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

London & Quadrant Housing Trust (202207775)

Back to Top

 

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202207775

London & Quadrant Housing Trust

16 November 2022

 

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 repairs at the resident’s property.

Background

  1. The resident is a tenant. The landlord is a housing association.
  2. The resident states that he reported issues with his kitchen extractor fan, and with works needed to the loft, in November 2021. Neither of these reports/jobs appear in the repair records that the landlord has provided.
  3. An appointment was booked for 7 December 2021 to repair the fan, but due to a contractor testing positive for Covid-19, the appointment was rescheduled for 14 December 2021, which was subsequently not attended for the same reason. The resident complained about this, and was offered £40 compensation by the landlord via a stage one complaint response.
  4. The resident raised another formal complaint about the fan on 7 February 2022 due to further missed appointments, and requested that the repair to the fan be carried out within a reasonable time. The landlord issued a stage one response on 8 February 2022, apologising for the missed appointments and offering an additional £40 compensation, which was later increased to £50. The landlord further informed the resident that a part was needed to complete the repair.
  5. Following further missed appointments, on 3 March 2022, the resident requested an escalation of his complaint as he was dissatisfied with the landlord’s handling of the repairs to the fan. He also raised a concern about outstanding works to the loft to combat damp and mould in the property, which he said dated back to 2016 and was re-raised in November 2021, but had still not been completed. In its acknowledgment of this complaint, the landlord advised the resident he would need to raised any complaint about damp and mould separately.
  6. The landlord issued a stage two response on 9 April 2022, apologising for the inconvenience caused to the resident by the numerous missed appointments for the fan and advising that an appointment was booked for 25 April 2022 for the repair to be completed. The landlord offered £300 (£20 for the delay in responding, £250 for the right to repair and £30 for missed appointments), in addition to the £50 offered in its stage one response.
  7. In relation to his concerns about outstanding works to the loft, it said that it had raised a repair to its damp and mould specialist, specifying that a lack of correctly laid loft insulation with no draft board fitted in the eaves was a contributing factor.
  8. The landlord concluded that the service provided to the resident had not met its standards, and that the repairs and communication should have been managed more effectively and delivered more swiftly, and apologised for the failings. It stated, ‘Learning forms an important part of L&Q’s processes and lessons must be learnt. I briefed senior managers across L&Q about your case and the associated issues. I am confident this will enhance customer service going forward.’
  9. The repair records show a job raised to the damp and mould contractor that same day, which is marked as ‘complete no action’ in the repair record on 12 May 2022, with an additional note of ‘no access’ that same date.
  10. More appointments for the fan repair were missed by the landlord’s contractors, with the resident again raising his concerns with the landlord about poor communication. The landlord provided a third stage one response on 9 May 2022, saying that it had passed the concerns about communication to the Direct Maintenance Team,’…to make sure there are better ways of communication when appointments are being rescheduled in the future.’ It said that it would look into any possible compensation upon completion of the fan repair.
  11. Repairs to the fan were finally completed on 1 August 2022, after further missed appointments. In its final response dated 9 August 2022 the landlord awarded a further £80 compensation, namely £20 for the inconvenience caused and £60 for missed appointments, in addition to the £350 previously offered, and apologised for the inconvenience caused.
  12. The resident referred his case to this Service as he was dissatisfied with the landlord’s handling of repairs to the kitchen  extractor fan and its response to his complaint. He has said that there had been ten missed appointments and late arrivals, without timely contact from the landlord to notify him of changes to appointments. He has explained that the missed appointments and lack of communication had meant he had to continuously cancel and rearrange his medical appointments. The resident also referred to draught boards and loft insulation that he states that the landlord was due to fit to assist with damp and mould, but as of July 2022 had still not taken place.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. The resident has referred to a recurring damp and mould issue in his property. However, a specific complaint about this issue was not raised with the landlord – rather, it was referred to in relation to his concerns about outstanding works to his loft. Paragraph 42(a) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme states that the Ombudsman may not consider complaints which are made prior to having exhausted a member’s complaints procedure. As such, this is not a matter that can be  considered as part of this investigation. It is open to the resident to make a formal complaint to the landlord about the issue, and should he remain dissatisfied with the outcome once the complaint process has been exhausted, refer this to the Ombudsman.
  2. The resident has referred to the delay in repairing the extractor fan and works to the loft impacting his health. While this Service is an alternative to the courts, it is unable to establish legal liability on whether a landlord’s actions (or lack thereof) have had a detrimental impact on an individual’s health. Nor can it calculate or award damages on this basis. This is something that is more appropriately decided by an insurance claim or via court, and should the resident wish to pursue this matter, legal advice should be sought. This is in line with paragraph 42 (g) of the Scheme which states that this Service may not consider complaints that concern matters where the Ombudsman considers it quicker, fairer, more reasonable or more effective to seek a remedy through the courts, other tribunal or procedure.
  3. Finally, the resident refers to the works to the loft dating back to 2016, but there is no indication that a formal complaint was made about this prior to 2022. Paragraph 42 (c) of the Scheme states that the Ombudsman may not consider complaints that were not brought to the attention of the landlord as a formal complaint within a reasonable period which would normally be within 6 months of the matters arising. In line with this, this investigation will focus on the period 2021 onwards.

The fan

  1. When investigating a complaint, the Ombudsman applies its Dispute Resolution Principles. These are high level good practice guidance developed from the Ombudsman’s experience of resolving disputes, for use by everyone involved in the complaints process. There are only three principles driving effective dispute resolution:
    1. Be fair – treat people fairly and follow fair processes;
    2. put things right, and;
    3. learn from outcomes.
  2. The Ombudsman must first consider whether a failing on the part of the landlord occurred, and if so, whether this led to any adverse affect or detriment to the resident. If it is found that a failing did lead to an adverse affect, the investigation will then consider whether the landlord has taken enough action to ‘put things right’ and ‘learn from outcomes’.
  3. The landlord’s repairs policy states that it will aim to complete routine repairs at the earliest mutually convenient appointment for a resident. It also states that where missed appointments are expected, the resident will be contacted to reschedule the appointment 24 hours beforehand.  Although the repairs policy does not state the timeframe of completion of non-urgent repairs explicitly, the Ombudsman would expect a timeframe of around one month for day-to-day repairs. A landlord should  provide timely updates to residents when delays are likely to occur as well as a new timescale. In this case, the landlord took an unreasonable time to complete repairs to the fan, namely nine months from the resident’s report, and also failed to communicate with the resident and appropriately ensure that its contractors attended the scheduled appointments.
  4. The Ombudsman further notes that from May 2022, seven months after the issue was first reported and the landlord having discovered that a part needed replacement, two appointments, namely on 23 May and on 25 July 2022, were rescheduled due to lack of materials. While the Ombudsman understands that delays due to the requirement for replacement parts may sometimes be unavoidable, considering that several months had passed by this point the landlord had ample time to ensure it had the required parts when it attended.
  5. Overall, it is clear that there were unreasonable delays on the part of  the landlord to carry out repairs to the resident’s kitchen extractor fan, and that there had been numerous missed/cancelled appointments and poor communication, which caused the resident frustration, inconvenience, and time and trouble in pursuing the matter. There were significant failings on the part of the landlord here in its handling of this repair, which amount to maladministration. The landlord has largely accepted this in its responses to the complaint.
  6. In light of this, the landlord needed to take action to ‘put things right’ for the resident, and to ‘learn from outcomes’: In its response to the complaints, the landlord appropriately acknowledged its failures and apologised. Furthermore, and taking into account its compensation policy that states that £20 compensation will be awarded when missed appointments occur, the landlord attempted to ‘put things right’ by offering a total of £470 compensation for the inconvenience caused. The Ombudsman’s own remedies guidance suggests amounts of over £100 where there has been a failure which adversely affected the resident, but caused no permanent impact. The landlord’s offer of compensation exceeds this, and so was an appropriate remedy to the time and trouble and inconvenience experienced by the resident in relation to the landlord’s failings.
  7. However, there is insufficient evidence to demonstrate that the landlord has taken robust action to ‘learn from outcomes’ in this case. It did state in its 9 April 2022 letter that it had briefed senior managers about the case and was ‘confident this will enhance customer service going forward.’ However, as there was then another missed appointment, it would seem that this action did not lead to improvements. The landlord said in its 9 May 2022 letter that it had passed the resident’s concerns about communication to the Direct Maintenance Team,’…to make sure there are better ways of communication when appointments are being rescheduled in the future.’ However, there followed a further missed appointment with the resident reporting that he had not been contacted.
  8. The number of missed/cancelled appointments, issues with communication, the extended time period the issue was ongoing for, and the three formal complaints about the same matter, should have prompted the landlord to look more closely at the systems in place/its contractors and identify the reasons for the failings, and how these could be addressed.

Works to the loft

  1. This was not something that was raised by the resident in his initial complaint, and was only briefly mentioned in his March 2022 escalation. Nevertheless, the landlord responded in its 9 April 2022 letter, and did not dispute the resident’s contention that repairs raised in November 2021 had still not been completed. It advised that it had now raised an order to address the boarding and insulation in the loft, and the repair records support this, showing that an order was raised that same day. This was a reasonable way to address the issue considering that it had not been raised previously.
  2. It is not clear whether any works have taken place, with the records showing this as a ‘no access’ appointment in May 2022, and the resident reporting as recently as July 2022 that they remained outstanding. As such, a recommendation is made below.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure in the landlord’s handling of repairs at the resident’s property.

Orders

  1. Within one month of the date of this report the landlord must review this case, to identify why its standards were not met, how repairs and communication could have been managed more effectively, and what action has been/will be taken to prevent a recurrence in the future. Details of the outcome of this review should be provide to the Ombudsman.

Recommendations

  1. If it has not done so already, the landlord should pay the resident the £470 offered via its complaint process, as the findings of this report are based on this compensation being provided.
  2. The landlord should determine whether any works to the loft remain outstanding, and if so, complete these.