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London Borough of Islington (202330834)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202330834

Islington Council

24 June 2025


Our approach

The Housing Ombudsman’s approach to investigating and determining complaints is to decide what is fair in all the circumstances of the case. This is set out in the Housing Act 1996 and the Housing Ombudsman Scheme (the Scheme). The Ombudsman considers the evidence and looks to see if there has been any ‘maladministration’, for example whether the landlord has failed to keep to the law, followed proper procedure, followed good practice or behaved in a reasonable and competent manner.

Both the resident and the landlord have submitted information to the Ombudsman and this has been carefully considered. Their accounts of what has happened are summarised below. This report is not an exhaustive description of all the events that have occurred in relation to this case, but an outline of the key issues as a background to the investigation’s findings.

The complaint

  1. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of repairs to a wall in the resident’s garden.

Background

  1. The resident is a leaseholder but does not live at the property. This complaint was undertaken by the property’s occupant (the resident) with the leaseholder’s consent. The property is a flat within a converted building and the resident has sole use of a sectioned part of the garden. There is a garden wall which separates the boundary of the land between the neighbouring gardens (this is a party wall).
  2. The resident told the landlord his garden wall needed repairing urgently, as it had collapsed into his neighbour’s garden in April 2022. The landlord inspected the wall. It said it would need to get another contractor to inspect the works as it had found Japanese knotweed (which requires specialist handling) within one of the gardens. 
  3. In August 2022 the resident chased the landlord for an update on the works. The landlord inspected the wall again. Within its internal communications, it acknowledged the wall was unsafe and recommended that residents did not use the garden “in the interim period”. In October 2022 it pushed the wall over to make it safe and arranged for a surveyor to assess it. They determined that the wall had only partially collapsed and the remainder of it was “at risk of further collapse” into the resident’s garden.    
  4. The resident contacted the Service for advice in February 2023. He subsequently complained to the landlord on 13 April 2023. He said it had taken the landlord too long to fix the wall and it was unsafe. He said the wall had been damaged for 2 years and he was unable to safely use his garden.
  5. The landlord responded to the resident’s complaint on 27 April 2023. It said the repair to the wall was complex due to the Japanese knotweed in the garden. And because the neighbouring gardens, including a privately owned property, needed to consent to works being done. It said the proposed repairs were considered to be high value and “require approval”. It said because of these complications, it was unable to estimate when the work could begin. 
  6. The resident raised his concerns about the landlord’s initial complaint response on 27 April 2023 and formally escalated his complaint on 8 October 2023. He said he remained dissatisfied and asked the landlord to compensate him for the delays and for the loss of use of his garden.
  7. The landlord responded to the resident’s escalated complaint on 7 November 2023. It apologised for its delay in starting the repairs and offered him £200 in compensation “to acknowledge the stress and inconvenience you have experienced”. It said it believed it had kept the resident informed. It said it had obtained 2 quotes for the costs of rebuilding the wall and intended to notify the neighbours under legal obligations.
  8. The resident remained dissatisfied with the landlord’s response and escalated his complaint to the Service. He also made a subsequent complaint to the landlord on 5 August 2024, in which the landlord offered the resident a further £50 for missed appointments. The resident told us that the landlord made the wall safe by installing a wooden fence next to the old wall, in mid-October 2024.
  9. As an outcome to his complaint, the resident said he wants the landlord to offer him further compensation for the lack of use of his garden, missed appointments and poor communication with him about its intentions. He also said he wanted the landlord to explain how it intends to provide a permanent fix for the wall.

Assessment and findings

Scope of the investigation

  1. The resident has raised concerns about the impact the issues in his complaint may have had on his health. The Ombudsman is unable to assess the cause of, or liability for, impacts on health and wellbeing. The resident may be able to make a personal injury claim if he considers that his health has been affected by the landlord’s actions or inaction. This is a legal process, and the resident may wish to seek legal advice if he wants to pursue this option. As such we will not consider this in this report. However, we can consider any distress and inconvenience the resident may have experienced as a result of the landlord’s actions.
  2. The resident made a new complaint to the landlord on 5 August 2024. The issues involved were a continuation of those being considered here. While this investigation will not specifically consider any new aspects of the resident’s 2024 complaint, it will consider the overall time taken to resolve the wall repairs, which partly crosses over the 2024 complaint.

The landlord’s handling of repairs to a wall in the resident’s garden.

  1. The resident’s lease confirms that the landlord is responsible for keeping the boundary walls and fences belonging to the property “in good repair order and condition”. The landlord did not dispute its responsibilities in this case. However, it said that the situation was complicated as the wall borders several neighbouring gardens, one of which is privately owned. It explained that because of that it needed to follow a legal process (under the Party Wall Act 1996) before starting works.
  2. The landlord’s repairs policy says it aims to respond to planned repairs (including those that are complicated) within 60 working days. It is evident that this situation has been challenging as it concerns a party wall, and the Japanese Knotweed added to its complexities. Nonetheless, it took 2 and a half years (from April 2022 to in mid-October 2024) for it to temporarily resolve the issue, by attaching a fence to the wall. This delay was significantly excessive, and represents a failing.
  3. Where delays to works are anticipated, or unexpected, basic good practice is for landlords to keep residents updated. In this case, the landlord has not provided evidence that it had effectively communicated with the resident throughout the delay. It was not until its first complaint response on 27 April 2023, over 12 months after he had reported the issue, that the landlord demonstrated it had explained its reasons for the time taken. This lack of communication was unreasonable, given that it was aware from its several inspections (such as in August and October 2022) of the potential safety risk the collapsing wall may pose.
  4. The landlord missed an opportunity to mitigate the resident’s safety concerns in its final complaint response on 7 November 2023. It did not provide an interim solution to make the wall safe on the resident’s side, until the week commencing 14 October 2024. As the resident had reported the issue 2 and a half years prior to this, the landlord’s complaint response was unreasonable, lacked customer focus, and left the resident’s complaint unresolved.
  5. It is clear from his complaints to the landlord that the situation has been distressing for the resident. He said that he, and friends and family, had been unable to properly enjoy the use of his garden. On 9 August 2022 its records say “in the interim period please advise tenants or leaseholders not to use the garden area”. Whilst there is no evidence of it communicating this to the resident, or of it updating him on when the garden would be usable, it is clear it was aware of the potential safety issue and the impact on him being able to use it.
  6. The landlord’s compensation policy combines both its local council and landlord roles. It says that its housing repair compensation payments range from £500 to £2,500, depending on the severity of the service failure. The policy also says that it may offer between £1,000 and £2,000 for delays addressing a nuisance which results in a loss of use of a garden. However, the specific circumstances for that type of compensation are not clear from the policy.
  7. In its final complaint response on 7 November 2023 the landlord offered compensation of £200. It did not explain how it calculated the amount. Given the significant delays experienced by the resident, the lack of updates, and the fact that his use of his garden was impacted and reduced over a lengthy period, that level of compensation was disproportionately low when considered against both the landlord’s compensation policy and the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance.
  8. Overall, there were significant failings in the landlord’s handling of the wall repairs and the resident’s complaints. The resident has confirmed the temporary wall is in place, and therefore he now has use of his garden again. Nonetheless, the time taken to get to that point was unreasonably long and the landlord did not provide meaningful updates to him. It acknowledged some of its poor service in responding to his complaints, but the compensation it offered was not reasonable, meaning the complaint was left unresolved.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of repairs to a wall in the resident’s garden.

Orders and recommendations

  1. Within 4 weeks from the date of this report the landlord is ordered to pay compensation of £1,000 to the resident. This amount is in addition to the £200 that it has previously offered, and has been calculated in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance for a complaint of similar nature, scale, and impact.
  2. Within 8 weeks of this report the landlord must provide an update to the resident setting out the current situation regarding the wall. It should explain what actions it has taken and will be taking, and when it estimates it will be able to complete the work. It must also explain how it intends to keep the resident informed of its progress if its plans change.
  3. If the resident subsequently has any concerns about the landlord’s adherence to its plan to complete the work, or with its future communication about the repair, he is entitled to make a new formal complaint to it. He then has the option of bringing this complaint back to the Ombudsman and asking for a new investigation.  
  4. The landlord must provide the Ombudsman with evidence of complying with these orders by their respective deadlines.