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London & Quadrant Housing Trust (L&Q) (202328959)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202328959

London & Quadrant Housing Trust (L&Q)

25 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 repairs to the resident’s heating and hot water system.
  2. The Ombudsman has also investigated the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

  1. The resident is an assured tenant of the property, a 2-bedroom flat on the second floor of a mid-rise block. He has lived at the property since June 2021.
  2. On 15 November 2022 the resident contacted the landlord to report he had no hot water or heating at his property. The landlord made several attempts to complete the repair in November 2022, but the issue remained unresolved as new parts were needed.
  3. The resident complained to the landlord on 8 December 2022 that he had not had heating or hot water since he first reported the repair. He said he was reliant on portable electric heaters, which had impacted his energy consumption. The resident said he wanted compensation for the additional costs and the inconvenience caused.
  4. The landlord issued its stage 1 complaint response on 3 January 2023 and apologised for the difficulties the resident had faced. It said the repairs had since been completed and it offered the resident £446 compensation. The response did not comment upon how the compensation had been calculated.
  5. The resident escalated his complaint with the landlord on 5 January 2023 and stated he was unhappy with the compensation amount as it did not cover the cost of his increased bills, or the inconvenience caused. The landlord issued its stage 2 complaint response on 21 September 2023. It increased the compensation offer to £834.08p, made up of:
    1. £446 from the stage 1 response.
    2. £388.08p to cover the cost of an electric fan heater for 98 days.
  6. The resident remained dissatisfied and brought the complaint to us.

Assessment and findings

Repairs to heating and hot water system

  1. When the resident reported the repair to the landlord on 15 November 2022, he was informed the repair would be completed within 72 hours. The landlord’s notes recorded there were no vulnerabilities at the property and the resident was unhappy with the timescale given.
  2. The landlord’s repairs policy defines an emergency repair as one where there is immediate danger to the occupant and states it will attend these in 24 hours. While the resident’s situation was clearly distressing for him, there was no immediate danger. The policy also states it will aim to complete day to day repairs at the earliest mutually convenient time. Given the repair required the attendance of a specialist contractor and there were no vulnerabilities recorded at the property, the landlord’s target response time was reasonable.
  3. The landlord’s contractor attended the property 2 days later and determined that new parts were needed to complete the repair. The landlord attempted to deliver temporary heaters to the resident later that day, but he was not at home. It made the resident a further offer of temporary heaters on 21 November 2022, which he declined. The landlord then provided the resident with temporary heaters on 23 November and 3 December 2022 at his request.
  4. The landlord’s contractor fitted the new parts on 25 November 2022, where it discovered that further parts were needed to complete the repair. The contractor made further visits to the property during November and December 2022 to try and complete the repair, missing an appointment on 19 December 2022. The repair was completed on 3 January 2023, 35 days after the repair had been reported.
  5. The landlord’s notes from the time show that there was some confusion around whether the boiler was still in warranty and whether the manufacturer should complete the repair. This confusion ultimately led to delays in the correct parts being ordered and caused the resident to be without heating and hot water for longer than anticipated. The notes also show that during this time, the landlord was proactive in following up the manufacturer and suppliers, to try and achieve a timely resolution for the resident.
  6. In its stage 1 complaint response, dated 3 January 2023, the landlord offered the resident £446 compensation. However, the response did not contain a breakdown of how that figure was reached. The landlord’s internal notes from the following day recorded the compensation was made up of:
    1. £196 for no heating and hot water (£4 a day x 49 days).
    2. £100 for the inconvenience.
    3. £100 for distress.
    4. £50 contribution towards increased electrical costs.
  7. It is unclear why the landlord compensated the resident for 49 days without heating and hot water, when in it was only 35 days, from 15 November 2022 to 3 January 2023. However, the landlord did recognise the distress, inconvenience, and increased energy costs in its response.
  8. When the resident escalated his complaint on 5 January 2023, he stated he was unhappy with the compensation offered. The resident said the amount did not fully cover the inconvenience and extra costs experienced until the repair was completed, or the missed appointments at the property.
  9. In the landlord’s stage 2 response, dated 21 September 2023, the landlord offered the resident a further £388.08 compensation to cover the cost of the fan heaters for 98 days. It is unclear why the landlord chose to compensate for 98 days, when the resident had the fan heaters for 29 days, from 23 November 2022 to 3 January 2023.
  10. The landlord’s compensation policy states it may offer compensation where appointments are missed (£20 per appointment) or when the occupant is without heating and hot water beyond the agreed response time. While the landlord’s response did not acknowledge the missed appointment on 19 December 2022, it had overcalculated the time period the resident was without services and using portable heaters. This overcalculation more than adequately made up for the £20 missed appointment cost.
  11. In summary, the landlord initially attended the property in line with its policy. However, the nature of the fault, and the warranty period for the boiler could not be ascertained quickly, leaving the resident without heating and hot water for 35 days, 32 days over the initial 72-hour period.
  12. In relation to the failures identified, the Ombudsman’s role is to consider whether the redress offered by the landlord put things right and resolved the resident’s complaint satisfactorily in the circumstances. In considering this, the Ombudsman takes into account whether the landlord’s offer of redress was in line with the Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles: be fair, put things right, and learn from outcomes, as well as our guidance on remedies. 
  13. The Ombudsman’s remedies guidance, which is available online, provides awards of compensation between £100 and £600 when there is evidence of maladministration by the landlord which adversely affected the resident. In this case, the delays in completing the repairs resulted in the resident having to use portable heaters and rely on friends and family for use of bathing facilities. 
  14. The landlord’s offer of compensation was £834.08p. Accounting for the compensation awarded for a missed appointment (£20) and use of temporary heaters (£4 x 35 days = £140), this leaves £674.08p awarded by the landlord for distress and inconvenience. This is more than the amount typically awarded by us in line with our remedies guidance for the failings identified.
  15. Therefore, this leads to a conclusion that the landlord took reasonable steps to put things right and accordingly, the landlord has made an offer of redress to the resident which is reasonable and resolves the complaint. 

Complaint handling

  1. The landlord’s complaints policy sets out the timescales in which the landlord will deal with complaints:
    1. It will acknowledge and record a complaint within 2 working days. 
    2. It will issue a stage 1 response within 10 working days from when the complaint was recorded.
    3. It will issue a stage 2 response within 20 working days from the request to escalate the complaint. 
  2. The landlord acknowledged the resident’s formal complaint within 1 working day, in line with its policy. In its acknowledgement email, the landlord informed the resident he would receive a response by 21 December 2022.
  3. The landlord issued its stage 1 complaint response 13 working days after it logged the resident’s complaint. The landlord did not update the resident that there would be a delay, despite him contacting it on 23 December 2022 to chase the response. This was a missed opportunity for the landlord to manage the resident’s expectations.
  4. The resident contacted the landlord on 5 January 2023 and said he was unhappy with its response. In line with its policy, this should have caused the landlord to escalate his complaint to stage 2. This did not happen, despite the resident chasing his request on 20 January 2023. The resident contacted the landlord again on 8 September 2023 requesting an update and the landlord then acknowledged the request in line with its policy. The landlord’s failure to escalate the complaint at an earlier stage was unreasonable.
  5. The landlord issued its stage 2 complaint response 9 working days later, in line with its policy. The response did not acknowledge its failings in complaint handling.
  6. In summary, there was a slight delay to the landlord’s stage 1 response. The impact of this was minimal and could have been negated by communicating the delay with the resident. But in addition, the landlord’s failure to escalate the resident’s complaint for 8 months, was unreasonable and prevented him from bringing the complaint to us sooner.
  7. This leads to a finding of service failure in the landlord’s complaint handling. An order has been made for the landlord to pay £75 compensation to the resident for the time and trouble caused. This is in line with our remedies guidance for service failure where the overall outcome has not been significantly affected for the resident.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 53.b. of the Scheme, there was reasonable redress in the landlord’s handling of repairs to the resident’s heating and hot water system.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was service failure in the landlord’s complaint handling.

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks of the date of this report, the landlord must:
    1. Provide the resident with a written apology for the failings identified within this report.
    2. Pay £75 compensation to the resident for its failures in complaint handling.