London Borough of Newham (202206717)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202206717

Newham Council

3 July 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 concerns how the landlord responded to the resident’s reports of a leak into the property.

Background

2. The resident is a secure tenant of the landlord, which is a local authority. The property is a flat in a communal building.
3. The resident has experienced an ongoing issue of a leak, from the roof of the building, through the ceiling of the living room of his property. The landlord’s repair logs state it received a report about the issue on 11 May 2021 and arranged for an inspection of the roof on 9 June 2021. This recommended the installation of scaffolding to the front and right-hand side of the building.
4. On 26 January 2022, the resident wrote to the landlord and requested to raise a complaint into how the landlord had handled the leak. He described the elements of the complaint as:
   1. He had experienced a leak through his ceiling since January 2021.
   2. After repeated attempts to report the issue to the landlord, it arranged an inspection in June 2021.
   3. He had received no further contact from the landlord since the inspection and was concerned that the ongoing leak was causing damage to his property.
   4. In line with the tenancy agreement, the landlord had a duty to repair the ceiling and the roof.
   5. As a resolution to the complaint, the resident requested that the landlord repair the leak, provide him with a schedule of work for the repair and to compensate him for the length of time it was taking to repair the roof, and the inconvenience that this had caused.
5. The landlord sent a stage one complaint response on 14 February 2022, then a stage two complaint response on 19 July 2022. In its responses, the landlord:
   1. Apologised for the length of time it was taking for it to resolve the leak.
   2. Explained that the 6 June 2021 inspection found there was an intermittent leak from the roof of the building during wet weather and recommended scaffolding be erected to complete repairs.
   3. On receipt of the resident’s complaint, it had arranged for an inspection of the resident’s property to go ahead on 14 April 2022. A scaffold survey, to ensure the scaffolding was correctly positioned on the building, then went ahead on 23 May 2022.
   4. Confirmed that the scaffolding was erected on 18 July 2022 and the work was due to start on 22 July 2022. The landlord advised the resident that the work could be delayed by weather conditions and that it would keep the resident updated if this was the case.
   5. Offered the resident £300 compensation, which it broke down as £150 for the delays in completing repairs to the roof and £150 for the inconvenience caused to the resident in having to raise a complaint to get the matter resolved.
6. The landlord’s repair logs state that the roof repair went ahead on 29 July 2022. An inspection was then undertaken on 6 October 2022 which confirmed that there was no evidence of any leaks from the roof. The scaffolding was removed from the building on 24 October 2022.
7. In referring the case to this Service, the resident said the outstanding issue of the complaint was that while the landlord had repaired the leak from the roof of the building, the leak from the living room ceiling remained.

Assessment and findings

Relevant policies and procedures

8. Section 4 of the tenancy agreement concerns repairs and alterations. This, in part, states that the landlord agrees to “maintain the structure, outside and shared areas of your home, including drains, gutters and outside pipes. The [landlord] will carry out the repairs that the [landlord] are responsible for within a reasonable period of time of you telling the [landlord] about them”.
9. The landlord’s website categorises its repair types as “Emergency” and “Non-emergency”. Emergency repairs are defined by the landlord as a repair that presents “a danger to health and safety or security”. The landlord states that a leak that is affecting electrics or another property is considered an emergency. The website does not provide any timescales for when repairs will be completed. Standard industry practice is for emergency repairs to be attended to and made safe within 24 hours, and routine repairs to be completed within 28 calendar days.
10. The landlord’s compensation policy states that it will consider offering compensation for time and trouble to “reflect difficulty and time-consuming activities on the part of the complainant in dealing with the practicalities of the issue or the inconvenience of following up the issue multiple times”. In regard to delays, the compensation policy states that the landlord will consider offering compensation “where the delay and/or distress caused by the failure has an appreciable to significant effect on the anxiety, frustration and annoyance of those concerned, and/or has caused a great deal of uncertainty”. The compensation policy recommends a payment of £50 to £150 for service failure of low to moderate impact on a complainant.

How the landlord responded to the resident’s reports of a leak into the property

11. Once it had received the report from the resident concerning the leak from the roof into his property, the landlord has a duty to respond to the matter in line with the obligations set out in the tenancy agreement and its published policies and procedures. The landlord’s repair logs and correspondence state that:
    1. Following a report from the resident on 11 May 2021, an inspection of the roof was arranged for 9 June 2021. There is no evidence of any further work or correspondence relating to the roof leak for seven months and not until the resident raised a complaint on 26 January 2022
    2. A building surveyor inspected the roof on 25 February 2022 and recommended that the repair be assigned to a roofing contractor.
    3. The roofing contractor inspected the resident’s property on 14 April 2022 and a scaffolding contractor undertook a survey of the building on 23 May 2022 to determine where the scaffolding needed to be erected.
    4. The roofing contractor inspected the roof of the building on 14 July 2022. It recommended repairs to re-brick a section of the chimney, re-lead the chimney, replace damage tiles, clean the guttering and apply waterproofing to the roof. The contractor advised that the work would take one full day to complete. This was approved by the landlord.
    5. The scaffolding contractor erected the scaffolding on 18 July 2022 and the roofing contracting completed the work on 29 July 2022.
    6. The roofing contractor inspected the roof on 6 October 2022. It informed the landlord that the repair had been successful and recommended that the scaffolding be taken down.
    7. The landlord wrote to the resident on 12 October 2022. It noted that there had been recent rainfall and enquired if he had experienced any further leaks from his ceiling or if the issue had been resolved.
    8. The landlord wrote again on 20 October 2022 and informed the resident that as it had received no further reports of roof leaks from any of the building’s residents since the repair work in July 2022, that it would now arrange for the scaffolding to be taken down.
    9. The scaffolding was removed by the scaffolding contractor on 24 October 2022.
12. The landlord acted appropriately to the resident’s complaint. It arranged an inspection of the roof, then assigned contractors to erect scaffolding and complete repairs. Based on the information it had received, there was no evidence that the intermittent leak was affecting electrics or posed an immediate health and safety risk. It was therefore reasonable for it not to consider the repair an emergency. Once the work at been completed, the landlord took appropriate steps to ensure the leak had been fully repaired before arranging to have the scaffolding removed.
13. However, there was clear service failure by the landlord in how it handled the leak prior to the complaint being made. Following the inspection held on 9 June 2021, there is no evidence that the landlord acted on the recommendations of the inspection, progressed the repair or contacted the resident to provide him with an update until he raised a complaint seven months later. Moreover, while the resident had stated that he first reported the leak in January 2021, the landlord records do have any evidence of reports prior to May 2021.
14. Therefore, it was appropriate for the landlord to apologise to the resident, offer compensation and explain what steps it had taken to improve its service. This is in line with the Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles of: be fair, put things right and learn from outcomes.
15. The landlord acted fairly in acknowledging its mistakes and apologising to the resident. It tried to put things right by completing repairs to the roof and offering £300, which it broke down as £150 for the delays in completing repairs to the roof and £150 for the inconvenience caused to the resident in having to raise a complaint to get the matter resolved. It looked to learn from its mistakes by improving its communication with the resident and keeping him updated on the progress of the roof repairs.
16. Whilst these were all reasonable steps for the landlord to take, the £150 offered for the delays in completing repairs to the roof was not proportionate to the level of failure by the landlord, given the delay of seven months for it to take any action following its inspection of 9 June 2021. Given the extent of this delay, and taking into account that the landlord has gone some way to offer the resident redress for its failures, a finding of service failure has been made and the landlord ordered to pay the resident an additional £250, bringing the total payable for the delays in completing repairs to the roof to £400 and the overall compensation to £550. This is in line with the Ombudsman’s own remedies guidance (which is available on our website) and which suggests a payment of £100 to £600 in cases of considerable service failure or maladministration by a landlord. This includes distress and inconvenience, time and trouble, disappointment, loss of confidence, and delays in getting matters resolved. A payment of £550 recognises the significant length of time it took the landlord to complete the repairs to the roof and the inconvenience caused to the resident in having to raise a complaint in order for the matter to be resolved is appropriate in the circumstances.
17. In bringing the case to this Service, the resident has stated that the leak remained unresolved. The landlord’s repair logs state that it was contacted by the resident on 24 April 2023 and informed that the leak had returned. The landlord arranged an inspection of the property for 18 May 2023, which was then rescheduled for 25 May 2023. The inspection determined that there was a leak and scaffolding was erected on 30 May 2023 to undertake an inspection of the roof to locate the source of the leak. As of the date of this report, it is not clear what the findings of this inspection were.
18. While it is understandably frustrating for the resident to experience a further leak, it was reasonable for the landlord to consider the leak repaired based on the advice given to it from an appropriately qualified roofing contractor. Moreover, the landlord left the scaffolding in place for three months after the repairs were completed to ensure there was no further reports of leaks. It also wrote to the resident after a period of rainfall to enquire whether the leak had returned. Only then did the landlord take the decision to consider the matter closed and arrange to have the scaffolding taken down.
19. However, if the 30 May 2023 inspection found the cause of the leak to be from the same source and location that was reported repaired on 29 July 2022, it would be appropriate for the landlord to consider offering the resident additional compensation for the further disruption this issue has caused to him and his household. Therefore, it is recommended that the landlord, if it has not done already, write to the resident and inform him of the findings of the 30 May 2023 inspection and consider offering further compensation if the current leak was found to be as a result of the 29 July 2022 repair not being properly completed.

Determination

20. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in respect of how it responded to the resident’s reports of a leak into the property.

Orders and Recommendations

Order

21. That within four weeks of this report, the landlord is to pay the resident an additional £250 compensation, bringing the total compensation to £550. This Service having been provided with evidence that the resident accepted the £300 compensation previously offered by the landlord and that this has been paid.

Recommendation

22. It is recommended that, if it has not done already, the landlord write to the resident and inform them of the findings of the 30 May 2023 roof inspection and consider offering further compensation if the current leak was found to be as a result of the 29 July 2022 repair not being properly completed.