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The Housing Ombudsman has ordered a large London housing association to pay compensation to a leaseholder as a penalty for providing “inaccurate and misleading information” about cladding on the walls of his building.
It told L&Q to pay £200 for not making it clear there were potential cladding issues with a property in the Kingsland Wharves development in Hackney, east London, when the landlord responded to queries from a leaseholder in December.
But the ombudsman rejected the affected resident’s request that it take a more proactive role in policing the progress of cladding remediation – saying doing so would overstep its brief.
The leaseholder, who remains unable to sell his flat due to the need for remediation work and asked not to be named, escalated his complaint against L&Q to the ombudsman over the summer.
The ruling comes as the Social Housing White Paper, published this week, promises to strengthen the role of the ombudsman in dealing with consumer complaints.
In a report issued last month, the ombudsman said L&Q had been wrong to tell the resident that it would “respond to any recommendations identified following a fire risk assessment immediately or put the recommendation into a programme of works to be completed as soon as possible”.
In fact, a risk assessment in October 2017 had identified potential cladding issues that L&Q was yet to address. The building is clad with combustible high-pressure laminate panels.
The report said this represented a service failure from L&Q, adding that “the landlord provided inaccurate and misleading information to the leaseholder in relation to the cladding on the building”.
However, it declined to award further compensation and work to ensure the cladding remediation was carried out promptly, explaining that it judged housing associations’ performance with relation to cladding issues under three headings:
Following an appeal from the leaseholder asserting that it should go further, it declined – explaining that it could not act as an enforcer of government guidance around cladding remediation.
“The guidance is not statutory guidance, nor is it legislation,” the response said. “It would not be appropriate for the ombudsman to take a rule-based approach to enforce the guidance. This would contravene our statutory role and fetter our discretion.”
A Freedom of Information request to the ombudsman revealed it had dealt with eight fire-safety complaints involving large London housing associations. Just one resulted in a ruling, which required the unnamed landlord to repay a £300 valuation fee and pay £250 compensation “for the inconvenience and distress caused”.
The ombudsman is set to produce a dedicated report on cladding issues once it has determined several other cases.
A spokesperson for L&Q said: “L&Q recognises the importance of transparency and accuracy in our communications to residents, especially with regards to building safety, where the current cladding scandal is having a life-changing impact on many of our homeowners. We accept the ombudsman’s order in this matter and apologise that some of our direct communications with the resident could have been clearer.
“As the ombudsman acknowledged, in light of the fact current building safety guidance is not a legal requirement, L&Q has established best practice in implementing one of the UK’s largest programmes of building safety inspections. We welcome the report’s finding that our approach to prioritising buildings is fair and rational.
“Inspections have already begun on many of our buildings, and residents in blocks 18m high or taller where inspections have not yet begun received notification in September of when their inspections will take place. These inspections began in October. For the building that is the subject of the ombudsman’s report, inspections are due to be completed by December 2020.
“In advance of this report, we have undertaken a review of our complaints handling procedures. Alongside this review, we have implemented a new programme of building safety communications, which has included providing residents with extensive FAQs, available both online and in print. This programme will ensure that future communication is proactive, transparent and accurate.”
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