Hammersmith and Fulham Council (202009699)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202009699

Hammersmith and Fulham Council

18 May 2021

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 concerns the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of repairs needed to the window frame and damp and mould at his property.

Background and summary of events

Background

2. The resident is a secure tenant of the landlord, which is a local authority. The property is a one-bedroom flat in a communal building.
3. Page 61 of the landlord’s repairs and maintenance handbook states that it is responsible for “glazing external and communal” and “plastering plasterboard (except minor cracks)”. Page 67 of the handbook describes the categories it uses to prioritise repairs and the response times it aims to meet. “External glazing of boarded window” is classified as Priority 5 (routine) and the landlord aims to complete the repair within 20 working days.
4. The landlord operates a two-stage complaints policy. When a complaint is raised, it will send an acknowledgement within three working days and provide a stage one response within 15 working days. If a complainant requests an escalation of the complaint, the landlord will send an acknowledgement within three working days and provide a stage two response within 20 working days.
5. Section 3.7 of the complaints policy states that it will only consider complaints made within 12 months of the matter arising.

Summary of events

6. On 28 July 2020 the resident wrote to the landlord and request to raise a formal complaint. He described the elements of his complaint as:
   1. There was damp in the bedroom which had caused sections of wallpaper and plaster to fall off the walls. The condition of the bedroom had also exacerbated the resident’s health issues.
   2. The bedroom window frame was rotten and caused water to leak into the room when it rains.
   3. He had reported cracks in the living room walls over a year ago and was informed that the work would be put on a waiting list as it was not considered serious.
   4. He sent photographs of the condition of the property to the landlord but did not receive a reply.
7. As a resolution to the complaint, the resident requested that the landlord contact him and give a timeline of when the repairs would be resolved.
8. The landlord acknowledged the complaint on 29 July 2020 and informed the resident that it would arrange for a surveyor to inspect the property. The surveyor inspection was booked for 25 August 2020 and a stage one complaint response was then sent to the resident on 3 September 2020.
9. The landlord first apologised to the resident for the delay in arranging an inspection of the property and in providing the stage one response. It explained that this was due to staff members isolating because of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
10. The landlord confirmed that following the surveyor’s visit, repair work orders had been raised and the resident would be contacted to book an appointment date. The landlord then apologised to the resident for the distress and inconvenience caused by the delays in completing the work.
11. On 16 September 2020 the resident wrote to the landlord. He explained that although he appreciated the apology given in the stage one response, he wished to escalate the complaint to stage two. He described the grounds for escalation as:
    1. He had not been contacted since the surveyor visited the property on 25 August 2020.
    2. He disputed that Covid-19 could be responsible for all of the delays as he first reported issues of cracks and rotten wood in 2019, and the issue of damp and mould in January 2020.
    3. He had yet to be given a timeline of when the repairs would be undertaken.
12. The landlord acknowledged the complaint on 21 September 2020. It contacted the resident again on 14 October 2020 to inform him that it had extended the response time to 30 October 2020 in order to complete its investigations.
13. The stage two complaint response was sent to the resident on 28 October 2020. The landlord informed the resident that work orders had been raised for its contractor to attend the property on 9 November 2020 to overhaul the windows in the bedroom and living room, re-glaze the pane of glass in the living room, re-plaster the living room wall, and undertake a mould wash in the bedroom.
14. The landlord apologised for the length of time it had taken for the issues to be resolved and offered the resident £25 compensation, as a goodwill gesture.
15. The resident wrote to the landlord 9 November 2020. He informed it that a contractor had visited that day to inspect the property prior to the work commencing in the afternoon. The resident explained that he was informed by the contractor that the slot they had been given would not be enough time to complete the work and that no work order had been raised on the system to replace the glass in the window. The resident noted that the contractor left without giving a date when the work would begin.
16. The landlord replied on 9 November 2020 and informed the resident that it had passed on his email to the appropriate team. The landlord then sent a follow-up complaint response on 16 November 2020. It apologised for the delay in starting the work and offered the resident an additional £150 compensation in recognition of the ongoing delays.
17. When providing its evidence to this Service on 4 February 2021, the landlord stated that repairs to the windows and the re-plastering of the wall remained outstanding, and that an appointment had been booked for 1 March 2021 for a plasterer to work on the wall and a carpenter to measure the windows.
18. On 22 March 2021 the resident wrote to this Service and stated that the window repairs remained outstanding, and that the bedroom window had been boarded up since October 2020. The resident also noted that although a carpenter had attended and measured the windows, he had still not been provided with a date as to when the work would start.

Assessment and findings

The landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of repairs at the property

19. The resident’s formal complaint sent to the landlord on 28 July 2020 and the request to escalate the complaint sent on 16 September 2020 described the difficulty the resident had found in reporting repairs, the delays in work commencing and the effect that this has had on him. The resident also requested a timeline of when the work would start and be completed.
20. In his complaint to the landlord made on 28 July 2020 and when bringing his case to this Service on 2 December 2020, the resident described the adverse effect the condition of the property had had on his existing medical conditions.
21. The Ombudsman does not doubt the resident’s comments regarding his medical conditions, but this Service is unable to draw conclusions on the causation of, or liability for, impacts on health and wellbeing. Matters of personal injury or damage to health, their investigation and compensation, are not part of the complaints process, and are more appropriately addressed by way of the courts. Nonetheless, consideration has been given to the general distress and inconvenience which the situation may have caused the resident.
22. The landlord’s repair logs record that the resident contacted the landlord on 20 July 2020 to chase up a mould wash for the bedroom. However, the logs do not show any other reports from the resident relating to the issues raised in the complaint (mould/damp and water leaking through the window frame).
23. In his escalation request, the resident stated that he had been reporting these issues to the landlord since 2019. In his formal complaint, the resident explained that he had made reports of these repairs to the landlord. These reports to not seem to have been passed on to the contractors as no work was raised or carried out during this period.
24. Although the landlord recognised the delays and inconvenience caused to the resident, apologised, and offered £25 as a goodwill gesture, the landlord did not fully address all the elements raised by the resident in his formal complaint and the specific grounds on which he requested an escalation to stage two.
25. The landlord had informed the resident in the stage one response that work orders had been raised by the surveyor following his inspection. However, this was not the case. It was not until the resident requested an escalation of the complaint that the landlord chased up the outstanding work with the contractor internally and an emergency repair was raised to make safe the bedroom window. Work orders for the surveyor’s recommended work were then subsequently raised but as of March 2021, these repairs were still outstanding and it is not clear whether they have now been completed.
26. The landlord awarded the resident a total of £175 compensation during the complaint process. This was disproportionately low when the length of the delays and the inconvenience caused to the resident due to temporary repair to the bedroom window. Although the landlord has not provided this Service with its own compensation guidance, the level of compensation offered is at the lower end of the scale recommended by the Ombudsman’s own remedies guidance.
27. Not addressing all the elements of the resident’s complaint in its response and not providing adequate compensation represents service failure by the landlord. In order to fully resolve the complaint, adequate redress should be paid to the resident that recognises the distress and inconvenience caused by the delays he experienced in reporting the repairs, work orders not being raised during the complaint process, and for the lack of a permanent repair to the bedroom window.

Determination (decision)

28. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was maladministration by the landlord in respect of its response to the resident’s reports of the required repairs at the property

Reasons

29. The landlord did not properly address all the elements raised by the resident in his formal complaint.
30. Although the landlord did recognise the delays in completing the repairs and apologised to the resident, the level of compensation it offered was disproportionately low and did not properly recognise the length of delays or the inconvenience that this matter had caused the resident.

Orders

31. The landlord is ordered to pay to the resident a further £150 compensation for any distress and inconvenience caused by its service failures described above. This is in addition to any other payments offered by the landlord during its complaints process.
32. This payment should be made within four weeks of the date of this report. The landlord should update this Service when payment has been made.

Recommendations

33. If any repairs raised by the resident during the complaint process remain outstanding, the landlord should:
    1. write to the resident and advise him of the current status of the work, the reasons for the delay and if possible, a timescale for completing the outstanding repairs.
    2. consider additional compensation for any further delays, once the works have been completed.

34. The landlord should consider developing an internal compensation policy to provide guidance for staff assessing compensation in response to complaints and to ensure consistency in such decisions.