Learning from severe maladministration – October 2025

Learning from assessing risk

Our Spotlight reports on attitudes, respect, and rights shows that individual circumstances are not always considered. Our latest Spotlight report on repairs and maintenance shows this too.

Landlords must take any household circumstance into consideration. They must prioritise investigations and repairs as a result.

Landlords must make sure communication with residents is effective. This is particularly important when residents raise concerns about vulnerabilities.

Many of these cases include poor records. Clear, accurate, and easily accessible records provide an audit trail. They help landlords identify and respond to problems.

This will be extremely important as Awaab's Law is introduced. Landlords must be able to assess whether there is significant harm or material change. This will be crucial. Landlords should assure themselves of a robust approach to this aspect.

Learning from access issues

When making appointments landlords should give sufficient notice to the resident and try to accommodate their preferred timings.

Landlords should also consider confirming appointments. This could include sending reminders by text message or other contact method agreed with residents.

Landlords could also update the resident at the earliest opportunity if there is a need to reschedule. Landlords should consider our recommendations about the impact of missed appointments in our Spotlight report on knowledge and information management.

Landlords should make sure contractors or operatives understand what work needs to be done and any specific requirements. This will reduce the number of missed appointments.

Learning from putting things right

A landlord’s internal complaints procedure can play an important role in resolving an issue for a resident and for the landlord to learn. While there are important timescales involved through our Complaint Handling Code, key is ensuring that responses are ethical too.

This means providing genuine apologies, demonstrating learning, and setting out clear timeframes for how issues will be resolved.

Accurate records are key for landlords, being able to rely on this evidence means landlords can make informed complaint responses. This also means a resident can be confident in the landlord’s approach and improve relationships.

Learning from untimely or poor inspections

Landlords should be aware of obligations under Housing Health and Safety Rating System. Where a potential hazard is identified, landlords must conduct inspections. They must also do additional monitoring of the home

Inspections should be done as soon as possible after an issue is reported. Any recommendations must be followed up and actioned.

Communication to residents during this time is essential. Set out clear expectations and timescales for the works that have come from the inspection.

Vulnerabilities should be considered if an inspection needs more urgency. Remedial action may also need to be more urgent. Effective triaging of cases by landlords can help at this stage.

Awaab’s Law provides landlords with stricter timescales. Landlords should plan to meet the requirements and avoid delays or non-compliance.

Landlords can trust the advice of their expert surveyors. If residents dispute this advice, landlords should arrange an independent surveyor. This checks if the surveyor reaches the same conclusions.

Landlords should arrange inspections promptly. If an inspection is cancelled or missed, schedule a new appointment as soon as possible. Any appointment should be communicated with the resident and takes the resident’s life into consideration when doing so.

If a landlord does multiple surveys with different results, it should reconcile the differences. Landlords should avoid choosing recommendations that involve the least action. They should not keep ordering inspections instead of taking decisive steps.

Internal communications within a landlord is another important element of getting the flow from inspection to works right. Too often there’s poor communication or single points of failure. This poor communication can be made worse by inadequate record keeping.

Learning from delayed works

While some actions such as inspections and acknowledgement of issues can be done well at the start, the action must be followed through. The experience of the resident can deteriorate over the course of a repair. The longer delays happen, and especially if they’re not explained or communicated, the more frustrated and distressed residents become.

Proactive communication and effective knowledge and information management are at the heart of this. But landlords must also be clear in repairs timescales when things will be resolved and be able to meet these.

While some delays are beyond a landlord’s control, most delays in our casework are due to landlord inaction.

Landlords should examine repairs policies against our Spotlight report on repairs and maintenance. This gives key information about where repairs can be improved.