Applications are open to join the next Housing Ombudsman Resident Panel – find out more Housing Ombudsman Resident Panel.

Clarion Housing Association Limited (202331902)

Back to Top

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202331902

Clarion Housing Association Limited

17 July 2024


Our approach

The Housing Ombudsman’s approach to investigating and determining complaints is to decide what is fair in all the circumstances of the case. This is set out in the Housing Act 1996 and the Housing Ombudsman Scheme (the Scheme). The Ombudsman considers the evidence and looks to see if there has been any ‘maladministration’, for example, whether the landlord has failed to keep to the law, followed proper procedure, followed good practice, or behaved in a reasonable and competent manner.

Both the resident and the landlord have submitted information to the Ombudsman, and this has been carefully considered. Their accounts of what has happened are summarised below. This report is not an exhaustive description of all the events that have occurred in relation to this case, but an outline of the key issues as a background to the investigation’s findings.

The complaint

  1. The complaint is about:
    1. The landlord’s handling of damp and mould reports.
    2. The landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint.

Background

  1. The resident has an assured shorthold tenancy which began on 6 August 2020. The property in question is a ground floor one-bed flat. The landlord’s records show that the resident has a vulnerability, however, there is no detail around said vulnerability.
  2. The resident reported a smell of damp in the property on 29 August 2023. A potential leak in the bathroom was also raised in September 2023. The landlord identified and repaired a hole in the bathroom to stop the leak on 11 September 2023. It then carried out 3 visits to treat the damp, these works were completed on 30 October 2023.
  3. During October 2023, the resident raised a complaint, with the landlord acknowledging it on 27 October 2023. This was about the leak in the bathroom which had affected the flooring, the smell of damp in the kitchen units and mould in the bathroom and bedrooms. Further works orders to investigate a water pipe and the damp and mould in the property were raised in early November 2023.
  4. The landlord provided a stage 1 complaint response on 21 November 2023 and detailed the recent works at the property. The landlord said it was satisfied with the service it had provided around the leak in the bathroom and the damp and mould, but it offered a payment of £50 due to the late response to her complaint.
  5. The resident requested an escalation of her complaint on 27 November 2023. She disputed details of the works it had provided in the stage 1 response, indicated there was still a smell of damp and evidence of mould and asked why her concerns around her son’s health were not addressed.
  6. The landlord attended again on 28 November 2023 and treated evident mould in the property. Mould was reported again behind the sofa on 28 December 2023. On 12 January 2024, the landlord carried out a further inspection at the property. Following this inspection, it raised a number of works orders to address potential causes of damp and mould. 
  7. On 12 February 2024, the landlord provided a stage 2 response. It upheld the resident’s complaint as it said it identified service failings in its management of the initial damp and mould reports. It detailed the works that had been raised following the recent inspection and provided dates for them. It said that it would carry out a post inspection once the works had been completed. The landlord increased its offer of compensation to a combined total of £600.
  8. The resident brought the complaint to this Service for review on 27 February 2024, as she considered the stage 2 response had not addressed her complaint satisfactorily.
  9. Several damp and mould related works orders were completed between the stage 2 response and April 2024. The landlord had attempted a post inspection on 24 June 2024 but, due to no access, it was rescheduled for 4 July 2024.   

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. What the Ombudsman can and cannot consider is called the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. This is governed by the Scheme. When a complaint is brought to this Service, the Ombudsman must consider all the circumstances of the case, as there are sometimes reasons why a complaint will not be investigated.
  2. Within the resident’s complaint submission to this Service, a desired outcome was that the landlord liaise with the local authority around her housing options. The resident asked that the local authority be informed that “this property is having a medical affect on my son” so they “can reevaluate my bidding and I can be considered for a new banding”.
  3. In accordance with section 42(o) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, we may not consider complaints which concern matters in which the outcome sought is not within the Ombudsman’s authority to provide. This Service is not able to make an order that would improve a resident’s banding within the housing process. However, the landlord recently said that it made a request to the local authority for them to send out a medical questionnaire to the resident. It said that once this is completed and returned, with any substantiating evidence, this will be assessed to see if any further bidding points are to be allocated due to any medical conditions in the property.

The landlord’s handling of damp and mould reports

  1. After the first reports of damp in the property on 29 August 2023, the landlord took a reasonable step in arranging to treat the damp. However, despite first attending on 15 September 2023, this work was not completed until 30 October 2023. This was due to the landlord attending but not completing the mould clearance on 5 October 2023, as the appointment was not booked for enough time to complete the required work. Given that it had already attended, the landlord should have known how long this would take and booked the appointment for long enough to complete this. It was unreasonable for it to have taken 2 months and 3 visits for the landlord to treat the initial report of damp. This is a service failing as the landlord has not acted in line with its own damp and mould policy, which says it should “diagnose and resolve damp and mould in a timely and effective manner”.
  2. Although the landlord had attended to treat the damp, the resident still had to chase further related works, a leaking water pipe, on 2 November 2023. The resident said that the leak was found during the visit on 30 October 2023 but the follow on works were not raised until 10 November 2023. This is almost 2 weeks after the previous appointment and 8 days after the resident’s email. Given the potential for further damage or damp and mould that could be caused by a leak, this shows a lack of urgency on the part of the landlord. This was another failing as the landlord did not act in line with its damp and mould policy, which says such cases will be “specifically tracked and managed”.
  3. The landlord’s damp and mould policy says that it will “diagnose the cause of leaks, condensation, damp and mould and deliver effective solutions based on dealing with the cause of the problem, not just the symptoms”. It is clear that the landlord failed to carry out an adequate diagnosis of the cause of the damp and mould following the initial report on 29 August 2023. Instead, it carried out 3 visits during which it carried out treatments of the affected areas. It only identified a potential cause on 30 October 2023 and its check was localised to the area that it was treating at that time, as no other potential causes were found. This failure to follow its own policy has contributed to the overall delay in addressing the damp and mould in the property. This caused further distress and inconvenience for the resident, who had already made it clear that she had concerns around the health implications caused by damp and mould. 
  4. It is evident that the landlord did not seek to identify any and all potential causes of the damp and mould until its inspection on 12 January 2024, over 4 months after the initial report. After this inspection, the landlord raised several works orders to address 3 different areas which could have been the cause of the continued damp and mould in the property. These works led to further identification of possible causes of damp, mould or condensation.
  5. Following the inspection in January 2024, the landlord provided adequate management of the damp and mould works at the property. Repairs were completed in a reasonable timeframe and when appointments were not convenient, it ensured that these were rescheduled with the resident. Although those works and future reports were completed in a reasonable timeframe, the landlord did not carry out a prompt post inspection following those works. This was first scheduled in June 2024 but was later rescheduled for 4 July 2024. Given that the last treatment was recorded as being completed on 26 March 2024, the post inspection should not have taken almost 3 months to be arranged. This is another failing on the part of the landlord as it meant that the resident was unsure whether there would be further instances of damp and mould. 
  6. Ultimately, the landlord failed to address the initial reports of damp and mould in line with its own policy. Although some works were completed, it did not look to identify the root cause of the problems until over 4 months after they were reported. This left the property open to further damp and mould formation with the potential for damage to the property throughout that period. After carrying out the necessary inspection of the property in January 2024, the repair and treatment works were completed by the end of March 2024. Given this timeline, the initial report could and should have been dealt with before the end of 2023. Instead, the resident had to continue to find further evidence of damp and mould, which caused her distress and inconvenience, due to her concerns around the health implications associated with damp and mould.
  7. Within its February 2024 stage 2 complaint response, the landlord identified and acknowledged the service failings in its initial management of the damp and mould reports. It is evident that it acted on those findings and ensured more appropriate investigation and management of the reports took place. In addition to this, it apologised and offered a compensation payment of £450 to address the failings along with the distress and inconvenience caused to the resident. When considering the adverse impact this had on the resident, in line with our guidance on compensation, it is the view of the Ombudsman that the landlord’s offer was proportionate to the detriment caused.
  8. Within the resident’s submission to this Service, she expressed dissatisfaction in the landlord’s response to her concerns around the affect on her son’s health. It is recognised that this situation has caused the resident distress as they have experienced damp and mould in the property over a period of time. Aspects of the complaint relate to the impact of their living conditions on their health. Where the Ombudsman identifies failure on a landlord’s part, we can consider the resulting distress and inconvenience. However, unlike a court, we cannot establish liability or calculate and award damages and this would usually be dealt with as a personal injury claim through the courts.
  9. When considering the service failings identified in this review and the action taken by the landlord during the complaint process, this Service considers it appropriate to make a finding of reasonable redress. This would have been a finding of maladministration had the landlord not taken steps to acknowledge and provide redress for its failings. This finding does not mean the Ombudsman is of the view that the landlord’s handling of the damp and mould reports was ‘reasonable.’ The finding reflects that there were considerable failings by the landlord, which its compensation offer acknowledges, in line with the Ombudsman’s approach.

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint

  1. The resident first emailed a complaint to the landlord on 12 October 2023 but the complaint was not acknowledged until 23 October 2023, after she chased it. This shows that the complaint had not been managed correctly by the landlord following its receipt. Despite the resident making the landlord aware of the initial complaint being sent on 12 October 2023, it continued to reference the start date of the complaint as 23 October 2023. Given that this was detailed in the escalation email, the landlord should have used this date in managing the complaint.
  2. At the time of the complaint, the landlord was operating an interim complaint policy which said it should provide responses within 20 working days. The Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code) sets out an expectation that landlords provide a stage 1 response in 10 working days. However, the stage 1 response from the landlord was provided 28 working days after she raised the complaint on 12 October 2023. Within its response, the landlord said it had been unable to identify any service failings during its investigation. Given that it later identified those failings in its stage 2 response, this demonstrates a lack of adequate consideration of the resident’s complaint at stage 1. These failures to manage and investigate the complaint correctly at stage 1 are a service failing on the part of the landlord.
  3. The resident replied to the stage 1 response on 27 November 2023 and expressed her dissatisfaction with its findings. The Code sets an expectation that landlords should provide a stage 2 response within 20 working days but the landlord’s interim policy said it would provide a response within 40 working days. The landlord failed to meet either of these timeframes, as its response on 12 February 2024 was 53 working days after the escalation.
  4. It is understandable that a landlord may wish to address issues raised within a complaint before providing a definitive response to that complaint. However, it would be reasonable for the landlord to have provided updates to the resident throughout that delay. The landlord did not provide any such update and the complaint remained unanswered with the resident chasing a response during that period. This is a further failing on the part of the landlord in managing the complaints.
  5. It is evident that the stage 1 response was not sufficient, as it failed to identify service failings in the landlord’s initial handling of the damp and mould reports. When this was escalated to stage 2, the landlord was more proactive, leading to better oversight of the substantive issue of the complaint. In view of this, it is reasonable to say that the lack of investigation at stage 1 contributed to the overall delay.
  6. In responding to both stages of the complaint, the landlord made compensation offers to address the complaint handling failures. Its offer across both stages totalled £150, which this Service considers reasonable as it is in line with the Ombudsman’s guidance around financial compensation for these particular failings. 
  7. Following the review of this element of the complaint, this Service considers it appropriate to make a finding of reasonable redress. Had the landlord not acknowledged its failings and made its compensation offer, as with the substantive complaint, this would have been a finding of maladministration.

Determination (decision)

  1. In accordance with paragraph 53b of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was reasonable redress in the landlord’s handling of damp and mould reports.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 53b of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was reasonable redress in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint.

Recommendations

  1. The landlord should make a payment of £600, as offered previously, to the resident for the distress and inconvenience caused by its management of damp and mould reports and her complaint. This is only if the payment was not made previously. This should be paid within 28 days of the date of this report and the reasonable redress determination has been made on the basis this payment is made.
  2. Within 28 days of the date of this report, the landlord should complete a post-inspection following the recent works. This should ensure that all leaks and possible causes of damp and mould are now repaired/resolved.
  3. The landlord should contact the resident to carry out a detailed review of any specific household vulnerabilities and update its records accordingly.