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

Stoke-on-Trent City Council (202232604)

Back to Top

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202232604

Stoke-on-Trent City Council

21 October 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 handling of the resident’s concerns about the back door to her property.
  2. The Ombudsman has also considered the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

  1. The resident has been a secure tenant of the landlord, a local authority, since 8 March 2021. The property is a 2-bedroom semi-detached house.
  2. The resident explained to this Service that the back door to her property was brand new as of March 2021, however, there had been a series of problems with the door handle falling off; the door not fitting into the frame and jamming; and water coming into the house around the door. The landlord has not disputed this account.
  3. The landlord’s internal records showed that in July and November 2022 it conducted repairs to the back door by adjusting the hinges, frame fixings and locking mechanisms. On 22 November 2022 it recorded that it “overhauled” the back door.
  4. The resident logged a complaint on 1 December 2022 through a phone call, saying that despite joiners attending several times, the problems with the door persisted. She said the water ingress was causing damage to her floor, and the door still jammed frequently, which meant she constantly struggled to open and shut the door, causing noise disturbance to her neighbours.
  5. The landlord acknowledged this as a stage 1 complaint and responded by a phone call on 13 December 2022 to say it would schedule in an appointment for an inspection for 19 December 2022. It then closed the complaint shortly afterwards.
  6. A joiner reported to the landlord that they attended on 19 December 2022 but could not gain access. The resident called the landlord to say she waited the whole day but no one attended. The landlord then re-booked the appointment for 4 January 2023.
  7. The landlord’s contractor attended on 4 January 2023 and found the door was functional with all seals in place, but there was a gap between the glass panels and glass beads. They considered that there was no need for further works and referred the case back to the landlord’s doors supervisor, who thought the water ingress might be a “manufacturing issue”. The landlord has since then acknowledged during an internal case review that it did not contact the manufacturer, although it should have done at this point.
  8. The resident contacted the landlord on 12 January 2023 to ask to escalate her complaint to stage 2, as the problem remained unresolved. The landlord acknowledged this on 16 January 2023 and undertook to respond by 13 February 2023.
  9. On 17 February 2023, the landlord called the resident to explain it needed an extension to provide the stage 2 response, as it had scheduled a further assessment of the door on 21 February 2023. The landlord’s records at the time showed the resident was made aware of this appointment.
  10. A surveyor attended on 21 February 2023 to inspect. They were not able to gain access to the interiors but conducted an external check of the door and brickwork. They found the bricks were pointed correctly without gaps and the door seal was fully functional, and were therefore unable to ascertain how the water was getting in.
  11. The landlord provided a stage 2 complaint response on 3 March 2023, summarised as follows:
    1. Operatives attending on 4 January 2023 found that the door did not require further works.
    2. The external inspection on 21 February 2023 found no apparent issues with the door and the cause of the water ingress remained unclear.
    3. It apologised for the upset and frustration caused by the situation.

Events after the end of the internal complaints process

  1. The resident called on 7 March 2023 to express dissatisfaction that the landlord only conducted an external check of the door but not a check of the interior, and the door issues remained unresolved. The landlord raised this internally and arranged another inspection of the interiors.
  2. The resident called again on 17 April 2023 and asked for a callback. The landlord has since then acknowledged in an internal case review that there was no record of a callback.
  3. On 18 May 2023, the landlord appointed an independent surveyor who had no previous involvement with the case to inspect the door. Following this visit, the surveyor recommended extensive repairs including replacing the PVC architrave from the door frame on the closing side; realignment of the door frame; applying expanding foam to the frame; adjusting the lock mechanism; drilling out weep holes to the step for drainage; and refitting the seals. The landlord subsequently completed these repairs on 15 June 2023.
  4. The resident contacted this Service on 15 March 2024 to say she had experienced multiple issues with the door which the landlord had not resolved despite her making reports: it did not fit the frame correctly and let in draughts, the handles fell off, and she had to replace her floor tiles due to water seeping in at the bottom of the door. She also complained that the landlord had said the door was still under warranty and refused to give her a new door.
  5. The landlord called the resident on 5 April 2024 to offer general apologies for distress and inconvenience she experienced over the matter. It offered to replace her damaged floor or reimburse her for her costs. It later paid £100 to the resident (the resident reported it cost her £88 to replace the floor tiles).
  6. The landlord has conducted an internal case review as of 10 April 2024 and shared with this Service that it considered there were a number of failings around delays in resolving the door issues, missed appointments, poor communication, and delays in providing a stage 2 complaint response. It explained it was hoping to carry out the inspection first and diagnose a cause for the water ingress before providing its stage 2 response. It also said it felt it delayed in providing redress to the resident for the floor damage.

Assessment and findings

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s concerns about the back door to the property

  1. The landlord’s repairs and maintenance policy 2018 (in place at the time when the resident first complained until 2023) says at section 5 that the landlord is responsible for all repairs to the structure and exterior of the property and the fixtures and fittings it supplied to the property. It says issues involving damp will require a pre-inspection. It further says it would carry out all non-emergency routine repairs (all repairs that do not present an immediate risk to people and property) that cannot reasonably wait for a programme of cyclical, planned or investment works by mutually agreed appointment.
  2. The landlord has not provided records of when the resident made her first report of the door issues, however, the resident asserted that the issues have existed since March 2021 and the landlord has not disputed this. The landlord carried out a number of inspections and repairs from 2022 to May 2023, but it was unable to diagnose any major fault with the door nor resolve the water ingress issues until 15 June 2023.
  3. The resident’s complaint is that the landlord’s previous multiple inspections and attempts to repair were not effective at resolving the water ingress, jamming and handle issues.
  4. There is no dispute that the landlord took too long to diagnose and resolve the door issues. The landlord has already acknowledged this to the Ombudsman. On a positive note, it appears overall the landlord was responsive to the resident’s concerns. While on earlier visits it was unable to determine the cause of the water ingress, it kept arranging different people to carry out more inspections. It was also appropriate to assign an independent and experienced surveyor with no prior involvement in the case to carry out an in-depth inspection. As soon as the landlord received the surveyor’s advice on what repairs to carry out in May 2023, it completed these repairs in the following month. It is clear that the landlord could have asked an independent surveyor to inspect the door sooner and reduced the resident’s distress and inconvenience, which the landlord has acknowledged to this Service.
  5. The extensive repairs in June 2023 appeared to have been effective in preventing water ingress. The resident has made no further reports of door issues to the landlord. In her email correspondence with our Service in March 2024, she explained that she experienced issues with opening and shutting the door and water ingress. Following contact from this Service, the landlord reached out to the resident in April 2024 to check if she had experienced any new issues since the extensive repairs, which the Ombudsman considers an appropriate step to take. Should the resident experience any new issues, the landlord should conduct further inspections and deal with this in line with its repairs process.
  6. There were a number of other failings that the landlord has identified in its own internal case review, which included: the landlord arranging an appointment with a joiner for 19 December 2022 and the visit not taking place; the landlord not contacting the manufacturer in January 2023 when it suspected a manufacturing issue; and delays in offering redress to the resident for her damaged flooring (the landlord only offered £100 to the resident in reimbursement for her damaged floor tiles in April 2024, after the resident made contact with this Service). The landlord has acknowledged to the Ombudsman that these were failings, and the Ombudsman agrees with this assessment.
  7. The Ombudsman considers the landlord has already carried out a comprehensive internal case review and taken on learnings from this case. This was a positive approach to using the learning from an individual case to improve wider service delivery. However, it has not acknowledged this to the resident herself, nor made any offer of financial redress in recognition of the overall distress and inconvenience she experienced (except for the £100 reimbursement for the damaged floor tiles). In particular, the extent of the inconvenience caused by the repeated visits and associated delays mean that there was an impact on the resident, and the landlord failed to offer appropriate compensation for this.
  8. Due to the reasons stated above, there is service failure in the landlord’s overall handling of the resident’s concerns about the back door to her property. An order has been made below for the landlord to make a written apology and pay the resident an appropriate sum of financial compensation below in line with our remedies guidance.

The landlord’s complaint handling

  1. The landlord’s complaints policy provides for a two-stage complaints procedure. At stage 1, it should respond to the complaint within 10 working days; at stage 2 (the final stage) it should respond within 20 working days. These timeframes mirror those set out in the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code), which member landlords are expected to adhere to.
  2. At the time of the complaint, the Ombudsman had published its Complaint Handling Code (July 2020). Although this was not a statutory requirement, the Ombudsman would expect member landlords to consider this Code and follow it where practicable. The 2020 Code states that the landlord should provide written responses to the resident at the end of every stage of the formal complaints process and where it needed extensions to provide a response, it should communicate with the resident beforehand and provide a reasonable explanation.
  3. The landlord made its stage 1 complaint response on 13 December 2022 through a phone call instead of providing a written response. The landlord has explained to this Service that this was in line with its own complaints policy at the time, however, it recognised that going forward, complaint responses should be provided in writing.
  4. The Ombudsman considers that this phone call to the resident only contained an appointment for the next inspection. It did not offer any recognition of the distress and inconvenience that the resident had experienced up to that point, nor did it include information on how the resident could escalate her complaint should she wish. This was not sufficient to put things right for the resident.
  5. The landlord initially committed to providing a stage 2 complaint response by 13 February 2023. It called the resident on 17 February 2023 to explain it would like an extension as it had scheduled in a further inspection on 21 February 2023 and would like to include its findings in its response. The Ombudsman considers this was a reasonable explanation, however, the landlord should have communicated this to the resident before 13 February 2023. Although the landlord provided its stage 2 response by 3 March 2023 and the delay was relatively short, the delays in communication added to the resident’s sense of frustration and distress.
  6. Based on the above, there is a service failure in the landlord’s complaint handling. An order has been made below for the landlord to make a written apology and to pay the resident appropriate financial remedy in line with our remedies guidance.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the Ombudsman finds:
    1. Service failure in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s concerns about the back door to her property.
    2. Service failure in the landlord’s complaint handling.

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks from the date of this report, the landlord is to provide a written apology to the resident to acknowledge the failings identified in this report.
  2. Within 4 weeks from the date of this report, the landlord is to pay £150 to the resident, broken down as follows:
    1. £100 in recognition of the distress and inconvenience caused to the resident through delays in diagnosing and resolving the issues with the door.
    2. £50 in recognition of the distress and inconvenience caused to the resident by a lack of appropriate and timely redress in its complaint responses, and delays in providing the stage 2 complaint response.