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London Borough of Harrow (202305653)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202305653

London Borough of Harrow

20 December 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

  1. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of:
    1. The resident’s reports that her boiler was faulty, including a period when it would not switch off.
    2. The resident’s rehousing application.
    3. The associated complaints.

Background

  1. The resident is a secure tenant of a local authority landlord and her tenancy began on 31 October 2005. The landlord has advised this Service that it has no vulnerabilities recorded for the resident or her household.
  2. The property is a semi-detached house. The resident has stated that it is a 4-bedroom house, however, the tenancy agreement states that it is a 3-bedroom parlour house.
  3. The landlord’s records showed that the resident reported problems with her boiler on 4 August 2022 following the installation of a new shower pump. The landlord therefore raised an order on the same day stating that the heating would not turn off. An engineer attended on the same day and identified that follow-on works were required. The matter was therefore passed to the gas contractor’s contract manager.
  4. The resident advised the landlord on various occasions after this date that she could not control the boiler with the timer or the thermostat and therefore the heating remained on throughout the day and night. She also reported that on some occasions the boiler was not working and therefore she had no heating or hot water.
  5. The landlord arranged for gas and electrical contractors to attend at various times in relation to the boiler and its wiring. For example, a job was raised on 9 November 2022 to repair the boiler and an engineer attended on 17 November 2022 to fit a new valve to the boiler. The job notes stated that the boiler was left working.
  6. On 17 December 2022 the boiler manufacturer attended and resolved the issue as the boiler was still under warranty.
  7. Between January and April 2023, the landlord exchanged emails with the resident regarding her request for compensation in relation to the boiler issues. On 11 January 2023, the landlord offered the resident compensation of £268 and explained that £100 of this sum was to recognise the inconvenience experienced by the resident. However, the resident replied on 16 January 2023 and stated that she did not consider the landlord’s offer to be adequate.
  8. The resident submitted a stage one complaint on 21 April 2023 in which she advised that she was dissatisfied with the landlord’s handling of her claim for compensation and with its handling of her rehousing application.
  9. The landlord replied to the complaint on 2 May 2023 and confirmed it was offering compensation of £276. It advised that its contractor needed to calculate additional compensation for the period from August 2022 to the end of September 2022. The landlord also sent a separate stage one reply on 10 May 2023 regarding the resident’s rehousing application.
  10. The resident contacted this Service on 16 May 2023 and stated that she was unhappy with the landlord’s offer of compensation. She also stated that she was dissatisfied with the landlord’s handling of her rehousing application. The resident phoned the landlord on 18 May 2023 to request the landlord to escalate her complaint to stage 2.
  11. The landlord sent its stage 2 reply on 19 June 2023 and said it understood that compensation had been agreed in relation to delays by its gas contractor. The reply also mentioned an unrelated issue regarding the resident removing an asbestos tank from the loft and placing it in the garden.
  12. The resident wrote to the landlord on 6 July 2023 and to this Service on 14 July 2023 and stated she was dissatisfied with the landlord’s reply because it did not provide any detail to show how it calculated the compensation it had offered. She also stated that she did not understand the landlord’s statement regarding the contractor’s accountability for the boiler issues and her request for compensation.
  13. The resident has advised this Service that although a meeting was held in October 2023 to discuss her compensation request, she did not receive any revised offers of compensation.

Assessment and findings

Jurisdiction

  1. What we can and cannot consider is called the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. This is governed by the Housing Ombudsman Scheme. When a complaint is brought to the Ombudsman, we must consider all the circumstances of the case as there are sometimes reasons why a complaint will not be investigated.
  2. After carefully considering all the evidence, in accordance with paragraph 42.j. of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the following aspect of the complaint is outside of the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction:
    1. The landlord’s handling of the resident’s rehousing application.
  3. Paragraph 42.j. of the Scheme states: “The Ombudsman may not consider complaints which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion… fall properly within the jurisdiction of another Ombudsman, regulator or complaint-handling body”
  4. It is outside the Ombudsman’s role to investigate complaints about local authorities when they are not acting in their capacity as social landlords. This includes applications for rehousing. Complaints about the assessment of such applications and the awarding of points or banding fall within the remit of the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO). It is advised that the resident contact the LGSCO if she wishes to take this aspect of the complaint further. 

Scope of investigation

  1. In its stage 2 reply dated 19 June 2023, the landlord referred to an asbestos water tank that the resident had removed from the loft and placed in the garden. This matter has not been investigated by the Ombudsman as it did not form part of the resident’s stage one or stage 2 complaint.

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports that her boiler was faulty, including a period when it would not switch off

  1. Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 places a statutory obligation on the landlord to keep the structure and exterior of the property in repair. It is also a requirement under Section 11 that the landlord must keep in repair and working order the installations for the supply of gas, water, electricity, sanitation, space heating, and heating water. These include water and gas pipes, electrical wiring and sockets, boilers and water tanks, radiators and other space heating installations.
  2. The resident reported problems with her boiler on 4 August 2022 following the installation of a new shower pump. The landlord therefore raised an order on the same day stating that the heating would not turn off. An engineer attended on the same day and identified that follow-on works were required. The matter was therefore passed to the gas contractor’s contract manager. The landlord therefore responded in a timely manner by raising an order on the 4 August 2022 and arranging for an engineer to attend on the same day. The engineer referred the matter to the gas contractor’s contracts manager for follow-on works.
  3. On 1 October 2022, the electrical contractor wrote to the landlord stating that a boiler engineer needed to attend as soon as possible as the resident did not have any heating or hot water. The electrical contractor stated that there was power going to the boiler but no heating or hot water was being produced. The resident contacted the landlord on 3 October 2022 and confirmed that she had been without heating and hot water for most of the previous weekend. An internal email dated 7 October 2022 from the landlord shows that the contractor had attended and restored the heating but said the resident was having to use the immersion heater for hot water.
  4. The resident then contacted the landlord on various occasions during the remainder of October 2022 to report that the boiler was coming on at random times and she had no control over when the heating was coming on or the temperature. For example, she contacted the landlord on 7 and 26 October 2022. She stated she was worried about the impact of this on her gas bill.
  5. An internal email dated 26 October 2022 from the landlord stated the electrical contractor and gas contractor had attended at various times. However, the resident had still reported an ongoing issue with the radiators getting hot even though the programmer was in the off position. The email stated that the landlord had requested the resident to provide a copy of the previous year’s energy bill as she had to use the immersion heater for a few months and the heating had not been controllable. It was reasonable for the landlord to request a copy of the resident’s energy bill for the previous year as this could be used as a comparison to show the additional energy use.
  6. As the resident had experienced problems with the boiler controls since 4 August 2022 and there had been problems using the hot water, it was unreasonable that 3 months after the reported faults, the landlord had still not rectified the problems by the end of October 2022. The resident had advised the landlord that she was concerned about the additional energy costs because she could not control the heating and the landlord was aware that she was having to use the immersion heater for hot water.
  7. The landlord’s records show that a job was raised on 9 November 2022 to repair the boiler and an engineer attended on 17 November 2022 to fit a new 3-port valve to the boiler. The job notes stated that the boiler was left working. The landlord’s contractor therefore attended within a reasonable timescale after the job was raised, particularly as a new part was needed for the boiler.
  8. The resident wrote to the landlord on 13 December 2022 and mentioned various repairs that were outstanding in her property, including the problem with the boiler, which she said was still unresolved. The landlord’s records confirm that the boiler issues were resolved on 17 December 2022 by the boiler manufacturer as it was still under warranty. It had therefore taken 4 and a half months to resolve the boiler problems after the resident reported them on 4 August 2022. This was an unreasonably long period given that the resident had experienced the following problems during the period:
    1. The heating was on for long periods during the day and night as the resident could not control when it would come on. This caused the resident to worry about the additional energy costs.
    2. The resident was without heating and hot water for intermittent periods.
    3. The resident had to use her immersion heater for hot water rather than the boiler.
  9. The landlord initially offered the resident £168 compensation to recognise the problems she had experienced. However, the landlord increased the offer to £268 on 11 January 2023 and then to £276 in its stage one reply dated 2 May 2023.
  10. The landlord’s stage one reply did not provide a breakdown of how the figure of £276 had been calculated. However, an internal email dated 11 January 2023 sent by the landlord showed that the sum had been calculated by assuming the boiler had been running for an extra 4 hours per day at a cost of £3 per hour for the period 23 November to 17 December 2022 (23 days). The calculation was therefore £3 x 4 hours x 23 days = £276.
  11. The landlord stated in the internal email that it had used 23 November 2022 as the start date for the calculation because this was when the job had been passed to its gas contractor. The landlord advised the resident in its stage one reply that its electrical contractor would be responsible for calculating any compensation due between Aug and the end of September 2022 as it had been dealing with the electrical issues during this period.
  12. As the landlord had accepted the resident had not been able to control the heating, it was appropriate that it had apologised for the problems she had experienced and offered her compensation to recognise the additional energy costs. However, the Ombudsman’s view is that it was unreasonable that the landlord had not explained in its stage one reply how it had calculated the figure of £276. This would have helped the resident to understand why the landlord had offered this amount, including why it had used £3 for the additional hourly cost and why it had compensated the resident for an additional 4 hours’ energy use per day.
  13. The resident rejected the landlord’s offers of compensation on 31 January 2023 as she did not consider it to be adequate. She also advised the landlord that she was uncomfortable about sharing her gas bill with the landlord as it contained other information. However, on 16 January 2023 she provided the landlord with a screen shot showing how much additional gas she had used for the period 21 October 2022 to 17 November 2022 compared to the same period in 2021. It showed that the resident used an extra 397 kWh more gas for this period in 2022 compared to 2021.
  14. The resident contacted the landlord on 18 May 2023 and asked for her complaint to be escalated to stage 2 because she said she had only received an offer of compensation for part of the period the boiler had been faulty. She said that she had not received any offer of compensation from the electrical contractor. It was inappropriate that the landlord had not yet given the resident a substantive response regarding compensation for the period when the reported faults to the boiler were being dealt with by the electrical contractor. An internal email dated 31 January 2023 made it clear that the landlord was waiting for the electrical contractor to advise about compensation for the period August to September 2022.
  15. The landlord sent its stage 2 reply on 19 June 2023 and said that it understood the compensation had been agreed due to delays by its gas contractor. As the resident had clearly expressed her dissatisfaction with the landlord’s offer of compensation, it was unreasonable for the landlord to have stated that compensation had been agreed. The Ombudsman would have expected the landlord to explain clearly how its compensation offer had been calculated and whether it considered the offer to be appropriate.
  16. The Ombudsman found the landlord’s reference in its stage 2 reply to the resident’s removal of the asbestos tank from her loft to be confusing. The landlord appears to have raised this as a reason not to provide compensation for the period when the electrical contractor was dealing with the reported faults to the boiler (August to September 2022). The landlord stated that the resident had removed the tank without permission and placed it in her garden. As a result, the landlord had to pay for the removal of the tank and stated that the cost should have been rechargeable to the resident. Therefore, the landlord stated that it would not pay compensation.
  17. It is not clear whether the landlord was stating it would not pay compensation regarding the reported boiler faults. However, if this was the case, the Ombudsman does not consider it was appropriate to conflate the boiler issues with the removal of the asbestos tank as the 2 issues were not related.
  18. As a result of the landlord’s lack of explanation about the compensation calculations, the resident contacted the landlord again on 6 July 2023. She stated she had previously been dissatisfied with the stage one reply because it had not provided any breakdown of the compensation figure. She also said that she had not understood the reference in the stage one reply to the electrical contractor’s involvement and accountability for paying compensation.
  19. In summary, the Ombudsman has found the following failings in relation to the landlord’s handling of the reported defective boiler:
    1. There was an unreasonable delay in the landlord rectifying the reported problems with the boiler (four and a half months). During this time, the resident could not control the heating and during some periods had no heating and hot water.
    2. The landlord did not use its complaints process to adequately explain how it had calculated its offer of compensation.
    3. There was an unreasonable delay in the landlord advising the resident of its decision regarding compensation for the period when the reported boiler faults were dealt with by the electrical contractor.
    4. It was inappropriate for the landlord to conflate the question of compensation for the boiler issues with the resident’s removal of the asbestos tank from her loft.
  20. The Ombudsman has considered the landlord’s offer of £276 in relation to the additional energy used by the resident. The screenshot provided by the resident to the landlord showed that she had used 397 kWh extra gas for the 28-day period from 21 October 2022 to 17 November 2022 compared to the same period during the previous year. This equates to 14.2 kWh per day (397 divided by 28). Therefore, the total additional kWh of gas used for the period when the boiler was reported as being on constantly was 136 days (4 August to 17 December 2022) x 14.2 kWh, which is 1,931 kWh (rounded).
  21. The Government’s live tables for average energy costs states that the 2022 average cost per kWh for gas in the Greater London area was £0.0744. Therefore, based on the figures sent by the resident to the landlord, the total additional cost would be 1,931 kWh x £0.0744, which is £144 (rounded).
  22. The Ombudsman has used the above figures only as a guide for calculating a fair and reasonable level of compensation to put things right in terms of the additional gas used. This Service accepts that the figures may not accurately represent the actual additional costs to the resident.
  23. As the resident had intermittent losses of heating and hot water and had to use her immersion heater for hot water, the Ombudsman considers that the resident should be awarded an additional £200 for distress and inconvenience. The resident advised the landlord on 10 January 2023 that she was initially unable to wash at home because she had no hot water and was unable to keep warm due to the lack of heating.
  24. In addition to the above, the view of this Service is that the landlord did not use its complaints process to adequately explain how it had calculated the compensation offer of £276. The landlord also delayed advising the resident of its decision regarding compensation for the period from August to September 2022 until its stage 2 reply. An internal email dated 10 May 2023 from the landlord said the delay was because the matter had been passed to one of its surveyors to deal with but the surveyor then left the organisation. The Ombudsman considers that the landlord should pay an additional £100 for the delay in notifying the resident about its decision regarding the compensation for the period the boiler repairs were with the electrical contractor.
  25. Therefore, based on this assessment, although the landlord attempted to put things right by offering £276, this Service does not consider the landlord’s offer fully addressed the detriment to the resident. The Ombudsman has therefore found there was a service failure by the landlord and ordered it to pay a total of £444, which is comprised of:
    1. £144 for the approximate additional energy costs.
    2. £200 for distress and inconvenience caused by the defective boiler.
    3. £100 for the landlord’s failure to provide a clear breakdown of its compensation offer as part of the complaints process and for the delay in giving a response regarding compensation for the period August to September 2022.
  26. The above sum includes the £276 already offered by the landlord.

The landlord’s handling of the associated complaints

  1. The landlord’s complaints policy in operation at the time of the resident’s complaints stated that the process consisted of 2 stages. The policy stated that it would acknowledge and reply to stage one complaints within 15 working days and stage 2 complaints within 20 working days. The policy added that if the timescales could not be met, the landlord would provide the resident with an explanation and a new timeframe for the response.
  2. The resident submitted a complaint on 21 April 2023. The landlord acknowledged the complaint on the same day, which was appropriate. The landlord then sent its reply on 2 May 2023, which was 6 working days after the resident had submitted her complaint. The landlord therefore replied within a reasonable timescale.
  3. The resident contacted the landlord on 18 May 2023 and asked for her complaint to be escalated. The landlord sent its stage 2 reply on 19 June 2023, which was 21 working days after the resident had asked for the complaint to be escalated. The landlord was therefore slightly outside its 20-working day target, however, the Ombudsman does not consider there was any detriment caused to the resident by the slight delay.
  4. Overall, the Ombudsman has found that the landlord dealt with the resident’s complaints in line with its policy and there was no maladministration in relation to its complaints handling.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in its handling of the resident’s reports that her boiler was faulty, including a period when it would not switch off.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 42.j. of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord’s handling of the resident’s rehousing application is outside the jurisdiction of the Ombudsman.
  3. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was no maladministration by the landlord in its handling of the associated complaints.

Orders

  1. The landlord is ordered within 4 weeks of this report to:
    1. Write to the resident to apologise for the failings identified in this report.
    2. Pay the resident a total of £444 compensation for the landlord’s handling of resident’s reports of the faulty boiler. The landlord may deduct the £276 it has offered if this has already been paid.