Newlon Housing Trust (202225139)
REPORT
COMPLAINT 202225139
Newlon Housing Trust
27 November 2024
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
- The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of lack of water, heating, and hot water.
- The Ombudsman has also investigated the landlord’s complaint handling.
Background
- The resident has been an assured tenant of the landlord, a housing association, since 2012. The property is a 2-bedroom ground-floor flat. The resident’s child, under the age of 5, lives with her.
- Between July 2022 and July 2023, the resident made multiple reports to the landlord about the lack of: water to her bathroom and/or kitchen; hot water; and heating. She submitted a complaint on 25 October 2022.
- The landlord issued its stage 1 and 2 responses respectively on 9 November 2022 and 14 December 2022. In both responses, the landlord accepted that there had been service failures and that it had failed to complete repairs within expected timeframes but said that some repairs could be complex and cause unforeseen delays. It recognised the inconvenience and service failure but would wait until the issue was resolved before offering compensation to ensure the offer considered the full scale of delays.
- The resident submitted a second complaint on 15 May 2023 and the landlord issued its stage 1 response on 23 June 2023. It apologised for the delay in resolving the issue and the frustration and inconvenience caused. It repeated its stance that compensation would be offered once the underlying issue was resolved.
- The resident asked to escalate her complaint on 16 August 2023 and the landlord responded on 6 September 2023, offering £375 for inconvenience and frustration, £175 for 26 January to 17 March 2023 when she was without heating or hot water, and £25 for the delay in responding to the emails.
- The resident felt the compensation was insufficient for the stress, disruption, and inconvenience caused. She also highlighted that the periods of no heating and/or hot water were longer than the dates set out in the offer, and that the landlord had not accounted for the increased cost of running electrical heaters throughout the cold winter months. In the landlord’s response of 4 October 2023, it offered an additional £300, making the total offered amount £1,000. The resident declined the offer and again requested a stage 2 escalation.
- In the landlord’s stage 2 response of 20 November 2023, it said the recurring issue was complex, but the resident had now confirmed it was resolved. It reiterated the offer of £1,000 compensation and referred her to her own insurer for any claims of damage caused to her belongings. The resident reverted to the landlord to express concern over the dates used to calculate the compensation, and in a follow up email of 24 November 2023, the landlord informed her that the compensation amount was inclusive of the dates she was without hot water even though its response had not broken down the calculation to say so.
- The resident remained dissatisfied with the landlord’s response and in November 2023 she escalated her complaint to this Service. She said the landlord had included the wrong dates in its compensation offer and had not included the period when she had no running water to the bathroom at all and she was without bathroom facilities and sanitation. She felt the compensation offer was unfair and was insufficient for the 13 months of disruption caused to her and her daughter.
- The landlord issued a further stage 2 response on 18 December 2023, in which it said:
- The volume of repeat visits over a 9-month period was unacceptable, and the complex nature of the job required 2 separate contractors to work together simultaneously, but the project management required to facilitate this was not present.
- It had examined the volume of leaks from different components which suggested deficient workmanship or the incorporation of substandard elements. This would be addressed with its contractors and the wider supply chain.
- It had started monitoring repeat orders across its properties, making it better placed to identify similar cases sooner.
- It had put a framework in place where cases like this were highlighted to senior management at an earlier stage.
- It acknowledged the resident’s poor experience and recognised the impact and inconvenience caused to her and her household. It sincerely apologised and offered an additional £450 for distress and inconvenience; bringing the overall compensation offer to a total of £1,450.
- The resident accepted this offer on 19 January 2024 but did not advise this Service that the complaint was resolved to her satisfaction.
Assessment and findings
Scope of investigation
- It is not within this Service’s remit to order the landlord to reimburse the resident for damage to her belongings. The cost of damaged belongings arising from the landlord’s actions are usually claimed via its insurance. Therefore, it is not addressed further in this report. The resident may wish to consider seeking independent advice on making an insurance claim via the landlord’s insurer.
The landlord’s handling of the reports of lack of water, heating, and/or hot water
- The landlord has accepted some of its own and its contractors’ poor service levels in its complaint responses. Therefore, the question before this Service is whether those failings amount to maladministration and, if so, whether appropriate redress was offered to put things right.
- The landlord’s responsive repairs policy says it is responsible for keeping in good repair and proper working order any installation provided by it for space heating, water heating, sanitation, and for the supply of water, gas and electricity, including basins, sinks, baths, toilets, flushing systems and waste pipes. The issues reported by the resident fell under the landlord’s repair responsibilities.
- The landlord’s compensation policy sets out how it calculates compensation payments following a failure in service delivery. It outlines payment brackets where there were delays in repairs and for loss of amenities. When calculating compensation, it considers: the duration of avoidable distress and/or inconvenience; the seriousness of any unfair impact; its own actions that contributed to financial loss, distress, inconvenience, or unfair impact. In deciding whether the landlord has offered appropriate compensation, consideration has also been given to the Ombudsman’s own remedies guidance.
- While there is a minor dispute over the periods when the resident was without water, hot water, heating, or a combination of all 3, it is not clear why the landlord used the dates of 26 January to 17 March 2023 in its compensation offer of 6 September 2023. It had previously informed the resident that the reason it would not offer it earlier was to allow consideration for the full period of events.
- The issues began and were reported before 26 January 2023 and continued beyond 17 March 2023. Therefore, the offer of compensation should have accounted for those periods and the explanation should have made that clear. Instead, the landlord told the resident in its email of 24 November 2023 that the offer included the dates she was without hot water even if its response had not broken down the calculation to say so, without offering a clear explanation for its use of that particular date range.
- In addition, the landlord did not consider the increased cost of utilities during these periods when the resident had to heat the property via electric fan heaters. She highlighted this to the landlord following its first compensation offer but it was not addressed in any of its subsequent responses. During this investigation, enquiries were made with the landlord about the resident’s claim for utility costs and it confirmed that utility bills, or other evidence of increased costs, should have been requested from the resident, but were not. As such, there is no evidence that the landlord considered the increased costs incurred by the resident in calculating its offers of redress.
- Enquiries were also made with the landlord about what support was provided to the resident during the period she was without any water to her bathroom, and later when the cold water supply was restored but she remained without hot water during winter. The presence of a young child was highlighted, and enquiries were also made about whether the landlord factored the resident’s household vulnerabilities into its handling of the situation.
- In reply the landlord said it had arranged for cold water to be restored to the bathroom so that the toilet could be flushed. It offered no comment on how the resident and her child were undertaking hygiene activities without hot water during winter and whether it had offered any support with this. It further said that ‘heating has always worked fine’ and it had fixed or replaced radiators without delay when reported.
- However, the repair and contact records show multiple reports by the resident when she was reporting the loss of heating during winter. Those same records show that the landlord had noted the need for, and use of, electric fan heaters due to that loss, so it ought to have been aware that the heating had not ‘always worked fine’.
- Additional enquiries were made to seek clarification on the delays in: replacing the water tank after it had been identified as faulty; installing a combi-boiler as recommended by the surveyor in October 2022; and a further delay in October 2022 when its contractor said it needed to order a combi-boiler water tank as a special item with a delivery time of 3 weeks (combi-boilers do not require water storage tanks). While the landlord has since confirmed that combi-boilers do not require a special tank, it did not query this with the contractor at the time.
- No satisfactory explanation has been provided for any of these delays, and the landlord confirmed that a combi-boiler had never been installed as the issue was resolved with the installation of an unvented cylinder. The landlord told this Service the cylinder was installed on 22 May 2023, but records show that the resident made a report of low water pressure and no hot water on 26 June 2023, and internal emails show that the cylinder was installed in July 2023.
- This was 9 months after the combi-boiler was first recommended, and there is no evidence that its installation was seriously considered by the landlord or that an assessment was conducted which ruled it out as the solution to the problem. There is no reasonable explanation why the landlord did not act on the surveyor’s recommendation to install a combi-boiler. There is also no reasonable explanation for why it took the landlord several months to replace the defective water tank, even after multiple operatives reported the need to do so.
- References were made by the landlord to the complexity of the repairs, but this Service has not seen evidence to support this. It is correct that the involvement of multiple contractors required increased project management, which was missing, but that in itself did not make the nature, or the root cause, of the repairs complex. Instead, there was a lack of oversight and ownership on the landlord’s part which contributed to this incohesive approach to repairs and clouded the timeline and the landlord’s response.
- The landlord, in its response to this Service, has acknowledged that there were multiple separate issues with the system contributing to the problem, but it does not have a reasonable explanation for why these could not have been identified at the same time. If the landlord had taken a closer look and brought the different elements of the issues together to take an overarching view, the issues would likely have been resolved sooner, without the repeated and ongoing negative impact on the resident.
- The landlord took some steps after the complaints were logged to redress matters such as acknowledging, and apologising for, the unacceptable volume of repeat visits and delays, providing feedback to its contractors and supply chain, introducing monitoring initiatives across its properties to identify similar issues sooner, and making an award of compensation. These actions demonstrate that the landlord took the complaint seriously, openly acknowledged areas for improvement, and took action to rectify the identified failings. This is in line with the Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles: be fair; put things right; and learn from outcomes. However, as noted above, the landlord has not gone far enough in putting things right as evidence shows it has not factored the increased cost of utilities into its compensation, or fully appreciated the scale of disruption, distress, and upheaval the situation would cause in a household with a very young child.
- Moreover, the landlord told this Service that it has no vulnerabilities recorded for the resident, despite the evidence demonstrating that it was on notice of the presence of a child in the property, with vulnerability being flagged in internal communications. It is clear, therefore, that the landlord failed to consider the impact of the situation on the resident in a vulnerable household and did not respond appropriately to her. It is reasonable to conclude then that it also did not take the vulnerability sufficiently into account when assessing the compensation award.
- The volume and tone of the resident’s contact with the landlord keenly displayed the level of distress and strain she was experiencing due to this long-drawn-out situation. Even when potential solutions were identified the landlord did not take real action to implement them or at the very least update the resident with its reasons for not doing so. She was kept inadequately informed, left without updates (having to chase the landlord repeatedly), and pleading for it to address the underlying issue instead of putting in stopgap solutions. She was candid about the impact the situation was having on her, including the impact on her work life; all of which appears to have been overlooked by the landlord.
- The identified failures amount to maladministration and the landlord is therefore ordered to apologise for these failings and pay the resident a further £500, in addition to the £1,450 previously paid, for the expense, distress, and inconvenience caused by its failures, in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance.
- This Service encourages landlords to self-assess against the Ombudsman’s Spotlight reports following publication. In March 2019, we published our Spotlight on complaints about repairs. The evidence gathered during this investigation shows the landlord’s practice was not in line with the recommendations made in that report. We encourage the landlord to consider the findings and recommendations of our Spotlight report unless it can provide evidence it has self-assessed already.
The landlord’s handling of the associated complaint
- The landlord’s complaint policy applicable at the time defined a complaint as an expression of dissatisfaction requiring its response about (amongst other things) the standard of service, actions or lack of action, and delays in meeting published timelines. The policy set out timeframes for responding to complaints; namely 10 working days at stage 1 and 20 working days at stage 2.
- The resident’s first complaint was responded to generally within the stipulated timescales. Although it is somewhat unusual that the landlord refused to offer compensation for the issues identified at that point, its desire to take an overall view of the compensation could be understood. However, it should have set out a timeframe and plan for when it intended to draw the line and offer compensation, including whether it would proactively contact the resident to do so. Its approach to compensation left things open-ended and with room for confusion.
- The resident made her second complaint on 15 May 2023 and received the landlord’s stage 1 response on 23 June 2023, 28 working days later. She requested an escalation to stage 2 on 16 August 2023 and the landlord issued its stage 2 response on 20 November 2023 (after she reiterated her escalation request), 68 working days later. Both responses were outside the stipulated timeframes of 10 and 20 working days respectively.
- In addition to this, the landlord issued compensation offers outside of its formal complaint responses, further adding to delays and circumventing its own complaints procedure. Even in its attempts to redress matters via compensation and explanations, the landlord’s response remained disjointed, and it is unsurprising that the resident did not feel reassured that it had fully considered or understood the impact of its failings. It was not until its supplementary response of 18 December 2023, that the landlord finally did a comprehensive review and set out an honest and detailed analysis of where things went wrong and how it would learn from its failings.
- The landlord’s poor handling of the complaint amounts to maladministration. It is, therefore, ordered below to write to the resident with an apology for its failure. It is further ordered to pay the resident £200 for the upset and inconvenience caused by its complaint handling failures.
- On 8 February 2024, the Ombudsman issued the statutory Complaint Handling Code (the Code), which sets out the requirements landlords must meet when handling complaints in both policy and practice. The new Code applies from 1 April 2024 and the Ombudsman has a duty to monitor compliance with it. We will assess landlords using our Compliance Framework and take action where there is evidence that the requirements set out in the Code are not being met. As a result, no specific order is made on this case with regard to the landlord’s compliance with the Code, and the contents of its policies and procedures in that regard.
- However, an order is made for the landlord to review its handling of the complaint in this case, alongside the provisions of the Code in order to: understand how the failings occurred; identify areas for improvement; and note where current practices may be at odds with the requirements of the Code.
Determination
- In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in respect of its handling of the resident’s:
- Reports of lack of water, heating, and/or hot water.
- Associated formal complaint.
Orders
- Within 4 weeks of this report, the landlord is ordered to:
- Write to the resident with an apology (with reference to the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance to ensure the apology is sincere and appropriate) for its:
- Failures in the handling of the reports of lack of water, heating and/or hot water.
- Complaint handling failures.
- Pay directly to the resident (and not offset against any rent arrears) £700 compensation, in addition to the £1,450 already paid, as follows:
- £500 in recognition of the distress and inconvenience caused by its handling of the reports of lack of water, heating, and/or hot water.
- £200 in recognition of the upset and inconvenience caused by its poor handling of the associated complaint.
- Review the complaint handling failures highlighted in this investigation alongside the provisions of the Code.
- Provide evidence of compliance with these orders to the Ombudsman within 4 weeks.
- Write to the resident with an apology (with reference to the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance to ensure the apology is sincere and appropriate) for its: