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Epping Forest District Council (202444665)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202444665

Epping Forest District Council

13 August 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 is about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports about the condition of the property, including concerns about asbestos.

Background

  1. The resident lives in the property, owned by the landlord, under a secure tenancy. The property is a 1-bedroom flat and she has lived there since December 2022.
  2. The resident contacted the landlord on 2 January 2025 to raise a complaint. She said she had been exposed to asbestos and dirty water at the property, which was affecting her recovery from an illness.
  3. The landlord sent its stage 1 response on 14 January 2025, in which it said it had carried out an inspection on 9 January 2025. It had also reviewed the asbestos inspection from November 2022 when the property was empty and its repairs log. It said the property was habitable and it had found no evidence it had acted incorrectly.
  4. The resident asked the landlord to escalate the complaint on 15 January 2025. It sent its stage 2 response on 27 January 2025, in which it said its stage 1 response was correct. It said it had tried to carry out repairs work since, however the resident had not allowed for this to be carried out. It confirmed there was no asbestos in the walls or ceilings.
  5. The resident contacted us on 5 February 2025 and confirmed she wanted us to investigate the complaint. She said that she had been exposed to asbestos and felt work should have been completed before she moved into the property.

Assessment and findings

Scope of the investigation

  1. The resident has told this Service that she is unhappy about the process of moving from temporary housing into a secure tenancy. It is outside the Ombudsman’s remit to look into complaints about the local authority’s housing scheme, its housing allocation, bidding, banding and the housing register. This is because these are processes administered by the local council and fall within the scope of the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO). We have therefore not investigated this issue.
  2. From what we have seen, this issue has also not yet exhausted the landlord’s complaints process. The resident should raise this issue directly with the landlord to allow it the opportunity to investigate this, should she wish for it to.
  3. The resident has also recently told this Service that she is unhappy that a neighbour has made an allegation to the landlord against her regarding antisocial behaviour. This issue has occurred after the conclusion of the landlord’s internal complaints process and therefore has not been investigated in this report. The resident should raise this as a new complaint with landlord should she wish for it to investigate this.
  4. The resident has raised concerns about her health and the impact on this by the issues raised. Whilst this Service is an alternative to the courts, we are unable to establish legal liability or whether a landlord’s actions or lack of action have had a detrimental impact on a resident’s health. Nor can we calculate or award damages.
  5. The Ombudsman is therefore unable to consider the personal injury aspect of the resident’s complaint. These matters are likely better suited to consideration by a court or via a personal injury claim. While the Ombudsman cannot consider the effect on health, consideration has been given to any general distress and inconvenience which the resident may have experienced because of any service failure by the landlord.

Condition of the property

  1. The landlord’s repairs policy sets out the following priority timescales:
    1. emergency repairs – made safe within 4 hours
    2. urgent repairs – repaired within 5 working days
    3. routine repairs – repaired within 30 working days
  2. The landlord’s asbestos policy says it is required to:
    1. find out if asbestos containing materials (ACM) are present
    2. identify the location and condition of any ACM
    3. keep an up-to-date record of location and condition of any ACM
    4. assess the risk from any ACM found
  3. The landlord’s records show it carried out an asbestos survey on 30 November 2022, while the property was empty. This showed that while asbestos was present, the landlord deemed it to be minor or low risk. The asbestos was present in floor tiles and some board panel forming. This survey was carried out in line with the landlord’s asbestos policy and did not recommend any further action at that time.
  4. On 2 January 2025, the resident contacted the landlord to raise a complaint about asbestos in the property. She said that she was unwell and the asbestos was affecting her recovery. She also said there was dirty water at the property and the general environment was not habitable. She said she should not have been put in the property but felt she had no choice but to accept it.
  5. We have not seen any evidence that the resident had made the landlord aware of any concerns about the property in the previous 2 years since she had moved into the property. The landlord’s repairs records only show she had reported issues with a leak at the back of the toilet and no hot water, both reported on 21 August 2023, and repaired within 3 days.
  6. The landlord arranged for an inspection of the property, which was carried out on 9 January 2025. This was in line with its repairs policy timescale for urgent repairs, which was reasonable, given what the resident had said about the impact on her health. She told the landlord’s contractor she was concerned about the ceiling and flooring in the hallway. The contractor explained that there was no asbestos in the ceiling’s decorative coating. The floors in all rooms appeared to have had cement added to encapsulate the bitumen tile adhesive beneath.
  7. The contractor found some small broken fragments of floor tile in one edge location and recommended these be removed and the floor be sealed. The contractor’s notes do not mention the resident’s concerns about dirty water. It does not appear that this issue was investigated. However, the contractor gave the resident the opportunity to explain her ongoing concerns. We have seen no evidence that the resident explained her concerns about dirty water to allow the contractor to look into this during this visit.
  8. The landlord sent its stage 1 response on 14 January 2025. It said its contractor had found that the property was habitable. It did not mention the contractor’s recommendation about work to remove the floor tile fragments. It could have confirmed a schedule for this work in its response. However, its records indicate it had communicated with the resident about this work separately. The resident responded the following day to ask for the complaint to be escalated as she felt the contractor had not known what they were there to inspect.
  9. The landlord sent its stage 2 response on 27 January 2025. It said that its contractor was aware of the reasons for the visit, but had asked the resident to explain her concerns as this was standard practice. It said that a licensed asbestos removal contractor had been instructed, but that works were currently on hold as she had cancelled the job on 14 January 2025.
  10. The landlord urged the resident to allow this work to take place as soon as possible. It confirmed that the ceiling and walls did not contain ACM, which was only present in bitumen below the floor tiles. The landlord said that as it had tried to arrange work it had acted fairly, which was a reasonable response.
  11. The landlord wrote to the resident on 31 January 2025 and again on 14 February 2025 to ask her to allow access for work to be carried out. It reminded her that her tenancy agreement required her to allow access for repairs.
  12. The Ombudsman considers there to have been no maladministration by the landlord in its handling of the resident’s reports about the condition of the property, including concerns about asbestos. The landlord’s records show it carried out an asbestos survey before the resident moved in, which raised no issues with the property condition.
  13. When the resident raised concerns about asbestos more than 2 years after moving into the property, the landlord arranged for an inspection within 5 working days, which was reasonable. It subsequently tried to carry out work to remove some damaged floor tiling, but the resident did not provide access to its contractor.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme there was no maladministration by the landlord in its handling of the resident’s reports about the condition of the property, including concerns about asbestos.

Recommendations

  1. If repairs remain outstanding, the landlord to contact the resident to arrange a suitable date for the repairs to the floor tiling.
  2. The landlord to contact the resident to discuss whether she has outstanding concerns about dirty water, and if so, to arrange an inspection to investigate this.