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Citizen Housing Group Limited (202315154)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202315154

Citizen Housing

12 November 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

  1. This complaint is about the landlord’s handling of reports of damp and mould.

Background

  1. The tenant holds an assured tenancy. Another occupant of the property has represented the tenant, and she will be referred to as ‘the resident’ throughout this report.
  2. The resident suffers from fibromyalgia. The resident’s partner and son both have asthma.
  3. The resident contacted the landlord on 6 December 2022 in order to report a reoccurrence of damp and mould in the property. The landlord contacted the resident to arrange an inspection on 7 December 2022 and 19 December 2022. The landlord attended to perform a mould wash and apply stain block paint to the affected areas.
  4. The resident made a new report about damp and mould on 1 February 2023 and the landlord arranged to perform a new inspection on 20 March 2023. This inspection found that the landlord needed to undertake several works to combat the damp and mould. The landlord serviced the bathroom fans on 10 August 2023 and carried out several remedial repairs, including repointing works on 22 August 2023. Following these works, the resident continued to make reports about damp and mould in the property. In a separate complaint from September 2023 about a gas leak, the landlord awarded the resident £50 for a lack of communications about potential external insulation works.
  5. The resident contacted the landlord to make a complaint on 17 December 2023. She said she felt the landlord’s behaviour had been negligent and allowed the damp and mould problem to escalate. She was unhappy that external insulation work she had previously requested was not due to begin until mid-January 2024. The landlord attended on 21 December 2023 to mould wash 3 areas of the property where it identified mould.
  6. The landlord provided its stage 1 complaint response on 8 January 2024. It did not uphold her complaint. It did however agree to bring forward a kitchen replacement to May 2024 to address damp and mould behind the kitchen base units. It also apologised for delays in the external wall insulation installation and said it would be in touch to provide an update about these works.
  7. The resident responded to the landlord on 8 January 2024, arguing that she felt the inspection on 21 December 2023 was not thorough enough. She also said she felt the landlord had not listened to her complaint or done enough to put things right which had resulted in health problems for her and her family.
  8. The landlord provided its stage 2 complaint response on 24 January 2024. It again did not uphold the complaint. It provided the resident with the details of its insurer and provided her information on how to pursue a claim if she felt the landlord’s actions had affected her health. It also said that if the resident wanted to try and claim for damaged items, she should speak to her insurer. The landlord apologised to the resident for failing to respond to her requests for updates about improvement works but emphasised that these would begin in the timescales previously stated.
  9. The resident contacted the Ombudsman on 25 January 2024. She was unhappy that the landlord had still not begun the insulation work. She said the damp and mould had affected her family’s health. To resolve her complaint, she wanted the landlord to complete the insulation installation, reimburse her for increased heating costs, and award compensation for damaged possessions and redecorating costs and for the time, stress and inconvenience its failings had caused.

Assessment and findings

Scope of this investigation

  1. The resident has said that the damp and mould has had a negative effect on her family’s health. It is beyond the remit of the Ombudsman to decide on whether there was a direct link between the landlord’s actions and the resident’s ill health. The resident may wish to seek independent advice on making a personal injury claim if she considers that the landlord’s actions or failures have affected her family’s health. While the Ombudsman cannot consider the effect on health, it has considered distress and inconvenience which the resident experienced as a result of any service failure by the landlord.
  2. The resident has also mentioned concerns relating to works that took place after the conclusion of the landlord’s complaint process. As per paragraph 42a of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, we may not consider complaints about matters that have not exhausted the landlord’s complaints process. This means the resident will need to raise a new complaint to the landlord about its handling of these works if she wishes for the Ombudsman to investigate these matters.

The landlord’s handling of reports of damp and mould

  1. The landlord’s damp and mould policy says that it will treat damp and mould ‘in a timely way that takes a holistic approach to diagnosing and treating the causes of damp and mould’. Neither this policy, nor the landlord’s repairs policy, have timescales for how long it will take them to complete these works.
  2. The landlord’s response to the resident’s December 2022 report about damp and mould was to first arrange an appointment to perform a mould wash. The landlord did so and whilst this did take several weeks, it demonstrated that it attempted to arrange access with the resident but received no reply. Following this appointment, the landlord contacted the resident on 1 February 2023 to arrange an inspection of the damp and mould. However, the landlord booked the inspection for 20 March 2023. This was 6 weeks later. Given the vulnerabilities of the residents in the property, this was not a reasonable timeline for the landlord to undertake an inspection.
  3. When the landlord finally undertook its inspection, it listed a number of works it needed to complete due to damp and mould. However, it is not clear from the evidence if the landlord’s inspection fully diagnosed, or attempted to diagnose, the cause of damp and mould throughout the property. Given the ongoing nature of the resident’s reports, the landlord should have considered this and it should have completed a full property survey and passed a copy of the resulting report to the resident. This would have helped it to ensure that it undertook works that would eradicate damp and mould in the property rather than simply responding to the areas where this had re-emerged.
  4. It took the landlord almost 5 months after this inspection to perform any remedial works. The works the landlord undertook included damp and mould treatments in the kitchen, bedroom and bathroom, as well as pointing works to the brickwork. This was not done in a timely manner and likely led to the situation worsening for the resident. Giving the vulnerabilities of the residents, this timescale was significantly outside what the Ombudsman would deem to have been reasonable.
  5. Following this, the resident continued to raise concerns about damp and mould with new reports on 30 November 2023 and 19 December 2023. The landlord attended on 20 December 2023 to inspect and offered another mould wash. Whilst there is some disagreement about the interaction, and if the resident refused the mould wash, this does not appear to have been a reasonable offer of action by the landlord. Given the re-emergence of damp and mould in such a short time, it would have been reasonable again for the landlord to have investigated the potential causes further and it should have undertaken a full property survey. The landlord’s response to the reports continued to be reactive rather than pro-active.
  6. The landlord also intended, as part of its major works programme, to install outdoor insulation to the resident’s property. Whilst this would potentially have positive knock-on affects, this nonetheless was not in direct response to the resident’s reports and should not have affected, or delayed, any other actions that the landlord needed to take to eradicate damp and mould. The landlord appears to have relied on this external insulation at times to demonstrate it was responding to these reports. However, the Ombudsman would not consider this an appropriate response without the lack of external wall insulation having been identified as the cause of the damp and mould in the property. The landlord’s communication about these works was poor but it offered compensation for this through a different complaint which is being separately investigated by the Ombudsman.
  7. There were communications failings throughout the period investigated as part of this case. There were several instances where the resident had to chase the landlord for updates. These were on 26 March 2023, 1 April 2023, 15 May 2023, 1 September 2023 and 29 November 2023. There was a clear failing from the landlord to treat the resident fairly. Given the distressing nature of damp and mould, it was unreasonable of the landlord to not keep the resident adequately updated.
  8. Overall, the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of damp and mould represented maladministration. It failed to respond to the reports in a reasonable timeframe or to perform the necessary actions to eradicate damp and mould in the property. This was especially distressing for the resident considering the vulnerability of the resident and her family. The landlord’s failures undoubtedly caused significant distress and inconvenience for the resident. Although it was reasonable of the landlord to award compensation for its insufficient communications about the potential insulation, the level of compensation was not proportionate for the overall failings in its handling of the damp and mould reports
  9. For this failing, the landlord should pay the resident £800 compensation, inclusive of its previous. It should also arrange a full damp and mould survey of the property.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of reports of damp and mould.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

  1. It is ordered that within 4 weeks of the date of this letter, the landlord must:
    1. Pay the resident £800 compensation for its failures in handling her reports of damp and mould in her property. This is inclusive of the £50 it awarded in September 2023.
    2. Apologise to the resident for the failings identified in this report.
    3. Arrange a full damp and mould survey of the resident’s property with a focus on identifying the cause of the damp and mould. Within 2 weeks of the survey, the landlord should provide a copy of the inspection report to the resident and to the Ombudsman, including a diagnosis of any ongoing damp and mould and a description (and related timescales) of any necessary works that this survey identifies.
    4. Provide evidence to the Ombudsman demonstrating all of the above have been completed within the required timescales.

Recommendations

  1. The landlord should consider updating all of its relevant policies to include timescales for how long residents can expect it to take to undertake repairs or perform inspections.