London & Quadrant Housing Trust (202424634)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202424634

London & Quadrant Housing Trust (L&Q)

11June 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 both the resident’s reports of a leak from her bathroom, and of her complaint.

Background

2. The resident has been a tenant of the landlord for over 20 years. The property is a 3-bedroom house with a bathroom and kitchen.
3. The resident has been reporting intermittent leaks from the property bathroom since June 2020. In January 2022 the landlord recorded that the leaks had become heavier, stopping and starting sporadically. On 18 June 2024 she reported another leak. On 27 June 2024 a landlord operative attended. He said he would not carry out any work as the resident had, some years earlier, replaced the bath and basin herself. He left, noting that the leak had stopped.
4. The resident complained to the landlord on the same day. She said she had replaced the bath and basin unit after an accident several years earlier. She said she did so on the instruction of the landlord which did not tell her this would mean it would no longer complete repairs to the bathroom. She said water was dripping through light fittings in the kitchen and causing damp. She asked it to trace the source of the leak “before further damage [was] caused.”
5. The landlord responded at stage 1 of its complaint’s process the following day. It apologised for its delayed attendance. However, it said that as the resident had replaced the bath and basin unit herself, it was no longer responsible for repairs. It apologised for not telling her this before.
6. The resident asked to escalate her complaint on the same day. She said she felt the landlord should have offered to investigate the source of the leak. She said she had reported a faulty shower over a year ago and considered that could be the source. She said the leak poured through her electrics into the kitchen and was a health and safety concern and was also causing damp.
7. The landlord provided a stage 2 response on 18 September 2024. It offered £30 for the delay in responding. It said it relied on its repairs policy and repeated that since the resident had replaced the bath and basin, it was no longer responsible for their repair. However, it said that it would investigate the source of the leak if the resident removed the bath panel. It said it was “restricted” from doing this itself as she had installed the bath.
8. Following this Service’s enquiries, the landlord arranged to inspect the resident’s bathroom in early May 2025. The resident says it said it would repair the tiling but would not remedy issues it found with the pipework and shower screen. It does not consider those repairs to be its responsibility.
9. The outcome the resident wanted from her complaint was for the landlord to identify and remedy the leak. She also wants compensation for the distress and inconvenience she says the landlord’s approach has caused her.

Assessment and findings

On the landlord’s handling of the resident’s report of a leak.

10. The landlord apologised at stage 1 for its delay in responding to the resident’s report of a leak on 18 June 2024. It had taken 9 days. She had asked the landlord to trace and identify the cause of the leak as water marks were appearing on the kitchen ceiling below. The landlord’s repairs policy does not specify how long it should take to deal with this type of repair. Therefore, as the report did not indicate the leak was uncontainable or, at that point, a danger, its apology was an appropriate remedy, if the landlord considered 9 days to be a delay.
11. The operative who attended in June 2024 told the resident the landlord could not do any repairs as she had previously replaced the bath and basin herself, which meant they were her responsibility to maintain. When she complained about this on 27 June 2024, she said there was a risk of the kitchen ceiling caving in. The landlord’s response was that it did not have responsibility to make repairs to installations she had put in. It referred to its policy.
12. The policy says that the landlord will not carry out repairs to fixtures and fittings installed by the resident. However, the resident had referred to a possible structural issue with the property. Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act (1985), sets out that the landlord is obliged to keep the structure of the property in repair and complete repairs within a reasonable timeframe. The landlord’s repairs policy also says that even where it considers the repairs are the responsibility of the resident, it will carry out repairs where “there is a significant health and safety risk, or non-repair would cause further damage to the property.” It says it may consider charging the resident for costs incurred.
13. The landlord had been told about a risk to the structure of the building. Its records showed that there was a history of leaks from the bathroom and the landlord’s records said they were getting worse. The resident had specifically warned it of potential further damage. Therefore, the landlord’s decision to take no action was not reasonable.
14. When the resident escalated her complaint on 28 June 2024, she explained that the leak could be coming from the shower. She again said that water was leaking into the kitchen and light fittings. She said there was “a real health and safety concern.”  The landlord’s policy does not stop it responding to safety concerns. However, it did not investigate the matter.
15. The landlord took 100 working days to send the resident its stage 2 complaint response (against its policy target of 20 days), it provided no updates in the interim to the resident, who had to chase it for a response. The internal records show this delay may have been partly caused by an administrative error. However, the resident had reported a health and safety concern and during this time she was exposed to the constant threat of further leaks, meaning the delay dealing with the complaint was more significant than it might otherwise have been.  Its offer of £30 compensation was disproportionately low when considered against the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance for a service failure of that nature and length.
16. When it did respond at stage 2, the landlord offered to investigate if the resident would remove her bath panel. While this was a step towards resolution, it was unreasonable that the landlord did not make this suggestion at an earlier stage.
17. It is not clear from the evidence if the resident removed the bath panel or not. However, after the Service’s enquiries, the landlord visited the property to investigate the cause of the leak. On 6 May 2025, it maintained its position that it was not liable for any repairs to the bathroom or required to investigate the resident’s concerns about the kitchen ceiling or damp and mould.
18. The resident responded the next day, arguing that the landlord’s approach was incorrect. It reviewed its approach again and on 22 May 2025 said it would repair the resident’s shower tiling but would not address identified issues with the pipework linked to the shower. It said this pipework would have been removed and reattached when she replaced her bath and therefore the repairs remained her responsibility.
19. The landlord’s decisions and actions in response to the issues the resident reported were not reasonable. They were counter to its repairs policy, and its overarching obligation to keep its properties safe, healthy, and free from serious hazards. Even if the landlord considered it was not liable for repairs, given the reported hazard it would have been reasonable and in line with its policy to have offered the resident a rechargeable repair. The landlord had the opportunity to identify this in its response to the resident’s complaint. It did not do so, meaning its unreasonable decision went unremedied.
20. We have ordered repairs to be completed within a shorter timeframe than usual because of the resident’s concerns about the kitchen ceiling. As the landlord allowed the issue to continue for up to a year, we have made an order that includes, unusually, an order to redecorate the affected area or areas.

Determination

21. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the repairs at the property following a leak and its handling of her complaint.

Orders

22. Within 4 weeks the landlord must pay the resident £630, comprised of:
    1. £500 to acknowledge the distress and inconvenience caused to the resident by the landlord’s identified failings in its approach to repairing a leak. These failings had a significant impact on the resident and the landlord made no attempt to put things right.
    2. £130 to acknowledge the impact caused by the delay in responding to the resident’s complaint. This compensation includes the £30 previously offered.
23. Within 8 weeks, the landlord must:
    1. Inspect the leak, identify its cause, and if necessary make the property safe. Following its inspection, it must create an action plan to resolve the leak. If it believes some part of the leak problem is due to work arranged or completed by the resident it can consider recharging her in line with its policy and the tenancy agreement. Any such decision must be robustly supported with evidence. The resident has the option of making a new complaint to the landlord about any recharge decision, or its handling of any subsequent repairs. She could then return to the Ombudsman and ask us to start a new investigation if she remained dissatisfied.
    2. As part of its inspection and action plan the landlord should also consider the impact of the leak and the length of time the issue has taken. This should include any issues of damp and mould, and redecoration for any leak-affected areas.
24. Evidence of compliance with these orders must be provided by their respective deadlines.