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Clarion Housing Association Limited (202406013)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202406013

Clarion Housing Association Limited

17 September 2025

 

Our approach

What we can and cannot consider is called the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction and is governed by the Housing Ombudsman Scheme. The Ombudsman must determine whether a complaint comes within their jurisdiction. The Ombudsman seeks to resolve disputes wherever possible but cannot investigate complaints that fall outside of this.

In deciding whether a complaint falls within their jurisdiction, the Ombudsman will carefully consider all the evidence provided by the parties and the circumstances of the case.

The complaint

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

Determination (jurisdictional decision)

  1. When a complaint is brought to the Ombudsman, we must consider all the circumstances of the case as there are sometimes reasons why a complaint will not be investigated.
  2. After carefully considering all the evidence, we have determined that the complaint, as set out above, is not within the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.

Summary of events

  1. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord and has occupied the 2-bedroom property since 1993. She has vulnerabilities that are known to the landlord.
  2. The resident made a complaint to the landlord on 16 October 2023. She said that she had first reported an issue with damp and mould in the property in May 2023, and the issues remained outstanding.
  3. The landlord issued its stage 1 response on 1 December 2023. It provided a timeline of events, apologised to the resident for the delay in completing the remedial works, and offered her £300 compensation.
  4. The resident requested to escalate her complaint on 21 December 2023. She said this was because the issue with damp and mould in the property had not been resolved.
  5. The landlord provided its stage 2 response on 12 February 2024. It reiterated its apology to the resident and offered her an additional £650 compensation (total £950) for the “extensive” repair delays and stage 2 complaint handling delays. It said that as the issue remained outstanding, it had arranged for its repairs supervisor to visit the property that day (12 February 2024) to carry out a “full and thorough inspection of the external brickwork”.
  6. Between June 2024 and November 2024, the resident sought legal advice in relation to the outstanding damp and mould related repairs. The evidence suggests that the landlord agreed to undertake several repairs (following an independent survey undertaken on 20 August 2024) with a deadline of 31 May 2025 to complete the works.
  7. We contacted both parties in September 2025 to obtain an update. The resident told us that the repairs had yet to be resolved, and there was an ongoing legal claim. Upon request, the landlord provided us with the details of the claim.

Reasons

  1. Paragraph 41.c of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme says the Ombudsman cannot consider complaints which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, “concern matters that are the subject of court proceedings or were the subject of court proceedings where judgement on the merits was given”.
  2. We have considered the details of the resident’s complaint, and the details of her disrepair claim submitted to the court. The repairs in the complaint are the same as those that the court will consider in due course. Therefore, in accordance with the Scheme, the complaint relating to the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of damp and mould is not one which this Service can consider.