss of heating and hot water.
  2. We have also considered the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

  1. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord, a housing association.
  2. On 12 December 2022 the resident reported that his boiler was faulty and he was without heating or hot water. The landlord attended the property on the same day and ordered replacement parts for the boiler. It booked an appointment to fit the parts on 15 December 2022. The landlord did not attend as planned and so the resident called to query this. The landlord explained its contractor was off work due to sickness and rescheduled the appointment for 21 December 2022.
  3. The landlord then did not attend on 21 December 2022. On 23 December 2022 it attended but found it had not ordered the correct replacement parts at the previous visit. It attended on 29 December 2022 to complete the works, however, it found it had failed to order another required part at the previous visit. For this reason it was only able to restore hot water at this visit, and the resident remained without heating.
  4. The landlord then attended on 31 December 2022 and replaced the last of the faulty parts which restored the heating. On 2 January 2023 the resident complained to the landlord about delays. On 10 January 2023 the landlord responded and directed him to complain to its gas contractors directly. The resident responded on 16 January 2023 and explained he considered the landlord should address his complaint directly. On 25 January 2023 the landlord emailed him and apologised for its delays in completing the boiler repairs. It also offered him £160 in compensation for 2 cancelled appointments and the time he spent without heating and hot water.
  5. The resident was not satisfied with this sum and asked the landlord to escalate his complaint to stage 1 on 30 January 2023. He chased this again on 15 February 2023 and 1 March 2023. The landlord issued a stage 1 response on 28 March 2023. It apologised again for the repairs delays and explained these were due to communication issues. It also offered him a further £100 in compensation for the inconvenience this caused him and in recognition of its failure to follow its processes.
  6. On 13 April 2023 and 25 April 2023 the resident emailed the landlord. These emails only stated “no response” within the contents. He then brought his complaint to the Ombudsman on 25 April 2023. On 9 May 2023 the landlord asked him if he had raised a complaint with its contractor. He explained he had but that he was not satisfied with their response, and so he wanted to escalate his complaint to stage 2. The landlord then emailed him on 18 May 2023 and asked him to elaborate on the details of his complaint, which he did on 1 June 2023.
  7. We then instructed the landlord on 5 September 2023 to address the resident’s stage 2 complaint escalation. On 12 September 2023 the landlord issued its stage 2 response. It apologised for the delays in repairing the boiler and offered him a further £100 in compensation for the impact of this. It also offered him another £70 for the time he was without heating and hot water. It acknowledged delays in escalating his complaint to stage 2 and offered him £100 in compensation for this.
  8. At some stage in October 2023 the landlord paid the resident £500. However, he remains dissatisfied with this sum and would like the Ombudsman to order the landlord to pay him further compensation to resolve things.

Assessment and findings

How the landlord responded to the resident’s reports of loss of heating and hot water

  1. The landlord’s repairs policy sets out that it will address emergency repairs within 24 hours. It classes these types of issues as those which present an immediate danger to the resident, the public or the property, or would jeopardise the health, safety or security of the resident.
  2. Right to repair regulations also prescribe a 1 day timescale for repairs to address a partial or total loss of hot water, though we note the landlord as a housing association is not statutorily beholden to these regulations.
  3. We can see the landlord attended the property on 12 December 2022 to inspect the boiler on the same day the resident reported it. This was positive and in keeping with its repairs policy. It then booked an appointment for 15 December 2022 the following day. However, it failed to attend this, and so the resident had to contact it to reschedule this for 21 December 2022.
  4. The landlord has explained its engineer was sick on 15 December 2022 so could not attend. While we recognise landlords cannot completely anticipate and mitigate against staff sickness, it should have proactively contacted the resident to reschedule this appointment. Instead, the resident had to go the trouble of doing so. We consider this omission likely caused the resident distress and inconvenienced him.
  5. The landlord then failed to attend the 21 December 2022 appointment contrary to its repairs policy. It then attended on 23 December 2022 but was unable to complete the repair because it had failed to order the necessary parts following its previous visits. We recognise it is often not possible to complete a repair at the first visit, especially when new parts are required to resolve an issue. However, the landlord should have ordered these parts on 12 December 2022. Its failure to do so here further delayed a resolution and likely caused the resident distress.
  6. On 29 December 2022 the landlord attended but was only able to restore hot water because it had failed to ensure its engineers had all of the required parts to restore the heating. This repeated omission likely compounded the resident’s distress. On 31 December 2022 it then attended and completed the repairs which restored the resident’s heating.
  7. Therefore, the landlord failed to complete the repairs within an appropriate timescale, and we can see this was due to repeated missed appointments errors in ordering the required parts. However, we can also see that the landlord has acknowledged these failings and paid the resident £400 in compensation. This was broken down into: £15 for each of the 2 missed appointments, £200 for the loss of amenity, and £170 for distress and inconvenience.
  8. The landlord’s compensation policy states that the landlord will pay £15 for each missed appointment. It also states that it will pay £5 each per day that a resident is without heating or hot water from the date of the initial report when it has not offered temporary heating. We can see the landlord has paid the resident £160 at £10 per day from 12 December 2022 to 28 December 2022. Given these were the days the resident was without both heating and hot water, this was in line with its compensation policy. It has then paid the resident a further £5 per day for 29 and 30 December 2022. The resident was only without heating for these 2 days, and so this loss of amenity payment was also in line with its policy. It also appropriately paid him £15 for each of the missed appointments on 15 and 21 December 2022.
  9. Its policy explains it will pay discretionary sums of £50 to £250 to put things right when its own service failure has caused distress and inconvenience, but where this impact is not significant or long term.
  10. The landlord has paid £170 to put right the distress caused by its failures. We recognise it was likely distressing for the resident to be without heating and hot water from 12 to 29 December 2022. However, we also do not think this could reasonably be described as a significant or long-term impact, especially since the resident has indicated that he had his own temporary heater available during this time. With this in mind, we consider the landlord has compensated the resident for distress in line with its policy.
  11. Therefore, it is our view that the landlord has already done enough to put right its failures in its handling of the resident’s loss of heating and hot water.

Complaint handling

  1. The landlord’s complaints policy at the time of his complaint set out that when a resident was unhappy with the landlord’s actions, it would refer this to the relevant team to be dealt with as an enquiry. If further enquiries were needed to resolve the matter or if a resident requested it, the issue would be logged as a complaint. If an attempt to resolve the issue as an enquiry failed, it would record and log a formal complaint. When a complaint was made, the landlord would acknowledge and log it at stage 2 of the complaints procedure within ten working days of receipt.
  2. The landlord would then respond to stage 1 complaints received within 20 working days of the complaint being logged. It would respond to stage 2 complaints within 40 working days. It also stated it would update complainants and explain why when it was unable to meet these timescales.
  3. The resident first complained on 2 January 2023. The landlord then referred him to the team responsible for completing the repairs on 10 January 2023, and he complained to them directly on the same day. On 25 January 2023 the team emailed the resident, apologised for the delays in completing the repairs, and offered him £160 in compensation. On 30 January 2023 the resident responded and asked the landlord to formally log and address his concerns as a complaint.
  4. The landlord failed to respond to this, and so the resident chased it on 15 February 2023 and 2 March 2023. It then issued a stage 1 response on 28 March 2023. This was 21 working days past its stage 1 timescales. We can also see no indication that it updated the resident between 30 January 2023 and 28 March 2023 to explain the delay. We consider this likely caused the resident some inconvenience, and so we will order the landlord pays him £100 in compensation as per its policy.
  5. The resident then sent emails to the landlord on 13 April 2023 and 25 April 2023 which stated “no response” within the contents. He did not offer any further elaboration on this in either email. The landlord replied on 9 May 2023 and asked him to elaborate on this. It was reasonable for the landlord to seek further detail here given the relative lack of this in the resident’s emails. The resident replied with further detail on 9 May 2023, and the landlord asked him for more detail on 18 May 2023. We consider it could have responded to him to request elaboration sooner than 9 May 2023. It also could reasonably have asked the questions it posed on 18 May 2023 in its previous email on 9 May 2023. We consider this likely unnecessarily delayed things.
  6. The resident provided the information requested on 1 June 2023. Following this, there was no further contact until the landlord provided him with a stage 2 response on 12 September 2023. We also note that it did so following the Ombudsman’s intervention on 5 September 2023.
  7. The resident formally outlined the reasons he wanted to escalate his complaint on 1 June 2023. Therefore, the landlord’s stage 2 response was 33 working days late. We also note that it missed opportunities to invite the resident to explain these reasons sooner. With this in mind, we will order the landlord pays £150 to put this right. This is in line with its compensation guidance, and inclusive of the £100 it has already paid to put right its delay in addressing his stage 2 complaint.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 53.b of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was reasonable redress in how the landlord handled the resident’s loss of heating and hot water.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling.

Orders

  1. The landlord is to pay the resident £250, inclusive of the £100 it has already paid, and:
    1. £100 for its delay in issuing a stage 1 response.
    2. £150 for its delay in issuing a stage 2 response.
  2. The landlord is to provide evidence of compliance with these orders within 4 weeks of the date of this letter.