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Poplar Housing And Regeneration Community Association Limited (202313315)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202313315

Poplar Housing And Regeneration Community Association Limited

25 June 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

  1. This complaint is about how the landlord handled the resident’s reports of a leak at her property.
  2. This investigation has also considered the landlord’s handling of the associated complaint.

Background

  1. The resident is the leasehold owner of her property, which is a 2-bed ground floor flat. The landlord is the freeholder of the building.
  2. The resident expressed dissatisfaction with the landlord’s handling of a leak on 14 September 2022. The landlord did not treat this as a complaint. She made a further complaint on 10 April 2023. She said there had been delays in getting the leak repaired, and that the landlord had ignored the ongoing disruption on her, her health, and her family. She said she had been living in a ‘dump’ since November 2022, that repairs would take months to complete, and that she avoided going home due to the impact on her health.
  3. The landlord issued a stage 1 response on 26 April 2023. It said it had spoken to the resident and understood she believed the damage was more extensive than it would have been had the leak been identified quickly. It said it was not responsible for the time an insurance claim can take, but that it accepted there were some delays in resolving the initial leak, and poor communication. It offered £250 compensation.
  4. The resident escalated her complaint on 27 April and 2 May 2023. She disputed the version of events in the landlord’s stage 1 response, and said she was unhappy with the level of compensation offered. She also said she was dissatisfied that the landlord invited her to a discussion to ‘set out [her] grievances’, as she felt this showed her written complaint had not been properly investigated.
  5. The landlord issued a stage 2 response on 24 May 2023. It said it had sent a contractor quickly when issues were reported, but that it should have taken ownership of the leak. It said it had passed responsibility to the resident when it was still investigating the flat above, and accepted its communication fell short. It offered her £5,210 in compensation, which is calculated as 100% of market rent for 3 months, £250 compensation for distress and inconvenience, and £10 for a missed appointment. It also offered to reimburse her for any costs incurred if she provided receipts. It said it did not uphold the resident’s complaint about the offer of a meeting to discuss the complaint, as it was offered as standard and she was free to reject that offer.
  6. The resident referred her complaint to the Ombudsman on 12 July 2023. She said she felt the £5,210 offered was insufficient as a result of the impact the leak had on herself and her property.

Assessment and findings

Scope of the investigation

  1. Paragraph 42(a) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme says the Ombudsman will not investigate complaints which have not completed the landlord’s internal complaints process. Any events or losses after the landlord’s stage 2 response to the complaint have not completed the landlord’s complaints process. As such, any events after the landlord’s stage 2 response will not be considered as part of this investigation.
  2. The resident has referred to the effect the leak damage had on her health and wellbeing. The Ombudsman is unable to draw conclusions on the causation of, or liability for, any impact on health and wellbeing. Personal injury claims must, ultimately, be decided by the courts, as they can consider medical evidence and make legally binding findings. However, the Ombudsman will consider the general distress and inconvenience any failings by the landlord have caused the resident.
  3. The resident also said that the landlord was negligent, and that she believes there has been a breach of her human rights. She said she believes the landlord should pay further compensation for this. The Ombudsman is an informal dispute resolution service, and it is not within the Ombudsman’s remit to determine whether or not the landlord was negligent, or whether it has breached the resident’s human rights. Both would be formal legal determinations that only a court can make. The resident may wish to seek independent legal advice if she believes the landlord has been negligent, or that it has breached her human rights.

Policies and procedures

  1. Under the terms of the lease, the landlord is responsible for maintaining the structure of the building, including the drains, gutters, and external pipes. The lease says the resident is responsible for maintaining the internal walls, drains, pipes, and cables in her flat.
  2. The landlord has a 2 stage complaints process. Its customer care policy says it will issue a stage 1 response within 10 working days, and a stage 2 response within 20 working days of an escalation request. The policy says it will treat an expression of dissatisfaction about the service provided by the landlord as a complaint.

The landlord’s handling of the leak

  1. The landlord has accepted that there were failings in the way it handled the leak, and offered the resident £5,210 in compensation. It maintained there had been 2 leaks (1 in the resident’s property and 1 from a property above) but accepted that there had been a failure to identify the leak from the flat above, in addition to poor communication. The resident said the compensation offered did not sufficiently reflect the impact the leak had on her. She said she was living in temporary accommodation a year after the leak, as works to reinstate her property were ongoing, all of her belongings would need to be replaced, and she had been unable to have her children visit her. She said she thought the landlord should offer around £50,000 compensation.
  2. The role of the Ombudsman is to determine whether the landlord acted reasonably and in line with its obligations when handling the repairs. Where the landlord has accepted fault and offered compensation, the Ombudsman will determine whether the compensation offered is sufficient to put things right. It is important to note, however, that the Ombudsman does not award damages in the way a court does, and would not reimburse the resident’s various losses in the way an insurance claim might. Rather, the Ombudsman considers whether any compensation offered adequately reflects the distress and inconvenience directly caused by failings on the landlord’s part.
  3. The resident reported a leak to the landlord on 25 August 2022. The landlord resolved the leak on 9 November 2022. The landlord’s repair records and contractor notes show there were various reasons for the delay in resolving the leak. There were initial difficulties identifying the source of the leak, leading to a dispute as to whether the repair fell under the landlord’s or resident’s repair obligations, combined with poor communication from the landlord.
  4. The resident believes that, had the landlord acted sooner, the damage to her property may not have been as severe, and she may not have had to move into temporary accommodation. While the Ombudsman acknowledges that damage caused by a leak will inevitably get worse with time, it should be noted that identifying the source of a leak can be highly complex, and it can often take multiple visits and attempted repairs before a leak can be resolved.
  5. In this case, the landlord arranged for a contractor to inspect the leak the day after the resident reported it. The contractor’s notes say they were unable to identify any leak from the property above during inspections, and concluded that the leak was likely coming from a pipe in the resident’s kitchen. The resident has provided a summary of events which confirms that plumbers instructed by her neighbour’s managing agent were also unable to identify any leak from the upstairs flat at that time. It was only during a further inspection at the start of November 2022, after the leak had become more significant, that the landlord’s contractors were able to identify and then resolve the source of the leak.
  6. The Ombudsman does not dispute that the resident was put to a significant amount of time and trouble dealing with the aftermath of the leak, and that the repairs needed to her property may have been extensive. The Ombudsman also notes her comments that she was still living in temporary accommodation a year after the leak due to delays in the buildings insurance claim. This would inevitably cause significant disruption to her daily life. However, damage to the interior of the property would fall under the leaseholder’s repair obligations, not the landlord’s.
  7. The Ombudsman notes the resident’s belief that the damage to her property would not have been as significant but for delays by the landlord. However, the Ombudsman has not been provided with any evidence which shows this was the case, and it is not within the Ombudsman’s remit to speculate as to what damage may or may not have been caused had the landlord acted differently.
  8. In the absence of any evidence demonstrating that delays caused by failings on the landlord’s part, rather than the leak itself, led to the damage to the resident’s property, the Ombudsman cannot reasonably conclude that the landlord is responsible for any impact on the resident after the leak was resolved. It is also not responsible for any delays by the buildings insurer in accepting the claim or carrying out any repairs, save for where the landlord has caused those delays. The Ombudsman has not been provided with any evidence which suggests the landlord delayed the insurance claim, so any complaints about delays with claim, or works carried out as part of the claim, would be for the insurer to address.
  9. However, the Ombudsman would expect the landlord to offer appropriate compensation for the distress and inconvenience caused by its own failings. As acknowledged by the landlord, it accepted the contractor’s initial report that the leak was caused by a kitchen pipe in the resident’s property while investigations were still ongoing, rather than waiting until those investigations had concluded. This was unreasonable, and meant the landlord did not take ownership of the situation. This was then compounded by the landlord’s poor communication, when it acknowledged it did not respond appropriately to ‘numerous’ emails and calls from the resident.
  10. The nature and level of the failings by the landlord in this case would usually amount to a finding of maladministration. The Ombudsman’s published remedies guidance recommends compensation of up to £600 for the distress and inconvenience caused by that level of failing. The landlord offered the resident £5,210, and also offered to reimburse costs incurred as a result of its failings if the resident was able to provide receipts. The compensation offered by the landlord significantly exceeds the sums set out in the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance, demonstrating that the landlord took its failings and the resulting effect on the resident seriously. As such, the Ombudsman considers that the compensation offered is sufficient to put things right, and is therefore an offer of reasonable redress.

Complaint handling

  1. The resident is dissatisfied that, when acknowledging her escalation request, the landlord offered a call with 2 senior members of staff, and said this was to provide an opportunity for her to set out her grievances and the remedy sought. She said this was an insult, and that it had not read her escalation request. The landlord said it was standard practice to offer the call, and that all residents are free to reject that offer. It did not uphold this complaint.
  2. It is good practice for a landlord to ensure it has as much information as possible about both the complaint itself and the impact on the resident when investigating a complaint. The landlord’s offer of a call was included as a standard part of its process, and it was both appropriate and reasonable for the landlord to offer that call when acknowledging the resident’s escalation request.
  3. However, the Ombudsman notes that the resident initially expressed dissatisfaction with the landlord’s handling of the repair on 14 September 2022, and this was not logged as a complaint. In line with its customer care policy and the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code, the landlord was required to respond to this complaint within 10 working days. Instead, the landlord neither logged a complaint nor responded to the resident’s concerns at that time. While the landlord responded within a reasonable timeframe following the resident’s second complaint in April 2023, this does not negate the failure to log the resident’s original complaint, which amounts to a service failure. The Ombudsman has not seen evidence of any specific detriment this caused the resident, but considers that the landlord should apologise to the resident for that service failure.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 53(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord has offered redress to the resident prior to the Ombudsman’s investigation which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, resolves the complaint about the landlord’s handling of the leak satisfactorily.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there has been a service failure with regard to the landlord’s handling of the associated complaint.

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks of the date of this report, the landlord is ordered to issue a written apology to the resident for its service failure in complaint handling.
  2. The landlord is to reply to this Service to provide evidence of compliance with the above order within 4 weeks of the date of this report.

Recommendations

  1. If it has not already done so, the landlord should pay the resident the £5,210 compensation offered in its stage 2 complaint response. The Ombudsman’s determination of reasonable redress is dependent on this payment being made.
  2. The landlord should respond to this Service to set out its position on this recommendation within 4 weeks of the date of this determination.