Clarion Housing Association Limited (202413791)

Background

1. The resident lives in a 2-bedroom property with her son who has asthma, a health condition the landlord is aware of. The resident’s tenancy began on 3 July 2024. She complained to the landlord that she could not move into the property as it had not completed repairs it should have resolved during the void (empty) period.

What the complaint is about

2. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of the void standard of the property and associated repairs.
3. We have also looked at the landlord’s complaint handling.

Our decision (determination)

4. There was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the void standard of the property and associated repairs.
5. There was reasonable redress in the landlord’s complaint handling.

We have made orders for the landlord to put things right.

Summary of reasons

Void standard and associated repairs

6. The landlord failed to:
   1. Ensure the property met its lettable standard when the resident’s tenancy began.
   2. Complete repairs to bring the property to a lettable standard within an acceptable length of time after the resident made it aware of these issues.
   3. Adequately assess the habitability of the property using an appropriately qualified member of staff. It did not reassure the resident the property was safe to live in until it completed repairs to the ceiling in April 2025, 9 months after the resident’s tenancy began.
   4. Communicate appropriately with the resident. It placed too much blame on the resident removing the skirting boards as being a contributing factor to the delays in it completing repairs.
7. It was appropriate that the landlord told the resident it would not charge her rent until April 2025, when it completed the ceiling repairs. However, it only made this offer of redress after it had exhausted its own complaints procedure and a considerable time after it had complete these repairs.
8. The landlord should have also reimbursed the resident for any bills she incurred up until April 2025 but failed to do so.
9. The landlord did acknowledge some failings, and it made attempts to put things right by offering the resident £900 compensation. However, our investigation has found further failings that the landlord did not address. Therefore, its offer was not proportionate to the overall impact to the resident.

Complaint handling

10. There was a delay in the landlord responding to the resident’s stage 1 complaint, but its offer of £50 compensation adequately reflected the distress and inconvenience caused to the resident as a result.
11. There was a minor delay in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s stage 2 complaint, but this did not have an overall impact on the outcome of the complaint.

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.

Recommendations

Our recommendations are not binding, and a landlord may decide not to follow them.

Our investigation

The complaint procedure

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.

12. The landlord failed to ensure the resident’s property met the lettable standard in line with its own void policy when she signed for it on 3 July 2024. This is because:
    1. The property was not cleaned. The resident told it that the skirting boards were saturated with cat urine and there were suspected faeces on the wall.
    2. There was damp and mould in areas of the property.
    3. The resident had to report several repairs including plaster works and wide cracks to the bedroom ceilings.
13. This was a significant failure by the landlord which caused the resident distress and inconvenience. This failure was more impactful to the resident because she believed if she declined the property, she would be taken off the local authority’s priority housing list. She therefore felt that despite the property not meeting lettable standard at the time, she had to sign for it.

Cleaning

14. Due to the lack of clarity provided by the landlord, it is unclear exactly what date it returned to clean the property after the resident’s tenancy began. The resident last chased the issue on 14 September 2024 and in internal correspondence on 10 October 2024, the landlord confirmed it had completed the clean. We have therefore concluded it likely cleaned the property towards the end of September 2024. Given the distress that this issue was causing the resident and the fact she clearly communicated the impact it was having on her to the landlord, it should have cleaned the property on an urgent basis. This is especially concerning as she was reporting potential biological waste in the property. This was a failure by the landlord which caused the resident distress.

Damp and mould

15. The landlord acted promptly by completing a mould wash within 14 working days on 23 July 2024 as this was in line with its published timescales. It also re-attended promptly on 19 August 2024 when the resident raised further concerns about mould and damp in other areas of the property. On this visit, it did not find any damp and mould issues that required further works.
16. The resident did not make the landlord aware of further damp and mould issues until November 2024, after environmental health inspected the property at her request. Due to the time that elapsed from her last report of mould and damp in August 2024 until this time, we do not consider it a continuation of the issue originally complained about. Therefore, as the resident raised this with the landlord after its complaint process had ended in October 2024, we will not assess its handling of this further report of damp and mould in this investigation. This is because the landlord has not had the opportunity to investigate these additional events through its internal complaints process.

Cracks to the bedroom ceilings

17. The landlord’s repair operative attended promptly to plaster over cracks to the bedroom ceiling on 26 July 2024. However, the resident remained concerned that the rooms were unsafe due to the width of the cracks and told the landlord the property was not habitable. If there is a dispute regarding the habitability of a property, the landlord should ensure an appropriately qualified member of staff such as a surveyor attends to assess for any hazards in line with the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS). The landlord did organise for its surveyor to attend but they only did so on 15 October 2024. This was outside its published timescales for routine repairs, and they should have attended on an urgent basis. This was a failure by the landlord which caused the resident distress and inconvenience.
18. In its final response to the resident on 17 October 2024, the landlord told her the bedrooms were safe as the ceilings had ‘age-related cracks’ to them. It is unclear how the landlord came to this conclusion as we have not been given any detail from its surveyor’s inspection on 15 October 2024 or whether they inspected the ceiling on this visit. We are therefore not satisfied the landlord has provided us with enough evidence that the property was habitable at this time or that its position was determined by an appropriately qualified member of staff. As the resident disputed the landlord’s position and given there were further repairs needed to the bedroom ceilings after 17 October 2024, we have considered events after the landlord’s final response as these were a continuation of the issue originally complained about.
19. The landlord organised an independent inspection of the property in January 2025. The report identified that the ceiling in one of the bedrooms was detaching and recommended works to remedy this. The landlord completed these works on or around 9 April 2025. Overall, the landlord took an unreasonable amount of time to repair the cracks to the bedroom ceiling, and it failed to give adequate reassurance to the resident that the property was safe. On this basis, the resident’s position that she could not move into the property during this time was reasonable.
20. Our dispute resolution principles advise that to put things right for the resident, the landlord should ensure the resident is put back in the position they would have been in if there had been no service failure. It was therefore positive that the landlord later confirmed it would not charge the resident rent until April 2025, when it completed the ceiling repairs. This is because it would not have been appropriate for the resident to pay rent for the property as she could not reasonably move in until this date. It was also positive that the landlord said it would take responsibility for council tax bills until this date too.
21. However, the landlord only made this offer of redress after it had exhausted its own complaints policy, considerably after it completed the repair to the ceiling and following our involvement. Additionally, during its complaint process it failed to adequately consider a full rent rebate and missed an opportunity to put things right. The landlord failed to offer appropriate remedy to its failures at the time of repair completion or during its process, and we will consider this failure as part of our determination.
22. The resident also raised concerns with the landlord that she was incurring costs of utility bills from the start of her tenancy to April 2025. The landlord did not offer to reimburse the resident for these bills when it should have done in order to put her back in the position she would have been in had there been no service failure. Therefore, we have made an order for the landlord to reimburse the resident the cost of these bills, upon receipt of evidence of them from the resident.

Plaster works

23. It was appropriate for the landlord to agree to replace the skirting boards, repair all areas of damaged plasterwork and replaster 2 additional walls which had an Artex finish. It confirmed all plastering works were completed in January 2025, 6 months after the resident signed for the property. The landlord was delayed in completing these works due to an asbestos check and ongoing communications with the resident regarding the scope of the works and her own availability for appointments. Whilst this caused delay beyond the landlord’s control, the overall time taken to resolve the plastering work was unreasonable. This caused distress and inconvenience to the resident as she could not decorate during this time.
24. The landlord’s stage 2 response was inappropriate and placed some blame on the resident for the delays in plastering works due to her disposing of the skirting boards and the damage caused to the plaster as a result. This was inappropriate from the landlord because the reason the resident felt she needed take this action was due to its own failure to clean the property and ensure it met lettable standard before her tenancy began. This was a failure by the landlord which caused distress to the resident as its tone did little to reassure her it understood the impact the poor condition of the property was having on her.

Communication

25. The landlord failed to communicate with the resident appropriately. The resident was consistently chasing the landlord for updates, but it often failed to respond to her. She asked it when the surveyor was attending to her property on multiple occasions, but she did not receive a prompt response from the landlord. Additionally, the landlord sent the resident repair appointments via text messages but did not specify the works it intended on carrying out. It failed to ask her whether these appointments were suitable and resulted in inconvenience to the resident as she had to contact the landlord to ask. The landlord’s poor standard of communication demonstrated it did not take the resident’s concerns seriously or understand the impact these issues were having on her. This was a failure by the landlord which caused the resident distress and inconvenience.

Summary

26. Overall, there were significant failures in the landlord’s handling of the void standard of the property and associated repairs. The landlord’s failures had a significant impact on the resident who had to arrange and pay for private accommodation during this time. She also built up large amounts of rent arrears for the property that she could not reasonably move into and was only given reassurances by the landlord that she would not need to pay rent for this time in July 2025. The landlord’s poor communication and it placing blame on the resident made the situation worse.
27. When the landlord has made an offer of compensation, it is the Ombudsman’s role to assess whether the offer is fair and reasonable. Our approach to compensation is set out in our remedies guidance published on our website. The landlord offered the resident a total of £900 for its failures in handling of the void standard of the property and associated repairs. The remedies guidance suggests awards of this amount are suitable where there was a failure by the landlord which had a significant impact on the resident.
28. It is positive that the landlord has acknowledged failings and made an attempt to put things right by its offer of compensation and not charging her rent until the date she could reasonably move into the property. However, as outlined in this investigation, we have found further failings that the landlord did not acknowledge. We have therefore found maladministration by the landlord as it failed to fully address the impact of these failings to the resident, and its offer was not proportionate to the failings identified by our investigation. The landlord should pay the resident a total of £1100 to replace its original offer of £900.

29. The landlord operates a 2 stage complaints procedure. The timeframes in its procedure mirror that of our Complaint Handling Code (the Code), which sets out our expectations of a landlord’s complaint handling practices. The Code states stage 1 complaint responses must be sent within 10 working days, and stage 2 complaint responses sent within 20 working days.
30. The landlord was delayed in responding to the resident’s stage 1 complaint and did so in 41 working days. This fell outside of its published timescales for complaint handling and was a failure by the landlord which caused the resident distress and inconvenience. The landlord acknowledged the delay in its stage 1 complaint response and offered the resident £50 for this failure. This amount adequately reflects the distress and inconvenience the resident would have experienced as a result of these delays and is appropriate in cases where there has been a minor failure by the landlord.
31. The landlord was also delayed in responding to the resident’s stage 1 complaint and did so in 23 working days. This fell slightly outside its published timescales for complaint handling but was a minor delay and did not have an overall impact on the outcome of the complaint. We have therefore not found any additional failures in the landlord’s complaint handling.
32. As the landlord’s offer of compensation at stage 1 adequately reflected the distress and inconvenience caused by the delays at that time, we have found there was reasonable redress in the landlord’s handling of the complaint.

Learning

33. The landlord could review its void procedure to ensure failures identified in this complaint do not happen again.
34. It may wish to remind its complaint handling staff to contact residents when it needs an extension to the date of response at either stage of its complaint process.