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Haringey London Borough Council (202327825)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202327825

Haringey London Borough Council

19 June 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 a repair to a communal soil pipe serving the resident’s property.

Background

  1. The resident is the leaseholder of the property. The landlord is a local authority. The property is a maisonette on the ground floor and first floor of a block.
  2. In the evening of 2 August 2023, the resident had a back surge of wastewater from her toilet, which overflowed into her property. She said in her complaint that she reported this to the landlord’s out of hours repairs team, but it cancelled the repair. The resident reported the repair again the next day to the landlord and it unblocked the communal soil pipe the same day. Its repairs records noted that a ‘vax’ clean was required to clear the waste from the resident’s property. There is no evidence this was done.
  3. The resident raised a stage 1 complaint with the landlord on 7 August 2023. She said she had experienced past problems with the communal soil pipe backing up through her toilet and overflowing into her property. The resident said she had reported the repair multiple times to the landlord’s out of hours repairs team. However, it had cancelled the repair as it considered the repair to be her responsibility. She said this resulted in the lower floor of the property being “heavily flooded” with wastewater. The resident wanted the landlord to confirm what it would do to prevent a reoccurrence, and she requested compensation for her distress and inconvenience. She also wanted it to provide better training for its call handlers and asked to make a buildings insurance claim for damage to her possessions and cleaning costs.
  4. The landlord issued its stage 1 complaint response to the resident on 21 August 2023. It acknowledged that it had not carried out a vax clean of her property after it unblocked the soil pipe and offered her £50 compensation for this. The landlord said that blocked drains were typically due to misuse, and it would write to residents of the block to remind them of responsible use of the drains. It said that it recommended residents take out home contents insurance to cover damage to their possessions and it provided the details of its insurance team if she wanted further information.
  5. The resident escalated her complaint on 13 September 2023. She said she was unhappy the landlord had not acknowledged her dissatisfaction with the out of hours repairs team which had refused to attend the repair after multiple calls. The resident said she had to wait until the next day to report the repair again, during which time the back surge had caused damage to her possessions. She wanted the landlord to record on its system that the back surging had happened 3 times before and was always due to the communal drain. The resident also wanted to know the maintenance schedule of the drains. She said the landlord’s offer of compensation was “disappointing” and added that she had already made an insurance claim in the meantime while awaiting the landlord’s stage 1 complaint response.
  6. The landlord provided its final stage complaint response to the resident on 1 November 2023. It said it had been unable to confirm or deny the resident’s report about its out of hours repairs team as there were no notes. The landlord apologised and said it would improve its record keeping. It explained that it did drainage repairs in response to repair reports and did not have a maintenance schedule for drains. The landlord said it would feed back to its planned works team about the drains in the building for future consideration. It apologised for the distress the resident had experienced and increased its offer of compensation to £500 to recognise this.
  7. The resident told the Ombudsman on 7 June 2024 that she remained dissatisfied as she had experienced back surging from the toilet every “6-8 years”. She said the communal soil blockages affected her more than other residents as her property was on the ground floor.

Assessment and findings

  1. The lease agreement confirms that the landlord is responsible for the repair and maintenance of the sewers, drains, and pipework shared by all residents of the block.
  2. The landlord’s website confirms that it should attend emergency repairs within 24 hours. This also explains that emergency repairs are “repairs that put a person or property at risk. We will attend within 24 hours of you reporting it and will attempt to complete the repair on our first visit. Examples include… back surging drains”.
  3. The resident said that she first reported the back surging toilet to the landlord on 2 August 2023, however the landlord could find no records to either confirm or contradict the resident’s claim. This is a failure of record keeping, which the landlord appropriately acknowledged. We expect landlords to keep clear, accurate and easily accessible records to provide an audit trail. If we investigate a complaint, we will ask for the landlord’s records. If there is disputed evidence and no audit trail, we may not be able to conclude that an action took place or that the landlord followed its own policies and procedures. We will therefore recommend that the landlord review its record keeping processes to ensure that retains adequate details of contact with residents.
  4. Once the landlord acknowledged the communal repair to the soil pipe on 3 August 2023, it attended promptly to repair the pipe within 24 hours. This was within its published timeframe for an emergency repair. However, the landlord raised follow on work to clear the waste that had spilled into the resident’s property, but it failed to do this work. The landlord appropriately acknowledged this failing in its complaint responses.
  5. The resident asked for assurances from the landlord that it would take steps to prevent the drains from back surging, as it had happened approximately every 6 years. While the effect of a back surging toilet was undoubtedly unpleasant and caused the resident significant inconvenience, the issue was not excessively frequent. There was also no evidence that the communal soil pipe and connected drains were defective. In the absence of such evidence, it was reasonable for the landlord to conclude that the blockage was due to misuse by residents in the building, which was largely outside of its control. Therefore, the landlord’s proposal to communicate with other residents of the block about responsible use of the drains was a proportionate step. It was also reasonable that it said it would feed the information back to its asset management teams for consideration in future planned works.
  6. We are unable to confirm if the landlord failed to act appropriately in response to the resident’s repair report on the evening of 2 August 2023. This is because it has no records of the resident’s contact with its out of hours repairs team. However, the compensation of £500 which the landlord offered in its final stage complaint response adequately recognises the potential detriment the resident may have experienced from this failing, and its subsequent acknowledged failing to clear the waste from her property.
  7. The Ombudsman’s remedies guidance, which is available to view on our website, sets out that awards of compensation between £100 and £600 are appropriate when there has been a failing by the landlord leading to a significant negative effect for the resident. The landlord’s offer of £500 compensation was in line with our expectations, and we therefore consider that it made a reasonable offer of redress to the resident prior to our involvement.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 53.b. of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord made an offer of redress to the resident which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, reasonably satisfies the complaint about its handling of a repair to a communal soil pipe serving the resident’s property.

Orders and recommendations

Recommendations

  1. If it has not done so already, the landlord should pay the resident the £500 compensation it offered her in its final stage complaint response. Our determination of reasonable redress is dependent on it making this payment to her.
  2. The landlord should review its record keeping procedures to ensure adequate records are kept of its contact with residents about repair reports.
  3. The landlord should consider reviewing its staff training to ensure that repairs call handlers can accurately differentiate between communal repairs and repairs which leaseholders are responsible for.