A Greenwich resident lived with plumbing problems in their flat which led to “waste coming back up the bath” for 10 months, according to a recent report.

Greenwich Council has been criticised by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman for its delays in responding to a resident’s complaints about the plumbing in their private property.

The resident, known as Mr X, reportedly contacted his landlord in September 2020 regarding plumbing issues in his flat.

The report said: “The toilets did not drain properly which resulted in waste coming back up the toilet and into the shower and bath. It had also on occasion caused the toilets to become completely blocked. Mr X’s landlords arranged for plumbers to visit but they did not address the issues, rather Mr X says they made them worse.”

Mr X reportedly contacted Greenwich Council in March 2021 to help fix the problem, with an officer visiting the next month. The officer deemed the plumbing a Category 1 hazard, requiring the landlords to repair the problem by May 31 2021.

The landlords found there was a blocked drain in the building’s basement and asked the building management to urgently fix it. The management reportedly installed non-return valves and Mr X confirmed the problem appeared to have been fixed that July, with the council closing the case. The resident then told his landlords and building management that the problems returned in September 2021.

The report said: “In December 2021 the landlords advised Mr X they would need to carry out extensive works to attempt to locate the source of the problem. As this would cause considerable disruption they informed Mr X they were terminating his lease.”

Mr X reportedly contacted the council, calling his landlords’ action a “retaliatory eviction”. He hoped the council could prevent his lease being terminated by serving an improvement notice to his landlords to resolve the plumbing issues.

Council officers visited the property in January 2022 and considered issues, including a blocked toilet, a Category 2 hazard. Mr X expressed concerns that the notice served by the council did not legally require his landlords to resolve the issue. The council confirmed the notice was not legally binding and that the hazard had been reduced to Category 2 after the plumbers resolved the initial problem in July 2021.

The report said Mr X questioned this decision, given the remaining problem had caused him “significant stress” on a daily basis. He asked the council to reconsider the issue, but was served a formal notice by his landlords for him to leave the property in March 2022. The resident called this an attempt to “bully them” into leaving instead of fixing the problem.

The resident reportedly made a formal complaint against the council, stating the landlords avoided making necessary repairs after the initial inspection in April 2021 and the authority allegedly took no action. He said the council was “neglectful in its duty” to address the problems and made a further complaint in May 2022 after not receiving a response.

Mr X asked the ombudsman to investigate his complaint after not receiving a response, who referred this back to the council. Council officers inspected Mr X’s property that July, and claimed several minor Category 2 hazards were found and swiftly remedied by the landlords.

The resident said there were “factual inaccuracies” in the council’s response to his complaint. He also asked for an explanation for the differing opinions between inspections and was concerned about the “failings and delays” in the council’s complaints process.

The council reportedly responded in January 2023 and apologised for its delay in responding and progressing the case, as well as factual errors in its initial response. The authority said a block inspection would be needed to assess if the building’s construction had led to other flats being affected by similar issues. The council told Mr X that the assessment was a priority for the first quarter of 2023.

The council apologised for not informing Mr X of the improvement works carried out and said to the ombudsman that category 2 hazards remained in the property for personal hygiene, sanitation and drainage. The authority said “unavoidable delays” in recruiting staff due to the “national shortage” of environmental health officers had led to a block inspection being delayed to April 2023, and that enforcement action will then be decided.

The ombudsman said they were satisfied with the council’s reasoning on council officers making different decisions on the property, and that the council was entitled to identify the hazard as being mitigated after the improvement works in July 2021. However, the watchdog identified the council was at fault for its failure to carry out a block inspection in early 2023, as well as its delays in responding to Mr X’s complaints.

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They said: “The delays in responding to Mr X’s complaints, at both stages of the complaints process, are also fault. The council’s complaints process says it will respond to complaints at stage one within 15 working days and at stage two within 20 working days. Yet in this instance the council took several months to respond at each stage. This is clearly unacceptable. We would expect the council to respond to complaints within its published timeframes.”

The ombudsman said in their report that the council agreed to apologise to Mr X. They also said they would pay the resident £300 in recognition of the “distress and frustration” he experienced due to the authority’s delays.

A Greenwich Council spokesperson told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “The council takes all complaints very seriously and we aim to ensure that they are resolved before residents feel the need to escalate them to the Ombudsman. The council accepts the findings of the report and has apologised to the individual concerned.”