London Borough of Lambeth (202300177)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202300177

Lambeth Council

12 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 leaseholder 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 leaseholder’s concerns about the water supply and a leak at the property.
The Ombudsman has also considered the landlord’s:
1. complaint handling.
2. record keeping.

Background

The landlord granted a lease of the property to the leaseholder in April 2005. The property is a flat within a block. It is occupied by tenants of the leaseholder.
The leaseholder’s husband has acted as her representative in dealings with the landlord and the Ombudsman. In this report we refer to ‘the leaseholder’ collectively to include both communications from her and also from her husband on her behalf.
On 1 March 2023 the leaseholder’s tenant emailed the landlord and asked to raise a formal complaint. He copied the leaseholder into the email. The tenant said:
1. The water supply to the property was shut off on the weekend of 18 and 19 February 2023. The water company advised him this was due to the landlord carrying out engineering works nearby. The landlord did not notify him or the leaseholder in advance of this.
2. Since then, the water supply to the property was intermittent. When it was available the pressure was low. There was a “persistent loss in hot water” which had left the property “without heating for over a week”.
3. Both the tenant and the leaseholder reported the issues to the landlord. It assured them that plumbers would come to investigate and fix the issue. The plumbers “often arrived late” or “not at all” and had been unable to fully restore the water supply.
The landlord did not respond to the tenant’s email.
The leaseholder contacted the Ombudsman on 17 April 2023 and asked us to ask the landlord to respond to her complaint. She did not at that time provide us with a copy of the tenant’s email of 1 March 2023. Instead she outlined her complaint to us during a phone call.
On 26 April 2023 we contacted the landlord. Based on our understanding of the complaint at that time, we told the landlord that the complaint was about its handling of:
1. “A leak at the property which was caused as a result of water repairs to the communal water tank and pipes.”
2. “Further issues with water pipes” that the leaseholder wanted the landlord to rectify.
The landlord issued its stage 1 response on 16 May 2023. It said:
1. It was sorry the leaseholder had been “experiencing issues of pipes leaking in the communal area”. It set out details of 6 works orders that it had raised. One of the works orders was to repair a leaking waste pipe in the flat above the property. The other 5 works orders related to repairs to the communal areas.
2. It was sorry for any inconvenience that would be caused while it carried out the works detailed in the works orders.
3. “An improved level of communication would have been beneficial”.
4. She should make any claims for damaged personal belongings through her home contents insurance.
5. She could also explore making a claim through the landlord’s insurance. It provided links to its insurance guidance and a webpage explaining how to make a liability claim against it.
On 13 June 2023 the leaseholder asked the landlord to escalate her complaint to stage 2. She said most of the works orders the landlord cited in the stage 1 response were not relevant to her complaint. She attached a copy of the tenant’s complaint email of 1 March 2023 and said that the complaint remained unresolved. She explained the outstanding issues were:
1. There was “no water at all or very low pressure” in the property. She said her tenants had been “without adequate water supply for over 3 months”.
2. There were “leaking pipes” that had caused mushrooms to grow within the walls of the kitchen and that had caused damp in other areas of the property.
3. She understood from speaking with the neighbour in the flat above that the landlord carried out a temporary repair to the pipes that were leaking, but it had not yet fully repaired them.
The landlord issued its stage 2 response on 18 July 2023. It said:
1. Its contractor “carried out clearance of the stack located waste pipe not connected correctly” on 27 June 2023. The contractor told it that a plumber should attend to “remedy pipe waste stack to see what is causing the leak”. It would need to access the 2 flats above the property to complete this. It would raise a works order for this.
2. It restored water to the property on 6 July 2023. If the leaseholder’s tenants experienced any further issues with water supply, they should let it know.
3. It appreciated the leaseholder’s “frustration” about how long it had taken to resolve the issues.
4. It trusted that the actions it had set out in the stage 2 response “provided a resolution” to the complaint.
The leaseholder referred the complaint to the Ombudsman and asked us to investigate. She said that the time taken for the landlord to respond and resolve the issues in the property was “not acceptable”. She wanted it to be held accountable for the “significant amount of damage, stress, anxiety and additional expense” it had caused.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

The Scheme enables us to receive complaints from leaseholders and tenants of our member landlords, which in this case is a local authority. We cannot consider complaints from tenants who do not have a direct contractual relationship with a member landlord, such as the tenants of the leaseholder in this case. This is because the landlord’s obligations and duties are to the leaseholder under the lease agreement and not to anyone to whom the property may be sublet. This means that when assessing the landlord’s actions and considering compensation for distress and inconvenience, our focus has been on how the leaseholder was directly affected, rather than her tenants.

The landlord’s response to the leaseholder’s concerns about water supply and a leak

The lease requires the landlord to maintain and repair water pipes in and under the building, and the communal parts of the heating and hot water system. It was therefore responsible for resolving the leak coming from a water pipe and the interrupted water supply to the leaseholder’s property. It did not dispute this.
That these repairs arose was not in itself a failing. Repair issues will arise from time to time in all buildings and this may cause temporary inconvenience to those living there. The focus of our investigation is on whether the landlord responded to and resolved the repairs within a reasonable period of time.
The landlord’s poor record keeping has hampered our assessment of its handling of the repairs. It has not provided us with any contemporary notes or reports from contractors who carried out relevant repairs in 2023. It provided details only of works orders it raised, which contained short, fragmented instructions. It is unclear if its staff did not have access to fuller information, or if they did but failed to provide it to us. It adopted the same approach, however, in its complaint handling, which we have assessed in more detail in the next section below. The complaint responses contained only ‘cut and paste’ information from disjointed works orders.
This has made it difficult for us to understand fully why the repair issues arose and what action the landlord took to resolve them. We do not know what ‘priority level’ the landlord assigned to the repairs. This means we do not know how quickly it should have responded in line with its repairs policy which states it will categorise repairs according to 5 priority levels with different response timeframes.
We asked the landlord to provide us with details of any contact it had with the leaseholder. The only record it had was that the leaseholder called it in April 2023 to report a leak. We know from the tenant’s email of 1 March 2023, that the leaseholder had been in direct contact with the landlord in late February 2023 about the water supply issue. That the landlord did not have information about this contact is a further record keeping failure.
Based on the limited information available to us, we have established the following in relation to the water supply issue:
1. The landlord was aware from late February 2023 that there was an issue with intermittent water supply to the property.
2. It should have considered this a high priority and resolved the issue quickly given the implications for sanitation and heating. It failed to do so.
3. It initially sent at least 3 plumbers and an engineer to assess the situation, but they were unable to resolve the issue.
4. We do not know what, if anything, it did for the next 5 months. However, it was aware that the water supply issue had not resolved itself given the leaseholder raised the issue again in her escalation request on 13 June 2023.
5. We do not know what caused the water supply issue or what action the landlord took to resolve it due to its poor record keeping. However, it confirmed in the stage 2 response that it restored water to the property on 6 July 2023.
6. That it took 5 months to resolve the issue was inappropriate.
In relation to the leak, we have established the following:
1. In “April 2023”, exact date unknown, the leaseholder contacted the landlord about a leak coming through the ceiling of the property from the flat above. It attempted to call “the tenant” back according to its records but there was no answer. It was unreasonable that it did not then try and call the leaseholder and, as a minimum, leave a message for her.
2. We made it aware that the leak was still an issue when we referred the complaint to it on 26 April 2023.
3. It should have investigated this and attempted to resolve it promptly given the potential damage a leak could cause to the property and the building. It failed to do so.
4. Its contractor carried out work to a “waste pipe not connected correctly” on 27 June 2023. However, this does not appear to have resolved the leak. It explained in its stage 2 response that a plumber would have to attend “to see what is causing the leak”.
5. That it took 2 months to carry out a partial repair, and that it had not carried out a full repair by the time of the stage 2 response, was inappropriate.
Overall, we find that there was maladministration in the landlord’s response to the leaseholder’s concerns about water supply and a leak. It inappropriately, and without explanation, delayed in attending to both issues. By the time of the stage 2 response, the leak remained unresolved and it had not yet raised a works order for the further repair work required. Its communications with the leaseholder were poor. We have seen no evidence that it provided her with any updates on the repairs other than through its complaint responses.
While the leaseholder was not directly affected, she told us she was distressed at the impact the water supply issue was having on her tenants due to circumstances beyond her control. She was concerned at the damage that was being caused to her property by the unresolved leak. She was frustrated at the lack of communication from the landlord. In line with our remedies guidance, we order the landlord to pay the leaseholder £300 compensation for this distress and inconvenience caused by its maladministration.
We recognise that the leaseholder may have directly incurred costs, for example, on private plumbers. We note the landlord provided her with details in its stage 1 response of how she could make an insurance claim with the aim of seeking reimbursement. This was appropriate in the circumstances. We have therefore not ordered any additional compensation be paid for costs incurred by the leaseholder.
We do not know if the landlord sent a plumber to the property to see what was causing the leak as it suggested it would do in its stage 2 response in July 2023. However, over a year later, in August 2024 it sent a surveyor to the property. The surveyor found there was no visible leak in the property but noted the kitchen ceiling and walls were showing water marks. He advised the landlord that there may potentially still be a leak in the internal communal stack pipe between the property and the flat above. He recommended that it arrange for a contractor to investigate this further.
This appears to be the same issue the landlord was investigating in 2023 and which, by the time of its stage 2 response, it had not yet fully resolved. It would be inappropriate if over a year had passed and it had still not finished its investigations and completed a full and lasting repair. We therefore order it provide the leaseholder with an explanation of any investigations it has carried out into leaks in communal pipes affecting the property further to the recommendation in the August 2024 survey. If it intends to carry out further investigations, it should provide the leaseholder with a timeframe for when it will complete these. If the leaseholder is not satisfied with the explanation the landlord provides, she may raise a new complaint.
Although we have found service failure in the landlord’s record keeping, we have not made any orders in relation to this as we are aware it has recently produced a Knowledge and Information Management Strategy. It has advised us that this Strategy is underpinned by the recommendations in our May 2023 Spotlight report on Knowledge and Information Management.

Complaint handling

The landlord’s complaints policy applies to its tenants and leaseholders. It is therefore not required to accept or respond through its formal complaints process to complaints from private tenants of its leaseholders.
When it received the complaint email from the leaseholder’s tenant on 1 March 2023, which the leaseholder was copied into, it should have responded to explain this. It was unreasonable that it did not do so and instead appeared to have ignored the email.
When the leaseholder contacted us on 17 April 2023, she asked us to ask the landlord to respond to her complaint. She said she raised the complaint during a phone call with the landlord and it acknowledged on the call it was a complaint, but it did not follow this up in writing. We are unable to verify this given the landlord’s lack of contact records. However, it did record it had received a call from the leaseholder in “April 2023” about a leak, so this was potentially the call the leaseholder was referring to.
Once the landlord received the complaint referral from us on 26 April 2023, it should have processed it and responded in line with our Complaint Handling Code (the Code).
The Code requires landlords to ensure they have a clear understanding of the complaint definition. It states, “If any aspect of the complaint is unclear, the resident must be asked for clarification.”
When we referred the complaint to the landlord, we explained it was about a leak at the property caused by repairs to the communal water tank and pipes, as well as “further issues with water pipes”. We were limited in the information we could provide given we did not manage the building or have access to repair records. We could only relay to the landlord the information that the leaseholder had provided us with. We did not explain where the leak was coming from, how long it had been going on, or what the “further issues” were. We would have expected the landlord to clarify this during its complaint investigation in order to fully understand the complaint and address all the issues. Such action would have been in accordance with the Code. It failed to do so. We have seen no evidence that it attempted to contact the leaseholder prior to issuing its stage 1 response.
The consequence of the landlord’s failure to contact the leaseholder to better understand the complaint, was that its stage 1 response did not fully address her concerns. It simply set out 6 works orders it had raised, 5 of which were not relevant to her complaint. The only relevant works order included was for a repair to a leaking waste pipe in the flat above the property. The landlord said it raised the works order that day, 16 May 2023, and would complete the repair by 25 May 2023. However, it did not acknowledge its delay in raising the works order for an issue that the leaseholder had first reported to it over a month previously. It also failed to address the fact that there had been limited water supply to the property since late February 2023. This was poor complaint handling.
During its stage 2 complaint investigation the landlord would have had more information about the complaint, as the leaseholder had provided further details in her escalation email of 13 June 2023. She had also attached to her email the tenant’s email of 1 March 2023 which provided detail about the water supply issues.
Despite this, the landlord still failed to address all of the leaseholder’s concerns in its stage 2 response. It explained that it had carried out a repair to a waste pipe but that it needed to carry out further works to resolve the leak. It indicated it had not yet raised a works order for the further work. In line with the Code, we would have expected it to provide a timeframe within which it expected to complete the work, but it failed to do so.
The landlord also said in the stage 2 response that it restored the water supply to the property on 6 July 2023. However, it provided no explanation as to why the issue had occurred in the first place. It demonstrated no self-reflection and provided no reasons as to why it had taken so long to restore the water supply. It said it appreciated the leaseholder’s “frustration in the amount of time it has taken to address [her] concerns”, but did not indicate if it accepted the time taken was excessive.
Overall, we find that there was maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling. Our dispute resolution principles require landlords to use their complaints process as an opportunity to “be fair, put things right and learn from outcomes”. The landlord failed to do this. Its limited engagement with the leaseholder during the complaints process meant it issued responses that failed to address all of her concerns. She outlined her frustration at this in her escalation request and when referring the complaint to the Ombudsman. Given this, and in line with our remedies guidance, we order the landlord to pay the leaseholder £100 compensation for the distress and inconvenience caused by its complaint handling failures.

Determination

In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was:
1. Maladministration in the landlord’s response to the leaseholder’s concerns about water supply and a leak.
2. Maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling.
3. Service failure in the landlord’s record keeping.

Orders

Within 4 weeks of the date of this report, the landlord should:
1. Apologise to the leaseholder for the failures identified in this report. The apology should follow the best practice set out in the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance.
2. Pay the leaseholder £400 compensation broken down as follows:
  1. £300 for distress and inconvenience due to the maladministration in its response to her concerns about water supply and a leak.
  2. £100 for time and trouble due to the maladministration in its complaint handling.
3. Provide the leaseholder with an explanation of any investigations it has carried out into leaks in communal pipes affecting the property further to the recommendation made in its August 2024 survey. If it intends to carry out further investigations, it should provide the leaseholder with a timeframe for when it will complete these.