Orbit Housing Association Limited (202329073)
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Decision |
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Case ID |
202329073 |
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Decision type |
Investigation |
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Landlord |
Orbit Housing Association Limited |
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Landlord type |
Housing Association |
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Occupancy |
Shared Ownership |
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Date |
17 November 2025 |
Background
- The resident lives in a 1-bedroom flat, located within a low-rise residential building. She bought her share of the property in 2019. The building was constructed in 2017, and the landlord is the freeholder.
What the complaint is about
- The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of damp and mould.
- We have also investigated the landlord’s complaint handling.
Our decision (determination)
- We have found that there was:
- Maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of damp and mould.
- Service failure in the landlord’s complaint handling.
We have made orders for the landlord to put things right.
Summary of reasons
- We found that that the landlord:
- Lacked understanding and oversight of its repair responsibilities for the building. Also, at the time of our investigation, the issue with damp and mould in the resident’s property remained outstanding.
- Failed to provide the resident with clarity about the outcome of its complaint investigation and did not evidence that it had learnt from her 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.
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Order |
What the landlord must do |
Due date |
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1 |
Apology order The landlord must apologise to the resident for the failures identified in this report. The landlord must ensure:
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No later than 15 December 2025 |
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2 |
Compensation order The landlord must pay the resident £325 made up as follows:
The landlord may deduct from the total figure any payments it has already made. The landlord must pay this directly to the resident and provide documentary evidence of payment by the due date. |
No later than 15 December 2025 |
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3 |
Completing the works The landlord must take all steps to oversee the works in identifying and resolving the root cause of the resident’s reports of damp and mould in her home. This should include further investigation into thermal bridging of the external of the building.
If the landlord cannot complete the works by the due date, it must explain to us:
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No later than 26 January 2025 |
Our investigation
The complaint procedure
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Date |
What happened |
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16 October 2023 |
The resident complained to the landlord about its handling of her reports of damp and mould. She said she was unhappy with its poor communication and that it had refused to undertake the required repairs. |
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4 December 2023 |
The landlord issued its stage 1 complaint response. It provided the resident with a timeline of events and said:
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5 December 2023 |
The resident requested to escalate her complaint because she was unhappy with the landlord’s response. She requested an explanation as to why she was paying it a service charge fee, if it was not responsible for the repairs. |
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4 January 2023 |
The landlord sent its stage 2 response. It told the resident:
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Referral to the Ombudsman |
The resident referred her complaint to us because she did not agree with the landlord’s position that it did not hold any repair responsibility. In November 2025, the resident told us that as an outcome to her complaint, she wanted the landlord to identify the underlying cause of the damp and mould in her property and investigate the thermal bridging of the external walls. |
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 landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of damp and mould |
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Finding |
Maladministration |
- The lease agreement states that the landlord is responsible for the maintenance of the structural parts of the building. This includes the roof and external walls. It further states that the resident must not make any alterations or interfere with the outside of the building. However, she is responsible for the repairs inside her property, including decoration.
- The landlord’s damp and mould procedure states that upon receipt of a new report of damp and mould, it will complete the initial triage and allocate it to the relevant team within 5 working days. It should then inspect the property within 20 working days.
- On 31 March 2023, the resident informed the landlord that there was “persistent” mould appearing on the walls of her property. She said she suspected that there was an issue with the flat roof of the building and that it was causing water ingress between the cavity walls. The landlord conducted a damp and mould inspection on 12 May 2023. This exceeded the landlord’s policy timescale (28 working days against a target of 25).
- The damp and mould report from the inspection on 12 May 2023 stated that there was a “possible defect within the construction of the building, as there was a significant temperature difference between room and surface temperatures of the external walls”. It therefore recommended the following works:
- Investigate the possible cause of thermal bridging to external walls, particularly around the window and patio door reveals.
- Conduct a 3-stage mould wash to reveals and walls in the living room and bedroom.
- Despite the resident requesting an update on the progress of the repairs on 21 June 2023, the landlord did not raise the repairs until 20 July 2023. The interval of 49 working days (almost 10 weeks) between the landlord carrying out the inspection and raising the repairs was unreasonable.
- The next working day (21 July 2023), the landlord cancelled the repairs as “it [had] no repairs liability for the building, as it [was] externally managed”. We accept that the landlord was not responsible for the internal repairs in the resident’s property. However, the lease agreement states that it is responsible for external repairs. If it had a managing agent which conducted the repairs on its behalf, it would have been appropriate for it to take ownership of the repairs by referring the issues and monitoring the work through to completion. We have also seen no evidence that the landlord informed the resident about its decision to cancel the repairs, which was inappropriate.
- Between 27 July 2023 and 16 October 2023, the landlord’s handling of the matter was poor. This was mainly due to its inconsistent and unclear communication with the resident. However, it is positive that the landlord apologised to the resident for this within its stage 1 response and offered her £100 compensation (not including the £30 for complaint handling). The landlord’s compensation procedure does not include a compensation calculation matrix. Despite this, we find that for this failure alone, this was a reasonable offer and in line with our own remedies guidance.
- Within the landlord’s stage 1 response, it maintained that the outstanding repairs were the responsibility of the managing agent. However, in its stage 2 response it said that the managing agent was not responsible. In its update to us in November 2025, it said that the managing agent had been maintaining the building, and it had evidence of it completing some repairs. It said it was conducting further investigations into the matter and would provide us with an update once complete. The landlord’s apparent lack of understanding and clarity of the repair responsibilities for a building that it owns is concerning.
- The landlord also told us in November 2025 that it initially directed the resident to the building’s warranty provider. We have not seen any documentary evidence of this, which is indicative of poor record keeping. However, it is reasonable to conclude that it did. This is because the warranty provider contacted the landlord on 23 November 2023 to request permission to undertake the repairs reported by the resident. As the landlord has not provided any further information in relation to this, it is unclear if the warranty provider undertook any repairs. Despite this, we find the landlord’s decision to refer the resident to the warranty provider (for a suspected external repair issue for which it was ultimately responsible) unreasonable. It would have been appropriate for the landlord to take ownership of the repairs and update the resident on progress.
- Regardless of which contractor undertakes the repair work, as the freeholder of the building, the landlord has a responsibility to ensure that the external repairs to the building are completed in a timely manner. It is unacceptable that the resident is continuing to experience issues with damp and mould in her home, 2 and a half years after she first raised her concerns to the landlord.
- For the reasons outlined above, we have made a finding of maladministration. As such, we have made orders for the landlord to put things right for the resident.
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Complaint |
Complaint handling |
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Finding |
Service failure |
- The landlord has a 2-stage complaints process, which is in line with the requirements of our Complaint Handling Code (‘the Code’).
- The landlord acknowledged the resident’s complaint on 6 November 2023. This exceeded its policy timescale (15 working days against a target of 5 working days).
- The same day (6 November 2023), the landlord sent the resident another email to explain that it was not yet able to provide her with its stage 1 response and would aim to do so by 20 November 2023. This was a response time of 25 working days, which was within the maximum timescale outlined in its complaint policy (5 days to acknowledge, 10 days to provide a response, and a further 10 working days extension).
- Despite this, on 20 November 2023, the landlord informed the resident that it needed to extend the complaint deadline again. The landlord’s complaints procedure states that if it needs to extend the complaint beyond the additional 10 working days, this should be approved by a senior member of staff and discussed in detail with the resident. We have seen no evidence that it did either of these things in this instance. Also, the content of the landlord’s correspondence was unsatisfactory, as it failed to amend the letter template and did not provide the resident a new response target date. The importance of effective communication is highlighted.
- The landlord issued its stage 1 response on 4 December 2023. This was a total of 35 working days from the date the resident raised her complaint. It was appropriate that the landlord acknowledged its complaint handling delays and offered the resident a reasonable amount of compensation (£30).
- Within the landlord’s stage 1 response, it was positive that it provided a timeline of events that had occurred leading up to the resident making her complaint. This showed it had undertaken a thorough investigation into the matter. However, the outcome of the investigation was unclear. This is because within its opening paragraphs the landlord said it did not uphold the complaint, but within its conclusions said it was upholding it. This likely caused the resident feelings of confusion.
- The Code states that landlords should use complaints as a source of intelligence to identify issues and introduce positive changes to service delivery. It therefore would have been appropriate for the landlord to explain in its complaint response what action it had taken to ensure that the failings it had identified would not happen again. In not doing so, the landlord has not evidenced that it learned sufficiently from the complaint.
- The resident requested to escalate her complaint on 5 December 2023, and the landlord acknowledged the request 7 working days later 14 December 2023. Although not an excessive delay, this surpassed its target timescales by 2 working days (against a target of 5 working days).
- The landlord issued its stage 2 response on 2 January 2024. This was appropriate as it was within its target timescales (10 working days against a target of 20 working days).
- Even though the landlord acknowledged in its stage 2 response that it had provided the resident with incorrect information (that the managing agent was not responsible for the repairs), it did not apologise to her and said that it did not uphold her complaint. We find this was an unclear stance from the landlord. It also did not show that it fully recognised and took responsibility for its failures.
- For the reasons outlined above, we have made a finding of service failure and ordered the landlord to pay additional compensation in line with our remedies guidance.
Learning
Knowledge and information management (record keeping)
- Other than the lack of information about the warranty provider, the landlord’s day-to-day recording keeping was satisfactory. However, it should endeavour to maintain accessible and up-to-date information on its systems about repair responsibilities for properties that it owns.
Communication
- The landlord’s communication with the resident was inconsistent and unclear.