Lambeth Council (202342293)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202342293

Lambeth Council

28 November 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 the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of a leak.
The Ombudsman has also considered the landlord’s complaint handling and record keeping.

Background

The resident is a secure tenant who has lived at the property since 2008. The property is a 3 bedroom terraced house.
The resident’s son acted as her representative in most of the dealings with the landlord and Ombudsman outlined in this report. We have referred throughout this report to both individuals as ‘the resident’ given he was acting on her behalf.
Between 2016 and 2019 the landlord carried out a number of repairs to the roof of the property. This was due to it leaking during periods of heavy rainfall. The resident complained to the landlord in 2021 that the roof was continuing to leak. It issued a stage 1 complaint response on 22 September 2021. It said it would inspect the property as a matter of priority. It committed to “monitor the works until they are fully resolved.”
The resident submitted a further formal complaint on 16 November 2023. She said that:
1. the landlord inspected the roof following its response to the 2021 complaint.
2. following the inspection, it told her that it would raise a works order for the repairs required. However, she heard nothing further about this and the landlord did not carry out the repair.
3. the roof continued to leak when there was heavy rain. The most recent incident was in September 2023.
4. when the roof leaked, water came through the living room ceiling. This caused the ceiling to sag. She was concerned it did not look stable.
5. the electrical fuse board previously tripped due to water getting into plug sockets.
6. there was “obviously something wrong with the roof itself” but the landlord had not taken any action to address this despite her “many calls” over the years. This included calls from her 3 adult children who had each contacted the landlord on her behalf in recent months about the leak.
7. the landlord previously carried out a “poor repair” to a hole in a bedroom window. Following the repair, the hole reappeared at the next spell of rain and was still there 2 years later.
The landlord issued its stage 1 complaint response on 14 December 2023. It said there were no outstanding repair jobs for the property recorded on its system. It checked its records and said they indicated the last repair reported by the resident was in relation to a blown out window in the attic. It completed that repair in August 2023. It advised the resident to contact its call centre if she was not satisfied with any repairs it had carried out previously or if there were any outstanding repairs in the property.
The resident asked to escalate her complaint on 15 December 2023. She said the landlord was incorrect to state there were no outstanding repairs at the property. She explained that the leak in the roof had caused damage elsewhere in the property. This included damage to the living room ceiling and a door into an attic space, as well as mould and pests in the attic. She said she and her children had reported these issues to the landlord “dozens of times” but it had not responded.
The landlord issued its stage 2 complaint response on 24 January 2024. It said it had liaised with its repairs team and contractors and would arrange an inspection of the outstanding repairs.
The resident was unhappy with the landlord’s response. She referred her complaint to the Ombudsman on 12 March 2024. She told us that the landlord inspected the property shortly after it issued the stage 2 response. She said it found the roof and living room ceiling required replacement but that it did not inspect the issues in the attic. It had not provided her with any updates since then. She wanted it to complete all the outstanding repairs.

Assessment and findings

Response to the resident’s reports of a leak

The Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 requires the landlord to keep the structure and exterior of the property, and the installations within it, in repair. The structure includes the roof, ceilings, windows and doors. The installations include electrics.
The 1985 Act also requires the landlord to ensure the property is fit for human habitation throughout the tenancy. This means it must make sure the property is free of hazards which are so serious that the dwelling is not reasonably suitable for occupation in that condition.
The Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS) provides landlords with a tool to identify and protect against potential risks and hazards found in residential properties. A leak in a roof may give rise to a number of hazards in the HHSRS. This includes an increase in the risk of excess cold, damp and mould growth, access by rodents, and personal injury.
The landlord’s repairs policy seeks to ensure that its residents “live in a warm and dry home that is well maintained.” The policy prioritises response times according to the urgency of the repair. It provides that it will attend to emergency repairs within 2 hours and aim to fix them within 24 hours. It outlines that it will aim to fix routine repairs within 3 to 28 days depending on what the repair entails and whether the government’s right to repair scheme is applicable. The right to repair scheme requires the landlord to repair leaks in roofs within 7 days.
The repair issues raised by the resident when making her complaint included:
1. a recurring leak in the roof.
2. a sagging and cracked living room ceiling.
3. water in electrical sockets.
4. a hole in a bedroom window.
When escalating her complaint, the resident referred to the following additional repair issues which had arisen due to the leak:
1. a missing door from an attic space.
2. pests in the attic.
3. mould in the attic.
The landlord was responsible for attending to all of these repairs promptly and efficiently in line with the statutory, regulatory and policy framework outlined above. It failed to do so.
Within the resident’s complaint email of 16 November 2023, she said the roof leaked during a storm in September 2023. She complained that she reported this to the landlord but it did not respond. The landlord said in its stage 1 complaint response that the last repair she reported was in relation to attic windows in August 2023. However, the landlord’s repairs history report indicates otherwise.
According to the repairs history report, the landlord raised a works order on 13 September 2023 for the tiles on the roof to be investigated. It recorded on the works order that the resident had been in contact to report the roof was leaking. However, despite raising a works order, the landlord did not subsequently inspect the roof tiles. This supports the resident’s account that she reported the leak but the landlord did not respond. That the landlord overlooked this in its stage 1 response meant it missed an opportunity to put things right. This is considered in more detail in the complaint handling section below.
It cannot be disputed that by 16 November 2023 the landlord was fully aware of the recurring leak and some of the associated damage. This was the date the resident submitted her formal complaint.
Given the landlord’s repair obligations, it would have been reasonable for it to respond to the repair reports alongside its complaint investigation. The right to repair scheme required it to repair the leaking roof within 7 days. It would also have been appropriate for it to carry out a prompt inspection of the living room ceiling and electrical sockets as they potentially posed health and safety hazards. The hole in the bedroom window posed less of an immediate risk, but the landlord was still required by its repairs policy to repair it within 28 days.
The landlord however only treated the repair reports as a complaint. It advised the resident in its stage 1 response that she could report any outstanding repairs by ringing its call centre. This was unreasonable as the resident had already told it what the outstanding repairs were. The onus should have been on the landlord to inspect the property and carry out works in line with its repair obligations. However, it failed to recognise this and instead unreasonably placed the onus to report back on the resident.
When considering what action, if any, it would take in response to the resident’s complaint, it would have been reasonable for the landlord to consider her circumstances and any vulnerabilities. In her complaint correspondence she explained she was widowed in 2022 and was “struggling with the loss”. She said she was “now on her own and still dealing with [the leak].” She explained that she was 70 years old and the situation was “not helping her stress or health.” She said she lived in “constant fear” every time it rained.
The landlord did not acknowledge any of these comments in its stage 1 response. It did not recognise that even if it had no records of earlier reports, a vulnerable resident had complained, outlined what the repair issues were, and explained the impact they were having on her. Instead of acting on this information and arranging an inspection of the property, it simply suggested to the resident that she should contact its call centre. This was an unreasonable and unsympathetic response.
When the resident asked to escalate her complaint on 15 December 2023, she said it was “not sufficient” to ask her to ring the call centre. She said, “it ends in the same endless loop of calling, contractors come out, jobs get shown as completed or not shown at all, further calls made. This has to end and we now need to take further action to resolve this situation.”
The landlord issued its stage 2 response on 24 January 2024. The response was limited and did not address all aspects of the complaint. We have considered this in more detail in the complaint handling assessment below. The only substantive information included in the response, was that the landlord had agreed to arrange an inspection of the outstanding repairs. It said its surveyor would get in touch with the resident to arrange a suitable appointment time.
The Ombudsman’s guidance on our Complaint Handling Code (the Code) recognises that landlords will not always have completed all outstanding actions by the time a complaint response is issued. This is particularly the case where the complaint involves repair issues that can take time to resolve. Where this is the case, our guidance suggests that the complaint response should provide an action plan explaining how the landlord will resolve the issues. The landlord should monitor the action plan and keep the resident updated on the progress of any outstanding actions until they are complete. The landlord failed to do that in this case.
The landlord’s records indicate that further to the stage 2 response, it inspected the property on 26 January 2024. It has not provided the Ombudsman with a report of that inspection. The resident however advised us that the officer who carried out the inspection told her the roof and living room ceiling required replacement. The resident said that the officer also told her he was unable to inspect the issues of damp, pests and the broken door in the attic as it was beyond his remit. She said she asked the landlord in February 2024 when the roof would be repaired but it advised her that no works orders were raised following the inspection.
The landlord’s repairs history report shows that the resident sought a further update in July 2024. The report states that the landlord emailed its contractor to follow this up. The resident however received no further updates in the months that followed. The landlord did not carry out any repairs to the roof or elsewhere in the property.
On 14 October 2024, when gathering evidence to submit to the Ombudsman, the landlord noted in an internal email that it had, “attempted to repair this roof at least 6 times in the past 3 years and repairs have not been successful.” It said it had contacted the resident that day. She confirmed the roof had leaked again during recent heavy rainfall. It therefore raised a works order for a “full roof renewal” as it stated that “all repair attempts have failed.”
Based on the evidence provided to the Ombudsman, the most significant issue in this case was not that all repair attempts had failed. Instead, it was that the landlord made no repair attempts following the resident’s report in September 2023 of the leak. The only action the landlord appears to have taken during the 13 months that followed was to carry out one inspection in January 2024. However, it made no repairs to the roof following this. It did not keep the resident updated. It did not address the other repair issues reported by the resident. We note that the works order raised in October 2024 relates to the roof only.
Overall, the Ombudsman finds that there was severe maladministration by the landlord in its response to the resident’s reports of a leak. It committed in September 2021 to oversee that works were carried out to fully resolve the leak. It failed to do so. When the resident reported the roof was continuing to leak in September 2023, it did not respond to her. It did not recognise this in its stage 1 complaint response. It asked the resident to report any outstanding repairs to its call centre which was unreasonable as it was already aware what they were. It should have responded promptly to all of these outstanding repairs in line with its obligations under statutory and regulatory frameworks, its policies, and the tenancy agreement. It did not and still has not done so. It has failed to take account of the resident’s vulnerabilities. It has not lived up to the commitment set out in its repairs policy of providing the resident with a “a warm and dry home that is well maintained.”
In line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance, we order the landlord to pay the resident compensation of £1,000 for the likely distress and inconvenience caused by its severe maladministration.
We also order the landlord to carry out a full repairs survey of the property. It should write to the resident once it has completed the repairs survey to advise her of the findings, any remedial action taken and next steps.

Complaint handling

The Code requires landlords to carry out a thorough complaint investigation at both stages and to fully respond to all aspects of a complaint. The landlord failed to do this in both its stage 1 and stage 2 complaint responses.
As part of its stage 1 investigation, the landlord reviewed its repair records. The records reflected that the resident reported the leak in September 2023. However, the landlord overlooked this and inaccurately told the resident in its stage 1 response that it had not received any recent reports from her about the leak.
The landlord’s repair records were limited and contained conflicting dates. We have considered this in more detail in the record keeping section below. There is no evidence the landlord probed or queried these record keeping issues during its stage 1 investigation. Similarly, it did not do so during its stage 2 investigation despite the resident raising concerns about record keeping in her escalation request.
The resident said in her complaint correspondence that she did not want any “patchwork” repairs. She outlined that she wanted the landlord to replace the roof and living room ceiling. The landlord did not respond to this request in its stage 1 response. It had not inspected the property as part of its complaint investigation. This meant that it made no progress during its complaint investigation or in its response towards resolving the repairs. It simply advised the resident to ring its call centre if any repairs remained outstanding. As outlined above, this was an unreasonable suggestion given the landlord already knew there were outstanding repairs. It was also an unsympathetic complaint response that overlooked the resident’s comments about how the ongoing issues had impacted her.
In its stage 2 response, the landlord referred to its previous repairs to the roof, ceiling and a bedroom window. It summarised the complaint as being that despite these repairs, the leak was still occurring during heavy rain. This was a narrow definition of a much broader complaint. The landlord did not include any reference to the resident’s dissatisfaction with the service she had received. She complained that she had made “dozens” of reports to the landlord about the leak but it did not respond. She said in her escalation request that the landlord was recording repairs as complete when it had not attended to them. The landlord failed to capture this in its complaint summary.
Having summarised the complaint, the stage 2 response moved on to set out the landlord’s “investigation and findings”. However, all the landlord said in relation to this, was that it had liaised with its repairs team and contractors and would arrange an inspection of the outstanding repairs. It did not acknowledge or apologise for the delay in resolving the repairs or arranging the inspection. It did not address any other aspect of the resident’s complaint. The response read as though it were an appointment confirmation letter, rather than a complaint response.
Overall, the Ombudsman finds that there was maladministration by the landlord in its complaint handling. At both stages it failed to thoroughly investigate the resident’s complaint and it did not address all of the issues raised in its responses. It missed the opportunity through its complaint handling to acknowledge its failings, put things right and learn from outcomes.
Given this, and in line with our remedies guidance, we order the landlord to pay the resident £200 compensation for the likely distress and inconvenience caused by the maladministration.

Record keeping

The resident expressed her frustration about the landlord’s record keeping when escalating her complaint. She complained that:
1. the landlord’s system showed it completed repairs even though it had not.
2. she had made “dozens of calls” to the landlord but it did not keep a record of these on its system.
The landlord failed to address this aspect of the resident’s complaint in its stage 2 response. However, as will be explained below, the Ombudsman finds that the evidence supports the resident’s statements.
As part of its evidence submission to the Ombudsman, the landlord included a repairs history report for the property. The report shows the date it raised and completed works orders. It also records appointment details and notes against each works order. When reviewing these records, we noted they lacked detail and contained some discrepancies, particularly in relation to dates.
For example, the landlord raised a works order on 1 August 2024 for a “report for required works” to the roof. This followed the resident contacting it on 25 July 2024 and asking for an update. However, the works order is recorded as having been completed 6 months previously on 25 January 2024. The appointment section of the record shows that the landlord inspected the property on 26 January 2024.
It is unclear whether the works order of 1 August 2024 was intended to be a retrospective order for the 26 January 2024 inspection. If it was, this was poor administration as the works order should have been raised in January 2024 prior to the inspection being carried out. The works order should have been updated immediately after the inspection to reflect any follow up work required. That the landlord did not do this would explain why it was unable to advise the resident, when she contacted it in February 2024, whether any further repairs would be carried out to the roof.
Nowhere within the repairs history report is the outcome of the January 2024 inspection recorded. The only note that provides any information is on the 1 August 2024 works order. It states, “if the problem persists, we will need to break out tiles and assess further.” This suggests the landlord should reasonably have carried out a follow up visit before it marked the 1 August 2024 works order as complete. Alternatively, it should have raised a separate works order for a follow up visit. It was unreasonable that it did not do so.
Another example of a discrepancy arose when the landlord raised a works order on 13 September 2023. The works order was for the roof tiles to be investigated. It raised the order after it received a call from the resident to report the roof was leaking again. However, it recorded that it completed the job on 4 August 2023. This pre-dated the resident’s report of the leak by 6 weeks.
The landlord made no note against the 13 September 2023 works order to explain why it considered the work was complete by the date it was raised. There is no evidence that it carried out any inspection of the roof in August 2023. It is therefore unclear why it created a record that suggested that it had.
In addition to a repairs history report, the landlord also provided us with a tenant contact history report. This report only included details of contact made by the resident up to September 2020. Had the landlord kept this report up to date, it may have assisted it with carrying out a more thorough complaint investigation. Instead the landlord inaccurately said in its stage 1 response that the resident had not been in contact with it in September 2023 to report the roof was leaking. Its repairs records show she did report the leak in September 2023. Had the contact history report been up to date, the landlord may have avoided making this oversight in the complaint response.
Overall, the Ombudsman finds that there was maladministration by the landlord in its record keeping.
The Ombudsman has previously reviewed the landlord’s record keeping as part of a special report published in February 2022. We found that: “Incomplete records meant that the landlord could not evidence it had appropriately diagnosed or completed repairs it was responsible for, so could not satisfy itself or the Ombudsman that it had fulfilled its obligations or acted reasonably. It also meant that it was unable to track or monitor repairs in real time or follow up on outstanding repairs, which exacerbated delays. This also meant that it could not provide accurate information to residents when they made enquiries. We also found that poor record keeping hampered the landlord’s ability to respond in a meaningful way to complaints.”
Those findings in our special report are equally as applicable to the findings in this complaint investigation. This is disappointing as the events giving rise to the resident’s complaint occurred over a year after we published the special report.
The Ombudsman continues to keep the landlord’s record keeping under review through our casework. In September 2023 we ordered it to carry out a self-assessment against the recommendations made in our spotlight report on ‘Knowledge and Information Management’ (KIM) (case reference 202204121). In response to that, the landlord carried out a gap analysis and drafted a strategy and action plan. It consulted with residents on the draft plan. In its latest update to us in September 2024, it advised us the plan was with its senior management team for sign off.
Given this, the Ombudsman makes no orders relating to record keeping in this investigation report. However, we would encourage the landlord to keep its records strategy and action plan under regular review. It should continue to seek resident feedback and learn from its complaints, particularly where record keeping failings have been identified.

Determination

In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was severe maladministration by the landlord in its response to the resident’s reports of a leak.
In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in its complaint handling.
In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in its record keeping.

Orders

Within 4 weeks of the date of this report, the landlord should:
1. Apologise to the resident for the failures identified in this report. The apology should follow the best practice set out in the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance. A senior member of the landlord’s staff should make the apology.
2. Pay the resident £1,200 compensation broken down as follows:
  1. £1,000 for the distress and inconvenience caused by the severe maladministration in its response to the resident’s reports of a leak.
  2. £200 for the distress and inconvenience caused by the maladministration in its complaint handling.
Within 6 weeks of the date of this report, the landlord should carry out a full repairs survey of the property. It should ensure the survey is carried out by persons suitably qualified to assess all of the following:
1. The work required to the roof to fully repair the leak.
2. The work required to fully resolve other repairs in the property. This should include, but is not limited to, an inspection of the following:
  1. living room ceiling
  2. electrics
  3. windows
  4. attic door
  5. damp and mould
  6. pests
  7. flooring
Once it has completed the repairs survey, and within 8 weeks of the date of this report, the landlord should write to the resident. It should:
1. summarise the survey findings.
2. explain what remedial action it has taken.
3. provide timescales within which it will complete any remaining repairs.
4. explain which of the repairs are qualifying repairs under the right to repair scheme.
5. advise the resident of her rights under the right to repair scheme.
In accordance with paragraph 54.g of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord must carry out a senior manager case review in relation to the failures identified by the Ombudsman. The review must be carried out within 12 weeks of the date of this report. The landlord should share the findings of its review with its senior leadership team and the Ombudsman.