The Industrial Dwellings Society (1885) Limited (202203050)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202203050

The Industrial Dwellings Society (1885) Limited

28 March 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 reports of a leak.

Background

2. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord. He resides in a 3 bedroom property.
3. On 11 December 2020, the resident reported a leak in the bathroom which was affecting the rooms below. Between March – April 2021 the landlord conducted several inspections to attempt to identify and rectify the leak. The evidence shows that the leak was rectified in August 2021 and follow on works were then raised.
4. In November 2021, the landlord raised additional jobs to plaster the affected areas. The notes indicate that at least 2 of these appointments were cancelled by the resident as he was not happy with the proposed works.
5. In addition to the plastering, the property was also due an inspection for a replacement kitchen in December 2021. The kitchen was approximately 20 years old, and several units had also become damaged because of the leak.
6. The resident raised a complaint with the landlord sometime in early 2022. Dissatisfied that he had been left with boarded up kitchen and hallway floors; damaged walls in the hallway, morning room and front room and an unsafe kitchen, since the leak was repaired the previous summer. In resolution the resident requested that the kitchen be replaced as promised and that the walls and flooring be repaired in a like for like manner.
7. The landlord responded on 24 March 2022 and apologised that it had taken over 3 months to locate and rectify the leak, resulting in a service failure. It confirmed that an inspection had taken place to identify the works required, including the kitchen replacement and that the report would be available on 28 March 2022. The landlord, however, did not uphold the complaint in relation to the additional delay, attributing this to the resident misinterpreting the works description and refusing access. In resolution the landlord offered £150 compensation for the service failure.
8. The resident escalated his complaint on 29 March 2022, stating that had the repair been conducted in a timely manner the damp would not have penetrated the walls and the flooring and rendered them beyond reasonable repair. Therefore, he felt that his request for like for like repairs was reasonable along with a further request for compensation for the distress caused.
9. The landlord provided its final response on 6 July 2022, it said that due to the length of time taken it had agreed to replace the flooring and redecorate the hallway walls in a like for like manner. It gave the resident the option of having the work completed himself and submitting receipts or allowing the landlord to carry out the works.
10. The resident escalated the complaint to the Ombudsman in September 2022 as several matters remained outstanding:
    1. Compensation for the overall delays and having to live in unacceptable conditions for over a year.
    2. No date given for the kitchen replacement.
    3. He had been verbally promised that all affected walls would be redecorated, not just the hallway, but had not received this in writing.
    4. Finally, he was still waiting for the landlord to agree to the estimate provided for the flooring.
11. Since the complaint was duly made with this Service both parties have confirmed that the flooring and replacement kitchen are complete. The decoration remains outstanding as the resident has been unable to locate an appropriate contractor.

Assessment and findings

12. The tenancy agreement sets out the landlord’s responsibilities for repairing the property. It requires the landlord to repair internal walls, floors and ceilings but not including internal painting and decorating. In addition, the landlord’s repairs policy says that it will respond to repairs within the following timescales:
    1. Out-of-hours emergency repairs: 4 hours
    2. Emergency repairs: 24 hours
    3. Urgent repairs: 7 days
    4. Non-urgent repairs: 21 days
13. The evidence shows that the property has experienced a considerable number of leaks since early 2020. As such, it is not clear whether there was a single leak in the bathroom which caused damage to the walls and flooring, or if different leaks arising at different times contributed. Regardless of this, it is evident that the landlord was informed of a leak in the bathroom in December 2020 which was affecting the rooms below.
14. Although the repair order relating to this report was marked as completed on the same day, it is not clear from the landlord’s records what work, if any, was carried out. Further investigations were subsequently conducted in March and April 2021 to try and identify the source of the leak. It is reasonable to conclude that the leak continued throughout this period and the resident reports that his flooring and walls became further damaged beyond repair.
15. The landlord acknowledged that it was unacceptable for it to take over 3 months to identify the source of the leak and offered £150 compensation for this failure. The evidence shows that an effective repair was not carried out until August 2021, 8 months after it was initially reported. Therefore, the compensation was not proportionate to the delay or the impact upon the resident.
16. The landlord did not dispute its responsibilities and appropriately agreed to carry out remedial works to the affected areas. The evidence shows that disputes arose between the resident and the landlord regarding the scope of the works and the decorative finishings. This resulted in the resident cancelling some of the jobs until the dispute was resolved. The resident wanted like for like repairs, including ‘Amtico’ flooring and ‘ragged effect painting.’ He felt that had the repair been carried out in a timely manner the damp would not have spread so significantly. Although the resident’s request was understandable, It is reasonable to conclude that contributed towards the overall delays.
17. In relation to the failures identified, the Ombudsman’s role is to consider whether the redress offered by the landlord put things right and resolved the resident’s complaint satisfactorily in the circumstances. In considering this the Ombudsman takes into account whether the landlord’s offer of redress was in line with the Dispute Resolution Principles: Be Fair, Put Things Right and Learn from Outcomes as well as our own guidance on remedies.
18. In its final complaint response, the landlord agreed to the resident’s requests for like for like repairs. The landlord’s compensation policy says that compensation will not be made solely to cover up service failures. Where it has failed to provide a service or been negligent, it will seek to learn lessons and put things right. In agreeing to replace the non-standard flooring and wall décor to the resident’s specifications the landlord appropriately acknowledged that the damage was a direct result of its failures. In line with our dispute resolution principles this decision was ‘fair’ and demonstrated a commitment to ‘put things right.’
19. Following its final response, it is unclear why a further 11 months passed before the kitchen and the flooring were replaced. This delay caused further distress to the resident and impacted his enjoyment of his home. He reported that his daughter would not have friends visit due to the unsightly conditions and that the lack of suitable flooring posed a hygiene risk within his kitchen. In addition, he spent a considerable amount of time and trouble chasing the landlord for updates.
20. In summary, while it is recognised that the disagreements surrounding the specification of the works caused additional delays later in the process, the landlord failed to adequately investigate and action the initial repairs in a timely manner. It took the landlord over 3 months to identify the leak and a further 5 months for it to carry out an effective repair resulting in significant internal damage. Furthermore, additional delays in agreeing to make good on a like for like basis and replacing the kitchen evidently caused further distress to the resident. Although, the landlord has sought to resolve the resident’s complaint by offering compensation and carrying out repairs, this was not fully proportionate to the failings identified and the overall impact upon the resident.

Determination

21. 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 leak.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

22. Within four weeks of the date of this report, the landlord is ordered to pay the resident £600, broken down as follows;
    1. £150 previously offered, if it has not already done so,
    2. A further £450 in recognition of the additional delays and the detriment caused to him.
23. Within 4 weeks provide the resident and this service with written confirmation that it intends to cover the cost of redecorating all affected walls once the resident finds a suitable contractor.