A tenant forced to survive on ready-made meals for eight months because the council left them with no working kitchen will be paid nearly £6,500 in compensation.
Westminster City Council has agreed to pay the tenant, who has not been identified, £2,803.71 compensation for their kitchen troubles on top of £3,675 to cover the costs of purchasing ready-made food.
The £2,803.71 figure covers 25per cent of the rent paid for the 31 weeks from May 2024 when the complaint was first made to December 2024 when the kitchen works were completed. However the kitchen was not functioning from April 2024 when they identified an issue with a cooker socket.
It is compensation for the time the resident was left without a functioning kitchen, the council’s poor complaint handling, missed appointments and “recognition of the high impact of the service failures on the resident”.
This is in line with their policy to repay tenants who incur costs due to the loss of cooking facilities and where alternative accommodation is not offered. The council reimburses each household member £15 per day.
The tenant first complained to the council on May 8, 2024, about missed appointments and delays to work on the bathroom and kitchen, which had left them with no water.
The council apologised and compensated the tenant £380 for the distress and inconvenience. It also promised to complete the kitchen and bathroom by the end of May that year.
In September, the tenant escalated the complaint to stage 2 saying they were frustrated with the continued delays to kitchen repairs, which had left them without cooking facilities.
They said the council’s communication had been poor and that the compensation did not recognise the level of inconvenience and expense they had incurred as a result of the delays.
The council acknowledged the tenant’s kitchen was still incomplete in a response in December that year.
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They found the tenant had been without a working kitchen since April 2024 and that no alternative means of cooking had been provided until the Stage 2 complaint.
It also found the tenant had not been moved to another property while the repairs took place. The works were completed in December.
The council said it carried out a review of the case and introduced new processes to the repairs complaints team. It has also created two new roles that are dedicated to monitoring outstanding repairs and providing residents with aftercare support.
Senior and area surveyors will also be provided new reports to monitor overdue repairs. The council will finalise the agreement during a general purposes meeting on Thursday, June 12. Westminster City Council has been contacted for comment.