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Southwark Council (202227222)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202227222

Southwark Council

20 February 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 major works and associated repairs.

Determination (jurisdictional decision)

  1. When a complaint is brought to the Ombudsman, we must consider all the circumstances of the case as there are sometimes reasons why a complaint will not be investigated.

 

  1. After carefully considering all the evidence, I have determined that the complaint is not within the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.

Summary of events

  1. The resident’s company owns the lease of the property.
  2. On 29 September 2022 the resident made a complaint and said as follows:
    1. The landlord’s management of the building had not been effective. It had failed to carry out repairs and had misdiagnosed building defects.
    2. It had failed to properly pursue an insurance claim. It had inappropriately used funds to pay for repairs that should have been covered by insurance.
    3. The landlord had failed to properly consider a surveyors report.
    4. It had delayed repairs to the roof, gutters, pipes and water channel.
    5. Ivy had caused damage to the property.
  3. The landlord responded at stage 1 and said as follows:
    1. The poor condition of the roof and chimney stack had been identified in 2016. It had completed temporary repairs and referred the issue to its structural works programme. This was approved in July 2018.
    2. It acknowledged that the resident had to chase follow up repairs. There had been significant delays due to matters outside its control. However communication should have been better.
    3. There were delays due to access issues with adjoining properties. Negotiations with owners and legal involvement caused further delay. As such, it had agreed to deal with the property as a standalone case.
    4. Its consultant had found that structural issues were not a result of subsidence. It was therefore not an insurance matter. Following a challenge from the resident, it had reviewed this and found there may be minor subsidence. On further investigation with the insurers, they did not believe there was significant evidence to reopen the claim. This could be revisited once the works had begun.
    5. The resident had submitted an independent surveyors report. This was considered but there was not enough evidence to support a subsidence claim. As such, works would not be covered by the leasehold building insurance.
    6. The rear of the property had been cleared twice. This should have been reviewed more regularly.
    7. The scheme was closely monitored to ensure contractors were only spending money that was essential.
    8. Due to the delays, it upheld the complaint.
  4. The resident escalated the complaint in October 2022. He challenged the cost of nearly £100,000 for major works. He did not agree with the landlord’s surveyor and said cracks had been caused by subsidence. In addition, works had not been done for 5 years.
  5. The landlord responded at stage 2 and said as follows:
    1. It had sent a Section 20 notice outlining the works to be done. It had met with the resident prior to this to discuss the works and manage his expectations. The resident hadn’t submitted any observations during the observation period.
    2. Structural works had been declined under a previous building insurance claim. It would raise a new insurance claim once further investigations had been done. If any of the works were covered by building insurance, the resident’s contribution would be adjusted.
    3. It acknowledged that the resident had to chase it on several occasions regarding the same issues.
    4. The external works had been significantly delayed. It was investigating why this was the case.
    5. It acknowledged that the stage 2 response had been delayed. It offered £50 compensation for the resident’s time and trouble.
  6. The resident referred the matter to us and said that the landlord should not have to pay for the full cost of the works. He requested £50,000 compensation for loss of rent and earnings, the decrease in the property value, fees incurred, loss of ability to sell, stress and his time.

Reasons

  1. Paragraph 25 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme (the Scheme) states that the following people can make complaints to the Ombudsman. Namely, a person who is or has been in a landlord/tenant relationship with a member. This includes people who have a lease, tenancy, licence to occupy, service agreement or other arrangement to occupy premises owned or managed by a member.
  2. In this case, the resident’s business owned the lease, rather than him as a private individual. A business, as opposed to a person, does not fulfil the criteria of who can bring a complaint to the us in line with the Scheme.