Orbit Housing Association Limited (202324602)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202324602

Orbit Housing Association Limited

13 May 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

The complaint is about the landlord’s response to the resident’s concerns about a water bill.
The Ombudsman has also considered the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

The resident holds an assured shorthold tenancy. She has lived at the property since December 2014. The property is a 2 bedroom flat within a block.
Each flat in the block has its own water meter. The landlord receives a water bill for the whole block and divides it based on meter readings for each flat. It then issues water bills to residents, which is based on their usage, as a separate demand from the service charge.
On 10 May 2023 the landlord’s Aged Debtor team advised its Customer Relations team that the resident was challenging a water bill. The resident said the reason the bill was higher than usual was because it took the landlord a month in late 2021 to repair a toilet in her property that was constantly flushing. The landlord logged this as a formal complaint.
The landlord issued its stage 1 response to the complaint on 31 May 2023. It said:
1. it received the resident’s report that the toilet was constantly flushing on 18 October 2021.
2. it attended the property and completed the repair on 17 November 2021.
3. it could not consider her complaint about this repair, or the impact it may have had on her water bill, as over 6 months had passed.
4. this was in line with its complaints policy which stated it would not consider complaints about issues older than 6 months, unless there were valid reasons why the issue was not raised sooner.
On 11 June 2023 the resident emailed the landlord and asked it to escalate her complaint. She said:
1. she had tried to contact it on “several occasions” about the high water bill, but the water department was “elusive” and there was a “lack of channels of contact”. Its customer service staff did not know where to direct her calls to. The invoices the landlord sent did not provide any contact information on them.
2. she had an Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA). She wrote to the Aged Debtor team on 14 February 2023 about outstanding invoices, but it took almost 3 months to reply.
3. she then began working through the invoices with the Aged Debtor team in early May 2023. During these discussions she raised the issue of the water bill again. This led to the landlord logging the formal complaint on 10 May 2023.
4. her water bill was high as the landlord had left her toilet “in disrepair” for a long period of time.
5. the landlord’s communications with the insolvency practitioner managing her IVA were also poor. The practitioner had been contacting the landlord about the IVA since 2019, but it had only recently responded over 3 and a half years later.
As the landlord had not investigated the original complaint, it logged the email of 11 June 2023 as a new complaint. It issued its stage 1 response on 3 August 2023. It said:
1. it took 30 days to complete the repair to the toilet following the resident’s report in October 2021. This was during a period when COVID-19 restrictions were in place, resulting in its contractors having reduced capacity. It was satisfied its response time was reasonable in the circumstances.
2. it accepted its Aged Debtor team delayed in responding to the resident. This was due to it having a backlog of emails.
3. it would reduce the water bill to reflect the additional costs likely incurred due to it taking 30 days to repair the toilet in October and November 2021. It had calculated this as being £87.76.
4. it offered her £320 compensation for its delay in responding to her queries about the bill (£70), for “upset and inconvenience” (£100) and for “poor complaints handling” (£150).
5. it was aware that the resident disputed all of her outstanding water charges. Its complaint investigation had only looked at the charges during the period of the toilet repair in 2021. The Aged Debtor team would contact her to discuss her concerns about the remaining charges.
Following this, the Aged Debtor team contacted the resident to discuss her water charges. The resident explained in response that her water bill was approximately £1,300 more expensive during the year of the toilet repair (2021-22) compared to the previous year. She said her usual bill was £400 a year, but the bill for the year of the repair was £1,745.37. She did not accept that the £87.76 reduction offered by the landlord in its stage 1 response adequately reflected the additional water charges incurred during the 30 day period the toilet repair was outstanding.
In response to this, the Aged Debtor team suggested to the resident that the reason for the increased water use during 2021-22 was due to COVID-19. The resident rejected this. She told the landlord she worked from home prior to the pandemic and her water bills during other periods of lockdown did not increase. She lived alone throughout this time. She suggested the only explanation for the significant increase was that the toilet was constantly flushing for 30 days. She provided it with 2 older bills that covered periods in April 2019, and November 2019 to January 2020, when the toilet had also been constantly flushing. She said that these bills evidenced there was a significant increase in water usage during periods when the toilet required repair.
The Aged Debtor team did not accept the resident’s analysis. It maintained that the £87.76 bill reduction offered in the stage 1 response was a fair reflection of the additional costs likely incurred due to the period the toilet repair was outstanding.
As she could not reach an agreement with the Aged Debtor team, the resident asked the landlord to escalate her complaint on 9 August 2023. Within her escalation request she:
1. complained about the Aged Debtor team’s communications with her in relation to the water bills and her IVA, and also about its administration of invoices.
2. complained about the conduct of the member of staff she had been dealing with on the Aged Debtor team. She said she felt “gaslit” and “pressured” by the staff member into paying the disputed water bill. She said when she queried why the compensation offered in the stage 1 response would be paid as a credit note on her account, she was “shut down” by the staff member.
3. asked the landlord to reconsider its calculation of £87.76. She explained she did not accept this reflected the additional water charges incurred during the 30 day period the toilet repair was outstanding.
The resident sent the landlord 2 further emails on 10 August 2023 in which she provided an analysis of her water bills in support of her escalation request.
The landlord acknowledged the escalation request and confirmed it would address the water bill aspect of it at stage 2. It said it would also log a separate complaint to “investigate how [the staff member] and the Aged Debtor team have dealt with your query”.
The landlord issued its stage 2 response on 30 August 2023. It explained how it had worked out the figure of £87.76 and concluded that the calculation was “fair”.
The resident remained unhappy with the landlord’s response to her complaint. She did not accept that £87.76 was a fair reflection of the cost added to her water bill due the toilet constantly flushing for 30 days. She therefore referred her complaint to the Ombudsman and asked us to investigate.

Response to the resident’s concerns about a water bill

The landlord is responsible under section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act, and under the tenancy agreement, for keeping the toilet in repair and proper working order. It has not disputed this.
The resident contacted the landlord in October 2021 and reported that her toilet was constantly flushing. The landlord categorised its response as routine rather than an emergency. This was reasonable as:
1. the toilet, although using excess water, was not leaking.
2. the toilet was in an ensuite. There was a second toilet in the property that the resident could use until the repair was complete.
Although the landlord’s repairs policy stated it would complete routine repairs within 28 days, it completed the repair in 30 days. It explained in its stage 1 complaint response that it took this length of time due to resourcing issues caused by the COVID-19 restrictions in place at that time. This was a reasonable explanation for the slight delay in completing the repair.
The landlord apologised in the stage 1 response for its delay in responding to the resident when she emailed it and asked to discuss the water bill. It explained this was caused by a backlog of emails.
The landlord offered the resident £70 compensation for its delay in responding to her emails. It also offered her £100 for “upset and inconvenience”. It calculated these amounts by using a matrix aligned with its compensation policy. Our remedies guidance suggests a similar level of compensation is appropriate where there are communication failings such as occurred in this case. We are therefore satisfied that the £170 compensation offered at that time by the landlord was reasonable.
In her complaint the resident explained that her water bill for the year of the leak (2021-22) was significantly higher than her bill for previous years and in the year since. She said her bill was usually approximately £400 per year. However, for 2021-22 it was £1,745.37.
The disputed bill (invoice number GFT04224) covered the period 24 April 2020 to 31 March 2022. It totalled £2,217.75 and was broken down as follows:
1. 24 April 2020 to 31 March 2021 cost £456.66:
  1. water supply cost – £221.84
  2. waste water cost – £234.82
2. 1 April 2021 to 31 March 2022 cost £1,745.37:
  1. water supply cost – £820.82
  2. waste water cost – £924.55
3. standing order charge – £15.72
In its stage 1 response the landlord said that it would reduce the water bill to reflect the additional cost likely incurred due to it taking 30 days to repair the toilet in October and November 2021. This was appropriate as it was due to a repair responsibility of the landlord that excess water was used. However, the landlord’s calculation of the cost attributable to this was flawed.
The landlord used meter readings to estimate how many units of excess water were used on a specific day when the repair was outstanding. It then multiplied this by 28 days and worked out the cost based on the unit price for water supply and waste water. Although it took 30 days to complete the repair, that it used 28 days as its multiplier did not make a significant difference to the outcome. The flaw in its calculation lay elsewhere as we will explain.
The landlord’s calculation was as follows:
1. The meter reading on 16 November 2021, which was during the period the toilet required repair, showed that 542 units of water had been used since a previous meter reading on 23 April 2020.
2. There were 572 days between the meter readings in April 2020 and November 2021.
3. The average number of units used each day during those 572 days was 0.95 units (542 units divided by 572 days).
4. Applying the same calculation, the average number of units used per day based on a meter reading in July 2022 was 0.18 units, and on a reading in March 2023 was 0.14 units.
5. The difference between the highest daily average (0.95 units) and lowest daily average (0.14 units) was 0.81 units.
6. It therefore assumed that approximately 0.81 excess daily units were used over 28 days in October and November 2021 (22.68 units in total).
7. The excess cost was £87.76 (22.68 excess units x £3.87 per unit for water usage and waste water).
8. The bill should therefore be reduced by £87.76.
The flaw in the calculation was in point f above, which is based on the assumption that only 0.95 units per day were used while the toilet was constantly flushing.
The figure of 0.95 units is the average number of units used per day over a 572 day period. Given the considerable time period covered, it is not a fair estimate of the number of units used during the 30 days when the repair was outstanding. It is likely that the number of units used during the 30 day period was significantly in excess of that. However, the overall daily average would not reflect that given usage would have been within a normal range for the vast majority of the time (572 days minus 30 days = 542 days) since the last meter reading.
This is supported by an older invoice provided by the resident to the landlord in support of her request that it review the bill for 2021-22. The constantly flushing toilet had been a recurring repair issue in the property. The older invoice showed that during 10 days in April 2019, 88 units of water were used at the property. This is an average of 8.8 units a day. The landlord flagged this invoice at the time as requiring investigation due to the high meter reading. It duly investigated and found that the reason it was so high was because the toilet issue had arisen during this time. It is not known if it was constantly flushing during the whole of the 10 days, or for only some of the time. Either way, this provides evidence that when the toilet issue arose, average daily water usage at the property was significantly in excess of 0.95 units.
During its complaint investigation, the landlord ruled out that there was an ongoing leak at the property. It suggested that any increased use in water could only be attributed to the 30 day period during which the toilet was constantly flushing and to habit changes by the resident.
The resident explained to the landlord in her complaint correspondence that she lived alone. She confirmed that nobody else was living with her between April 2021 and March 2022, which was the period when water usage at the property almost quadrupled compared to the previous year. Her other utility bills did not significantly increase during that year. She highlighted to the landlord that the disputed bill showed that between April 2020 and March 2021 her water usage was within her normal range. This was during the longest periods of COVID-19 lockdown. She also worked from home prior to the pandemic. She therefore refuted the landlord’s suggestion that lockdown was the reason for her increased bill in 2021-22. She also pointed out that her more recent bills had also returned to normal levels.
In the absence of any other reasonable explanation, we find it likely that the increased water usage in the property for 2021-22 was solely due to the toilet constantly flushing for 30 days. We have estimated the cost of this to be £1,250.98. We have calculated this based on the usage during the previous year (2020-21) which is included in the same bill as for 2021-22 (invoice number GFT004224). We find this to be a fair comparison given both years were during periods of lockdown. Our calculation is as follows:
1. Between 24 April 2020 and 31 March 2021 (341 days), the bill shows that 118 units of water were used. This is an average of 0.35 units per day.
2. The bill shows that 451 units of water were used between 1 April 2021 and 31 March 2022 (2021-22).
3. Had it not been for the toilet issue arising, water use would likely have remained steady during 2021-22. Approximately 127.75 units would have been used based on the previous year’s daily average (365 days x 0.35 units per day).
4. The excess water used due to the toilet constantly flushing for 30 days was therefore 323.25 units (451 units used in 2021-22 minus 127.75 units that would likely have been used had there been no repair issue).
5. The cost of this was £1,250.98 (323.25 excess units x £3.87 which is the cost of water supply and waste water per unit)
Given this, we order the landlord to reduce the cost of the water bill, if it remains outstanding, by £1,250.98. This includes the £87.76 reduction it has already applied. Alternatively, if the resident has already paid the bill, it should pay her compensation of £1,250.98.
Overall, the Ombudsman finds that there was service failure in the landlord’s response to the resident’s concerns about her water bill. It failed to thoroughly probe its calculations, particularly during its stage 2 investigation. This led to it under-estimating the likely cost of the toilet constantly flushing for 30 days.
The resident sent the landlord numerous emails with supporting evidence about the bill. However, despite this, it failed to reconsider its calculation. In line with our remedies guidance, the landlord is ordered to pay the resident £200 compensation for the distress and inconvenience this caused and the unnecessary time and trouble she spent in pursuing the issue.

Complaint handling

The landlord logged the resident’s concerns about the water bill as a stage 1 complaint in May 2023. At that time its complaints policy said it did not have to investigate issues that occurred more than 6 months prior to the complaint being made. This was in line with the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code). The Code explained that the exclusion could be applied if it was “fair and reasonable” in the circumstances. Both the landlord’s complaints policy and the Code have since been updated to extend the exclusion period to 12 months.
The 30 day period during which the toilet required repair was in October and November 2021. The disputed water bill was issued in August 2022. The landlord said in its stage 1 response on 31 May 2023 that in line with its policy, it could not investigate either issue as over 6 months had passed.
While on the basic facts of the complaint this would appear reasonable, the landlord made the decision to apply the 6 month rule without fully understanding the complaint. This was unreasonable.
The landlord did not send the resident an acknowledgement setting out its understanding of the complaint as required by its policy and the Code. Had it done so, it would have given the resident an opportunity to clarify the full extent of her complaint.
The landlord instead based its understanding of the resident’s complaint on the information passed from its Aged Debtor team to its Customer Relations team. Its understanding was not drawn directly from the resident’s own words. It attempted to call her once to discuss her concerns before issuing its response. She told it that it was not a convenient time to speak and asked that it write to her instead.
At this point the landlord could reasonably have written to the resident setting out its understanding of the complaint and giving her an opportunity to correct this. Instead, it proceeded to issue its stage 1 response on the same day as the failed phone call attempt. This was unreasonable. It meant that due to its limited understanding of the complaint, it applied the 6 month rule without knowing that the resident had been raising concerns with it for some time. Part of her complaint was its failure to respond to those concerns. The failure to respond occurred within the previous 6 months.
When the resident received the stage 1 response, she asked the landlord to escalate her complaint. She explained she had been raising concerns about the water bill for some time, but it had failed to respond. She asked it to include its communication failures within the scope of its investigation.
Upon receiving this information, the landlord appropriately recognised that it should not have excluded the complaint under the 6 month rule. Rather than move the complaint to stage 2, it instead carried out a stage 1 investigation and issued a further stage 1 response. This was reasonable given it had not carried out an investigation first time around. There was therefore no investigation for a stage 2 investigator to review.
The landlord’s complaints policy and the Code required it to acknowledge receipt of complaints and issue a stage 1 response within 10 working days. If it was not able to meet this target, the policy and Code required it to write to the resident in advance of the original deadline to advise her of this.
The landlord failed to comply with all these requirements when issuing the second stage 1 response. It did not acknowledge the resident’s escalation request and explain that, instead of escalating the complaint, it would instead issue a new stage 1 response. It took 38 working days to issue the response. It did not notify the resident in advance that it would not meet the 10 working day deadline. When it issued the response, it did not acknowledge or apologise for any of these complaint handling failures.
The landlord offered the resident £150 compensation in its second stage 1 response for its “poor complaint handling”. It did not explain why its complaint handling was poor. We are satisfied, however, that in line with our remedies guidance, this was a reasonable amount of compensation for the likely distress and inconvenience caused by the complaint handling failures up to that point.
When the resident asked to escalate her complaint, she complained about the Aged Debtor team’s communications with her in relation to the water bills and her IVA, and about its administration of invoices. She also complained about the conduct of a member of staff.
It was reasonable that the landlord said it would log these issues as a new complaint rather than address them in its stage 2 response. This was because it had not investigated and responded to these issues at stage 1. However, the resident has informed us that she did not receive a stage 1 response from the landlord on these issues. She told us she remains concerned about the landlord’s approach to invoicing.
Overall, the Ombudsman finds that there was maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling. This is due to its failure to investigate the complaint initially, followed by non-compliance with procedural aspects of its policy and the Code when issuing its second stage 1 response. It has already offered the resident reasonable compensation for this. However, it then failed to formally respond to further complaint issues raised by the resident in her escalation request. In line with our remedies guidance, it should pay the resident £50 compensation for this additional complaint handling failure.
We also recommend the landlord contacts the resident and asks her if she still wishes it to investigate her complaint about staff conduct and the administration of invoices. If she does, it should ensure it has a full understanding of her complaint. It should then investigate and issue a stage 1 response in line with its complaints policy. If the resident is unhappy with the response, she will be able to escalate it to stage 2 and after that to the Ombudsman.

Determination

In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was service failure in the landlord’s response to the resident’s concerns about a water bill.
In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling.

Orders

Within 4 weeks of the date of this report, the landlord should:
1. Apologise to the resident for the failings identified in this report. The apology should follow the best practice set out in the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance.
2. Reduce the cost of water bill GFT004224, if it remains outstanding, by £1,250.98. This includes the £87.76 reduction it offered in its complaint response of 3 August 2023. If the resident has already paid the bill, it should pay her compensation of £1,250.98.
3. Pay the resident £570 compensation. This is broken down as follows:
  1. £200 for distress and inconvenience, and time and trouble, due to the service failure in its response to her concerns about a water bill.
  2. £50 for distress and inconvenience due to the maladministration in its complaint handling.
  3. £320 as offered in its complaint response of 3 August 2023 for delays in its communications about the water bill (£70) distress and inconvenience (£100) and poor complaint handling (£150). If this has already been paid, it may be deducted from the £570 ordered.

Recommendation

The landlord should contact the resident and ask her if she still wishes it to investigate her complaint about staff conduct and its administration of invoices. If she does, it should then investigate and issue a stage 1 response in line with its complaints procedure.