Sanctuary Housing Association (202408768)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202408768

Sanctuary Housing Association

22 April 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 reports of a loss of heating and hot water.

Background

2. The resident is an assured shorthold tenant of the landlord which is a housing association. The resident occupies a private en-suite bedroom with shared kitchen in a wing of key worker accommodation.
3. The resident raised a report to the landlord a loss of heating and hot water on 9 January 2024. The landlord’s said it would attend the same day. However, it attended on 11 January 2024. The landlord provided the resident with a fan heater, made a repair and marked the system as working and the repair completed.
4. The resident contacted the landlord on 14 January 2024 asking when the repair would be done. She said she only had the fan heater, which she had to turn off when sleeping and when she was at work. The landlord restored full service to the boiler on 15 January 2024.
5. The resident reported to the landlord that there was again no heating or hot water in the property on 24 January 2024. She said she had recently had emergency surgery and needed to be warm and safe to recover. She asked it to keep her informed of the progress made.
6. The next day a housing officer noted there was no heating or hot water in the wing. The landlord attended the same day and restored the boiler function, but it was unable to test the system fully as a cupboard was locked and the office staff had gone home for the evening.
7. On 31 January 2024 the housing officer again reported no heating or hot water in the whole wing. The landlord attended the same day and replaced a faulty part, but it was unable to “balance the system” as it could not access the communal areas. The landlord attended again on 6 February 2024 but was unable to fully resolve matters. It restored the full system to working order on 9 February 2024.
8. Meanwhile, the resident made a complaint on 2 February 2024 stating she was unhappy with its handling of repairs to the central heating and hot water. Her complaint was upheld by the landlord in its stage 1 complaint response of 20 February 2024. It said:
   1. It recognised its delays in carrying out the repairs.
   2. It apologised for the delays and inconvenience.
   3. It recognised it was winter and the need for warmth.
   4. It offered the resident £36 for 14 days loss of hot water
9. The resident was unhappy with the level of compensation offered and escalated her complaint. The landlord issued its stage 2 complaint response on 11 April 2024 and upheld the complaint. The main points were:
   1. It apologised for its service failure of repairs and communication and the stress and inconvenience it had caused the resident. 
   2. It increased its offer of compensation by £30 to £66 to include loss of heating in addition to the loss of hot water.
10. When the resident approached us, she said she had been without heating and hot water for over 40 days. She said she had been recovering from surgery at that time and had had stay with her parents as she could not remain in an unheated room. She said, as an outcome, she was looking for the landlord to reimburse her £715, which was one month’s rent.  

Assessment and findings

Scope of the investigation

11. The resident told us her health had been adversely impacted by the lack of heating and hot water. However, we are unable to draw conclusions on the cause of, or liability of, impacts on health and wellbeing. Matters of personal injury or damage to health, their investigation and compensation, are not part of the complaints process, and are more appropriately addressed by way of the courts or the landlord’s liability insurer as a personal injury claim. However, we can consider any distress and inconvenience the resident may have experienced as a result of errors by the landlord.

 The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of a loss of heating and hot water

12. The landlord has a statutory duty under section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 to keep in repair and proper working order heating and hot water systems.
13. The Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2028 requires landlords ensure their properties are fit for human habitation at the beginning of and throughout the tenancy.
14. The landlord’s repair policy describes 4 categories of repairs, it states, loss of heating and hot water in winter (October to March) are emergency repairs. Its 4 levels of repair are: immediate – attend and make safe within 4 hours; emergency – complete repair within 24 hours; standard – complete repair within 15 working days; and planned – complete repair within 45 working days.
15. On the resident’s first report of loss of heating on 9 January 2024, the landlord should have attended within 24 hours in line with its repairs policy for emergency repairs. It attended 2 days later. That was not appropriate. The repairs evidence suggests that a repair was completed on 11 January 2024 as the records describe the action taken and noted “tested and is now working ok”. The resident disputed that. The landlord left her a fan heater which was a reasonable step to take. Any repair that day was short-lived as the landlord attended again on 15 January 2024 and restored the heating and hot water.
16. The resident again reported no heating and hot water on 24 January 2024. The landlord attended the next day. The landlord’s records show the landlord subsequently identified there was no heating and hot water in the wing on 31 January and 6 February 2024. While the landlord carried out some repairs, it was unable to fully restore heating and hot water until 9 February 2024.
17. We acknowledge that resolving communal heating systems can be complex and take time. In these circumstances it is important for the landlord to provide temporary heaters (as it did in this case) as well as to provide clear and effective communication to residents giving regular updates and setting out its expectations. In this case, the landlord’s communication with the resident was not reasonable; there were few updates, and she had to regularly chase for information.
18. Whilst the landlord has acknowledged service failure, and the inconvenience caused to the resident in its complaint handling. It failed to recognise the additional distress to and vulnerability of the resident who was recovering from surgery at the time of the heating and hot water failures.
19. The landlord offered compensation of £66 for the loss of heating and hot water in line with its compensation policy. However, the resident had reported the loss on 9 January 2024 and the heating and hot water were only fully resolved on 9 February 2024. This sum, therefore, was not proportionate to the impact on the resident at a time of heightened vulnerability in winter.
20. The resident felt frustration, inconvenience and distress which was aggravated by her physical limited mobility and vulnerability of recovering from emergency surgery in winter, without adequate heating and hot water.
21. The landlord failed to ensure the resident had access to adequate heating and hot water in the period from 9 January 2024 to 9 February 2024 which is a significant breach of the landlords repair obligations. The resident who was recovering from emergency surgery during this period, was adversely affected by the inadequate heating, resulting in a room that was uncomfortably cold and unsuitable for recovery. The resident had to leave the property to continue their recovery elsewhere due to the conditions, Furthermore the resident repeated chased the landlord for repairs and updates, indicating a lack of timely communication and response.
22. Given the severity and duration of the failures, and the impact on the residents health and wellbeing, we consider that additional compensation of £350 is appropriate to reflect the distress and inconvenience caused. This is in line with our remedies guidance which says such a sum will be appropriate where there was a failing that adversely affected the resident but did not have a permanent impact.

Determination

23. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of a loss of heating and hot water.

Orders

24. Within 28 days from the date of this order the landlord is to take the following action and provide evidence of compliance to us:
    1. pay the resident further compensation of £350 for the distress and inconvenience caused to her by its failings.
    2. a senior manager to provide a written apology to the resident.