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Cobalt Housing Limited (202318032)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202318032

Cobalt Housing Limited

25 February 2025


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 relates to the landlord’s response to the resident’s concerns about damp.

Background

  1. The resident is a tenant of the landlord. The property is a bungalow. The landlord had no recorded vulnerabilities for the household. The resident explained that he has a compromised immune system. His son has asthma affected by damp conditions.
  2. Between 19 January 2023 and 13 June 2023:
    1. The resident reported that a leak had returned through the extractor fan in his bathroom. Operatives reported completing work on 30 January 2023. The landlord raised another work order for the fan on 8 March 2023. There was no access on 15 March 2023.
    2. The resident contacted the landlord on 3 occasions to report that damp and mould had returned in his toilet, bathroom and hallway. He decorated the toilet, but paint was flaking due to the damp. The damp was affecting his son’s asthma.
    3. It told him the issue could be related to the bath, but the landlord did not investigate this at the time. It also told him that it could be a leaking extractor fan. He initially said this was no longer leaking but then reported that it was on 19 April 2023.
    4. He said that contractors visited without telling him or leaving a card. He did not know they had tried to visit.
    5. On 30 May 2023, he said that someone had been out to inspect, but he had not heard anything further. He said the situation was affecting his own health conditions and asked that it treated this with urgency.
    6. The landlord’s records show that he chased a job for a leaking shower on 5 June 2023.
  3. The resident raised a complaint on 13 June 2023. There had been issues with damp and mould in the hallway, bathroom and toilet since 2022. The landlord said that it needed to complete a survey despite already completing 2 surveys. Its contractors did not communicate. He said the landlord completed a damp treatment, but the operative said that the damp would return as it had not fixed the cause. It also gave different information about what was causing the problem.
  4. In its stage 1 complaint response on 27 June 2023, the landlord admitted that after a survey on 10 May 2023, which showed there could be a leak from the ground floor bathroom, it had not assigned the work to the correct contractor. It then attended on 20 June 2023, and it did not find evidence of a leak. It aimed to remove the hallway wall, repair a leak to a concealed pipe, renew the wall and paint. It upheld that there was a short delay due to an administrative error. It said it would paint the wall after the work as a gesture of goodwill due to the inconvenience. Its contractors would book the appointment with him within 10 working days.
  5. The resident escalated his complaint on 7 July 2023 due to a lack of action or communication. It was unclear what the cause of the issue was. He did not believe the landlord’s offer to paint the wall was acceptable as a gesture. He felt it should complete this as a minimum. He wanted the contractors to communicate when they would visit rather than just turn up.
  6. In its final complaint response on 10 August 2023, the landlord:
    1. Apologised that there had been delays with its contractor, meaning it had not booked the work within 10 working days as agreed. It was meeting its contractors regularly to provide feedback and ensure they arranged visits within its timescales.
    2. Said it attended on 7 August 2023 to start works and would reattend on 18 August 2023 to complete tiling. It booked a follow-up appointment for 1 September 2023 to plaster. It would then complete a further survey to ensure works had resolved the problem.
    3. Offered £75 compensation in the form of vouchers to apologise for the delays and said it would send this within 10 working days.
  7. The resident referred his complaint to us in August 2023. He said that there was damage in the hallway, bathroom, and toilet. The damp was affecting his son’s asthma and contractors either did not turn up for appointments or did not confirm an appointment before visiting. The operative did not show up on 18 August 2023. He had not received the compensation and wanted compensation for failed appointments.
  8. The landlord’s records show that the resident continued to chase works and the compensation payment following the complaint. He raised a further complaint about the quality of works and continued delays in October 2023.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. The resident has explained that the situation has impacted his family’s health. We do not doubt his comments. But it is beyond our remit to decide whether the landlord’s action or inaction had a direct impact on health and wellbeing. This is more appropriate for the courts to assess as a personal injury claim. We have considered the general distress and inconvenience which the situation may have caused.
  2. The resident raised a separate complaint in October 2023. This was about the ongoing quality of work. The landlord sent a stage 1 complaint response on 17 October 2023 and offered £30 compensation. This complaint has not finished the landlord’s internal complaint process. We cannot comment on this complaint because the landlord needs to respond at stage 2 first. This investigation focuses on events up to 10 August 2023.

Policies and procedures

  1. The resident’s tenancy agreement confirms that the landlord is responsible for repairs to the structure and exterior of the premises, internal plasterwork, the services within the building, including heating and hot water supply, and sanitary fittings and drainage. The resident is responsible for decorating the inside of the home. The agreement further states that the landlord would give reasonable notice to enter the property to complete repairs or inspect, except in cases of emergency.
  2. The landlord’s repairs policy states that it aimed to complete emergency repairs within 24 hours and routine repairs within 10-20 working days.

The landlord’s response to the resident’s concerns about damp.

  1. Within its complaint responses, the landlord acknowledged that there was an administrative error when booking further investigations following a survey on 10 May 2023. It then apologised for continued delays, and that it did not book the further work within 10 working days as it had agreed to at stage 1. It offered £75 compensation in the form of vouchers and said it would complete decoration work as a gesture of goodwill.
  2. It is clear that the issues related to the bathroom and hallway were ongoing before the resident’s complaint in June 2023. He reported damp in June 2022, a year prior. There were approximately 5 visits and orders to complete work to the extractor fan, roof, and plastering between June 2022 and January 2023. We have seen that further work to repair the extractor fan, which continued to leak, was cancelled on 15 March 2023 due to no access to the property. A damp survey, raised on 31 March 2023, was also cancelled. The landlord has explained that it does not know why.
  3. It can take more than one attempt to resolve issues such as leaks and damp as it can be difficult to find the cause of the problem at the outset. In some cases, different repairs may need to be attempted before the matter is resolved. However, given the historical nature of the issue, we would have expected to see evidence that the landlord was proactive in its handling of the matter. Especially given the resident’s concerns about the impact on his household health conditions.
  4. As part of this investigation, we asked the landlord to provide documents, correspondence, and any other evidence relevant to the resident’s complaint. The information it provided did not include sufficient communication or repair logs, detailing the findings of inspections and what work it completed on each visit. It is vital that landlords keep clear, correct and easily accessible records to provide an audit trail. If we investigate a complaint, we will ask for the landlord’s records. If there is disputed evidence and no audit trail, we may not be able to conclude that an action took place or that the landlord followed its own policies and procedures.
  5. Following the resident’s reports that the issues were ongoing on 31 March 2023, there is no evidence to show that the landlord investigated the matter until 10 May 2023 despite chasing this with its contractors in March and April 2023. We have not seen a record from this visit, but it raised a work order on the same day to check for a leak from the bath or shower affecting the bathroom and hall. The resident spent unnecessary time and trouble chasing an inspection and the outcome which was likely to cause inconvenience. The delay in diagnosing the cause of the problem between March 2023 (when the resident reported that the issues were ongoing) and June 2023 (when it found that there could be a concealed leak) was significant.
  6. The landlord said that it had not assigned work to the correct contractor following a survey on 10 May 2023. The landlord’s internal records from 19 June 2023 show that the contractor who attended on 10 May 2023 suggested that there could be a leak from the shower pipe inside the internal wall and said they raised a job to investigate this further but had not heard anything more. An inspection on 20 June 2023 found no leak under the bath.
  7. The request for further investigations on 10 May 2023 did not refer to the internal pipework which caused a further delay. It is clear that there was a missed opportunity to arrange access to the internal pipe at an earlier stage and diagnose the potential fault. The landlord raised the work order to remove and investigate a leak from the concealed pipe on 27 June 2023. But its contractors did not book an appointment (for 7 August 2023), until 29 July 2023. This was likely to cause added concern given that it had told the resident there could be an ongoing leak. It acted reasonably in its responses by apologising that its contractors did not book this within 10 working days as it agreed.
  8. The landlord recognised that its contractors had not booked appointments and said that it was meeting them regularly to improve its service. This was reasonable as a lack of communication about visits may have contributed to delays in repairs. However, it would have been helpful for it to have set out its understanding of occasions where contractors had reported no access and responded more fully to his concerns given that this formed a key part of the complaint.
  9. We have not seen evidence of communication with the resident to detail what work it would do at each stage. The landlord’s complaint responses were likely to add to the resident’s confusion about the work needed. It said that it did not find a leak under the bath on 20 June 2023 but would complete work to remove the hallway wall, trace and repair the leak and reinstate the wall and paint. It did not comment on any works needed inside the bathroom but then also removed the bath panel and began work to the tiling. It did not adequately update the resident which is a failure in its communication.
  10. The landlord’s complaint correspondence also did not respond to his concern that it had offered to paint the affected walls as a gesture of goodwill to make up for the inconvenience caused to him. The resident is usually responsible for internal decoration in line with the tenancy agreement. However, it is best practice for a landlord to either put right any internal decoration affected by work it does or offer compensation or vouchers toward the cost of decoration. This is to ensure that it does not disadvantage the resident. The delays in completing work following the complaint meant that redecoration was delayed and only completed in November 2023.
  11. Overall, the landlord’s offer of £75 compensation was not proportionate redress for the failings identified. It did not fully account for the length of time the issues had been ongoing, the delay in providing a lasting resolution or its communication failures. There was also a significant delay in processing the compensation between August and October 2023. It delayed in providing the redress it had offered.
  12. We find that there has been service failure by the landlord in its response to the resident’s concerns. We have made an order for the landlord to pay compensation below. This is to recognise the distress and inconvenience, and time and trouble caused to the resident.

Determination

  1. In line with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in its response to the resident’s concerns about damp.

Orders

  1. We order the landlord to:
    1. Write to the resident to apologise for the identified failings within 4 weeks.
    2. Pay the resident £250 compensation (in addition to its earlier £75 voucher) in recognition of the distress and inconvenience caused, and time and trouble due to the failings identified in its handling of damp.
  2. It should provide evidence of the actions taken within 4 weeks.