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The Riverside Group Limited (202208731)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202208731

The Riverside Group Limited

25 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 how the landlord handled repairs to the resident’s toilet.

Background

  1. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord, which is a housing association. The property is a flat.
  2. Between 8 June 2022 and 16 June 2022, the resident called the landlord on several occasions to report issues with the toilet in the property. The landlord raised several work orders, undertook repairs to the cistern and replaced the syphon.
  3. On 28 June 2022, the resident contacted the landlord to raise a complaint into how it had handled the repairs. The landlord’s notes of the resident’s call described the elements of the complaint as:
    1. The resident was left without a working toilet for a total of 9 days.
    2. The operatives who attended the property completed the work to a poor standard and on 1 occasion a joiner mistakenly attended rather than a plumber.
    3. The resident experienced a poor level of service from the landlord when he reported the issues and spent an unreasonable time on the telephone waiting to be spoken to (at least 40 minutes on each occasion). The landlord also did not follow its procedures for an emergency repair as he had to wait for more than 12 hours for an operative to attend.
    4. As a resolution to the complaint, the resident requested compensation for the period he was without a working toilet and in recognition of the poor service he experienced.
  4. The landlord sent a stage 1 complaint response to the response on 12 July 2022, then a stage 2 complaint response on 22 July 2022. In its responses, the landlord:
    1. Explained that it attended his property on 9, 10 and 12 June 2022 following reports that the toilet was not working. A temporary repair was carried out during the appointment on 12 June, while a replacement syphon was ordered. The replacement syphon was then fitted on 16 June 2022.
    2. Recognised the inconvenience caused to the resident by the toilet not working on 3 occasions but noted that each incident required a repair to a different part of the toilet and the operatives left the toilet operating following each repair.
    3. Declined the resident’s request for compensation on the grounds that it had responded to the reports appropriately, undertook the required repairs and the failure of the toilet parts was not due to poor workmanship.
  5. In referring the case to this Service, the resident said that he disputed the landlord’s decisions not to award compensation for the 9 days he was without a working toilet and for the poor service he received from the operatives who visited the property.

Assessment and findings

Relevant policies and procedures

  1. Section 2.3.2 of the tenancy agreement confirms that the landlord is responsible for the repair of and keeping in good working order installations for room heating, water heating and sanitation, including “basins, sinks, baths, toilets (but not the toilet seat), flushing system and waste pipes”.
  2. The landlord’s repairs policy defines its repair types as “Emergency” (attend within 12 hours), “Urgent (attend within three or five days) and “Routine” (attend within 28 or 56 days). The landlord defines an emergency repair as a repair that presents an “immediate health and safety risk to our customers, their home or their neighbours”. The policy goes on state that the landlord will usually attend an emergency repair to make-safe the issue within 12 hours and then will “return within a reasonable timeframe to complete the repair”. As an example of what it considers an emergency repair, the landlord suggests “problems flushing your toilet”.
  3. The landlord’s compensation policy states that it will consider offering a complainant compensation for loss of facilities in circumstances where “part, or all of a home is uninhabitable due to delays to repairs which [the landlord] are responsible for carrying out”.

How the landlord handled repairs to the toilet

  1. On receipt of the resident’s reports about the condition of the toilet, the landlord had a duty to respond to the matter in line with its obligations set out in the tenancy agreement and its published policies and procedures.
  2. In line with its repairs policy detailed above, the landlord should consider a repair required to the toilet flush an emergency and respond accordingly. The landlord’s internal correspondence and repair logs state that:
    1. It received a report from the resident on 8 June 2022 that the toilet was not flushing. An operative attended on 9 June 2022 and found the bottom entry valve to be cracked causing water to spray out. The operative replaced the valve and stated that they left with the toilet flush working.
    2. A further out-of-hours call was made on 9 June 2022 by the resident reporting that the flush had stopped working again. An operative attended the same day, who identified the issue as the valve float getting stuck on top of the syphon but was unable to shut off the water to make adjustments. A different operative attended on 10 June 2022, who was able to shut off the water to resolve the issue. This operative reported that he left the toilet working.
    3. The resident made a third report on 12 June 2022 that the toilet was still not flushing. An operative attended on the same day and found that the syphon had snapped and also recommended replacing the pan connector. A temporary repair was put in place while the replacement parts were ordered. The parts were fitted on 16 June 2022 and no further reports of issues with the toilet flush were reported.
  3. Overall, the landlord acted appropriately to the reports made by the resident. It acted in line with its repairs policy by raising emergency repairs and ensuring that the toilet flush was working after each visit.
  4. The repair logs provided by the landlord to this Service do not indicate the time a job was attended or completed. Therefore, it is not possible from the evidence provided to confirm that the emergency repairs were attended to within 12 hours, although it should be noted that the resident only highlighted the second report he made on 9 June as not resolving the problems with his toilet within the landlord’s published timescale of 12 hours.
  5. In the case of the second appointment made on 9 June 2022, there was a clear delay as the problems could not be fully resolved during that visit as the operative was unable to isolate the water and therefore a follow-up appointment had to be arranged for the next day. The resident stated that it was this repair that took more than 12 hours to resolve due to this delay.
  6. Therefore there has been service failure by the landlord both for the delay in resolving the second repair to the toilet within its 12 hour timescale and for not addressing this delay in its complaint responses. Given this failure it would be appropriate for the landlord to pay compensation to the resident.
  7. The Ombudsman’s own remedies guidance (which is available on our website) recommends a payment of £50 to £100 in cases of service failure of a short duration that may not have significantly affected the overall outcome. This includes distress and inconvenience, time and trouble, disappointment, loss of confidence, and delays in getting matters resolved. Therefore, a payment of £50 that recognises the inconvenience to the resident, in having to wait for more than 12 hours for the issue to be fully resolved, would be appropriate in the circumstances.
  8. The resident has requested further compensation for the period he was without a working toilet. He has stated that he was without working toilet facilities for a total of 9 days and that, for 5 days after the temporary repair took place on 12 June 2022, he had to travel to pubs, restaurants and supermarkets to use their toilet facilities which resulted in round trips of at least 1 mile. The landlord declined this request on the grounds that their operatives left the toilet in working order after each appointment and that there was no evidence that the cause of the repairs was due to the actions or inactions of the landlord.
  9. The landlord’s position is in line with the evidence set out in the repair logs and internal correspondence. This states that after each of the 3 emergency appointments on 9, 10 and 12 June 2022, and the replacement of the syphon on 16 June 2022, the operative notes confirmed that the toilet flush was working on completion of each appointment. It is reasonable for the landlord to rely of the advice from its appropriately qualified staff and contractors that the toilet had been successfully repaired after each visit. Moreover, there is no record of any contact from the resident between 12 and 16 June 2022 to inform the landlord that the toilet flush had stopped working and he was having to travel to use alternative facilities. The operative who fitted the new syphon on 16 June 2022 also did not leave any notes stating that the temporary repair put in place on 12 June 2022 had failed. Therefore, it was reasonable for the landlord to decline the resident’s request for compensation for this element of the complaint.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in respect of how it handled repairs to the resident’s toilet.

Orders

  1. For the service failure in respect of the delay to the emergency repair raised on 9 June 2022, and the landlord’s failure to address this in its complaint responses, the landlord is ordered to pay to the resident £50. 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.
  2. It is the Ombudsman’s position that compensation awarded by this Service should be treated separately from any financial arrangements between the landlord and resident and should not be offset against any arrears.