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London & Quadrant Housing Trust (L&Q) (202215447)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202215447

London & Quadrant Housing Trust (L&Q)

17 March 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:
    1. Repairs to the balcony.
    2. The associated complaint.

Background

  1. The resident lives in a 2-bedroom flat under a lease agreement dated 31 March 2009. The landlord is the freeholder. The resident’s property is on the fourth floor of the building. It has a balcony with wooden decking covering the base surface.
  2. On 14 October 2021 the resident requested a repair to the wooden decking which was rotting. The landlord inspected and advised that the decking wood would need to be replaced. The resident did not receive a repair appointment, therefore she submitted a service request on 6 June 2022 and again on 10 September 2022. The landlord arranged a repair visit for 5 October 2022 but did not attend. The landlord escalated the resident’s service request to a stage 1 complaint.
  3. The stage 1 complaint response was issued a month later. The landlord advised that a fault to the balconies in the building had been identified and would be dealt with by its major works team. The resident escalated her complaint to stage 2 on 11 December 2022. She explained that she had been waiting 14 months for a repair and her balcony was not safe. She said that the stress was having a significant impact on her.
  4. The resident continued to chase the complaint and repair frequently over the next 8 months, and the landlord issued its Stage 2 response on 30 August 2023. It acknowledged the delay in sending its response, and the length of time taken to carry out the repair. It confirmed the balcony replacement needed to be dealt with as a major planned work but it would do an emergency repair to “make safe” the area for the resident’s use. The landlord also recognised that the resident had been unable to use this outdoor space because of safety concerns. It offered £1052 in compensation, categorised as:
    1. £60 late stage 2 response.
    2. £832.20 loss of outdoor space calculated at a daily rate.
    3. £40 distress.
    4. £60 inconvenience.
    5. £60 time and effort.
  5. The resident was satisfied with the outcome of the stage 2 complaint initially. However, the landlord was unable to complete the “make safe” emergency repair because the balcony’s disrepair could only be resolved with its replacement.
  6. In bringing the complaint to this Service, the resident stated that she was still waiting for the work to her balcony to be completed. She would like the landlord to carry out the repairs and compensate her for the lack of outdoor space.

Assessment and findings

Scope of the investigation

  1. Throughout the complaint and in communication with this Service, the resident has said this situation had a detrimental impact on her health and wellbeing. The courts are the most effective place for disputes about personal injury and illness. This is largely because independent medical experts are appointed to give evidence. They have a duty to the court to provide unbiased insights on the diagnosis, prognosis, and cause of any illness or injury. When disputes arise over the cause of an injury, oral testimony can be examined in court. While the Ombudsman cannot consider the effect on health, consideration has been given to any general distress and inconvenience which the resident experienced because of any service failure by the landlord.

The landlord’s handling of the balcony repairs

  1. The lease between the landlord and the resident states that the landlord is responsible to ‘maintain, repair, redecorate and renew’ the main structure of the building and all external parts. In addition to this, the resident advised this Service that the wooden decking was rotten because of water dripping onto it from the landlord’s guttering system above. The landlord’s repair obligations regarding the balcony are not in dispute.
  2. The resident first requested a repair on 14 October 2021. The resident made more than 15 contacts with the landlord between then and the stage 2 response to get the balcony decking repaired. The resident also submitted multiple online complaints to the landlord after the landlord’s final response, relating to the same issue. These were attempts by the resident to resolve the matters outstanding from the substantive complaint.
  3. Initially the landlord advised that it would replace the wooden decking boards. Repair visits were booked for 5 October 2022 and 3 November 2022 but the landlord did not attend.
  4. In May 2023 the landlord advised the resident that all the balconies in the block would need to be replaced. However, it said that the resident’s decking would be replaced in the meantime to make it usable. The resident did not receive a follow-up appointment.
  5. As part of the stage 2 response from the landlord on 30 August 2023, it offered a “make safe” emergency repair. This was arranged and then rescheduled due to an administration error. The landlord’s report from 5 October 2023 stated that the emergency “make safe” repair was not possible because the balcony had to be replaced. The work to replace the resident’s balcony was booked in for the following month but the landlord cancelled the work without informing the resident.
  6. It is evident that the resident has spent a great deal of time and effort trying to resolve this repair. Appointments were repeatedly missed or rescheduled. Information about when the repair would be carried out was not provided. The lack of information from the landlord has caused distress and inconvenience to the resident.
  7. Evidence seen by this Service highlights that there was also a lack of information available to staff in different departments, and of ownership to progress the work or update the resident. In particular, the complaints handling staff struggled to obtain information to investigate the resident’s complaint. This had a significant impact on the resident’s ability to seek information, but also on the efforts of internal staff to provide informed responses.
  8. Where there are admitted failings by a landlord, this Service will consider whether the redress offered by the landlord put things right and resolved the resident’s complaint satisfactorily in the circumstances. In considering this we take into account whether the landlord’s offer of redress was in line with the Ombudsman’s dispute resolution principles of: be fair (follow fair processes and recognise what went wrong), put things right, and learn from outcomes.
  9. The stage 2 complaint response acknowledged that the resident had concerns about the balcony’s safety and that she had spent a disproportionate amount of time and effort in chasing its repair. The landlord offered the resident £60 for her time and effort, £60 for inconvenience, and £40 for distress endured due to health and safety concerns. These amounts offered by the landlord are within the parameters set by the landlord’s compensation guidance. The landlord also offered £832.20 for loss of outdoor space, which the landlord’s compensation policy states will be considered for repairs or planned works to outdoor space if there have been unreasonable delays. The resident was satisfied with the sum offered and it was paid to her. However, this amount was offered along with an offer to “make safe” the balcony which the landlord did not do.
  10. It can be reasonable for a landlord to not carry out a repair when it becomes aware that the work required is substantial, so that it can plan these works accordingly. The landlord’s stage 2 response informed the resident that the team responsible for the major works would be in contact when the work will commence. However, it did not provide the resident with timescales for when work would start or how frequently updates would be provided. This was unreasonable.
  11. The stage 2 response also advised that the complaint would only be closed after the emergency repair had been completed. The emergency repair was intended to “make safe” the balcony for the resident’s use. Because this repair was cancelled, this agreed outcome in the landlord’s stage 2 response was unable to be met. The landlord has therefore not put things right as the resident is still unable to use the balcony. Therefore, the redress offered by the landlord in its stage 2 complaint response has not satisfactorily resolved the complaint.
  12. Also, the resident has advised this Service that she has not received health and safety advice from the landlord concerning the ongoing use of her balcony.
  13. We find maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the repair to the balcony.
  14. We have ordered the landlord to provide an update to the resident on the planned works and set out how frequently it will provide information about its progress until it is completed. The landlord is also ordered to provide the resident with relevant health and safety advice while the works are on hold and carry out a risk assessment.
  15. The landlord’s compensation policy states that it will not pay compensation for loss of outdoor space for planned works, therefore we have not made a further order for this. However, we have ordered that the landlord pay further compensation of £440 to the resident. This is for the distress and inconvenience, time, and trouble she may have incurred in further chasing the landlord for information while the stage 2 outcomes remained unmet and due to the landlord’s lack of action concerning health and safety advice. This amount is within the parameters set out in the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance where the landlord has acknowledged failings and made some attempt to put things right but the offer was not proportionate to the failings identified by our investigation.

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s associated complaint

  1. The landlord operates a 2 stage complaints procedure, which states it will respond to stage 1 complaints within 10 working days and respond to stage 2 complaints within 20 working days. The landlord’s timescales match the Complaint Handling Code (the Code), which sets out our expectations of a landlord’s complaint handling practices.
  2. The landlord’s stage 1 acknowledgement was sent to the resident after 11 working days (instead of 5). The stage 1 response was issued 1 month after it was first raised, and only after the intervention of this Service. The stage 1 response did not meet the standard of the Code as it did not clearly define its understanding of the resident’s complaint.
  3. The resident escalated her complaint to stage 2 on 11 December 2022 but she did not receive an acknowledgment. Therefore, she chased its escalation 4 times between January and April 2023. The resident never received a stage 2 acknowledgment email but was sent holding correspondence which included an apology from the landlord on 19 July 2023. Consequently, the resident tried to raise her complaint again on 27 July 2023. The landlord finally sent its stage 2 response to the resident on 30 August 2023, more than 8 months late.
  4. The landlord blamed the delay for the stage 2 response on a backlog of complaints and made an apology. It offered the resident £60 in compensation which was paid to her alongside the compensation for the substantive complaint.
  5. The landlord’s attempts to offer redress to put things right were not proportionate to the complaint handling failings identified in this report or the impact they had on the resident. Therefore, there was maladministration by the landlord in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint. We have ordered the landlord to pay a further £140 to the resident as compensation for its handling of the complaint.

Special Investigation

  1. The Ombudsman published a report in July 2023 about the landlord following a special wider investigation. It found multiple systemic failings that were impacting its residents. These included that the landlord was failing to take effective ownership and management of repairs leading to delays and poorly communicating with residents. The Ombudsman required the landlord to make changes including improvements to its handling of repairs, complaints and how it kept records. The failings identified by this complaint largely mirror those identified by the special investigation that are part of the ongoing improvement work ordered, for which this Service remains in liaison with the landlord. As such, and in view of the age of this complaint, we have therefore not made any similar orders.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s repairs to the balcony.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling.

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks the landlord is ordered to:
    1. Pay the resident a total of £580 compensation, made up as follows:
      1. £440 for the distress and inconvenience, time, and trouble the resident likely incurred because of the landlord’s handling of the repair request. It should pay this directly to the resident and not to her rent account.
      2. £140 for the time and trouble the resident was likely to have incurred because of the landlord’s complaint handling failures. It should pay this directly to the resident and not to her rent account.
    2. Update the resident in writing on the progress of the works, specifically when the balconies may be replaced and when it may begin a consultation process. It should set out how regularly it will provide updates to her until the work is completed.
    3. Provide the resident with relevant health and safety advice relating to the balcony while the work is on hold and carry out a risk assessment.
  2. The landlord should reply to this Service with evidence of compliance with these orders within the timescale set out above.

Recommendations

  1. The landlord should consider communication with the other residents in the block about the planned works to replace the balconies.
  2. The landlord should consider whether any health and safety measures and risk assessments are required to the rest of the building while the work is on hold.