London Borough of Ealing (202221355)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202221355

London Borough of Ealing

26 September 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 response to the resident’s:
   1. reports of a broken communal main entrance door, to the building of her property.
   2. associated complaint.

Background

2. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord and lives in a ground floor property, situated in a purpose-built block of flats (the building).
3. On 11 August 2022, the resident reported to the landlord that the communal main entrance door to the building of her property was not locking. On 1 November 2022, the resident raised a complaint with the landlord. She stated that she had contacted the landlord on nine different occasions since her initial report, to obtain an update on when the door would be repaired and resecured. The resident complained that despite the landlord continuously advising her that it had ordered a new part for the communal main entrance door, no work had been carried out to repair the door. She also highlighted that she had been paying a weekly service charge that covered services and facilities within communal areas, and that she was worried her household contents insurance would become void if a break in were to occur to her property.
4. The landlord sent its stage one complaint response to the resident on 7 November 2022. It explained that on 3 August 2022, it had raised a job for its contractor to attend the resident’s building to repair and resecure the communal main entrance door. This was due to previous reports it had received from other residents within the building. However, its contractor was unable to resolve the issue as the part required to repair the door was obsolete, and they had been struggling to source a replacement part. The landlord advised the resident that it was unable to provide a timescale of when the communal main entrance door to the building would be repaired, but that as soon as it had an update it would provide this to the resident. It also apologised for the delays and inconvenience that had occurred and upheld the resident’s complaint.
5. On 27 February 2023, the resident emailed the landlord to escalate her complaint to stage two of its complaints process. She stated that the communal main entrance door to the building of her property had still not been repaired and that it was not closing.
6. The landlord sent its stage two complaint response to the resident on 27 March 2023. In this it explained that the control panel for the communal main entrance door was unrepairable and required an upgrade. As a result, its building safety team were liaising with specialist contractors so that the repair to the communal main entrance door could be expediated. The landlord apologised to the resident for not communicating this information to her earlier and advised that it would arrange for her to be contacted as soon as the repair to the door had been completed. The landlord upheld the resident’s stage two complaint.
7. On 4 July 2023, a pushchair was set on fire in the communal area of the building, and the fire brigade was called to attend. Following this, on 11 July 2023, the landlord sent out a notice to all residents within the building, notifying them that it had been receiving reports of antisocial behaviour within the building. This included littering, the arson incident, and drug use. The notice encouraged residents to report any concerns they had to the landlord and the police, and advised that the police had been asked to monitor the building.
8. The resident contacted this Service on 2 August 2023, to ask for her complaint to be investigated. She told this Service that the repair to the communal main entrance door remained outstanding, and the residue from the fire that occurred within the building had not been cleaned properly. She has advised that she cannot leave her property through the front main entrance and instead must leave her property through her back garden, as the char and smell of smoke in the hallway is exasperating her health condition. She expressed that the landlord’s actions had significantly impacted her wellbeing and anxiety, and that she wanted the landlord to refund her service charges and compensate her for the distress and inconvenience caused.

Scope of investigation

9. There is an element to this complaint, which is outside the scope of this investigation, as it has not completed the landlord’s complaints procedure. This concerns the resident’s report of residue from the fire within the communal area, preventing her from leaving her property from the front main entrance. In the interest of fairness, the scope of this investigation is limited to the issues raised during the resident’s formal complaint to the landlord. This is because the landlord needs to be given a fair opportunity to investigate and respond to any reported dissatisfaction with its actions prior to the involvement of this service. Any new issues that have not been the subject of a formal complaint can be addressed directly with the landlord and progressed as a new formal complaint if required. The resident may be able to refer the new complaint to the Ombudsman if she remains dissatisfied once she has received the landlord’s final response to her complaint.
10. Additionally, as part of the resident’s complaint, she has said that the landlord’s delay to repair the communal main entrance door to the building of her property, has had a serious impact on her wellbeing and anxiety. The Ombudsman does not doubt the resident’s comments about her health. However, it is beyond the remit of this Service to establish if there is a direct connection between the landlord’s actions or inaction and the resident’s health. Matters such as this are better suited to a court to decide as the courts have different powers to the Ombudsman. The courts can call on medical expert witnesses and award damages in a different way to the Ombudsman. However, consideration has been given to any general distress and inconvenience the resident experienced because of any errors by the landlord as well as the landlord’s response to the resident’s concerns about her health.

Assessment and findings

Policies and procedures

11. The landlord’s repair handbook states that it is responsible for fittings and fixtures in communal areas. This includes making safe insecure outside doors. Its repair handbook sets out that emergency repairs are attended to within 24 hours, urgent and routine repairs within 15 working days, and planned works within 60 days.

The landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of a broken communal entrance door, to the building of her property.

12. As part of this investigation, this service asked the landlord to provide repair records relating to the broken communal entrance door, such as, correspondence and telephone contact notes concerning the resident’s reports, any records of the landlord’s investigation into the repair of the door, records of dates that the repairs were attended, and an explanation of works completed on each visit. The landlord has provided no contemporaneous repair records relating to the broken communal entrance door, and if this information does exist, the landlord’s repair records appear to be incomplete. The Ombudsman notes that any repair records relating to the communal entrance door, appear to begin from 2 November 2022, despite its acknowledgment within its stage one response, that it was aware of the issue from 3 August 2022. As such, the Ombudsman has questioned the integrity of the landlord’s repair records and whether they can be relied upon.
13. Recordkeeping is a core function of a repairs service, not only so that a landlord can provide information to the Ombudsman when requested, but also because this assists the landlord in fulfilling its repair obligations. Information should be clear and readily available to any member of staff who becomes responsible for a particular matter, easing handovers between staff. Additionally, communication with residents is improved when staff are able to access all of the relevant up to date information and get a good understanding of the issue, and what action has been taken (or not taken) and why. If a landlord is asked to explain what happened, and why, good records will enable it to do so. Poor quality or absent records result in the landlord being unable to answer questions or being unable to provide evidence to support its explanation, which impacts negatively on its credibility and relationships with the requestor. It will therefore be recommended that the landlord reviews its record keeping practices in an effort to ensure that it is maintaining accurate and good quality information in the future.
14. Three months after the communal door had been reported to the landlord as broken, its stage one complaint response explained to the resident that it had been trying to source a replacement part, as the part required had become obsolete. Four months later, its stage two complaint response told the resident the control panel of the communal door was unrepairable and that it was liaising with a specialist contractor. Five months later, the landlord told this Service that it was within the procurement stage for a new door entry system, but the contractor was yet to mobilise. The Ombudsman understands that there will be cases, which due to the nature, complexity or extent of the work needed, cannot be completed within a short timeframe, and therefore time taken to remedy an issue may be beyond a landlord’s control.
15. However, it is unacceptable that over the course of 12 months, no evidence has been submitted to substantiate the reasons given by the landlord for its delay to repair and secure the communal entrance door. There is some indication from the landlord’s repair logs that on 7 November 2022, its contractor attended the building to repair the communal entrance door, and on30 November 2022, a job was raised for the main entrance lock to be made secure. However, without evidence, assessments and detail of what works were carried out, the Ombudsman cannot reasonably determine if these logs evidence the landlord’s fulfilment of its repair obligations. Additionally, the Ombudsman would have expected to have seen email exchanges between the landlord and its contractors’, discussing the difficulties faced trying to obtain the required parts to repair the communal entrance door, and dates of these discussions to confirm when alternative proposals were offered.
16. Moreover, given the length of time the communal entrance door has been left unsecure, the landlord should have considered carrying out temporary repairs to secure the door, such as fitting a manual lock and providing residents with keys. Although the landlord is not obliged to make improvements to the building, in this situation it could have also considered fitting CCTV within the communal area to demonstrate to residents that it was doing everything reasonably possible to secure the building. It is concerning to the Ombudsman that the landlord has not shown that it has considered these or any other interim measures, as from the evidence, it confirmed in a notice sent to all residents within the building, that it was aware of antisocial behaviour within the building. Overall, the Ombudsman has seen little evidence to reasonably conclude with certainty that the landlord’s delay of 12 months to repair and secure the communal entrance door, is justified. It has also failed to demonstrate effective management of the outstanding repair in the interim. Both of these failings constitute service shortcomings by the landlord and would have understandably caused distress and inconvenience to the resident. Given that her property was located on the ground floor, it was reasonable for the resident to worry about her safety, as she was left not knowing when the communal entrance door would be secured.
17. Turning to the landlord’s communication with the resident. The communal entrance door is a facility that is used by several residents living within the building. As such, the landlord would have been expected to notify all residents that the communal entrance door was not locking as soon as it had been made aware of the fact. It could have done this by sending a generic notice via its customer relationship management system, or by erecting a notice within the building for all to see. This would have demonstrated that it was treating the issue as a priority, and would have assisted in managing resident expectations, potentially preventing several repeated reports. There is no evidence that these steps were taken by the landlord, and this is demonstrated further by the fact that when the resident initially reported to the landlord that the communal entrance door was not locking, the landlord claimed it had already raised a job a week earlier due to reports it had received from other residents. Additionally, the landlord would have been expected to continue providing its residents with regular updates, keeping them informed of the reasons why the communal door remained unsecure, the challenges that were being faced, and the actions that were being taken to repair the door. However, the landlord has failed to demonstrate effective management of its residents’ expectations, which in turn caused the resident to ask the landlord for updates on several different occasions between 11 August 2022 and 20 July 2023. The landlord’s poor communication understandably caused the resident significant distress, inconvenience, time and trouble, each time she attempted to find out when the communal entrance door would be repaired and was given no timescale of when this would be.
18. In light of the landlord’s cumulative failings, the Ombudsman has determined that there was maladministration by the landlord in its response to the resident’s reports of a broken communal entrance door, to the building of her property. Additionally, the landlord has failed to offer redress to the resident, which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, acknowledges the distress and inconvenience caused because of its actions.
19. The Ombudsman’s Remedies Guidance, which is published on our website, sets out our service’s approach when seeking to resolve a dispute. The guidance suggests compensation from £100 to £600 is appropriate for instances of maladministration by the landlord. Maladministration can include a landlord’s failure to comply with its own policies and procedures, unreasonable delays in dealing with a matter, and behaving unfairly, unreasonably or incompetently. In this instance, an amount of £500 compensation is appropriate, being £200 compensation for the landlord’s poor record keeping and inability to demonstrate to the resident and this service what steps it took to fulfil its repair obligations, £200 compensation for its overall delay to repair the communal entrance door, while also failing to consider alternative security measures for the building in the interim, to assist in assuaging the resident’s safety concerns, and £100 compensation for failing to provide the resident with regular updates on the status of the outstanding repair. The Ombudsman will order the landlord to pay this compensation to the resident in recognition of the distress, inconvenience, time and trouble caused by its errors. This should be paid to the resident directly and not offset against any outstanding debt that may be owed to the landlord.
20. The Ombudsman will also make an order for the landlord to outline to the resident and this service how it intends to repair or replace the communal entrance door, and the proposed timescales involved. If it is unsure of estimated completion, it should consider what security measures it will put in place for the building in the interim. Clear reasons should be outlined as to why it is making the decisions it intends to make, and this should be communicated to all residents within the building. A copy of its plans should also be provided to this service.

The landlord’s response to the resident’s associated complaint.

21. The landlord operates a two-stage complaints process. When a complaint is received, the landlord aims to provide a complaint response at stage one of its process within 20 working days. If the complainant is dissatisfied with the response, they can request escalation of the complaint to the next stage. The landlord will then undertake a review of the complaint and provide the resident with a stage two complaint response within 20 working days.
22. The landlord also has a compensation policy that it considers when dealing with complaints. The compensation policy states that when assessing whether compensation should be awarded, it considers the level of stress, anxiety, inconvenience, frustration, worry and uncertainty caused to a resident. Compensation is also awarded for day-to-day repairs such as failure of contractors to provide a service, and for time and trouble. At stage one of the landlord’s complaints process a minimum of £10 to a maximum of £50 can be offered to a resident for time and trouble, and at stage two of the landlord’s complaints process, a minimum of £50 to a maximum of £150 can be awarded for time and trouble. The landlord also offers discretionary compensation of up to £1000.
23. In this case, the landlord responded to the resident’s stage one and stage two complaints within the timescales set out in its complaints policy. While the time taken to respond to the resident’s complaints was appropriate, the Ombudsman notes that the landlord failed to consider its compensation policy when investigating the resident’s complaint. The landlord upheld the resident’s stage one complaint and appropriately apologised for the delay and inconvenience caused. However, considering it could not provide the resident with a timescale of when the communal entrance door would be repaired, and three months had already lapsed with no resolution, the landlord should have offered the resident compensation in recognition of its identified failings, which would have been in line with its compensation policy. This also applies at stage two of its complaints procedure, where it acknowledged its further failings, upheld the resident’s complaint, but failed to offer the resident compensation in recognition of this. This would have understandably left the resident feeling as though her complaints had not been taken seriously, and as such, the Ombudsman will order the landlord to pay the resident £75 compensation for this oversight.
24. The Ombudsman would have also expected the landlord to have considered the resident’s service charge payments during the course of its investigations into her complaints. The resident highlighted that she had been paying her service charge and felt that it should be reimbursed given the landlord’s delay to repair the communal entrance door. It is unclear from the resident’s occupancy agreement whether the service charge she is required to pay, include for the provision of the communal entrance door. Additionally, as the landlord failed to address this element of the resident’s complaint, the Ombudsman is unable to assess whether the resident is entitled to a refund of her service charge. Therefore, the landlord will be ordered to write to the resident addressing this aspect of her complaint and providing an explanation for its decision regarding the service charge. If the resident is unhappy with the landlord’s response to this issue, she can raise the matter as a separate complaint through the landlord’s complaints process.
25. The Ombudsman also notes the landlord’s failure to address the resident’s reference to her household insurance being void should a break in occur while the communal entrance door is unsecure. The Ombudsman would suggest that the resident discusses this with her insurance provider. If it is confirmed that a broken communal entrance door would invalidate her insurance, she should provide evidence of this to the landlord. The resident should then be able to discuss with the landlord what provisions it will put in place to cover her household possessions in the event of a break in, while the repair to the communal entrance door remains outstanding.
26. The Ombudsman would like to remind the landlord that responding to its residents’ complaints in full is essential, and that residents should receive a comprehensive response to their complaints, which addresses all the concerns that have been raised. As such, the Ombudsman will make an order for the landlord to issue the resident with a written apology for failing to address all the points raised within her complaint. The apology should include a response to the resident’s request for a refund of her service charge, and an explanation for its decision. Additionally, the landlord should pay the resident £50 compensation for failing to respond to her complaint in full.
27. In summary, the landlord’s failure to offer compensation to the resident at stage one and two of its complaints procedure, as outlined in its compensation policy, and its failure to respond to the resident’s complaint in full, amounts to maladministration. Based on the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance, the landlord should pay the resident £125 compensation for distress and inconvenience caused as a result of its poor complaint handling.

Determination

28. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in its response to the resident’s reports of a broken communal entrance door, to the building of her property.
29. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in respect of its complaint handling.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

30. Within four weeks of the date of this determination, the landlord is ordered to pay the resident:
    1. £500 compensation consisting of:
       1. £200 for its poor record keeping, inability to demonstrate to the resident and this Service what steps it took to fulfil its repair obligations.
       2. £200 for its overall delay to repair the communal entrance door, while also failing to consider alternative security measures for the building in the interim.
       3. £100 for failing to provide the resident with regular updates on the status of the outstanding repair.
    2. £125 compensation for it poor complaint handling.
    3. This compensation should be paid to the resident directly and not offset against any outstanding debt that may be owed to the landlord.
31. Within four weeks of the date of this determination, the landlord should:
    1. Outline to the resident and this Service how it intends to repair or replace the communal entrance door, and the proposed timescales involved. If it is unsure of estimated completion, it should consider what security measures it will put in place for the building in the interim. Clear reasons should be outlined as to why it is making the decisions it intends to make, and this should be communicated to all residents within the building. A copy of its plans should also be provided to this service.
    2. Issue the resident with a written apology for failing to address all the points raised within her complaint. The apology should include a response to the resident’s request for a refund of her service charge, and an explanation for its decision.

Recommendations

32. The landlord should review its record keeping practices in an effort to ensure that it is maintaining accurate and good quality information in the future.
33. In light of the failings identified within this report, the landlord should look beyond the circumstances of this complaint and consider whether any form of redress needs to be offered to the other residents within the building, who may have also been affected by the outstanding repair to the communal entrance door.