The Riverside Group Limited (202116185)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202116185

The Riverside Group Limited

15 June 2023

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:
   1. The resident’s report of a leak in the roof.
   2. The associated complaint.

Background

2. The resident is a leaseholder of a flat within a block owned by the landlord.
3. The resident has stated that he first reported a leak from the communal roof to the landlord on 25 March 2019 and on at least nine other occasions after that. The resident has reported that this had caused damage within the property as well as causing anxiety and stress to him and his partner.
4. The resident made a complaint to the landlord on 18 August 2021, stating that the leak was continuing and had not been fully repaired. This Service intervened on 15 October 2021 to request that the landlord issue a stage one response within 10 working days, which it did on 19 October 2021. The landlord apologised and outlined that the work was the subject of a consultation to all leaseholders under section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. This was because the cost to repair the roof was more than £250.
5. The resident remained dissatisfied and escalated his complaint to stage two on 26 November 2021. He explained the landlord had not responded to his request for compensation for damage to the property, an insurance excess payment, the cost of a dehumidifier and air purifier, as well as distress caused, or the time taken to resolve his complaint. The resident also claimed that his property had lost value due to the damage caused by the leak and that he had not been able to sublet the property, as he intended to do, and had lost income.
6. On 5 January 2022 the resident contacted this Service as he had not received a response to his complaint. We asked the landlord to provide a final response within 20 working days.
7. The landlord issued its final response on 27 May 2022. It outlined that the works required completion of the consultation process. The landlord offered £350 compensation and £100 for the insurance premium paid. It declined to pay compensation for equipment purchased loss of property value, loss of potential subletting costs or a refund of service charges paid. The landlord later offered a revised total of £590 to include the cost of the dehumidifier that the resident had purchased.
8. The resident remained dissatisfied and escalated his complaint to the Ombudsman on 19 July 2022 as the roof repair was outstanding and the resident disagreed with the amount of compensation offered by the landlord in its stage two response.

Assessment and findings

The landlord’s handling of a leak in the roof

9. The landlord’s responsive repairs policy notes that the landlord is responsible for the “structure and outside of the tenant’s home” and “any communal areas”. Specifically, the landlord notes that it is responsible for the overall structure of the property, including the roof and walls, ceilings, floors and window frames, sills, and catches. The lease agreement between the landlord and resident outlines that the resident is responsible for the glass within any windows or doors.
10. The Ombudsman has seen evidence that the resident reported water leaking through the roof on at least seven occasions between 4 February 2020 and the date of his stage one complaint on 18 August 2021. In response to this, the landlord attended the property to undertake a repair to the roof on four occasions and undertook a drone survey on one further occasion. There is no evidence that the landlord undertook a physical survey or test until a ‘water test’ was carried out by a contractor on 6 April 2022. It is acknowledged that this was delayed in part awaiting a health and safety inspection of the roof and for the resident to be available following a period of annual leave, although combined this only accounts for a period of around three months. The water test identified four leaks entering the property.
11. The landlord received a quote to replace the roof from the contractor on 23 May 2022 however this was put on hold as the cost of the works required a section 20 consultation process to be completed. A section 20 consultation is required when the costs of proposed works would fall to leaseholders in a property and would be more than £250 each. In this case, the landlord issued a section 20 notice to the leaseholders on 20 May 2022. This is inconsistent with earlier correspondence between the landlord and resident in which it stated that the section 20 process had begun in October 2021.
12. As early as 7 September 2021, it is noted that the landlord’s contractors advised that they would not guarantee any future repairs due to the condition of the roof. A further visit from the landlord’s ‘compliance team’ made similar findings on 4 February 2022. From evidence seen by this Service, it is unclear why the landlord did not undertake a survey and subsequently begin the section 20 consultation process for over three years from the time the resident first reported the leaks.
13. Although it is noted that the works to the roof were completed in February 2023, there was an unreasonable delay of almost four years between the issue being raised and the works being completed.
14. The landlord was under an obligation not to interfere with the resident’s quiet enjoyment of the home. The landlord infringed on this by the length of time it allowed the damaged roof, for which it was responsible, to enter the resident’s home. This caused additional distress and inconvenience to the resident and his partner, which amounts to maladministration.

Complaints handling

15. The landlord operates a two-stage complaint process. The landlord’s customer feedback policy outlines that all complaints should be acknowledged by the end of the next working day and written responses issued within five working days at stage 1 and 10 working days at stage 1. The Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (‘the Code’), which is available on our website, states that landlords must resolve complaints at the earliest opportunity. Specifically, the landlord must issue a stage 1 response within 10 working days and a stage 2 response within 20 working days.
16. In the evidence seen by this service, there is evidence that both stages of the resident’s complaint were subject to delays and required the intervention of this Service to resolve. The landlord’s stage 1 complaint response was issued 39 working days over timescale. The stage 2 response was 115 working days over timescale. This represents an unreasonable delay by the landlord in progressing the resident’s complaint, which is inconsistent with its own policies and the Code and caused the resident additional distress and time taken to resolve the complaint, which amounts to maladministration.
17. The landlord’s financial redress and compensation procedure outlines that payments can be made to residents in three ways:
    1. Financial redress – to compensate the resident for actual losses incurred. This may also be paid if the home (or any part of it) is uninhabitable for a period.
    2. Compensation – paid to apologise to a resident for failures by the landlord, including delays or not complying with its policies. The policy gives indicative bands for compensation: £25-50 for low impact, £50-200 for medium impact and up to £500 for high impact. The policy notes that senior managers can approve compensations over £500 when it is deemed necessary.
    3. Legislative requirements – these are statutory payments made under the Right to repair scheme and are not applicable in this case.
18. The landlord initially offered the resident £100 compensation in its stage 1 response and increased this to £350 in its stage 2 response. The resident remained dissatisfied with this and requested a review. In response, the landlord requested a breakdown of the compensation sought by the resident.
19. The resident’s calculation was £7491.88 broken down as follows:
    1. Time taken to resolve the complaint, based on the national minimum wage in effect at the time – £353.88.
    2. “General damages”, including stress and disturbance. The resident calculated this based on a refund of his service charge for the time taken to resolve the leak. This totalled £3240.
    3. “Special damages” including the following:
       1. The cost of the insurance excess (£100)
       2. A dehumidifier (£140)
       3. An air purifier (£550)
       4. Loss of value to the property from discoloured brickwork (£1500)
       5. Loss of income from being unable to rent the property as planned (£1608)
20. The landlord responded on 15 August 2022 and offered £300 compensation for the time taken to resolve the complaint, £100 in respect of the insurance excess and £140 for the cost of the dehumidifier. It did not uphold the other compensation claims for the following reasons:
    1. The resident had not supplied any evidence of the loss of value to his property from the discoloured brickwork. This was a reasonable response by the landlord, who is entitled to ask for proof of this loss from an appropriate professional source prior to considering it for compensation.
    2. A refund or compensation based on the service charge was not appropriate, as this fund paid for a wide range of communal services, not only responsive repair work. Whilst this response is correct, it is noted that an agreement was made within internal correspondence on 6 May 2022 that the landlord would offer the resident a refund of two years management fees (£309.76). The landlord did make an offer of £350 for the time and distress in completing the works and it is not clear whether the calculation of management fees was used as the basis of its compensation offer.
    3. The landlord stated that the resident renting his property would be considered a business activity. The landlord would not indemnify the resident against potential (rather than actual) losses, or any losses related to a business activity. In the view of this Service, renting a property would amount to a business activity, for which the landlord would not be responsible. In addition, the costs outlined by the resident were potential losses and there would be no reasonable way for the landlord, or this Service, to calculate these.
21. When considering redress, this Service applies our Scheme rules and our own policy and guidance on remedies, together with any best practice. Our remedies guidance describes what compensation is reasonable given the evidence of both quantifiable (actual) financial losses incurred and non-quantifiable losses such as distress and inconvenience, which is for emotional upset caused.
22. Given the findings of maladministration related to the landlord’s completion of repairs and the associated complaint handling in this case, the previous offer of £300 compensation is not proportionate in this case.
23. The compensation must recognise the prolonged period whereby the resident’s home and his enjoyment of it was affected by the landlord’s delay.

Determination

24. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was:
    1. maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s report of a leak in the roof; and
    2. maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the associated complaint.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

25. Within four weeks of the date of this determination, the landlord is ordered to:
    1. Pay the resident £2490 calculated as:
       1. £2,000 for the delays in repairing the leak in the roof. This is because the delay was unreasonable. The delay was likely to have infringed upon the resident’s right to quiet enjoyment and caused the resident distress and inconvenience.
       2. £100 for the insurance excess.
       3. £140 for the dehumidifier.
       4. £250 for the complaint handling failures.

This compensation replaces the landlord’s award and means the landlord may deduct any compensations payments already made (in respect of the leaks and associated complaint handling) from the total amount of compensation to be paid.

2. The landlord must pay the cost of the air purifier within 28 days of it receiving satisfactory evidence that the resident incurred the cost, such as a receipt.
3. The landlord must review the discoloured brickwork to assess whether this can be made good.

Recommendations

26. The landlord should:
    1. Review its complaint handling processes to ensure that complaints can be progressed in a timely manner, consistent with its customer feedback procedure and the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code.
    2. Review its processes for progressing repairs to ensure that further works, including a Section 20 consultation, can be undertaken in a more timely manner.