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Sanctuary Housing Association (202327787)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202327787

Sanctuary Housing Association

25 June 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. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s report of damage to her gutter.
  2. We have also considered the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

  1. The resident is an assured tenant of the property, a 2-bedroom, ground floor flat. The landlord is a housing association. The landlord has vulnerabilities recorded for the resident. 
  2. On 2 July 2023 the resident reported that a neighbour had climbed on to her roof and damaged her gutter. She asked the landlord to repair it and inspect the roof for damage. She followed this up with an email on 9 July 2023, saying her living room ceiling plaster was damp and showed signs of a leak. She believed this was caused by the recent damage and heavy rain.
  3. The resident complained that repairs had not been completed during a call of 10 July 2023. She also emailed the landlord and her MP soon after and said the repairs were urgent. The landlord said it was arranging immediate repairs in its stage 1 response of 16 July 2023 and would contact the resident as soon as it had a date from its contractors. It did not uphold the complaint and said it had 28 days to complete repairs.
  4. The resident escalated the complaint on 17 July 2023. She said the landlord should have arranged an urgent repair and reiterated her concerns about leaks. She said she was putting down towels, mopping up, and feeling extremely distressed and inconvenienced.
  5. Although a repair was arranged for 25 July 2023, it is unclear whether contractors attended. The resident told her MP on 9 August 2023 that the repairs remained outstanding and that no one had replied to her escalated complaint. The MP forwarded this to the landlord, which acknowledged it on 10 August 2023 and said it was arranging an urgent start date for repairs.
  6. The resident continued to ask the landlord for updates. The landlord ordered scaffolding so it could carry out repairs and inspect the roof. It told the resident this would be erected on 18 September 2023. However, the contractors arrived on 12 September 2023 and the resident reported they damaged her bedroom roof when they were erecting the scaffolding. She also said they left debris on the floor and removed her washing line, leaving it in the garden. Evidence suggests the gutter was repaired shortly after, on 19 September 2023.
  7. The landlord apologised for the delays in complaint handling and carrying out repairs in its stage 2 response of 2 October 2023. It said the repair delays had been made worse by contractors who should have handled things better. It said the contractors told it work was completed on 4 September 2023 but acknowledged that scaffolding had not been removed and apologised the washing line had not been replaced. It said someone would call her to discuss this. It awarded £500 compensation and signposted her to us.
  8. On 3 October 2023 the resident reported that the issues with the scaffold, washing line and debris remained outstanding. The landlord later asked her to provide details of any outstanding repairs, but it is unclear why, as she had already done so. As she did not reply, the landlord wrote to her again on 28 November 2023 saying it presumed all repairs were complete. It offered a further £275 compensation for the delay replying and time and trouble. The resident replied and highlighted that the issues reported on 3 October 2023 remained outstanding.
  9. The scaffold was removed on 18 December 2023. However, on 26 December 2023 the resident reported that the gutter repair was unsatisfactory. She said the drainpipe and hopper had fallen in her garden.
  10. Meanwhile, on 21 December 2023 the landlord replied to the MP and apologised for the delay in doing so. It agreed to arrange an appointment with a Quantity Surveyor and Surveyor who would manage the work.
  11. The resident emailed the landlord again on 7 January 2024 and reiterated her dissatisfaction with the gutter repair. She said she had been living with a damp ceiling for months. The landlord replied on 10 January 2024 and explained the reason for the delays. It confirmed it was waiting for the contractor to replace the washing line and apologised that the gutter repair was not satisfactory. It said it would agree a schedule of work and apologised for the number of visits and time taken to complete the repairs. It increased its offer of redress by £175 to reflect the time trouble and inconvenience caused by the delays, failures in communications and delay replying to the stage 2 complaint.
  12. A Quantity Surveyor attended on 16 January 2024 and recommended the guttering was re-installed to prevent further water running down the flat roof. They said the roof would need to be inspected for damage (from the scaffolding). They reported that part of the resident’s internal ceiling would need to be replaced (seemingly due to the reported leak) and that she asked for this to happen when it was warmer.
  13. The resident continued to express dissatisfaction with the landlord, which did not reply to all her contacts. The gutter was repaired again on 29 February 2024 but the resident reported water was splashing out from it. The landlord wrote to the resident on 19 March 2024 (primarily in response to an unrelated complaint). It apologised that not all repairs had been completed and for not responding to her contacts. It said it had arranged a joint inspection with the Surveyor for 9 April 2024. It offered a further £375 for any future impact of the outstanding repairs up to 30 June 2024 and for communication failures.
  14. This brought the total amount of redress to £1,325 made up of:
    1. £850 for distress, inconvenience, time and trouble caused by the repair delays.
    2. £400 for delays replying to the complaints.
    3. £75 for delays responding to the resident’s enquiries.
  15. The contractor confirmed that all outstanding work was completed on 9 April 2024, although other records suggest this happened in May 2024. The resident has not agreed a date for the internal repairs to be completed, as of 5 June 2025.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. The resident has other ongoing repair issues in respect of the design and maintenance of the gutters. In the interest of fairness, we have limited the scope of this investigation to issues raised during the resident’s formal stage 1 and 2 complaints. This is because the landlord needs a fair opportunity to investigate and respond to any new issues before our involvement. The resident can progress these issues as a new formal complaint if required. 
  2. We have also seen that the resident was unhappy with the contractors who attended to carry out repairs, including that they arrived unannounced. These issues were addressed in our investigation of 202327385 and we will not consider them again.

Landlord’s handling of repairs

  1. The landlord has not disputed that it is responsible for repairs to the gutter. Its repair policy says emergency repairs are those necessary to remove a serious threat to the health and safety of a resident or the structure of their home. The landlord aims to attend these within 24 hours of the repair request. All non-emergency repairs are treated as appointed repairs and should be completed within 28 days, including leaking gutters. The landlord was right to treat the resident’s initial repair request as an appointed repair.
  2. However, soon after, the resident reported a potential leak in her living room ceiling. The landlord’s repair policy says that water leaks coming through the ceiling should be treated as emergency repairs. Therefore, it should have arranged for someone to attend within 24 hours to make the property safe. It did not do this, and it failed to acknowledge this in its stage 1 response. Instead, it told the resident it had 28 days to carry out the repair. This was a service failure.
  3. It is positive the landlord later acknowledged the delay repairing the gutter and the issues with the scaffolding and washing line in its stage 2 response. The £250 offered in recognition of these issues was reasonable remedy. However, it did not address the delay investigating the resident’s reports of a potential leak. We have not seen evidence that any repair action had been taken in respect of this by that point. Again, this was a failure in service. 
  4. Following this, the initial repairs and those that followed, were completed significantly outside of the landlord’s published repairs timescales. There were also service failures in the landlord’s communication with the resident and her MP. The available evidence supports the failings highlighted by the resident, and the landlord’s complaint responses accept there was a significant delay completing repairs and that it provided poor service in respect of communication. It offered redress of £925 in recognition of these issues.
  5. When a landlord admits failings, our role is to assess whether its proposed remedy put things right, in line with our Dispute Resolution Principles. The landlord’s complaint policy says that payments of up to £400 can be made in recognition of time, trouble and inconvenience caused by service failure. Our remedies guidance recommends payments of up to £600 when there have been failings that adversely affected a resident, albeit there was no permanent impact.
  6. The resident spent unnecessary time and trouble progressing repairs. She also experienced distress and inconvenience living with the outstanding repairs for an unreasonable period. The compensation awarded by the landlord has recognised this impact and was proportionate. Whilst the repair to the internal ceiling following the leak remains outstanding, we have seen evidence that the landlord has tried to arrange repairs on multiple occasions but the resident has not agreed a date. We note it is a condition of the resident’s tenancy agreement that she allows the landlord to carry out repairs. As a result, we have not made an order in respect of the leak repairs and would, instead, encourage the resident to engage with the landlord’s efforts to complete the works.
  7. Despite the landlord’s appropriate offer of compensation, we cannot make a finding that it provided reasonable redress. This is because the stage 1 and 2 responses did not recognise its failure to treat the resident’s report of a leak as an urgent repair and the resident was signposted to us before this was properly addressed.
  8. Therefore, we find there has been a service failure and order the landlord to apologise for this. We do not order the landlord to pay any more compensation than it has already offered as we are satisfied the overall award is sufficient to recognise all the repair failures identified in this investigation. 

Landlord’s handling of the associated complaint

  1. The landlord operates a 2-stage complaints policy and aims to acknowledge complaints within 3 working days. It then aims to reply to stage 1 complaints within 10 working days and stage 2 complaints within 20 working days. This is in line with our Complaint Handling Code.
  2. The landlord replied to the stage 1 complaint of 10 January 2024 within its published time limit. However, it incorrectly referenced that the resident reported the repair on 7 July 2023. The resident complained about this as part of her stage 2 complaint of 17 July 2023 but the landlord did not acknowledge this until 16 August 2023 (well outside the target 3 working days). It also took 54 working days to respond to the stage 2 complaint, which was significantly outside the 10-working day time limit.
  3. During this time, the resident made multiple contacts to the landlord and her MP to obtain an update on her complaint. This caused her unnecessary time and trouble. The landlord’s stage 2 response acknowledged the resident reported the repair earlier than 7 July 2023 and said there were times when communication could have been improved. It also apologised for the delay in responding at stage 2 and awarded £250 compensation for this.
  4. The landlord’s compensation policy says it can make awards of between £151 and £250 when a resident has faced significant difficulties raising a complaint and when the response has been delayed or of poor quality. The compensation offered by the landlord for this failure is in line with its compensation policy. It is more than our remedies guidance would recommend, we would usually expect an award of between £50 and £100 when there has been a failure in service. Therefore, we find the landlord gave reasonable redress in respect of its complaint handling failures. This is because it adequately acknowledged its failures prior to our investigation and made an appropriate offer of compensation to put things right.
  5. It is positive that the landlord also considered its complaint handling after the resident had been signposted to us. The landlord recognised further issues and made an overall award of £400 in recognition of all its complaint handling failures.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was service failure in the landlord’s handling of repairs following the resident’s report of damage to her gutter.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 53.b of the Scheme, the landlord provided reasonable redress in respect of its handling of the associated complaint.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks of the date of this report the landlord is ordered to provide evidence that it has: 
    1. Apologised to the resident for not dealing with her report of a leak as an urgent repair. 
    2. Paid directly to the resident (and not offset against any arrears) £925 compensation for the distress and inconvenience caused by the failures in its handling of repairs, if it has not done so already.

 

 

Recommendation

  1. The landlord is recommended to pay the resident the £400 previously offered for its complaint handling failures, if it has not done so already. This recognised genuine elements of service failure and the reasonable redress finding is made on the basis of this being paid.