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Landlord fined £5k after 21-month delay to fix leaking roof left vulnerable resident’s home uninhabitable
The Housing Ombudsman awarded £5,000 to the Hampshire resident after a severe maladministration finding against Sovereign.
The ombudsman said the figure was awarded due to the 61,000-home landlord’s inability to act on a leaking roof for 21 months, which left the vulnerable resident’s home uninhabitable.
The resident contacted the Sovereign at least 37 times by phone during this period and made regular references to the fact the ceiling had collapsed.
This left the house cold and every time it rained, he had to empty multiple buckets of water.
While there were some contractor visits, the ombudsman could find no evidence that there were any reasonable reasons for the delay in the repair.
The evidence it could find indicated that the association did not make any substantive effort to consider the resident’s physical and mental health challenges when responding to his service requests.
Sovereign failed to treat the matter with the urgency it required when it became apparent how bad the condition of the property was and how much distress it was causing the resident and his family.
The resident felt that the landlord had not been held “accountable” and that necessary systemic changes have not been made.
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Concern was also raised about Sovereign’s compensation policy, which mostly relied on “goodwill gestures” rather than compensation.
But the ombudsman made clear that the landlord’s corporate structure as a charity is not a reason for it not to pay compensation where its failings have caused significant distress and inconvenience to a resident.
In addition to the compensation, Sovereign has been ordered to review its treatment of repairs for vulnerable residents, compensation where there is distress caused and complaint-handling.
The ombudsman also highlighted the importance of the association having a strong grip on its complaint-handling ahead of its forthcoming merger.
Sovereign and Network Homes, which manages 21,000 homes, announced their intention to merge last month to create an 82,000-home giant. They intend to complete the deal by 1 October.
Housing ombudsman Richard Blakeway said: “The landlord’s failure to successfully undertake the repair in a timely manner led to the property becoming uninhabitable and caused significant distress and inconvenience for a vulnerable resident.
“When the landlord was made aware of the impact the situation was having on the resident, it failed to act with appropriate urgency.
“While the landlord took some steps to address the impact of its failings – most notably rehousing the resident – these were not sufficient redress for the seriousness of the impact which the matter had on the resident.
“The landlord is about to experience significant organisational change and the pressures of mergers can often be reflected in complaints. It is vital for the landlord to have a strong grip on complaint-handling and the issues leading to service failure.”
The ombudsman also found maladministration in the association’s complaint-handling after it failed to properly engage with the complaint at stage one. Plus, it did not escalate the matter to stage two until the ombudsman intervened.
In its learning statement, Sovereign apologised for its failed processes in this instance.
In a statement the landlord said: “We are very sorry that in this case we did not handle our customer’s leaky roof as quickly as we should have done or handle his complaint properly. We did not sufficiently consider or act on the fact that our customer was vulnerable. We repeat here the apology to our customer and we have paid compensation.
“We have reviewed our approach to vulnerable customers so that information is shared at every stage and that any customer’s vulnerability is explicitly considered, especially if they need to move house.”
Sovereign added that it has been working hard to improve the shortcomings found in this case and is continuing to make changes to ensure lessons are learned.
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