Hyde Housing Association Limited (202302015)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202302015

Hyde Housing Association Limited

11 February 2024

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:
1. The landlord’s handling of repairs to the boiler.
2. The level of compensation offered in response to the complaint.
This service has also investigated the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord. The tenancy began in 2010. The property is a 3-bedroom house, which she lives in with her 2 young children who are her carers.
On 12 October 2021, the resident told the landlord that her heating had stopped working. It acknowledged the resident’s report the same day and raised an order for an engineer to visit. An engineer visited the property on 20 October 2021.
The resident raised a complaint on 7 December 2021 using the landlord’s online complaint form. It contained the following points:
1. She reported an issue with the heating on 12 October 2021.
2. An engineer visited the property on 20 October 2021. They said they had changed something but were unsure if the heating would work and told the resident to try it. They said the landlord needed to come back and measure the radiators for bleeding. That visit would have to be under a different appointment.
3. The resident is disabled and has 2 young children.
4. The landlord arranged an inspection for 11 November 2021, but the engineer did not arrive. After she contacted it, the landlord informed her it had cancelled the appointment and rebooked it for 9 December 2021.
5. She remained without heating 8 weeks after reporting the problem.
6. She was very disappointed. She believed she would not have heating over the Christmas period and her house was freezing.
7. Nobody had provided her with heaters. The landlord should have offered these but she had to purchase her own at a cost of £120. This had caused her electric bill to triple.
The landlord acknowledged the complaint on 8 December 2021. It confirmed it was aware the resident had no heating in her home. She responded the same day thanking it for the acknowledgement email. She told the landlord she had spoken to Citizens Advice. They had advised her that the time she had been without heating was unacceptable and that the landlord should be doing more to support her.
Having had no response or action from the landlord, the resident lodged another complaint on 6 January 2022. She stated:
1. She had made a formal complaint on 8 December 2021. The landlord was meant to contact her within 5 days but did not.
2. The house remained without heating. The landlord had not offered her temporary heaters.
3. She wanted the issue raised as a formal complaint and expected the landlord to follow its complaints procedure.
4. She was having to spend more money on electric bills, which she expected the landlord to repay to her. She also wanted a proportion of her rent back for the months when the heating was not working.
Following a period of 6 months for which no documentation was supplied, a gas engineer visited the property on 23 June 2022 to conduct the landlord’s annual gas safety check. He left the following comments on the certificate: “Boiler faulty and has been for a year. Gas meter capped as boiler not tested. Main heat exchanger blocked and requires new system as reported last year.”
The resident made another complaint on 30 September 2022. She completed an online complaint form with the following points:
1. The heating had not been working for 2-3 years. The landlord had not provided her with anything to heat her home during this time.
2. She was a disabled person and was living in a freezing house with her 2 young children. She could not cope with the cold any longer.
3. The landlord was breaking the law as it should have fixed the heating within 24 hours.
4. As the cost of living was increasing, she was struggling to afford her rent payments and remained without heating.
5. The landlord had provided no support. She was at the end of her tether. Due to her illness, she could not face another winter without heating.
6. She believed the landlord was treating her unfairly. She should not have to pay rent in a property that does not have heating. She was struggling and every complaint she made to the landlord had gone unanswered.
7. She said the engineer who visited in June 2022 could not believe the boiler was still not working.
8. To resolve the issue the resident asked for the following:
  1. The heating fixed and heaters provided in the meantime.
  2. The rent subsidised, or free, for the period she had been without heating.
  3. A copy of her tenancy agreement.
  4. To know why the landlord had broken the law and continued to do nothing about her heating.
  5. To know why the landlord had not provided heaters when she had asked for them the previous winter.
The resident received an automatic acknowledgement email on the same day. On 10 October 2022, the landlord sent another email, it said that to resolve the complaint it would:
1. Investigate the history of appointments and outcomes for the boiler.
2. Arrange attendance to inspect the boiler again.
3. Provide a response by 24 October 2022.
The landlord wrote to the resident on 17 October 2022 saying it had tried to call her to discuss the complaint. It had been unable to reach her but wanted to check if she had received its correspondence. It advised if it did not hear from her by 24 October 2022, it would close the complaint. However, both parties spoke on 24 October 2022. During the call, the resident told the landlord that an engineer was visiting the next day. She understood the system was going to be power flushed. She doubted this would work as the engineer who completed the annual gas safe check said it required a new system.
In a letter dated 25 October 2022 the landlord told the resident it needed more time to respond to her complaint. It said that gathering the information to provide a response had taken longer than expected. It had also struggled to contact the resident but now this had happened it could continue with the investigation.
An engineer visited the property on 25 October 2022. During the inspection he noticed the heat pump was off, when he switched it on the heating worked. The resident emailed the landlord the same day, she said:
1. The engineer had fixed the heating but she was very annoyed. The problem was an air bubble and the heat pump not being switched on.
2. It was very frustrating to have been without heat for so long and to have to spend so much money on electric only to find the problem was easily fixed by the engineer.
3. The issue had caused her a lot of stress and inconvenience. She had no words to express the frustration she was feeling.
On 8 November 2022, the landlord wrote to the resident notifying her of a further delay. It again said it was taking longer than expected to gather the information. It then provided the stage 1 response on 18 November 2022. It upheld the complaint stating the following:
1. It was clear it should have completed the repairs much sooner and apologised for letting the resident down.
2. It awarded £450 compensation to make up for the experience the resident had and to cover the cost of the electric heaters.
3. To put things right it had completed a power flush on the system and investigated why previous repairs had failed.
4. In line with its complaints policy, it could only fully investigate service failures that may have occurred up to six months prior to the receipt of her complaint. However, it acknowledged the resident had been contacting it about the heating prior to that period.
5. It had looked at the history of the repairs and could see various heating engineers had visited. The problem with the heating system was diagnosed as a blocked heat exchanger. The last engineer to visit found that this was not correct.
The resident emailed the landlord on 30 November 2022 refusing its offer of compensation. She also said:
1. Being disabled and having to live in a freezing house was not fair. The landlord had failed her and her family.
2. The compensation did not take into account the extra costs in electric she had to pay or the cost of the heaters.
3. She had made numerous complaints and this was the first one that had been dealt with. She wanted her complaint escalated to the next stage.
The landlord emailed the resident on 1 December 2022 asking her what she was seeking as a resolution to her complaint. In her response the same day she said:
1. She was disabled, her children were young carers and they had to live in a freezing house for 2 years. Not having heating had made her health worse.
2. She had to spend money making 2 rooms warm. The landlord’s offer of £450 compensation would not be considered sufficient by anyone. The amount did not even cover 1 month’s rent.
3. She had asked the landlord for heaters on 2 occasions and had received no response.
4. She believed she had a strong case for compensation and was seeking the following:
  1. £550 for the additional electric costs.
  2. A 30% rent reduction for the whole time the heating was not working and a full rent rebate for the winter months.
  3. £120 to cover the cost of the heaters.
  4. £3,000 for the additional pain associated with her disability and the time and inconvenience wasted waiting for engineers.
The landlord emailed the resident on 6 December 2022 confirming it had escalated her complaint to stage 2. It said a senior manager would review the complaint and respond by 21 December 2022.
The resident emailed the landlord 4 times between 4 January 2023 and 14 March 2023, wanting to know what progress was being made. Each time she received a response saying the complaint had been passed to a manager.
On 29 March 2023 the landlord spoke to the resident about the complaint. She then sent it copies of electric bills and calculations showing her electric costs over the period. The landlord responded in an email to confirm the conversation and committed to sending a final response by 26 April 2023.
It sent its stage 2 response to the resident on 14 April 2023:
1. It apologised for the further difficulties she had faced with the case and appreciated how upsetting it had been for her.
2. It had checked with its contractors who confirmed that it had now completed all works to the heating.
3. It had based its decision on its conversations with the resident and others involved in the case as well as its policies and procedures.
4. Having reviewed the resident’s experience, it agreed that it did not repair the heating when it should have. It also failed to communicate any reassurance on how it was going to rectify the leak in her property.
5. It acknowledged the resident was unhappy with the time it took to repair the heating. It confirmed the delay in repair was due to the engineer misdiagnosing the fault. It had previously awarded £450 compensation for this.
6. It said the resident was offered heaters but she had declined them. It was standard practice to offer residents heaters when it could not complete a repair in time. It apologised if this did not happen.
7. While it was confident its original response to the complaint was appropriate. It recognised it had failed her further by not doing what it said it would do.
8. It increased its offer of compensation to £650, which it had calculated in line with its compensation policy.
The resident brought her complaint to this Service on 17 April 2023.

Assessment and findings

Scope of the investigation

The resident has said that she was without heating in 2020. This service has tried to obtain evidence from the landlord and resident to understand what happened during this period, however no evidence has been obtained. In view of the time periods involved in this case, considering the availability of evidence, this investigation has not considered any specific events prior to October 2021. However, the resident’s claim that she was without heating in 2020 has been taken into account.
Through her complaint the resident has raised the additional electric costs associated with the use of portable heaters. The Ombudsman understands that the landlord has agreed and reimbursed her for these additional costs. The reimbursement was separate to the offer of compensation in the complaint response and will not form part of the assessment in this report.

The landlord’s handling of repairs to the boiler

Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 places a legal obligation on the landlord to keep heating installations in repair and proper working order. The landlord has a responsibility under the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS), introduced by The Housing Act 2004, to assess hazards and risks within its rented properties. A property without a functioning heating system would present an excess cold, category 1 hazard, which poses a risk of harm to the occupiers. The principle underlying the HHSRS is that any residential premises should provide a safe healthy environment for any potential occupier or visitor. To satisfy this principle, a dwelling should be free from both unnecessary and avoidable hazards.
The resident’s tenancy agreement says the landlord will make sure it keeps all fixtures and fittings for space heating in good repair and working order, which includes central heating installations. In its responsive repairs procedure, it classes loss of heating as an emergency repair. It states: “Upon receipt of the works order, the contractor must attend the property within 4 hours and complete a ‘make safe’ repair within 24 hours to make the property safe.” While the procedure does not confirm what ‘make safe’ means in terms of heating, it is reasonable to assume the landlord would provide temporary heaters as a short-term measure, especially given the vulnerabilities of the household. When emergency repairs take place, any subsequent follow-on work will be raised as an ‘anytime repair’. The landlord’s repair timescale for anytime repairs is 20 working days.
The landlord raised a work order the same day the resident reported that her heating was not working. However, it was a further 8 days before an engineer visited the property. It was appropriate for it to raise the work order the same day, but the timeframe of 8 days for it to attend was excessive. The landlord has not provided any notes from that inspection but the resident reports the engineer told her he was not sure the heating would work. The landlord refers to that inspection in an internal email on 7 November 2022, where it states: “We attended on 20/10/21 for a reported no heating or hot water. The engineer diagnosed a blocked heat exchanger and as a result recommended a replacement boiler. At the time we were told that the property was due for disposal within the next 6 months, so we were told not to raise any capital expenditure”. This is an unacceptable position to take, section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 requires landlords to keep heating in good repair and proper working order.
The landlord was meant to return on 11 November 2021, however it cancelled the appointment. The resident reported the absence of heating again on 7 December 2021. An engineer was meant to visit on 9 December 2021, it is not clear if the inspection happened as the landlord has not provided any notes or inspection records. On 6 January 2022 she contacted the landlord again to report the heating not working. In both these reports she told the landlord she was disabled and had 2 young children. After this latest notification and despite the knowledge it had about the vulnerable individuals present, there is no evidence to show it took any action to inspect or repair the boiler. After the boiler was inspected and deemed not fit on 23 June 2022 it took another 4 months before the heating was repaired. The landlord’s failure to update the resident or put measures in place to ensure it was providing accommodation free from hazards was unsatisfactory.
The landlord has based its failings with the heating on the engineer incorrectly diagnosing the fault. The Ombudsman disputes this reasoning. In the initial visit on 20 October 2021 the engineer recommended a new boiler. The visit on 23 June 2022 recommended the same. The landlord did not take any action to follow up on the engineer’s recommendations from either visit. This was despite the engineer from 23 June 2022 advising he had capped the gas pipe because he could not test the boiler. This service would have expected the landlord to act on the recommendations of the engineers and install a new boiler. If it doubted the engineers’ recommendations it would have been reasonable for it to get a second opinion. It only discovered the fault at the last visit on 25 October 2022. Had it conducted a thorough investigation and applied its responsive repairs policy, the fault may have been discovered much earlier and possibly within an appropriate timeframe.
The landlord failed to comply with its legal obligations. It allowed an avoidable and unnecessary excess cold hazard to persist in the property over a period of 379 days. In doing so, it exposed the resident and her family to an increased likelihood of harm. It failed to comply with the requirements of its own repairs policy. Its first visit was substantially beyond the emergency 4-hour response and 24-hour timeframe for making the property safe. The resident disputed that she was ever offered heaters and made this known on numerous occasions. After her first complaint it would have been reasonable for the landlord to visit or at least call the resident. Had it done so it could have determined what additional heating resources may have been required. In its final complaint response, it conceded it could not prove the resident had been offered heaters.
The landlord knowingly left the resident without heat for over a year. The number of failings in how it handled the repairs to the boiler amounts to severe maladministration.

The level of compensation offered in response to the complaint

The landlord’s compensation procedure lists the following circumstances where compensation may be appropriate:
1. The landlord or its contractors have not taken the appropriate action or have taken appropriate action but have been delayed in doing so with an adverse effect on the complainant.
2. The complainant has sustained financial loss, loss of amenity or loss of room.
The landlord qualifies loss of amenity in relation to heating. It states, where other forms of heating are available the loss of the principal form of heating does not qualify as a loss of amenity. The Ombudsman believes this statement could have merit where temporary heaters are in use over a short period of time. However, where the period is significant as in this case, the Ombudsman’s opinion is that the loss of the principal form of heating is a loss of amenity.
When calculating compensation, the compensation procedure lists a number of tariffs relevant to this case. They are delay, distress/inconvenience and time and trouble. For time and trouble, the maximum payment is £50. There are three categories the landlord must consider when assessing the level of compensation for distress/inconvenience and delay. They are:
1. Low impact: The complainant has just cause but has not suffered significant inconvenience or distress as a result of the events. Payments up to £100.
2. Medium impact: The events are clearly an injustice to the complainant and the service has failed to meet the required standards. This includes a repeated failure by Hyde to address the shortcoming, of a low impact event. Payments up to £250.
3. Major impact: This is when a serious failure in service standards occurs. It could either be the severity of the event, persistent failure over a protracted time period, or an unacceptable number of attempts to resolve and address the complaint. Payments up to £500.
In the stage 1 complaint the landlord offered £450 compensation, setting out its breakdown as:
1. £50 for the delay in acknowledging the resident’s complaint.
2. £100 for the poor communication and the resident’s time and trouble.
3. £150 for the delays completing the repairs.
4. £150 for the distress and inconvenience caused.
In the stage 2 complaint it increased the amount to £650. It listed the breakdown as follows:
1. £200 for the resident’s patience throughout the complaints process.
2. £250 for the delays completing the repairs.
3. £200 for the distress and inconvenience caused.
Although the landlord had stated it had compensated the resident for the temporary heaters it was not reflected in the compensation breakdown in either of the complaint responses. The amounts offered in the stage 1 response are illustrative of the landlord categorising its failures as having a low to medium impact. The amounts then changed to reflect a medium impact at stage 2.
The Ombudsman’s opinion is that the landlord did not adequately assess the impacts on the resident in line with its procedure. The delay in repairing the boiler was over a protracted and unreasonable period of time. The resident repeatedly told the landlord her house was “freezing”. This had a major impact on the resident. When considering distress and inconvenience the landlord did not sufficiently consider the resident’s frustration, the impact of the time taken to resolve the issue or the vulnerability of the resident and her family. The Ombudsman considers the impact on the resident was major rather than medium.
In failing to adequately assess the compensation the landlord has failed to put things right. The level of compensation offered by the landlord amounts to maladministration. The Ombudsman has assessed the level of compensation due using this service’s remedies guidance.
Compensation for the failures in the handling of the repairs to the boiler:
1. There was a single significant failure in service, which had a serious detrimental impact on the resident. The landlord’s response to the failures exacerbated the situation and further undermined the landlord/resident relationship.
2. The landlord is to pay the resident £3,371. This is comprised of £2,251, which is calculated as 30% of the rent paid between October 21 when the heating was reported and October 2022, when the heating was fixed. And £120 for the heaters purchased by the resident. It also includes £1000 for the distress, inconvenience, time and trouble experienced by the resident. This sum takes into account the vulnerabilities of the resident and her household, which are aggravating factors in the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance, the landlord had been made aware of these vulnerabilities from the outset.
The compensation for complaint handling is outlined in the section below.

The landlord’s complaint handling

In reaching a decision about the resident’s complaint this Service considers whether the landlord followed proper procedure, good practice, and acted in a reasonable way. Our duty is to determine complaints by what is, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, fair in all circumstances of the case.
In responding to a request for evidence for this case the landlord submitted a complaints and compensation policy statement and a complaints procedure. Both these documents outline how it will respond to complaints. The documents differ slightly in the wording around the time limits for a stage 1 response and the time limit for initial contact. The landlord’s complaints procedure states that it will contact complainants to discuss their complaint within 2 working days and respond to the complaint within 20 working days at stage 1 and 2. The stage 1 timeframe includes a possible 10-day extension. The complaints and compensation policy advises complainants will receive formal acknowledgement within 5 working days. It aims to provide a stage 1 response 10 working days following formal acknowledgement. Both documents commit to a 20 working day response time for stage 2 complaints. Despite the landlord benchmarking itself against the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code), its response timescales for stage 1 complaints are not in compliance.
The resident lodged her first complaint on 7 December 2021. When she did not receive a response, she complained again on 6 January 2022. Both complaints received complaint acknowledgement emails within 24 hours, which was in accordance with the landlord’s stated timescales. However, the landlord failed to progress either of the complaints beyond the acknowledgement stage, which was unacceptable and denied the resident the ability to escalate her complaint.
The resident made a further complaint on 30 September 2022 and received an email acknowledgement 7 working days later. The landlord wrote to the resident twice to notify her of a delay. Both delay letters said it was taking longer than expected to gather the information to provide a reply. There is evidence of the complaints officer sending 3 internal emails repeatedly asking what reasons she should be giving the resident for the heating not working. It is also clear that the landlord’s records were not sufficient as it had to reach out to its contractor to provide visit dates, which the contractor supplied on 8 November 2022. While it was right to notify the resident of the delay, the reasons for the delays were down to the landlord’s poor record keeping, which was unacceptable. The stage 1 response was provided on 18 November 2022, 36 working days after the complaint was made.
The resident escalated her complaint on 30 November 2022. Over the next 4 months she emailed the landlord on 4 occasions chasing the stage 2 response. She did not receive any communication to say the response was delayed or to request more time to respond, which was unacceptable and further undermined the landlord and resident relationship. In an email sent by the resident on 14 March 2023, she said she was ‘appalled’ by the landlord’s handling of her case and found its lack of contact ‘disgusting’.”
The landlord spoke to the resident and issued a second stage 2 acknowledgement email on 29 March 2023. On 14 April 2023, it sent the stage 2 response to the resident, 93 working days after she had escalated her complaint.
When considering complaints the Ombudsman applies this service’s Dispute Resolution Principles: be fair, put things right, and learn from outcomes.
The landlord’s stage 1 response failed to put things right for the resident. It said it could not look back beyond the period of 6 months from the complaint, which would have been the period before March 2022. It is the opinion of this Service that landlords should not apply this rule to matters that are continuing as in this case. The resident first reported her heating not working in October 2021. She continued to make complaints up until the landlord began to engage with her in September 2022. It was therefore wrong to discount any periods between October 2021 when she reported the heating not working and the point when it fixed the heating on 25 October 2022. In its complaint response it did not refer to the complaints it had failed to respond to in December 2021 or January 2022, even though the resident had repeatedly raised them in her communications.
The Code also requires landlords to address all complaint points raised by a resident, as does the landlord’s complaints procedure. The landlord did not do this. It did not conduct a thorough investigation of the complaint. It did not give the resident any reasons why it had failed to comply with its repairs policy or why it had taken over 12 months to identify the fault. It did not acknowledge the vulnerabilities in the household or apologise for the additional impact this would have had. In an attempt to put things right the landlord offered £450 compensation. This included £120 compensation for the heaters purchased by the resident, which meant the breakdown of the compensation was incorrect.
The stage 2 response again failed to put things right. It did not recognise any of the points that the landlord had missed in its stage 1 response. The landlord failed to meet the requirements of its policy. It did not keep the resident up to date on the complaint and significantly exceeded the time limit for providing a stage 2 response. At the landlord’s request the resident took the time to outline what she was seeking as an outcome to the complaint. However, the landlord’s response did not deal with her requests or provide reasons why it could not meet them. In its attempt to put things right it increased its offer of compensation from £450 to £650. Overall, there was severe maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the complaint.
The landlord’s failures in complaint handling had a significant impact on the resident. It caused her distress, inconvenience, time and trouble for which the landlord must pay the resident £1000.

Determination

In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme there was severe maladministration in the landlord’s:
1. handling of the repairs to the boiler.
2. complaint handling.
In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme there was maladministration in the level of compensation the landlord awarded in response to the complaint.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

Within 4 weeks from the date of this report, the landlord is ordered to:
1. Provide a written apology to the resident from the Chief Executive for the failures detailed in this report.
2. Pay directly to the resident compensation of £4,571. This amount is comprised up of:
  1. £1000 the distress, inconvenience, time and trouble caused by the delays in the landlord’s handling of repairs to the boiler.
  2. £2,251 for the period between October 2021 and October 2022 the resident was without heat.
  3. £120 for the heaters purchased by the resident.
  4. £200 for the distress and inconvenience caused by the level of compensation awarded in response to the complaint.
  5. £1000 for the distress, inconvenience, time and trouble caused by the failures in the landlord’s complaint handling.
Provide evidence of compliance with these orders to the Ombudsman.