Clarion Housing Association Limited (202123938)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202123938

Clarion Housing Association Limited

14 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

This complaint is about:
1. The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of a leak from the water tank;
2. The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of contamination in the water tank;
3. The landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint.

Background

The resident occupies the property, a one bedroom flat, under an assured tenancy with the landlord which began on 28 June 2021. The resident has confirmed that she has a mental health condition that was exacerbated by the issues under investigation; the evidence has also confirmed that she has a hearing impairment.
The resident viewed the property in February 2021 but did not begin her tenancy until 28 June 2021. She said that the delay in commencing the tenancy related to repairs that had not yet been undertaken by the landlord, including a water leak from the overflow pipe in the garden. She said that four different engineers attended the property between June 2021 and November 2021 until it was determined that the leak was caused by a ball valve not closing in the water tank, that was fully resolved on 19 November 2021.
Around the end of October 2021, the resident noticed flies in the bath and experienced skin irritation following washing. Her doctor suggested her water could be causing the problem. The resident reported this to the landlord who advised her to contact the water company. The water company visited the property at the beginning of November 2021 and confirmed that it was only responsible for the cold water supply to the kitchen tap. The resident said that she then called the landlord several times after this advice from the water company until the landlord attended the property on 19 November 2021 and confirmed that the water tank was contaminated. The landlord then attended the property on 23 November 2021 to disinfect the tank. Further testing was then carried out by the landlord on 8 December 2021, at which point it offered the resident a temporary decant while it awaited test results. By 23 December 2021 the landlord received confirmation of the safety of the water and the resident returned to the property on 28 December 2021.
The resident complained to the landlord on 17 November 2021 about the landlord’s handling of the leaking overflow pipe. She later added the contaminated water issue to the complaints process. The landlord provided a stage one response on 10 December 2021 in which it acknowledged delays and service failures in respect of both issues and offering the resident a total of £350 in compensation.
The resident remained dissatisfied and requested escalation. A stage two complaint response was sent to the resident on 25 January 2022, upholding the findings from the stage one response, but offering a further £25 compensation for the delay in providing the stage two response. This brought the total compensation offered by the landlord to £375. The resident contacted the Ombudsman to confirm that she was unhappy with the response and the level of compensation offered.
Upon receiving confirmation from the Ombudsman that the case had been accepted for investigation, the landlord conducted a further review. Following this review, a letter was sent to the resident on 1 December 2022 offering a further £200 in compensation. The landlord explained that it had identified failures in internal communication that had impacted upon the support given to the resident during the decant process, as well as record keeping failures and a failure to account for the resident’s hearing impairment.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

Whilst this service is an alternative to the courts, it is unsuitable to establish legal liability or whether a landlord’s actions or lack of action have had a detrimental effect on a resident’s health. Nor can it calculate or award damages in the same way that a court is able. The Ombudsman is therefore unable to consider the aspects of the resident’s complaint concerning the impact on the health of the resident of the landlord’s alleged service failures, either in relation to her skin condition or any possible exacerbation of her mental health issues. These matters are likely better suited to consideration by a court or via a personal injury claim.
The landlord’s further review of the case in December 2022 occurred some time after the end of the complaints process. The amount offered, together with the service failures acknowledged at this stage have been considered in the investigation of this case. However, it is noted that the Ombudsman expects member landlord’s to be able to identify the full extent of their failures at the point that a complaints process is live, rather than an extended period thereafter.

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of a leak from the water tank

In the landlord’s repair and maintenance policy, it states that the usual standard is for the landlord to offer an appointment for routine repairs within 28 calendar days of the issue being reported. The landlord acknowledges in its stage one complaint response that it failed to resolve the leak within 28 days of it being reported. However, there is a factual dispute as to when the 28-day period for the landlord to respond began.
The resident states in her initial complaint to the landlord, and in her subsequent reports to the Ombudsman, that she reported the leaking pipe from the water tank when she viewed the property in the middle of February 2021, prior to moving in, and again several times after her tenancy began on 28 June 2021. The resident states that four operatives attended the property on behalf of the landlord between 28 June 2021 and November 2021 but that the issue was not resolved until 19 November 2021.
In the evidence provided to the Ombudsman, the landlord has provided repair records from 16 November to 24 December 2021 only. The initial reports of a leak referred to by the resident are not within the customer service records or repair records provided.
In the stage one complaint response to the resident, the landlord referred to the resident reporting a leak on 20 September 2021 and the landlord’s assessment on 28 October 2021 that the leak was due to a faulty pressure valve. The landlord’s complaint records also contain reference to an attendance on 11 November 2021 where an attempt to repair the ball valve was made. These records are missing from the repair records provided to the Ombudsman. They are also absent from the customer service call logs provided to the Ombudsman. It is therefore apparent that the records provided to the Ombudsman by the landlord are incomplete, pointing to a general record keeping concern with the landlord’s service delivery.
In the absence of full records, and considering the clarity and consistency of the resident’s account of events in her complaints to both the landlord and the Ombudsman, the Ombudsman has inferred that the resident’s account is reliable, and that the landlord was aware of the leak prior to the beginning of the resident’s tenancy on 28 June 2021.
If, as outlined above, the landlord was under an obligation to repair the leak from the beginning of the resident’s tenancy on 28 June 2021, it would have had until 26 July 2021 to take appropriate action to resolve repair issue. As these works did not take place until 19 November 2021,the landlord exceeded the 28-day time limit to resolve the issue by over three and a half months. This represents an excessive delay against the landlord’s repair obligations.
In the stage one complaint response to the resident, dated 10 December 2021, the landlord acknowledged delay in carrying out the repair to the leaking ball valve, and offered compensation in the sum of £200, to compensate for distress and inconvenience in relation to delays in dealing with both the leaking ball valve and the contaminated water tank. In the absence of any other explanation, the Ombudsman has assumed this sum was divided equally between the two complaint issues, £100 for distress and inconvenience due to the leak, and £100 for distress and inconvenience due to the water contamination issue. The landlord also offered £50 for going over target time to repair the leak. The landlord’s compensation offer therefore amounted to £150 in relation to the leak issue.
The resident responded that the compensation was inadequate, but in the stage two response, the landlord confirmed that it believed the compensation it had awarded at stage one was appropriate. The Ombudsman considers that the landlord acted fairly in acknowledging the delay in addressing the leak and apologising to the resident, although as outlined above, it did not acknowledge the full extent of the delay.
It was also appropriate for the landlord to offer the resident financial compensation for the distress and inconvenience caused by its delay in addressing the leak. In considering whether the compensation offered was appropriate, the Ombudsman has taken into account the landlord’s compensation policy and the Ombudsman’s guidance on remedies.
The landlord’s compensation policy suggests awards of £250-700 are appropriate for issues such as a complainant repeatedly having to chase responses and seek correction of mistakes, necessitating an unreasonable level of involvement by that complainant, or for failure over a considerable period of time to act in accordance with policy, for example to address repairs.
The Ombudsman’s guidance on remedies specifies that compensation in the range of £100 to £600 is proportionate in recognition of cases of maladministration where there was a failure which adversely affected the resident. Examples of maladministration include a situation where there are service failures accumulating over a period of time, such as in the delay and missed opportunities to repair in this case.
In light of the time taken to resolve the leak, and the need for the resident to make contact repeatedly with the landlord and her clear reports of distress during this period, the Ombudsman considers that a total award of £650 to reflect the landlord’s overall failures in relation to the leak would be reasonable.
This sum includes the £150 apportioned from the landlord’s final response compensation offer. The above amount has also factored in additional compensation to reflect the additional costs the resident said that she incurred for water/heating costs as a result of the leak. It was reasonable for the landlord to offer to compensate the resident for these costs (included in its stage one response), though identifying a fair calculation for how much these costs might have been is difficult, particularly now after significant time has elapsed. In the circumstances, increasing the overall compensation to an amount at the higher end of the landlord’s compensation policy presents as fair and resolution focused in this respect.
In making an award at the higher end of the scale, the Ombudsman is mindful that the resident in this instance confirmed on various occasions that the issues under investigation were having a significant impact upon her mental health. Ensuring that vulnerable residents receive fair and proper access to satisfactory living conditions should be a priority for any member landlord and it is of concern that this has not happened in this instance.

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of contamination in the water tank

The resident states that she originally reported an issue with suspected water contamination at the end of October or the beginning of November 2021, advising that her skin had come up in rashes, and that she had found flies in the bath. The resident states that when she reported this to the landlord, she was advised to contact her water supply company to investigate the issue.
The water company attended at the property to test the water and advised the resident that it would only be testing the cold drinking water supply. It explained that anything else came from the tank, and was therefore the responsibility of the landlord.
The resident reports that once she was given this information, she contacted the landlord again to advise that it had given her incorrect information about the water company being responsible. The resident confirms that after contacting the landlord several times, an emergency appointment was booked for a contractor to conduct a water test on 19 November at 9.30pm. The resident recalls that the contractor who attended advised her that her water was contaminated and contained parasites.
The resident called the landlord the following day, 20 November 2021, but as it was a Saturday, no further action was taken by the landlord on that date.
The resident states that on Monday 22 November 2021 she contacted the landlord approximately five times to advise of the water contamination. An appointment was booked for the landlord to attend the property on 23 November 2021, when the tank was drained, and the resident reported that the landlord poured a bucketful of water with a cap full of detergent into it. She noted that the landlord was at the property for no longer than an hour and that at the time of leaving, the landlord confirmed that the detergent was still running through the water.
The resident reports that she contacted the call centre another 4 times that day to request a follow up water test prior to using it.
On 24 November 2021 the resident’s neighbourhood officer attended the resident’s property. She said that, during this visit she had turned on the hot water tap on in the kitchen and the neighbourhood officer had advised the resident he could strongly smell the detergent and that he wouldn’t wash in it.
A specialist contractor tested the water supply at the property on 8 December 2021. While the resident was waiting for the results, in light of the situation and considering the resident’s circumstances, the landlord offered to decant the resident until the results were available. The resident was decanted to a hotel from 10 December 2021 to 28 December 2021 until after the results of the water tests confirmed that the water was safe to use. Whilst removing the resident from the property was reasonable, it is noted that this action took place some time after her initial reports about the water quality at the property.
In the stage one response to the resident’s complaint, the landlord acknowledged that the resident was initially incorrectly advised to contact the water company in relation to the suspected contamination of her water tank. This was inappropriate and incorrect advice due to the fact that the water company were only responsible for the drinking water supply, whereas the landlord was responsible for the maintenance of the hot water tank.
The landlord further acknowledged in the stage one response that once it recognised this was an issue for the landlord to rectify, rather than the water company, it failed to treat the matter as an emergency. The landlord also correctly noted that when it first became aware of the issues with the infected water, it should have arranged for the water to be properly tested. It should then have arranged a further test after applying disinfectant to the system to check that the issues with the water had been resolved.
The landlord also acknowledged the damage to the resident’s shelf during the repair works and asked her to contact the landlord if she wanted their contractors to attend to repair it.
In the stage 2 response, the landlord queried the resident’s report about the disinfectant smell coming from the tap in her kitchen. The landlord stated that the resident’s kitchen tap couldn’t be leaking disinfectant because it was mains fed, even though the housing officer who attended the property could also smell it strongly. It appears to the Ombudsman that the stage two response was incorrect in this assumption that the resident and the housing officer were mistaken. Whilst it is true that the cold water tap in the kitchen supplies mains fed drinking water, the resident clearly stated, in her request to escalate to stage two, that it was the hot water tap which was affected, and the Ombudsman understands that this tap would have been fed by the hot water tank.
The resident has enquired as to whether there was a possible further breach of policy by the landlord in failing to undertake appropriate void checks to the water system prior to the start of the resident’s tenancy. The landlord’s policy states that prior to re-let, “all outlets will be flushed through, and new shower heads installed”.
The landlord has helpfully provided the records of the pre void checks undertaken at the property on 12 May 2021, which suggest that the water system was checked prior to letting the property to the resident. In particular, the checklist included the overhaul of stopcock and drain valves, and plumbing drain down, and the checklist is marked to show the landlord considered both of these elements met the standard for the property to be ready to let. It therefore appears that the landlord made the required checks on the water system and drainage prior to the start of the resident’s tenancy.
In light of their acknowledged failures, the landlord offered £200 for water issues at stage one of the complaint process (to cover both the complaint about the leak and the complaint about its handling of water contamination) plus £50 for the delay in the repair/addressing the contamination issue. For the purposes of this investigation then, the landlord’s final response offered £150 in relation to the contamination issue, with half of the landlord’s £200 offer for acknowledged service failures apportioned to the contamination issue, plus a further £50 for the delayed repair in this respect.
In addition, the landlord reviewed this case once it was aware that the Ombudsman had accepted the case for investigation. Its further review acknowledged additional failures in respect of its communication and an ‘overall lack of clarity’ during the resident’s decant. As the decant related to the contamination issue, the landlord’s offer of compensation has been considered in relation to this complaint investigation. As such, the landlord’s overall offer for the contamination issue was £350. Given the serious failures identified in this case however, it is disappointing that the landlord did not review its offer of compensation, nor seek to identify learning, until after the case had been referred to this Service.
Given the service failures identified here, in addition to the clear acknowledged detriment to the resident and her vulnerability, the landlord’s offer of compensation is not considered to reasonably reflect the overall circumstances. The resident repeatedly reported the same issues and was not heard by the landlord, her health was potentially put at risk by the landlord’s inaction. She was left unable to wash for a period, despite having health conditions seemingly caused by the water contamination issue that had occurred through no fault of her own. The landlord’s record keeping did not adequately support the landlord’s overall service delivery and it has acknowledged that its communication was poor, particularly during the period when she was decanted from her home.
In all the circumstances of the case, a finding of severe maladministration has been identified here. A total of £1000 compensation has been ordered for this aspect of the complaint (including the £350 offered during the complaints process and following the December 2022 review of the case), together with an order that the resident receive a written apology from a senior member of staff.
The above figure also includes consideration of additional costs the resident said she incurred (gym costs, travel costs etc..) during the period when she was unable to wash at the property. As time has elapsed it will be difficult for the resident to evidence such costs and it is considered resolution and customer focused to instead factor such costs into the compensation ordered here. As explained above, the Ombudsman has also considered the resident’s vulnerability in arriving at this significantly high award of compensation.

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint

The landlord acknowledged in the stage one complaint response that it had failed to comply with the ten working day deadline to respond to the resident’s initial complaint. The response was sent to the resident on 10 December 2021, which was seven working days after the deadline. In addition to apologising for the delay, the landlord offered the sum of £50 in compensation for this delay.
In the stage two complaint response, the landlord again acknowledged a delay in responding to the resident’s request for escalation. The response was sent to the resident on 25 January 2022, which was nine working days after the twenty working day deadline for providing a response. In addition to apologising for the delay, the landlord offered a further £25 in compensation, giving a total award of £75 in respect of the delays in its complaint handling at both stage one and stage two.
Under the landlord’s compensation policy, awards of £50 to £250 are recommended for instances of service failure resulting in some impact on the complainant.
The Ombudsman’s remedies guidance suggests awards from £50 to £100 for service failure of a short duration.
In light of the guidance, and the landlord’s compensation policy, the Ombudsman considers that the total compensation of £75 offered by the landlord was reasonable in consideration of the delays in providing the complaint responses at both stage one and stage two. The delays in both cases were short, seven days at stage one and nine days at stage two, and the landlord offered an immediate apology for the delays, along with offers of compensation.

Determination

In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in its handling of the resident’s reports of a leak from the water tank.
In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was severe maladministration by the landlord in its handling of the resident’s reports of contamination in the water tank.
In accordance with paragraph 53(b) of the Scheme, the landlord made an offer of redress prior to the investigation which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, satisfactorily resolves the failings identified in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint.

Orders

Within four weeks of the date of this report, the landlord is ordered to pay the resident a total of £1725 in compensation. This sum includes the compensation previously offered by the landlord at stage one (£350) and stage two (£25) of the complaint process, as well as the £200 offered following the completion of the complaints process. The compensation comprises:
1. £650 for the service failures relating to the leak issues.
2. £1000 for the service failures relating to the landlord’s handling of water contamination at the resident’s property.
3. £75 for the inconvenience, time and trouble caused by the landlord’s complaint handling.
The landlord to provide the resident with a written apology, from a senior member of staff, for its overall failures on the case.
The landlord to evidence compliance with the above orders to this Service within four weeks of this report.