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Peabody Trust (202303862)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202303862

Peabody Trust

30 January 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. This complaint is about the landlord’s handling of:
    1. The resident’s reports of no hot water in her property.
    2. The associated complaint.

Background

  1. The resident is an assured tenant of a property owned by the landlord.
  2. The resident made a complaint to the landlord on 1 February 2023. She said she reported that there was no hot water in her property on 14 January 2023. Since then, she had called at least 8 times, but it had not resolved the problem.
  3. The landlord responded at stage 1 on 23 June 2023. It accepted the resident’s property did not have hot water from 13 January 2023 (a day earlier than the resident stated) to 6 February 2023. It apologised for the delay completing the repair and responding to the complaint. It offered the resident £422 compensation.
  4. The resident escalated her complaint on 29 June 2023. She said that while the landlord had restored hot water to the property, its contractors missed several repair appointments. Additionally, she was concerned it took around 2 hours to heat a small amount of water.
  5. On 21 July 2023, the landlord issued its stage 2 response. It stated its contractors attended on 30 June 2023 and decided to replace the resident’s water cylinder. It scheduled this for 22 July 2023. It said it was unable to evidence missed repair appointments but would consider compensation if she provided evidence of these. It offered her an additional £100 compensation for complaint handling delays, resulting in a total compensation offer of £522.
  6. The resident remained dissatisfied with the landlord’s final complaint response and referred her complaint to this Service.

Assessment and findings

  1. This Service can only investigate matters which have completed the landlord’s complaints procedure, as per paragraph 42.a. of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme. We recognise that after the landlord issued its final complaint response, the resident expressed other concerns such as the efficiency of the replacement water cylinder and mould in the area housing the cylinder. It is open for the resident to contact the landlord directly and make a separate complaint.
  2. This investigation considers matters from when the resident initially reported repairs in January 2023, up to the date of the landlord’s stage 2 response dated 21 July 2023.

Hot water

  1. Where a landlord admits failings, the Ombudsman’s role is to assess whether the redress offered put things right and resolved the resident’s complaint satisfactorily in the circumstances. The Ombudsman also considers whether the landlord acted in line with our Dispute Resolution Principles: be fair, put things right, and learn from outcomes.
  2. Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 places a statutory obligation on the landlord to keep the structure and exterior of the property in repair.
  3. The tenancy agreement sets out that the landlord agrees to keep in good repair and proper working order any installations provided for space heating, water heating and sanitation.
  4. The landlord’s responsive repairs policy says that it will complete non-urgent repairs within 28 calendar days. It aims to attend emergency repairs within 4 hours.
  5. The landlord’s compensation policy states that where there is a total loss of hot water, after the first 24 hours, it will compensate £1 per person per day, up to £5 per day. Its policy also considers compensation for a resident’s time, trouble, and inconvenience (up to £600) and complaint handling failures (up to £250) depending on the impact.
  6. The resident was without hot water for 24 days. She demonstrated that she had contacted the landlord on several occasions to progress the repair and restore hot water to her home. The Ombudsman recognises this was a challenging time for her and her family. From the records available, the Ombudsman finds that the landlord did not communicate with the resident effectively and it failed to manage her expectations during this time. This was a shortcoming.
  7. Within its final complaint response, the landlord offered the resident compensation for the loss of hot water, comprised of £1 per day for each member of the household listed on the tenancy agreement – a total of £72. It also offered £250 for the time, trouble and inconvenience caused to her. The Ombudsman finds that the compensation awarded was in line with its own compensation policy. Moreover, the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance (available on our website) sets out compensation ranges we consider when determining cases. The compensation described above falls within our range for complaints where there were failures that adversely affected a resident. As such, the Ombudsman is minded that the landlord offered fair and reasonable compensation to reflect and apologise for the resident’s experience.

The associated complaint

  1. The Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (“the Code”) is applicable to all member landlords. It specifies that a stage 1 complaint should be finalised in 10 working days from the acknowledgement of the complaint, with no more than a further extension of 10 days. A stage 2 complaint should be finalised within 20 working days from the acknowledgement of the complaint, with a further extension of 10 days if required. A landlord should not exceed these timescales without good reason.
  2. The resident initially complained by submitting a complaint form to the landlord on 1 February 2023. The landlord issued its stage 1 response on 23 June 2023, more than 20 weeks later. The resident escalated her complaint on 29 June 2023. 3 weeks later, on 21 July 2023, the landlord responded at stage 2. The Code serves to illustrate that the landlord kept this complaint open for an unreasonable duration at stage 1.
  3. The landlord evidenced that it investigated with its contractor to explore the resident’s concern about missed repair appointments. This demonstrates it took her report seriously. The Ombudsman also finds it appropriate that it asked the resident to provide more information about the alleged missed appointments so it could explore this further. It also acted reasonably by clearly setting out its position on compensation for missed appointments to the resident, in line with its policy.
  4. Under the Ombudsman’s dispute resolution principles, it is good practice for a landlord to evidence learning from a complaint. We expect a landlord to identify clear learning points and outline specific actions to ensure similar service failures will not occur in the future. While the landlord recognised failings, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, it could have done more to reference specific learning from the resident’s experience within its complaint responses to improve its complaint handling and repairs provision.
  5. The landlord offered £200 compensation for its complaint handling failures. In the Ombudsman’s view, this sum was reasonable and in line with our remedies guidance to reflect the extent of its shortcomings and the impact its service failures had on the resident.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 53.b of the Scheme, the landlord has offered redress to the complainant, which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, resolves the complaint satisfactorily, with respect to:
    1. Its handling of the resident’s report of no hot water in the property.
    2. Its handling of the associated complaint.

Recommendations

  1. The landlord should pay the resident the £322 previously offered in compensation for the substantive issue if it has not yet done so.
  2. The landlord should pay the resident the £200 previously offered in compensation for its handling of the complaint if it has not yet done so.
  3. The compensation referenced above recognised genuine elements of service failure, and the reasonable redress findings are made on the basis that the above compensation is paid to the resident.