Hyde Housing Association Limited (202328571)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202328571

Hyde Housing Association Limited

27 September 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

The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of:
1. Reports of leaks at the property.
2. Damp and mould at the property.
3. Complaint handling and record keeping.

Background

The resident lives in a flat on the top floor of a block. She lives with her baby and 2 older children. The resident has explained that the 2 older children are disabled. The resident reported having a number of health conditions to the landlord.
The resident had ongoing problems with water ingress at the property, including a leak from above. The resident reported a new leak on 8 November 2023. The landlord attended the same day and removed extensive parts of the kitchen to access a pipe which was found to be the cause. Mould was identified behind the kitchen units which had been removed.
On 13 November 2023 the resident raised a formal complaint to the landlord. It appears that elements were added to this complaint over an unclear period of time which followed. She complained that there had been delays in attending the initial leak, that she had raised concerns about mould in the property on several occasions but no action was taken, and that a staff member had been rude over the phone on 20 November 2023. She informed the landlord that she had no running water at the property, meaning she could not make up bottles for her baby. She added that she and her disabled daughter had health conditions which made living with mould dangerous.
The landlord issued a stage 1 complaint response on 12 December 2023. It said that delays had been caused by “waiting for communications from different departments” and that works to fix a leak from above were required before it could tackle the mould. The resident contacted the Ombudsman the same day.
On 14 December 2023 the resident requested to escalate her complaint. She said that her kitchen was yet to be fixed, there were health and safety concerns such as “a huge nail sticking out” causing risk to her baby.
The landlord called the resident to discuss her escalation request on 22 December 2023. Points discussed were that:
1. After the leak in November, half of the kitchen was ripped out and the remaining kitchen cupboards are now rotten. A 12-inch nail was sticking out from the wall, there was exposed brickwork, and thick black mould had formed. No further works to the kitchen had been done.
2. A disrepair claim, partly in relation to the bathroom, had been settled but the works remained outstanding. Mushrooms were now growing in the bathroom and no further communication about these works had been received.
3. The resident has/had no running water, and no bottles of water were provided.
On 16 January 2024, the landlord said that a surveyor attended and identified areas of water ingress including the roof. It reportedly raised ‘relevant works’.
The landlord issued a stage 2 response on 17 January 2024. It stated that it did not carry out the repairs when it should have and did not communicate well with the resident. It offered £150 compensation for delays and a further £150 for distress and inconvenience. It said that all relevant works would now be arranged, but did not provide a timescale.
On an unknown date on or around 14 February 2024, the resident was moved to a hotel for 3 days while mould washes were completed. On 25 June 2024 the resident told this Service that she had chased both the landlord and Ombudsman but received no response. She advised that the leak from above remained unresolved, the condition of the property was poor and that black mould was “all over the kitchen, bathroom and bedrooms”. The resident wanted to be moved temporarily while works were carried out.
On 8 July 2024 the resident’s daughter collapsed and was taken to hospital. The resident reported that this was caused by an illness resulting from the conditions in the property. On 11 July 2024 the resident wrote to the Ombudsman to say that although a notice had been attached to the building to say scaffolding would be erected in April 2024, no scaffold had materialised. She said that the kitchen was ruined, she could not store food in it and that mattresses had been ruined by the damp and mould.
On 21 August 2024 the resident reported bubbles appearing on the ceiling and said she was concerned the ceiling would collapse. The resident reported that as of September 2024, a number of leaks remain at the property and a significant water ingress is experienced during periods of heavy rainfall.

Assessment and findings

Scope of the investigation

An agreement was reached between the landlord and resident regarding a legal disrepair claim, which appears to relate to some of the issues in this case. The claim was settled on 23 November 2023, however some of the works included in the claim remained outstanding. Some compensation was paid relating to events from September 2021 to an unknown end date. New issues arose on 8 November 2023 which do not appear to have been considered as part of this claim. There was also a continuation of some existing issues. As such the Ombudsman will not assess events prior to the resident’s reports made from 8 November 2023 onward.
The landlord provided only limited information as part of its evidence submission for this investigation. The Ombudsman contacted the landlord on a number of occasions to discuss outstanding points and request further evidence, however no response was received. Conversely the resident has provided in depth descriptions of events, photographs, and witness statements which appear consistent with the evidence which is available. A key part of the evidence missing includes large amounts of correspondence the resident made with the landlord and survey reports. This includes decisions the landlord is reported to have made, however no evidence of the correspondence or the decisions taken by the landlord has been seen. Therefore, some elements of the resident’s concerns could not be investigated. This is a record keeping failure by the landlord which is addressed in more detail later in this report.
Part of the resident’s complaint is that their health and the health of their children has been adversely affected by the landlord’s handling of damp and mould in the property. We acknowledge these concerns and the associated distress. However, it is outside the Ombudsman’s role to assess the specific impact of any action or inaction by the landlord on medical conditions. This would be more appropriately considered by a court or liability insurer, where liability can be established. We have not sought to establish liability in this case but have considered the way in which the landlord responded to the resident’s health concerns and any distress and inconvenience the resident may have experienced as a result of errors by the landlord.
The Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles (DRPs) are to ‘be fair’, to ‘put things right’, and to ‘learn from outcomes’.
The Ombudsman is due to publish a ‘Special Report’ under Paragraph 49 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, looking at a large number of complaints handled by the landlord. The report is likely to make a number of recommendations for internal learning, relating to any themes of failings which may have been identified. As such, it is not appropriate for this determination to make any orders relating to the landlord’s requirement to ‘learn from outcomes’. However, we will consider whether any orders are necessary to put things right for the resident as an individual.

The landlord’s handling of leaks

The landlord’s Responsive Repairs Procedure defines an emergency repair as any which is required to sustain the immediate health and safety of the resident, or that adversely affects the structure of the building. Emergency repairs must be attended within 4 hours and made safe within 24 hours. All other repairs should generally be attended within 20 working days, unless it is described as “major or complex work” when a longer timescale may be needed.
The landlord appeared to stop the new leak to the water pipe behind the kitchen units on 8 November 2023, the same day it was reported. The evidence suggests that there was a shortcoming on the part of the landlord, as this was attended around 2 hours later than expected of it in its [repairs policy]. It is unclear why there was an initial delay, however it was not substantial enough to be considered a failing, because the landlord was able to make the leak safe within the 24 hours allowed by its policy.
To access the leak, the landlord removed around half of the kitchen units and appeared to turn off the water supply. There are missing records of phone calls the resident made to the landlord during this period, including one on 20 November 2023 in which the resident later complained a manager had been unhelpful and rude, which could not be corroborated during this investigation. However, it is understood that the resident raised not having running water in the property this time but received no response. It is unclear when the running water was restored.
The main leak however was or is coming from above the resident’s flat. It is unclear when this was first reported but appears to have been subject to a disrepair claim (settled on 23 November 2023) for a period of up to 2 years. There have been various suggestions that the cause may be related to a communal water tank stored in the roof space or a roof leak. The resident reported that leaks from above her flat had been ongoing and were recurrent for a number of years, though the landlord did not provide any evidence of this. The landlord chased its contractor on 6 December 2023, which replied that it was waiting for the landlord to locate the leak before it could attend. It is unclear how long the contractor had been waiting for the landlord to take action, or when the landlord had first been made aware it needed to locate the leak.
The landlord completed a survey on 16 January 2024, however this Service was not provided with any evidence of what was found. The landlord said in its stage 2 response that “relevant works” had been raised as a result of the survey, but no further details or timescales were given. Given that the leak was resulting in significant damage to the property, including damp and mould, the landlord should have arranged the survey and resulting works as an emergency. It is unclear why it took so long to survey the property. The resident said that during or soon after the survey, the landlord cut off electrical power to the bathroom. She said that she has complained that it has never been restored. The landlord provided no evidence of why it may have disconnected the electrics or when it plans to restore then.
The resident told this Service the landlord had informed her that scaffolding was required to access the leaks. She also reported being told that that remedial works such as replacing kitchen units, would need to wait until the leak was fixed. At the time of this determination, there is no evidence that the leak has been fixed. The resident told the Ombudsman that the landlord’s reports that the leak was fixed in April 2024 were not to be relied upon, however we have not seen any such reports and therefore they have not been considered by this investigation.
There is evidence that the landlord planned to erect scaffolding at the block, but no evidence this was ever done. The resident reported being told by a contractor that they would attend at the end of May 2024, but this visit did not happen. This Service has seen no evidence that the landlord has completed remedial works inside the property. There is no evidence to suggest any good reasons for such significant delays in attending the above works. The resident reported being temporarily moved for a 3-day period in February 2024, but that when she returned the landlord had done only a small number of minor jobs, such as remedy some cracks inside the property and conduct a mould wash. The resident reported a “12 inch nail” sticking out of the wall after the kitchen units were removed, causing a risk to her baby and other children. There is no evidence of if or when the landlord attended to make this safe.
In conclusion, there were a number of failings in the landlord’s handling of reports of leaks at the property, resulting in maladministration. The evidence shows that the resident has been caused significant distress and inconvenience, and gone to extensive time and trouble, as a result of errors in the landlord’s response to the leaks. The landlord offered £300 compensation at stage 2 of its complaints process, for “delays and distress and inconvenience”, however this amount is not in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance, which sets out our approach to compensation. The remedies guidance states that, where there has been maladministration which has had a significant impact on the resident, over a prolonged period of time, compensation of at least £600 should be considered. The Ombudsman has ordered that the landlord pay the resident £600 compensation in respect of these failings.

Damp and mould

An emergency repair is defined as any repair which is required in order to sustain the immediate health of the resident. The landlord’s damp and mould procedures states that upon inspecting damp and mould, a proforma should be completed. There is no evidence the landlord did this. It is unclear if the mould noted at the property posed a risk to the resident’s health, because the landlord has not shared any evidence of any surveyor’s findings with the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman’s Spotlight Report on Damp and Mould (2021) stresses the importance of landlord’s taking a risk-based approach to damp and mould. The landlord did not appear to complete an assessment of the risk posed by the damp and mould to the resident and her family at the time of the first report. Until this was completed, and confirmation obtained that the mould did not present an immediate risk, it should be treated as an emergency repair.
The landlord first noted extensive black mould at the property on 8 November 2023 when it removed kitchen units. The resident reported in her complaint having reported mould on multiple occasions in the past, and mould seems to have formed part of the resident’s disrepair claim in some capacity, however the landlord included no records prior to November 2023 for this investigation. After noting the mould in November 2023, there is no evidence that the landlord instructed any staff members with relevant training to inspect the mould until a survey on 16 January 2024. This was a serious failing.
It is unclear if the mould was inspected as part of this survey or if the survey was strictly structural. It is unclear if the surveyor had adequate training on assessing if this mould was dangerous. On 6 December 2023 an internal email noted that “the mould was out of control” and that the resident has asthma. The landlord later stated that a mould wash was completed on 7 December 2023. It is unclear if this is accurate, as the landlord provided no evidence of this. Internal emails seen from 19 December 2023 state that a “plan of action” is needed due to the severity of the mould seen in photographs, but no mention of a mould wash having been carried out is seen. In either event, the time taken for the landlord to take action was too long. The action taken, be that 1 mould wash or 2, was not comprehensive enough and the cause of the damp and mould was not rectified.
Both parties agree that a mould wash took place while the resident was in temporary accommodation in February 2024. However, the resident reported that the mould was “quickly coming back” in an email to the Ombudsman on 19 February 2024. There is no evidence any further mould washes were completed or that any further inspections were carried out to monitor the mould. It is unclear when the resident raised this with the landlord, due to the lack of records provided.
The resident reported various health vulnerabilities at the property from as early as the first report seen by this Service. This included that the resident’s own health was at risk (her lungs have extensive damage after having tuberculosis as a child) and that her daughter was disabled and similarly had health conditions that put her at risk. There was also a baby under the age of 1 at the property. There is no evidence that the landlord sought more information about the health conditions at the property, which would have been a vital component of any risk assessment. There is no evidence that the landlord sought to assess the risk posed by the mould at any time. There is no evidence that the habitability of the property was assessed. These were significant failings.
On 8 July 2024 the resident reported that her daughter, who was also disabled, collapsed and was taken to hospital. The resident reported that this was as a direct result of the damp and mould at the property. As above, the Ombudsman cannot draw any conclusion as to the cause of any adverse health experienced at the property. However, the photographs seen at the property show extensive mould in multiple parts of the property. Internal emails seen from the landlord acknowledge both the vulnerabilities at the property and the “poor condition” of the flat itself. The landlord had the opportunity to take decisive action in regard to the issues at the property but failed to do so. There was severe maladministration in the landlord’s handling of damp and mould.
The Ombudsman makes orders below to ensure a wide range of independent surveys are now conducted at the property and all recommended works are completed within a reasonable time. A further order is made for the landlord to assess the habitability of the property within 2 weeks of the date of this determination and provide an evidenced decision of whether a decant (temporary move) is required due to the condition of the property.
Due to the lack of records, it is difficult to assess the adverse effect the resident and her family have experienced as a result of the landlord’s handling of the damp and mould. The evidence shows that the resident suffered high levels of distress and was living in conditions described by the landlord as “poor” for an extended period of time. Multiple rooms in the property have been impacted by damp and mould, resulting in an unquantifiable loss of enjoyment. The remedies guidance states that where there has been severe maladministration, compensation of over £1,000 should be considered. The Ombudsman has made an order for compensation of £1,200 to be paid in respect of this aspect of the complaint. The Ombudsman has also made a number of orders below for the landlord to ensure the condition of the property is robustly surveyed and that any necessary works begin without delay to resolve the damp and mould.

Complaint handling and record keeping

The Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code) defines a complaint as an “expression of dissatisfaction, however made”. It also states that in dealing with complaints, it should respond to all elements raised. In this case, the landlord failed to respond to a number of elements raised. This included complaints about a lack of heating or running water for an unclear period of time, health and safety concerns such as a large nail protruding from the kitchen wall, the kitchen being in poor condition after the leak repair, historic mould problems, and staff conduct. Not responding to these elements was a significant failing which may have given the resident the impression that the landlord was not listening to her or taking her concerns seriously.
The resident was also particularly worried about the impact the conditions in the flat may have on the health of her and her family. There is no evidence the landlord considered these concerns or responded to them. It should have sought to investigate further, in order to provide a solution or reassurance as to the habitability of the property. This was a significant complaint handling failure.
The landlord’s record keeping was of serious concern. A number of records required by this investigation were not provided. It is unclear if this was because of an oversight in submitting evidence for investigation, or if the records are not available. The landlord has a duty to keep and maintain accurate records. This failing is exacerbated due to the issues involved in this case, as the Ombudsman’s Spotlight Report into Damp and Mould emphasises the need for a “data driven” approach, which relies on good record keeping.
The record keeping also contributed to initial delays in dealing with the leaks. Internal emails show repeated confusion over “a leak from above”, as it was noted that the resident was on the top floor. Multiple leaks appear to have been confused for others, due to a lack of detail being kept in notes.
Of significant concern was that in response to the Ombudsman’s request for information about any vulnerabilities it had on record for the resident’s household, the landlord reported “no listed vulnerabilities”. The limited records available show repeated reference to multiple disabilities at the property and health vulnerabilities. Landlord internal emails repeatedly note that the resident “has asthma”. The landlord’s failure to accurately record this information in a suitable location and to factor this into its decision making, was a further significant failing.
The internal complaints process provides an opportunity for the landlord to put things right and to learn from outcomes. The landlord failed to satisfactorily put things right. There is no evidence it made any attempt to learn from outcomes. As such there was maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling and record keeping. The Ombudsman orders the landlord to pay £200 for the landlord puts right the time, trouble, distress and inconvenience relating to the landlord’s failings in this regard.

Determination

In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was:
1. Maladministration in the landlord’s handling of reports of leaks.
2. Severe Maladministration in the landlord’s handling of damp and mould.
3. Maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling.

Orders

Within 2 weeks of the date of this determination, the landlord must attend the resident’s property and complete a survey of the current habitability of the property. This must include a risk assessment of the interior of the property, as well as the structure. The findings of this assessment must be shared with both the resident and the Ombudsman.
Within 4 weeks of the date of this determination, the landlord must:
1. Pay the resident £2,000 compensation for distress and inconvenience, made up of:
  1. £600 for handling of leaks.
  2. £1,200 for damp and mould.
  3. £200 complaint handling and record keeping.
  4. The £300 already offered may be deducted from this amount, if it has been paid already.
2. Send a written apology to the resident, from a senior member of staff, for the failings highlighted in this report.
Within 8 weeks of the date of this determination, the landlord must:
1. Complete a full, detailed survey of the entire property. This must include as a minimum, consideration of the structural integrity of the building, including the roof and water tank, and a full investigation of any water ingress noted. It must also include a full survey of any areas affected by damp and mould. It must then share the results of this survey with the Ombudsman and include a detailed action plan to carry out any works required, with timescales. It should also clearly explain, with reference to its relevant policies and procedures, if the works can be completed with the resident in situ or if a decant is required.