High Peak Borough Council (202110894)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202110894

High Peak Borough Council

18 September 2023

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

The complaint is about the landlord’s
1. offer of compensation following repairs to the roof.
2. the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background and summary of events

The resident lives in a terraced property under a secured tenancy and has resided there since 20 March 2020.
The resident has told this Service that she reported her concerns about the roof when she first moved into the property in March 2020. She said she then continued to contact the landlord about the issue until September 2020. This was accepted by the landlord in its complaint responses.
The landlord identified that the roof needed to be renewed around 3 December 2020. The resident reported rainwater entering her home on 21 January 2021. There is no evidence that the landlord informed the resident that the roof required renewal until 10 February 2021.
The resident chased works with the roof on 8 March 2021. It is not clear when the works started, however, it appears that some works commenced and had to be halted on 6 May 2021 as a colony of bees was discovered in the attic. The decision was taken to halt the repair works until the bees had reached the end of their natural life cycle in August 2021.
The resident made a complaint on 1 June 2021 on the basis that:
1. She stated that her reports about the roof had been ignored until January 2021.
2. The work on the roof had been delayed.
3. She was seeking compensation for the distress and inconvenience caused.
The landlord issued a stage 1 complaint response on 21 July 2021. It accepted there had been issues in communication between the repair and assets team. It offered the resident £450 compensation and said it was changing its methodology to ensure delays did not reoccur in the future. The resident was dissatisfied with the offer made and said she would contact the CAB.
Following the discovery of the bees, work recommenced on 24 August 2021. At that time, a bat was discovered in the attic. It is against the law to injure or kill bats or destroy their breeding or resting place. Because of this, all work had to be stopped pending a survey and approval from Natural England.
On 7 September 2021, the landlord contacted the resident with an offer of relocation (a temporary decant) until the roof was repaired and the offer of £2000 for the costs of relocation. The resident rejected the offer and requested £3000. The landlord declined this and said the elements of the offer were not available separately, and compensation would be assessed when the repair works were completed.
Several site visits by ecologists were made to the property in September 2021 and a report to Natural England was drafted.
The resident contacted this Service in September 2021. In turn, we asked the landlord to respond to the complaint on three occasions until 14 January 2022.
During this time, the landlord spoke to the resident daily to give updates. Work was finally restarted in December 2021 when a license was granted, and ecologists could supervise the works. In February 2022 the property was visited for the last time to complete the roof by internally installing additional insulation.
The landlord provided a stage two response on 14 January 2022, saying it acted appropriately and offered no compensation.
In referring the matter to this Service, the resident re-stated her position she would like £3,000 for the distress and inconvenience the repair work caused.

Assessment and findings

The key question in this case is whether the landlord offered a fair level of compensation for the delays in completing the works. This ultimately turns on whether the landlord was in any way at fault for delays or the progress of the works.

The time taken to repair

The resident’s tenancy conditions set out that the landlord is responsible for repairing the property. Section 11(1)(a) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 states that a landlord is responsible for the structure and exterior of the building, which would include the roof.
When a repair is reported to a landlord, it is responsible to inspect within a reasonable time to determine if it is responsible for repair. If the repair does fall within its duties, then it must complete the work within a reasonable time. What is a reasonable time will depend on all the circumstances of a case. Landlords are only responsible for delays outside their control and not for external factors that cause or contribute to delays. Landlords usually adopt policies and procedures to manage responsive repairs. These usually set out the timescales for a landlord to respond.
In this case, the landlord’s website states:

Repairs are prioritised according to the type of work that is needed:

priority 1 – emergency repair within 24 hours
priority 2 – urgent repair within 7 days
priority 3 – non-urgent repair within 3 calendar weeks
priority 4 – planned repairs within 16 calendar weeks

The landlord did not provide its policy – nor is there information on its website about how it categorises emergency and urgent repairs.
Properly assessing complaints about repairs is incumbent on good record keeping and being able to show when the landlord first received notice of the disrepair. During our evidence-gathering stage, we asked the landlord to provide its repair logs – including surveys and site inspections. However, the landlord has not produced repair records to demonstrate when the problems were first reported. This in itself was a failure. Landlords should create and maintain adequate systems to demonstrate they have complied with key legal obligations – such as the obligation to repair.
As we do not have clear records, we must consider the circumstantial evidence to decide when the landlord had notice of the repairs to the roof. In this case, we know that the landlord issued a stage 1 complaint response in December 2020, following the resident’s complaints. Therefore, the issue must have arisen before this. The resident states that she had been complaining about the roof since March 2020. In its submissions to the Ombudsman, the landlord accepted that the tenant had reported water ingress dating back to 2020, following the installation of the flue and boiler.
On this basis, there is no evidence to contradict the resident’s account that she reported water ingress in March 2020 and that put the landlord on notice to inspect and repair from then.
Following this, the landlord established in December 2020 that the roof required reinstatement. The landlord stated this was in part due to repairs it had attempted but that had not been successful. The internal records suggest the problems with the roof followed issues with the boiler and flue and there had been some attempts to repair these. The landlord has not produced reasons as to why it took the landlord from March 2020 to December 2020 to conclude that a full reinstatement of the roof was required.
During this period the UK was entering its third lockdown, which caused country-wide delays in construction, however, the landlord did not seem to offer any accommodations to mitigate the effect this had on the resident. Temporary roof covers or temporary heaters were not offered to her. The landlord has confirmed in its correspondence that the roof was pushed forward as much as possible, and it appears likely this is the case.
It is not clear the extent of the work which took place between January 2021 and May 2021 when the work stopped due to the bees. During this period, the resident contacted the landlord multiple times to express her disappointment and frustration at this delay.
The resident contacted the landlord to express she was concerned about the number of bees and the safety of her grandchildren on 10 June 2021. The landlord responded the same day and asked her to contact the environmental health department of the council.
After considering this response, a more appropriate reply would have been to address the resident’s concerns directly and given information that the bees were only aggressive when disturbed. It was unlikely the environmental health team would have chosen to do anything, and it can be seen in the landlord’s evidence that the information about the species of bees was already known within the team the resident contacted. This could have alleviated some of the concerns of the resident and reduced the stress this caused her.
In July 2021 the resident reported that their boiler was being affected by the leak from the roof. The landlord acted appropriately by attending the property. However, as the roof was still leaking the landlord was limited in the actions it could take.
On 7 July 2021, a contractor attended the property to install a weather shield, as the front door had been damaged by the leaks the previous weekend. The contractor failed to bring the correct equipment. This was not appropriate and will have added to the resident’s frustrations.
After this Service spoke to the resident, it was confirmed that the repairs to the front door are ongoing, and it remains damaged. As it has now been 21 months since this event, it would have been expected for this to be fixed before this time. This in itself amounts to maladministration and would be grounds to award compensation.
Bats were confirmed to be residing in the attic of the property on 24 August 2021. From the evidence provided, the landlord acted swiftly when this was identified. During this time, it ensured daily contact was made with the resident. This Service finds that the landlord acted reasonably in dealing with the bats. It chased for updates to the licence, considered alternative options to provide temporary cover within the law, and ordered the equipment needed before the repair work was scheduled to ensure this did not halt the repairs any more than necessary. This was appropriate.
Because of the timescales with the Natural England licence (estimated at 2 months), the landlord wrote to the resident on 7 September 2021. In the letter, the landlord offered temporary relocation to the resident and a £2000 payment for any inconvenience and moving costs. Whilst this was appropriate, it is not clear why the landlord did not consider a decant much sooner, as far back as January 2021, or when the bees and bats were identified.
Nevertheless, at that point it was open to the resident to accept the offer of a temporary decant. However, the landlord would not be responsible for the delays beyond this point. This is because the presence of the bats was outside its control, it chased matters and offered to source alternative accommodation.
The resident has confirmed that the works on the roof were completed. It appears this was around February 2022. The issues with the door remain outstanding.
The landlord offered the resident £450 compensation. This does not take into account the delay in identifying that the roof needed replacement and commencement of those works. From March 2020 to at least March 2021.
Moreover, it does not consider the frustration and distress caused by the resident having to chase matters, or the delay in offering a decant. For that reason, the landlord is responsible for maladministration in its offer of compensation for handling the roof repairs.

The landlord’s handling of the subsequent complaint

The resident submitted a complaint on 1 June 2021 about the time taken to repair the roof.
The landlord sent its stage 1 complaint response to the resident on 21 July 2021. This was 37 working days after the landlord received the complaint. The Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (‘the Code’) requires landlords to respond within 10 working days. Where a landlord is not able to make the 10-working day deadline, it must update the resident and agree on a time to respond. If an agreement cannot be reached, the landlord may extend by a further 10 working days. In this case, the landlord went outside these timescales.
The resident escalated the complaint in September 2021, however, a response was not provided until 14 January 2022. This was following two chasers from the Ombudsman on 9 December 2021 and 12 January 2022. This delay was unacceptable.

Compensation

The Ombudsman considers that there should have been compensation offered to the resident to consider the loss of enjoyment of her home for the period between March 2020 and 7 September 2021. A fair figure for that 25 weeks would be £1,200 compensation. This is to recognise the poor record keeping, which could have impacted the resident’s ability to receive fair redress, as well as the impact of the delays in:
1. identifying that the roof needed to be fully replaced
2. offering a decant and disturbance
3. the effect on the boiler
4. the delay in preventing water ingress
The Ombudsman also considers there should be an additional payment for the lack of communication. It is clear the resident had to chase matters. As such, a fair award of compensation would be £250 to recognise this.
A further level of compensation is due for the handling of the repairs to the door. The Ombudsman considers £350 compensation would be appropriate for this.
Lastly, the Ombudsman considers that compensation is due for poor complaint handling. A payment of £200 would be fair to recognise the impact of this.
This totals £2,000 compensation.

Determination (decision)

In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, this Service has determined that there was maladministration in the landlord’s offer of compensation following the landlord’s handling of repairs to the roof. This is because the landlord failed to recognise its failures and the impact of those.
In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, this Service has determined that there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

The Ombudsman orders that the landlord must, within 28 days of the date of this determination:
1. Pay the resident £2,000 compensation for the overall handling of the repairs and associated complaints.
2. Contact the resident to arrange the repairs to the front door. The landlord must use its best endeavours to ensure that the works to the front door are completed within 28 days of the date of this determination.
The landlord must provide evidence it has complied with these orders no later than 28 days from the date of this report. If it cannot make this deadline, it must set out why – together with supporting evidence and the time by which it intends to comply. It must provide this information also within 28 days of the date of the determination.

Recommendations

The Ombudsman recommends that the landlord assess its current complaints handling and guidance, particularly to ensure timescales are, so far as reasonably practicable, compliant with the Code.
The Ombudsman recommends that the landlord ensures that it has adequate processes in place to ensure that staff absences do not affect its service delivery timescales.