FOI request (FOI202917)

Housing Repairs

Requested Fri 09 December 2016
Responded Thu 05 January 2017

Under Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 all landlords have an obligation to carry out basic repairs and maintenance to the properties for which they are responsible for.

Where a local authority maintains control over its social housing stock it is defined by statute as being the landlord.

Local authorities also have a statutory duty to ensure that all of the social homes within their control meet the Decent Homes Standard.

Should a social housing tenant report to their local authority who is acting as a landlord, an issue of disrepair, which is subsequently not dealt with in a period of reasonable time, the tenant has the right to bring a legal claim against the local authority.

Under the Freedom of Information legislation please disclose to me the following information:

• In each of the last five financial years the number of claims that have been brought against your authority, for failing to adequately maintain or undertake repairs, on the housing stock for which your authority had control of.

   

• In each of the last five financial years how many claims have been settled by your authority, for failing to adequately maintain or undertake repairs, on the housing stock for which your authority had control of.

   

• In respect of the settled claims made within the last five financial years, please disclose to me the amount of money that your local authority paid in damages and legal costs , for failing to adequately maintain or undertake repairs on the housing stock for which your authority had control.

For your reference please provide the information to me in a sequential order, broken down by each financial year. For example individual totals for the financial years 2011/12, 2012/13, 2013/14, 2014/15 and 2015/16.

Please note that I am seeking a disclosure of information for ALL social housing disrepair claims brought against your council in the last five financial years. This disclosure will include but should not exclusively focus on claims brought against your authority under the Right to Repair Scheme. This scheme only deals with repairs that have an estimated repair value of less than £250. As mentioned I am looking for a disclosure of information that relates to all claims brought against your council regardless of repair costs.

Should your authority not control or maintain any social housing please specify the housing association or other statutory body that provides social housing services within your area.

If the control of the social housing stock in your area has been passed to a housing association or other third party provider, please provide me with the date at which the social housing stock was passed to the external organisation, and the number of houses that were relinquished from your control.

Please note that if your authority relinquished control of all or part of its housing stock during the years that I have requested information for, I would be grateful if you could disclose the information you hold for the years in which you held control of the social housing stock. For example if control was relinquished in 2013/14, could you please provide the information you hold for the years 2011/12 and 2012/13.

I wish to receive the information you hold in an electronic format. This can either be in a Microsoft Word or Excel document. I DO NOT wish to receive the information you hold in relation to this matter in a PDF document.

Should you hold the information I require I do not believe it will take your organisation longer than the prescribed limit of 18 hours or £450 as outlined in Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act, to collate and then provide the information to me. However should you believe this limit will be breached I’d be grateful if you could make contact with me at the earliest opportunity so I can rework my request to ensure that your organisation will be able to disclose at least some of the information I have asked for within the statutory requirements of the Act.

Should your organisation hold the information that I have requested your organisation has 20 working days to provide me with the information as prescribed by the Freedom of Information Act. I anticipate therefore a response by the 11^th January 2017.

Response