Waltham Forest Council (202410515)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202410515

Waltham Forest Council

20 December 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

The complaint is about the landlord’s:
1. proposal to carry out works outlined in a section 20 notice.
2. handling of leaks in the property.
The Ombudsman has also considered the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

The resident is a leaseholder. He originally moved into the property as a tenant of the landlord in 2015. He bought a leasehold interest in 2019 under the ‘right to buy’ scheme. His 3 young children regularly visit him and stay overnight. The property is a ground floor maisonette within a block.
The resident emailed the landlord on 23 January 2024 to complain about leaks in his property. He said:
1. the property leaked every time it rained. This was a “health issue” and had caused damage inside his property. He had left the property and stayed elsewhere “many times due to the state” of it.
2. he had reported the leaks to the landlord since he moved in 8 years previously but it had not resolved the issue.
3. he had received a section 20 notice from the landlord. The notice advised him that the landlord intended to carry out roof works to the front of the block. It estimated that his service charge contribution for this would be £4,367.
4. he was concerned that the section 20 notice was proposing roof works at the front of his property, when the main issue was with leaks in his roof at the back.
The landlord issued its stage 1 response on 29 February 2024. It explained it had investigated its response to the leaks from 2019 onwards. It said that:
1. it was not unusual to see repair issues of this nature arising in similar blocks, but that the “volume of issues” affecting the resident’s property was “disproportionate in its extent”.
2. its progress to address the underlying source of the leaks at block level had been “both disappointing and apparently disjointed, with multiple visits having been required”.
3. it had carried out works to the resident’s kitchen, bathroom and hallway in April 2022 as a “goodwill gesture” and to acknowledge the issues the resident had faced with leaks up to that point.
4. the leaks returned in June 2022. There was investigative activity for a number of months but “the exploratory and remedial works then seemed to stall from December 2022 until October 2023”.
5. it was still investigating the source of the issue.
The landlord upheld the resident’s complaint and awarded him £500 compensation. This was for the delays in carrying out repairs (£200), distress and inconvenience (£200) and for his time and trouble in raising reports and making a complaint (£100).
In relation to the resident’s concerns about the section 20 notice, the landlord noted in its stage 1 response that he had formally responded to the consultation. It said that its homeownership team, who were dealing with the section 20 notice, had acknowledged receipt of his feedback.
The resident asked to escalate his complaint on 4 March 2024. He was not satisfied with the response provided at stage 1 and wished for the landlord to review it. He asked it to offer compensation that reflected the impact of the leaks on him and his family and for it to complete all outstanding repairs.
The landlord issued its stage 2 response on 11 June 2024. It said it was satisfied that the stage 1 response addressed his concerns about the leaks and that the compensation offered reflected “the whole complaint, including the effect on [the resident’s] family and health”.
The landlord apologised for the delay in issuing the stage 2 response. It offered the resident £75 compensation for this.
The resident was unhappy with the landlord’s response. He referred his complaint to the Ombudsman. He told us that he wanted the landlord to fully resolve the leaks and for it to award him a fair level of compensation that reflected the impact of the ongoing issue on him and his family.

Assessment and findings

Jurisdiction

What we can and cannot consider is called the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. This is governed by the Scheme. When a resident brings a complaint to the Ombudsman, we must consider all the circumstances of the case as there are sometimes reasons why we will not investigate it.
Paragraph 42.f of the Scheme states that the Ombudsman may not consider complaints where we consider it quicker, fairer, more reasonable or more effective to seek a remedy through the courts, other tribunal or procedure.
Complaints related to the level, reasonableness, or liability to pay rent or service charges fall properly within the jurisdiction of the First-Tier Tribunal (FTT). Where a complaint concerning a service charge is made, our investigation is limited to looking at the landlord’s communication around the charge and whether it followed its relevant policies and procedures correctly.
When making his complaint, the resident said that the landlord should have included works to the rear of his property within the section 20 notice, rather than roof works to the front of the block. When escalating his complaint, he said the landlord should accept “liability” for paying for the works included in the notice. He did not raise any complaints about procedural or periphery issues, such as the landlord’s responsiveness to his concerns about the section 20 notice. His complaint was related to the reasonableness of carrying out the proposed works, the landlord’s proposal to increase his service charge as a result, and who should be responsible for paying for the work. Such considerations also fall within the remit of the FTT.
Therefore, in accordance with paragraph 42.f of the Scheme, the resident’s complaint about the landlord’s proposal to carry out works outlined in a section 20 notice falls outside the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.

Scope of investigation

When making his complaint to the landlord, the resident said he had been reporting leaks ever since he moved into the property in 2015. When referring his complaint to the Ombudsman, he said that he had evidence dating back to 2012 that the former resident had also reported the leaks. He also suggested that other residents in the block were experiencing leaks.
The resident’s concerns are acknowledged. However, the Ombudsman is unable to consider any concerns the former resident may have had regarding leaks. We are also unable to consider the concerns of other residents within the block, as the resident’s complaint relates to his own property and is not a group complaint.
The Ombudsman encourages residents to raise complaints in a timely manner. Our Complaint Handling Code (the Code) also provides that it is reasonable for landlords to limit the scope of their complaint investigations to issues arising no more than 12 months previously. In this case however, the landlord said in its stage 1 response that it had considered its response to the leaks from 2019 onwards. As the landlord was prepared to consider the complaint from this date, the Ombudsman has also included events from 2019 onwards within the scope of our investigation.
The resident has raised concerns about the impact of the landlord’s actions on his health and his children’s health. The Ombudsman can consider the likely distress and inconvenience any identified failings may have caused, but we cannot determine liability for personal injury. Any such claim would be more appropriately progressed through insurance or as a civil action. If the resident wishes to pursue a personal injury claim, he should seek independent advice.

Handling of leaks in the property

Under the terms of the lease, the landlord is responsible for keeping the main structure of the block in good repair. This includes the roof, guttering and external pipes.
In its stage 1 response, the landlord included 2 tables that showed relevant repair jobs that it had raised for the property and the block. The property records (table A) dated back to 2015, but notes were only available from May 2019 onwards so the landlord said it had limited its investigation to that date onwards. The block records (table B) dated back to June 2019.
The tables in the complaint response were confusing. They did not clearly explain what the cause of the reported issue was and what work the landlord needed to carry out to rectify it. The tables simply contained brief, undetailed, and fragmented notes that appeared to be a direct cut and paste from the landlord’s repair logs. For example, table A showed that in May 2019 the landlord raised a works order to renew flooring in the hallway. It recorded that it completed this in June 2019. However, it is not clear from the table if it was a leak that caused the damage and what action, if any, the landlord took to investigate and resolve this.
Table A also included a report from the resident in June 2019 of a leak in the bathroom ceiling near electrics. The landlord suspected it was coming from a roof garden in the flat above but was unable to gain access to inspect. It is not clear from the table if it did subsequently carry out an inspection and complete a repair.
Table A included 2 further reports from the resident of a leaking bathroom ceiling. He made these reports in March 2021 and December 2021. It is not clear what investigative work, if any, the landlord undertook when the resident made those reports. The table suggested that it was unable to gain access to the upstairs flat in December 2021, however it noted that the issue was “subsequently raised as a block repair”. A reference number for the block repair was provided in table A, but this repair job was not included in the list of block repairs included in table B.
Given this limitation in the complaint response, the Ombudsman has struggled to understand what work the landlord carried out to investigate and resolve the leaks from May 2019 until January 2024. The repair records provided to us by the landlord contain no further detail than that contained in tables A and B. We understand there have been various sources of the leaks, but the main issue appears to have been with the roof garden, also referred to as a ‘balcony’ by the landlord, in the upstairs property. The landlord owns that property and a tenant lives in it. The landlord has also identified issues with rainwater goods and drainage.
The landlord did not dispute that it was responsible under the lease for carrying out the repairs to resolve the leaks. It accepted in its stage 1 response that:
1. there had been a disproportionate number of issues affecting the property.
2. its progress in resolving the leaks was “disappointing” and “disjointed”.
3. its exploratory works into the leaks stalled between December 2022 and October 2023 even though it was aware the property was continuing to leak when it rained.
The landlord said it could not “satisfactorily account for why” the works had taken so long. However, it was “not unusual for leaks of this type to take time to diagnose”. The issue in this case however appears to be not that the landlord was investigating the leaks but couldn’t find the source or the solution, but that it was not carrying out any investigations for periods of time.
The Code recognises that landlords will not always have completed all outstanding actions by the time a complaint response is issued. This is particularly the case where the complaint involves repair issues that can take time to resolve. In such instances, the Code provides that the complaint response should provide an action plan for any actions or remedies to resolve the issues. The landlord should monitor the action plan and keep the resident updated on the progress of any outstanding actions until it has completed them. The landlord failed to do that in this case.
The landlord stated in the stage 1 response, “the source of the issue is still being investigated. Currently our investigations are focused upon the balconies in adjoining properties.” This was a limited response. It did not clearly set out a schedule of works with timeframes. By the time it issued the stage 2 response over 3 months later, it did not appear to have carried out any further investigations or works. The property was continuing to leak when it rained. The stage 2 response offered no further clarity on what work it was planning to undertake or when. This was unreasonable given the landlord had acknowledged in its stage 1 response that the leak remained unresolved and its approach had been disjointed.
The landlord dated its stage 1 investigation back to May 2019 and acknowledged that since that date its response to resolving the leaks had been “disappointing”. The landlord offered £500 and explained this comprised £200 for delays, £200 for distress and inconvenience, and £100 for the resident’s time and trouble in raising reports and making the complaint. Its compensation policy provides that sums for distress will usually be in the region of £100 to £300. However, it states that “where the distress was severe or prolonged, up to £1,000 may be justified”.
The resident explained when making and escalating his account that the leaks had a significant impact on his property and his family life. Given this and the landlord’s acceptance of its disjointed approach dating back to 2019, it was unreasonable that it did not consider making an award for distress and inconvenience within this higher banding.
The Ombudsman’s remedies guidance states that where there is maladministration that has had a significant impact on a resident, compensation of between £600 and £1,000 is reasonable. In our view, the circumstances of this case justify a compensation award of £1,000 for distress and inconvenience. As the landlord has already offered £200 for this, it should offer an additional £800, bringing the cumulative compensation for the maladministration in its handling of the leak to £1,300.
Overall, the Ombudsman finds that there was maladministration by the landlord in its handling of leaks in the property. By its own admission, it made limited progress in resolving the leaks between May 2019 and January 2024, which was its responsibility under the terms of the lease. However, it did not offer the resident a reasonable amount of compensation to reflect the distress and inconvenience caused by this. It provided no clear action plan setting out how it would resolve the issue.
In line with our remedies guidance and the landlord’s compensation policy, we order it to pay the resident £1,300 compensation. This includes the £500 offered in the stage 1 response.
The landlord indicated in internal correspondence in November 2024 that it completed all works to resolve the leaks in the summer. This included works to gullies and rainwater goods, the roof, and balconies of upstairs properties. It said it also checked and repaired the resident’s electrics.
However, the landlord has provided us with the findings of a CCTV survey carried out in October 2024 which indicated that it needed to carry out further remedial works to gullies and drainage systems. The resident advised us that a further CCTV survey carried out in December 2024 revealed broken pipes were contributing to leaks and required repair. He said his property is continuing to leak when it rains.
We therefore recommend the landlord arranges an inspection of the property with the resident present in order that he may show it where the leaks are continuing to occur. We recommend it then produces an action plan with timeframes for fully resolving all leaks, and shares this with the resident.

Complaint handling

The landlord’s complaints policy states that it will:
1. respond within 10 working days of it logging the complaint at stage 1.
2. respond within 20 working days of it logging the complaint at stage 2.
The policy states it will inform the resident as soon as possible if it requires an extension. The extension should not usually be more than a further 10 working days at stage 1 or 20 working days at stage 2. These timeframes are in line with the Code.
The resident sent the landlord an email outlining his concerns on 3 January 2024. It advised him that it would record his concerns as a formal complaint. It reasonably asked him to provide more specific information in order that it could fully investigate the complaint. The resident provided this clarity in an email dated 23 January 2024.
The landlord asked the resident if he was content that his email of 23 January 2024 was the basis on which it raised the complaint. He confirmed by email on 26 January 2024 that he was. He heard nothing further back from the landlord so followed this up on 14 February 2024. The landlord responded the same day to advise that it had not received his confirmation email.
We have seen evidence that the resident sent his confirmation email on 26 January 2024, but the landlord stated that it did not receive this. It reasonably enquired with its IT department whether the email had become trapped in a firewall but it had not. We are unable to determine what occurred. However, the landlord reasonably said on 14 February 2024 that it would prioritise issuing its stage 1 response and would endeavour to reply early the following week.
The response was issued 11 working days later on 29 February 2024. This meant the timeframe for a stage 1 response in line with the landlord’s complaints policy and the Code was not met. While this was not a significant delay, it would have been reasonable for the landlord to acknowledge it in the stage 1 response given the issues that occurred with logging the complaint. However, it failed to do so.
The landlord also delayed in issuing the stage 2 complaint response. It issued it 67 working days after it received the escalation request. It apologised for the delay in the stage 2 response and explained that it was “caused by unforeseen absence and high volume of work that the team had to handle.” While we acknowledge the explanation given, it was unreasonable that the landlord did not contact the resident by the original due date, or at any time after that, to advise him that its response would be delayed. That it did not do so was a failure to follow its complaints policy and the Code.
The landlord offered the resident £75 compensation in its stage 2 response for the delay. This was a reasonable offer for a delayed response in line with the landlord’s compensation policy and our remedies guidance.
The Code requires landlords to carry out a thorough complaint investigation. In this case, the stage 1 investigation appears to have consisted of a desktop review of repair records. As outlined above, the records did not provide a detailed account of what specific action the landlord had taken over the years to resolve the leaks. Rather than probe this in order to provide a detailed, comprehensive reply, the landlord simply copied the repair records into the response. This was unreasonable. It failed to recognise this at stage 2. It instead said in the stage 2 response that the stage 1 response was “dealt with correctly.”
When the resident asked to escalate his complaint, he raised a number of issues which, although connected to the leaks, he had not raised in his complaint email of 24 January 2023. This included:
1. health and safety concerns about the standard of previous repairs carried out by the landlord inside his property.
2. poor communication from the landlord in relation to an outstanding insurance claim.
3. the negative health issues he had experienced due to the unresolved leaks, including stress, anxiety and hospitalisation due to heart palpitations.
4. concerns about the property being unsafe for his children.
The landlord did not provide a substantive response to these issues as it said the resident had not raised them at stage 1. It emphasised in the response that it was the resident’s responsibility to carry out any internal works, including replacing flooring, and that normally leaseholders would use their insurance policy to fund this.
It was reasonable that the landlord did not fully address these issues at stage 2 given it had not had an opportunity to consider them at stage 1. However, the Code requires that in such instances, the landlord should log the new issues as a new stage 1 complaint. The landlord failed to do this. As a minimum, it should reasonably have clarified with the resident if he wished it to record these issues as a new stage 1 complaint.
Overall, given the cumulative failings identified, the Ombudsman finds that there was maladministration by the landlord in its complaint handling. There were procedural failings due to delayed responses at both stages. The substance of both responses failed to demonstrate it had carried out a thorough complaint investigation. It also failed to register new issues raised as a stage 1 complaint.
In line with our remedies guidance, we order the landlord to pay the resident £200 for this maladministration. This is in addition to the £75 offered in its stage 2 response.
If the resident wants the landlord to investigate his complaints about the standard of repairs inside his property, insurance, or health and safety, he may submit a new stage 1 complaint. The landlord should investigate the complaint in line with its complaints policy.

Determination

In accordance with paragraph 42.f of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the complaint about the landlord’s proposal to carry out works outlined in a section 20 notice is outside the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.
In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in its handling of leaks in the property.
In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in its complaint handling.

Orders

Within 4 weeks of the date of this report, the landlord should:
1. apologise to the resident for the maladministration identified in this report. The apology should follow the best practice set out in the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance.
2. pay the resident compensation of £1,575 broken down as follows:
  1. the £500 offered in its stage 1 response for its handling of the leak. If the landlord has already paid this, it may deduct it from the £1,575 ordered.
  2. an additional £800 for the distress and inconvenience caused by the maladministration in its handling of the leaks.
  3. the £75 offered for the delayed stage 2 complaint response. If the landlord has already paid this, it may deduct it from the £1,575 ordered.
  4. an additional £200 for the distress and inconvenience caused by the maladministration in its complaint handling.

Recommendations

We recommend the landlord arranges an inspection of the property with the resident present in order that he may show it where the leaks are continuing to occur. We recommend it then produces an action plan with timeframes for fully resolving all leaks, and shares this with the resident.