Applications are open to join the next Housing Ombudsman Resident Panel – find out more Housing Ombudsman Resident Panel.

Rooftop Housing Association Limited (202317069)

Back to Top

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202317069

Rooftop Housing Association Limited

30 September 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. The complaint is about the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of repairs and adaptations required at the property.
  2. We have also looked at the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

  1. The resident has been an assured tenant at the property, a 3 bedroom dormer bungalow, since June 2022. The landlord was aware at the commencement of the tenancy that both the resident and her daughter were vulnerable. Her daughter, who is under the age of 10, was receiving chemotherapy. The resident also has another young daughter at the property.
  2. On 16 May 2023 the landlord registered a formal complaint from the resident about its failure to complete repairs. Prior to this date, she had registered her dissatisfaction with the landlord about repairs and other issues, including the absence of a bath at the property, which she needed for her daughter. The resident had understood this would either be installed when she started her tenancy or shortly thereafter.
  3. On 9 June 2023 the landlord responded at stage 1 of its complaints process. It said that it had raised most of the works the resident had requested and intended to replace the ventilation system at the property. It said it would explore funding for replacing uneven paving slabs at the property, which the resident said were a hazard for her daughter.
  4. On 6 September 2023 the resident escalated her complaint to stage 2 by phone. The landlord recorded that she raised 12 issues of concern. These included the continued failure to replace the ventilation system at the property, mould, difficulties making complaints and issues with the bathroom and kitchen.
  5. The landlord sent a stage 2 response to the resident on 25 September 2023. It said that apart from the replacement of the property’s ventilation system, repairs had either been actioned or completed. However, it said it was “unacceptable” that the resident had been waiting from June 2023 for a new ventilation system and offered her the sum of £306 as compensation for that delay.
  6. The landlord said the resident had raised several other points, including the condition of the property when she moved in, which it said had not been raised before. It said the resident had said she would wait for the outcome of an application for a Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG) before works in relation to adaptations to the property could be carried out. It said it was making changes to its processes, especially around completing repairs where vulnerable people could be affected.
  7. The resident took her complaint to the Ombudsman. She said, among other things, that the failure to replace the ventilation system had meant that mould was growing in the house and bathroom tiles were falling from the wall. She did not consider she should have to wait over a year for the landlord to make adaptations to assist her and her daughter.

Assessment and findings

Scope of the investigation

  1. The resident has expressed concerns regarding the impact the situation has caused to her and her daughter’s health. This Service is unable to draw conclusions on the causation of, or liability for, impacts on health and wellbeing. Claims of personal injury must, ultimately, be decided by courts of law who can consider medical evidence and make legally binding findings. Nonetheless, consideration has been given to the general distress and inconvenience which the situation may have caused the resident.
  2. Following the landlord’s stage 2 response to the resident in September 2023, the resident has continued to raise issues about the property. It is unclear whether these reports have been the subject of complaints that have exhausted the landlord’s complaints process. This report has investigated the complaint that was the subject of the landlord’s final complaint response dated 25 September 2023.
  3. The resident also raised complaints about an issue with the property back door, a potential leak to the property roof and the damp course. It is not clear how these were addressed at stage 1 of the complaints process and it does not appear that they were escalated to stage 2 of the complaints process. As such, we have addressed these issues under the complaints process heading below.

On the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of repairs and adaptations required at the property.

  1. When the resident logged a formal complaint with the landlord on 16 May 2023 over the phone, she mentioned a number of issues with the property. She said that she had been trying to raise complaints but these had not been listened to. She said she was at her “wits end.” She was, bar the specific mention of an issue with the property back door and with the paving, quite general in her expression of dissatisfaction with the property. This has made it quite difficult to ascertain what the specifics of her original complaint were. However, as set out in the section on complaint handling below, the resident had been complaining about issues at the property for some time. Prior to her phone call, she had, on 8 May 2023, provided a list of complaints to the landlord via email. In the email she expressed dissatisfaction with the landlord’s approach, saying, “It’s a joke, if this is how you treat your clients that have serious health problems and children with cancer…”
  2. The records show that the landlord responded to a number of issues raised by the resident. This investigation has focused on the material issues raised by the resident with this Service. These were the landlord’s response to its alleged failure to correct the paving at the property and make adaptations to the bathroom, issues with the ventilation system, (which the resident considered affected the tiling in the bathroom and kitchen) and trees overhanging the garden. We will address these in turn.

The paving

  1. On 12 September 2022 a landlord building inspector noted that paving at the front and back of the garden were loose and wobbly and needed re-bedding. The inspector said the paving had been “…fine when void finished but may now be an issue.” The inspector recommended raising an order to correct the loose paving. The landlord’s records show that it only raised a job to correct the paving at the front of the property on 21 September 2022. It says it attended on 24 October 2022 where it raised follow on works. It attended again on 9 November 2022. The records say the landlord did not complete this job until 16 February 2023. This conflicts with other records, which set out that the landlord did not raise this job until 22 March 2023.
  2. The resident did not consider the landlord had completed the works properly, specifically raising the issue in her stage 1 complaint in May 2023. She said the operatives had made the issue worse. It is noteworthy that an occupational therapist (OT) visited the property on 15 February 2023 and reported that, “…the access to the rear garden has a very uneven path.” She said that the resident’s daughter’s “…mobility is compromised particularly during treatment she is prone to trips and falls and is therefore unable to access her garden to play.”
  3. The landlord arranged for an inspection on 31 May 2023. It considered that the issue with the paving slabs at the rear of the property was the resident’s responsibility. Internally it said it would not raise works to improve the paving slabs unless it received a referral from an OT. It noted, “…this will end up being a complaint due to health issues and the daughter has health issues.” Later, on 4 July 2023, the landlord wrote to the local authority’s OT and said that its inspector had determined that it would cost £1400 to correct the paving. It asked if it would be possible to obtain some funding from a disability funding grant (DFG).
  4. The landlord’s relevant March 2022 aids and adaptations policy (the policy) said it recognised its legal obligation to provide reasonable adjustments as specified by the Equality Act 2010 and other relevant legislation. It said it would take “…reasonable measures to work towards ensuring both public and private spaces were accessible” for residents. It also said that aids and adaptations work would only be carried out after an assessment by an OT. It said the landlord would aim to ensure it completed those works within the timeframes recommended by the OT. Its policy stressed that, “…under normal circumstances, the amount of spend per property for aids and adaptations will not exceed £1,000.” Works above that sum threshold would go through the DFG system.
  5. On 10 July 2023, the OT told the landlord that it would take over 12 months to obtain a DFG. The OT said, “I would therefore appeal to you in light of this little girl’s life limiting condition that you reconsider the possibility of funding this, if at all possible, via your minor adaptations budget?” The landlord did not respond.  After the Ombudsman became involved with the case, the landlord arranged for a survey on 30 July 2024. It was unreasonable of the landlord to have let this question remain unanswered for over a year. Its policy is flexible enough to allow for consideration of situations outside of those that it addresses in “normal circumstances.” It would therefore have been appropriate for the landlord to have given consideration to the OT’s request, and within a reasonable timeframe.
  6. In its 25 September 2023 stage 2 response the landlord said that at a recent meeting, the resident said she would wait for the outcome of an application for a DFG before works were to be carried out. While this may have been the case it did not indicate that the landlord had given any consideration to the OT’s request for the landlord to fund the works itself without waiting for a DFG.
  7. Using our remedies guidance, we have made an order that acknowledges the distress and inconvenience caused by the landlord’s failure to apply itself to resolving this issue within a reasonable period. We have considered the problems the delays will have caused the household, the length of the time involved and the particular vulnerability of the resident’s daughter. We consider the failure to address this issue appropriately will have had a significant impact on the household and have ordered the landlord pay the resident £1000, which is at the higher range of our remedy payments for situation like this where a landlord’s failings have had a significant impact.

Adaptations to the bathroom

  1. The landlord has provided the Ombudsman with a “Human Rights Statement” (the statement). It says that it knew of the resident and her daughter’s vulnerabilities in January 2022. It points out that during its tenancy support process, the resident did not say that the family required any aids and adaptations.  This is accurate. However, the tenancy support process was clear about the significant difficulties her daughter experienced. It explained how she had developed lumps and swellings bigger than tennis balls on her skull. She had to have operations to remove those, and it was likely that she would need several rounds of chemotherapy. The form described how she often woke during the night screaming in agony because her bones were so painful.
  2. More than a month before the resident moved in she explained the need for a bath. In an email on 30 May 2022 she specifically set out that her daughter had had a “Hickman line” inserted in her chest so that she could receive her chemotherapy. She stressed that to avoid infection the line could not get wet and explained that, as a consequence, her daughter needed a bath to reduce this risk.
  3. In an internal email on 14 June 2022 the landlord noted that the resident had been clear she would be “…unable to move in” without a bath. It said it should measure up for a bath “as soon as possible.” It was aware that the resident was due to move in imminently. The resident did not in fact move in until 25 July 2022 because of a rat infestation. However, the bath had not been installed by that date. The policy said that if a resident’s request for an adaptation can be reasonably satisfied through transferring to a property that is already adapted or is more suitable for adaptation, this option should be offered and discussed with the resident. Concerned about the suitability and condition of the property, on 4 June 2022, the resident asked the landlord if it had any other property for her to move into instead. The landlord does not appear to have responded to that request or to have considered this as an option, which is inappropriate.
  4. The statement says that the landlord will direct residents who require support to OTs for assessment for any requirements and adaptations. In this case, this did not happen initially. Given the information provided about the resident’s daughter’s condition, it would have been appropriate and in line with its policy for the landlord to ask an OT to view the property before the resident and her vulnerable daughter moved in.
  5. In August 2022 the resident’s daughter’s hospital wrote to the landlords and reiterated that without a bath at the property, there was a “high risk of infection and potential harm” to the resident’s daughter. In the same month, an OT stressed to the landlord that necessary repairs were “…needed promptly.”
  6. At the time of writing, so far as the Ombudsman is aware, the landlord has still not installed a bath at the property. This is over 27 months on from the date the landlord was on notice of its necessity. It told this Service that the delays were caused by “…the time taken by the resident, her Occupational Therapist (OT) and her daughter’s OT in coming to agreement on what installation would meet the needs of both the resident and her daughter. Subsequent delays were caused by the resident challenging the proposed location of the bath when contractors attended to measure up.”
  7. It is not clear from the evidence what exactly happened in this regard. The landlord’s policy said that works are either categorised as minor or major. It said major adaptations had to be considered by the local authority for a DFG. However, the OT referral provided in February 2023, was for a minor adaptation to the bathroom. The OT asked for the landlord’s “…URGENT CONSIDERATION…considering the high risk of infection and potential harm.” After operatives were reportedly turned away from the property because the resident wanted to retain the shower along with the installation of the bath, the landlord sought clarification from the OT.
  8. In May 2023 the resident emailed the landlord and asked for an update. She said that her daughter had had a few infections because of the “line getting wet hence why it is so important that we get this bath in ASAP as it is putting her health at risk.”
  9. In July 2023 the resident’s daughter’s OT provided drawings which allowed for the retention of a shower over the bath. The policy says that one of the landlord’s key objectives is to ensure there are clear channels of communication and establish joint working practices with its local partners. It says the OT’s assessment will determine the urgency of the adaptation work required.  The OT had completed an assessment and had identified the works as being urgent for the resident’s daughter. As such, if there were disagreements between the OTs or parties about specifications that were holding up work, it would have been appropriate and in line with the policy, for the landlord to engage with local partners in a more proactive manner. This is particularly the case as the issue related to the safeguarding of a young child who was receiving chemotherapy and had been identified as being at risk of “potential harm”.
  10. As mentioned above, in the landlord’s stage 2 complaint response, the landlord said the resident had said she would wait for a DFG grant before adaptations could be made to the property. However, it is unclear what process had been put in place here. The landlord already had agreement for a minor referral from an OT. It appears from the records that it did not make a further referral, this time for major works, until December 2023. By August 2024, the installation had still not gone ahead and the records indicate the works had not been prioritized.
  11. Taken altogether, the landlord’s approach was inappropriate. As the resident’s daughter did not have the use of a bath for over 2 years, we have made an order for compensation that acknowledges the distress caused by the fear of infection brought about by the landlord’s approach. We recognise that there may have been some delays because of disagreements about what type of installation should have gone ahead. However, given the safeguarding issues involved, we do not consider we have seen evidence to indicate that the landlord acted proactively or with a sense of urgency in working with the various agencies involved to resolve the issues. It was aware the resident’s daughter required a bath before she moved in. We have considered the length of the time involved and the particular vulnerability of the resident’s daughter. We consider the failure to address this issue appropriately will have had a significant impact on the household and have ordered the landlord pay the resident £1000, which is at the higher range of our remedy payments.
  12. We note that the landlord says it has reflected and is developing new policies, including undertaking equality impact assessments. We have also ordered that the landlord review its communication strategies with OTs to ensure instructions are clear, that they are followed up and that the landlord does not simply wait for installations to go ahead, but investigates what it can do to agree reasonable timeframes for residents who face barriers or inequalities because of their disabilities.

Issues with the ventilation system

  1. The landlord’s repairs policy says that it will take account of the needs of more vulnerable residents and may allocate repairs on a more urgent basis if the welfare of the resident is affected by the repair. It says routine repairs will be responded to within 20 working days.
  2. The records show the landlord was aware that the ventilation system at the property was obsolete from March 2018. However, the landlord said that its void operatives’ remit is to test an installation at the power supply for safety and this would not have included an inspection of the unit itself. It says it does not currently have a programme for replacement of ventilation systems, but is in the process of putting one in place to ensure such issues are addressed in a timely way in the future.
  3. Even though the void operatives were not aware the ventilation system did not work in June 2022, contractors told the landlord the unit was not functioning when the resident moved in. She moved in on 25 July 2022 and on 2 August 2022 the landlord raised an “urgent” job to survey the ventilation system. On 16 August 2022 an inspector made a note on the internal files saying the landlord needed to “…get the correct people to service this machine.” The resident raised the issue again with the landlord on 18 August 2022. On 12 September 2022, following a further building inspection, the landlord noted that the system was not working. On 15 September 2022 a contractor reported to the landlord that it had visited on 3 August 2022 and recommended that the whole unit should be replaced. On 21 September 2022 the landlord noted that it could not replace the original unit, but it had found a similar unit.
  4. Reports in December 2022 suggested there may have been a link to a reported leak in the roof and the ventilation system.
  5. On 16 February 2023 an OT wrote to the landlord after visiting the property. She stressed that there was a problem with the ventilation system, which she understood was causing water to track under the ceiling and through to the resident’s daughter’s bedroom. While the OT was not a ventilation expert, this was a further reminder that the landlord needed to address the issues with the ventilation system, especially since she reported that a leak, possibly connected to the ventilation system, was going into the resident’s child’s bedroom. The OT stressed that the repairs the resident wanted at the property were needed as her daughter’s immune system was “highly compromised” because of her chemotherapy.
  6. However, despite the resident chasing the landlord up several times about the ventilation system repair, this had still not been done by the time of the landlord’s stage 1 complaint response on 9 June 2023. At this point, the landlord told the resident it would replace the ventilation system.
  7. On 15 June 2023 a contractor attended and informed the landlord that it had already informed it “…a year ago that it needed surveying fully to replace the system for new as the existing system is obsolete.” There then followed some issues about whether a new system would fit through the loft hatch at the property. Contractors attended and said the hatch was too small. Other contractors attended and said it was the right size.
  8. On 26 July 2023 the landlord asked another contractor to look at the “…leaking MVHR unit at this property that appears to be disconnected.” On 2 August 2023 the landlord made further enquiries with a contractor, saying it was having difficulties trying to find a contractor to complete the work. On the 12 September 2023, following the resident’s escalation of her complaint to stage 2, a senior landlord officer asked what was happening with the ventilation system, that “…seems to be taking an age to resolve and the resident is now reporting damp.”
  9. By the time the landlord provided its stage 2 response, on 25 September 2023, the system had still not been replaced. The landlord had been aware the system was obsolete years before her tenancy began. The landlord offered the resident £306, which represented £3 a day from June 2023, which was from when it said the resident had been waiting for the system to be replaced. However, this sum does not acknowledge that the resident had been waiting for the landlord to replace the system from the beginning of her tenancy and is therefore not proportionate. We have made an order acknowledging the impact on the resident of the prolonged wait for this known issue to be addressed. The sum we have ordered is at the higher end of our range of remedies. This is because of the aggravating factors involved, particularly that the landlord was aware that poor ventilation could potentially exacerbate the conditions suffered by the household. The resident reported that a new ventilation system was installed and working on 7 March 2024. Therefore, the repair took almost 2 years to complete. The sum we have ordered acknowledges the impact of that severe delay.

The landlord’s response to trees overhanging in the garden.

  1. The records show the landlord paid contractors to address overhanging trees in the garden on 13 June 2022, before the resident commenced the tenancy.  On 13 July 2022, the resident reported she had concerns about overhanging trees. The landlord does not appear to have responded.
  2. However, on 16 August 2022, a landlord member of staff visited the resident and reported that when he asked the resident if there were any issues with the property, (other than a recent rat infestation), she said ‘no’. It was therefore reasonable that the landlord was not more proactive about this issue at that time, especially since it had recently completed works to deal with the issue. It was not one of the issues raised in the resident’s 8 May 2023 complaint or specifically mentioned in her stage 1 formal complaint a week later. However, the landlord brought the issue into its complaint’s process at stage 2, commenting in its stage 2 response that “tree works” had been carried out.
  3. On 8 June 2023 the landlord had arranged a survey of the trees adjacent to the side boundary of the property. The records show the resident chased the landlord about the issue a further 3 times before the work was completed on 6 September 2023.
  4. The resident felt the landlord had chosen the cheaper of 2 options when addressing the issue. The other option was, she says, to remove the trees that were adjacent to the property. However, the records show that the landlord was concerned that it could not remove trees that did not belong to it. It could only therefore cut back the trees. This was a reasonable approach and although there was a service failure in the delay involved in arranging the works, we do not consider this caused the resident such significant impact as to warrant an order to remedy that.

On the landlord’s complaint handling.

  1. The Ombudsman’s Complaints Handling Code 2020 (the Code) was relevant at the time of this complaint. It said that a complaint is defined as “…an expression of dissatisfaction, however made, about the standard of service, actions or lack of action by the organisation, its own staff, or those acting on its behalf, affecting an individual or group of residents.”
  2. The resident does not have to use the word complaint for it to be treated as such.
  3. It is not clear when the resident first made a complaint in this case. Prior to the landlord logging a formal complaint on 16 May 2023, the resident had made many expressions of dissatisfaction about the property.
  4. On 8 May 2023 the resident emailed to say, “a lot of stuff has not been completed…the jobs aren’t being done properly.” She provided a list.
  5. Sometimes, it can be challenging to isolate service requests from complaints. In this case, it is correct that the resident raised a number of repairs which were addressed by the landlord and were therefore service requests. However, it is also clear that she raised a number of issues repeatedly and expressed dissatisfaction about the way they were addressed. They were, in line with the definition in the Code, complaints. Paragraph 3.4 of the Code says that “landlords should confirm their understanding of the complaint and the outcomes being sought by the resident. Clarification should be sought if the complaint is not clear.” It would have been appropriate for the landlord to have done this at an earlier stage in this case.
  6. It was appropriate for the landlord to arrange a building inspector’s visit to assess the condition of the property and to inform its 9 June 2023 stage 1 response to the resident. However, it provided a vague response to the various issues raised by the resident and it was unclear in its stage 1 response what issues at the property it considered the resident to be complaining about.
  7. The resident had raised concerns about issues with the property back door in November 2022 and her OT had further raised them in February 2023. However, in its stage 1 response the landlord did not specifically address this issue. Neither did it specifically address what the resident said was an issue with a leak at the property roof or with the damp course. Instead, it said, vaguely, that some repairs had gone to subcontractors and it was “waiting more than we would have liked” for completion of those repairs. Given the number of issues raised, it was inappropriate that the landlord did not clarify what the repairs were.
  8. As a conclusion to all the issues raised by the resident, the landlord said in its stage 1 response that “…as a solution, we propose to replace the ventilation system in the house.” The repair of the ventilation system was not a resolution to other outstanding repairs that had been the subject of the resident’s complaint. The landlord also said it had raised other repairs following on from the building inspector’s visit, however it again failed to clarify what repairs it was referring to.
  9. At stage 2 of the landlord’s complaint’s process, the landlord said that it had “no record on file of any concerns about the condition of the property when the resident moved in.” This was inaccurate. As set out above, the resident had been raising issues with the property before she moved in and shortly afterwards. It was unreasonable of the landlord to fail to acknowledge the resident’s earlier expressions of dissatisfaction and then inform her that raising her dissatisfaction about the property was a new concern.
  10. The resident had not formally escalate her complaint about the property back door but the landlord commented in its stage 2 response that it had raised a repair to the drainage at the back door. It did not address why this had taken so long or explain whether this was a response to the specific issue she had raised with the risk of mould at the door.
  11. Paragraph 5.6 of the Code says that landlords should address all the points raised in a complaint and provide clear reasons for any decisions made, referencing the relevant policy, law and good practice where appropriate. This did not happen in this case, which was inappropriate.
  12. Taken together we consider the above issues with complaint handling amount to maladministration. The landlord failed to initially acknowledge the resident’s repeated expressions of dissatisfaction as complaints. It then failed to clarify her complaint and it was vague in response.

Determinations

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was severe maladministration by the landlord in its response to the resident’s reports of repairs and adaptations required at the property.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in its complaint handling.

Orders and recommendations

  1. Within 4 weeks a senior member of the landlord’s staff should apologise to the resident in writing., The apology should acknowledge the maladministration, accept responsibility for it, explain clearly why it happened, and express regret.
  2. The Ombudsman orders the landlord to pay the resident a total of £3300 in compensation. (If the landlord has already paid the sum of £306, this should be deducted from the above sum.) The payment should be made within 4 weeks, comprising:
    1. £1000 to acknowledge the impact of the distress and inconvenience caused by the landlord’s failure to respond appropriately to the resident’s request for adaptations to be made to the property paving for a protracted period.
    2. £1000 to acknowledge the impact of the distress and inconvenience caused by the landlord’s failure to respond appropriately to the resident’s request for adaptations to the bathroom.
    3. £1000 to acknowledge the impact of the distress and inconvenience caused by the landlord’s failure to respond appropriately to the resident’s request for repairs to be made to the property ventilation system over a prolonged period.
    4. £300 for any distress and inconvenience the resident was caused by the landlord’s complaint handling.
  3. The payment is to be made direct to the resident and not used to offset any monies that the resident may owe to the landlord. The landlord must update this Service when payment has been made and provide evidence.
  4. Within 4 weeks the landlord should conduct a full inspection of the property, including the roof, listing any works that are required. Given the disagreements about works done previously, it should appoint an independent surveyor. Within 2 weeks of the visit, it should produce a report detailing the works required and providing a timeframe for completion of repair. It should provide the resident and Ombudsman with a copy of the report.
  5. Within 4 weeks the landlord should confirm to the Ombudsman whether a date has been arranged to make adaptations to the paving and the bathroom. If relevant appointments have not been arranged it should detail the steps it has taken to liaise with relevant agencies to progress the works.
  6. In accordance with 54(g) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord should seek to understand why it did not escalate the resident’s case in line with its policy once the vulnerabilities and change of circumstances in the household became apparent, and why it did not prioritise some of the repairs.