A2Dominion Housing Group Limited (202332741)
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Decision |
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Case ID |
202332741 |
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Decision type |
Investigation |
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Landlord |
A2Dominion Housing Group Limited |
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Landlord type |
Housing Association |
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Occupancy |
Shared Ownership |
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Date |
9 October 2025 |
Background
- The resident lives in a 1 bedroom, third-floor flat. Some residents within the block are not tenants of the landlord. The resident complained that the landlord took too long to identify and fix a leak. He said this caused damage to his property and some belongings.
What the complaint is about
- The complaint is about:
- the landlord’s handling of a leak
- how the landlord responded to the complaint
Our decision (determination)
- We have found that there was:
- maladministration in the landlord’s handling of a leak
- service failure in the landlord’s response to the complaint
We have made orders for the landlord to put things right.
Summary of reasons
The handling of a leak
- The landlord did not provide timely, direct communication to the resident.
The complaint handling
- The landlord did not consider all relevant information and evidence when providing its stage 2 complaint response.
Putting things right
Where we find service failure, maladministration, or severe maladministration we can make orders for the landlord to put things right. We have the discretion to make recommendations in all other cases within our jurisdiction.
Orders
Landlords must comply with our orders in the manner and timescales we specify. The landlord must provide documentary evidence of compliance with our orders by the due date set.
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Order |
What the landlord must do |
Due date |
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1 |
Apology order
The landlord must apologise in writing to the resident for the failures identified in this report. The landlord must ensure:
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No later than 10 November 2025 |
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2 |
Compensation order The landlord must pay the resident £200 made up as follows:
This must be paid directly to the resident. The landlord must provide documentary evidence of payment. The landlord may deduct from the total figure any payments it has already paid. |
No later than 10 November 2025 |
Our investigation
The complaint procedure
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Date |
What happened |
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15 August 2023 |
The resident complained about how the landlord handled the leak. He said he reported it on 24 July 2025. At first, the landlord told him it was his responsibility. After he challenged this, the landlord agreed to investigate. The landlord visited on 26 July 2025 but did not find the source of the leak. After that, the landlord had not provided any further updates. The landlord acknowledged the complaint on the same day. |
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24 August 2023 |
The landlord sent its stage 1 complaint response and apologised for the time taken to fix the leak. It said the issue was first reported by its operative on 17 July 2023 and took longer to resolve because the leak came from a neighbouring leasehold flat. The neighbour had repaired the leak on 16 August 2023, and the landlord booked its contractor to carry out final checks on 21 August 2023. It had sent 3 updates to the resident directly and 3 separate updates to all residents in the block. The landlord planned to raise a claim through its building insurance for any repairs needed once the water had dried. It said for the time taken to complete the work and the inconvenience caused it offered £50. |
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2 September 2023 |
The resident was unhappy with the stage 1 complaint response and asked for the complaint to be escalated. He said he could not enjoy his home due to the damp and smell following the leak. He asked the landlord what it thought it should do to put the matter right. |
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21 September 2023 |
The landlord sent its stage 2 complaint response. It noted the resident’s concerns about a previous leak, but said that it would not address this as it was dealt with under a different complaint in December 2021. It agreed with the details set out in the stage 1 complaint response. It said as a shared owner the resident was responsible for damage to his home when a leak comes from another leaseholder. He could do this via the building insurer, and the landlord provided the relevant insurance information. |
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19 November 2023 |
The resident referred his complaint to us as he was unhappy with the landlord’s handling of the leak and slow complaint response. He said he wanted the landlord to resolve the damage to his property. |
What we found and why
The circumstances of this complaint are well known by the parties involved, so it is not necessary to detail everything that’s happened or comment on all the information we’ve reviewed. We’ve only included the key information that forms the basis of our decision of whether the landlord is responsible for maladministration.
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Complaint |
The handling of a leak |
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Finding |
Maladministration |
- The resident was concerned about the length of time it took to find and fix the leak. In this case there are some mitigating factors as the landlord had to liaise with private owners to find the source. Once the source of the leak was found it monitored the repair to ensure this was completed to a satisfactory level and sent its own operatives to check the fix had worked. This was fair as the landlord was not responsible for the leak in the leasehold flat.
- The resident asked the landlord to compensate him for damage to his flat and belongings. The landlord’s policies say shared owners should claim through either their own contents insurance or the landlord’s buildings insurance. In line with this, the landlord said it would make a claim through its buildings insurance, and the insurer would handle any repairs or compensation.
- There was a failure in the landlord’s handling of communication with the resident. Although it updated all residents about the leak on 18 July 2023 and again on 1 August 2023, these updates were general and did not address the worsening impact on the resident’s flat. He had to chase for updates on 27 July 2023 and 9 August 2023, which suggests the landlord failed to provide timely, direct communication despite knowing the leak was affecting his home.
- The landlord eventually identified the source of the leak on 16 August 2023 and updated all residents the following day. Yet it did not contact the resident directly about damage to his property until 24 August 2023 — over a month after the issue was first raised. This delay in personal communication was unfair given the extent of the damage and the resident’s earlier request for compensation.
- While the landlord’s policies place responsibility on shared owners for internal repairs and suggest insurance claims for damaged belongings, it did not promptly explain this to the resident. Its communication relied too heavily on general updates and failed to provide the resident with the support and clarity needed to manage the situation. This caused the resident some distress and inconvenience.
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Complaint |
The handling of the complaint |
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Finding |
Service failure |
- The landlord replied to the complaint at both stage 1 and stage 2 within its policy timescales — 10 working days for stage 1 and 20 working days for stage 2. It addressed the resident’s concerns, acknowledged its mistakes, and offered compensation. Despite this, the stage 2 response included inaccurate information about damage to the resident’s property. The landlord said the resident should use his own contents insurance for personal belongings and make a claim through its buildings insurance for property damage. This conflicted with its stage 1 response and the steps it was already taking, including arranging for a loss adjuster to attend the property. The Complaint Handling Code says landlords must carefully consider all relevant information and evidence at each stage, which the landlord failed to do in this case.
Learning
Communication
- While there were some positive steps taken in its handling of the leak between leaseholders and shared owners, the landlord must look at ways to ensure specific residents are updated on their own case to build good relationships.