Stonewater Limited (202501157)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202501157

Stonewater Limited

31 October 2025

 

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. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of damp and mould.
  2. The Ombudsman has also investigated the landlord’s handling of the associated complaint.

Background

  1. The resident holds an assured tenancy on a property owned by the housing association, which began in July 2005.
  2. The resident contacted the landlord on 24 November 2024 and reported damp and mould in her hallway. The operatives attended the property on 17 December 2024. However, they were unable to complete work at this time.
  3. The resident contacted the landlord on 18 December 2024. She said she had reported the recurring damp and mould for 20 years, and the landlord had not taken steps to address the cause, which she said affected her health. The landlord responded on 19 December 2024 and apologised that it would not be able to book the repair before the Christmas period as the resident had requested.
  4. The resident raised her formal complaint on 19 December 2024 and said that almost every year, the landlord would wash the mould and apply stain blocker, which was not sufficient. She said her bedroom is on the other side of the stairwell and was also affected by damp and mould.
  5. In its stage 1 complaint response on 14 January 2025, the landlord reiterated its apology for the delayed work and offered £100 in compensation. It said that its specialist surveyors, who had inspected the property on 8 January 2025, would report back on the remedial works necessary to address the cause, which it had now scheduled for 23 January 2025.
  6. In her escalation request on 30 January 2025, the resident said:

a.     Over the years, the landlord added insulation and fitted a heater in the hallway, which had no benefits.

b.     She was concerned about the health of both her and her daughter because of the persistent mould.

c.      She was looking to swap her property, but she was unable to secure a swap because of the recurring damp and mould.

  1. The Landlord sent its final response letter on 6 March 2023. It said:

a.     The operatives who had attended the resident’s home in January 2025 were not surveyors and had not diagnosed the cause. 

b.     The resident had reported damp and mould in 2017, 2018, and 2019, but due to poor record-keeping, it was unable to find evidence of what works had been carried out.

c.      As the mould affected the communal staircase, this should not affect the resident or her daughter sleeping in the flat.

d.     It offered a total compensation of £275 to reflect the delay in completing the works within the target of 28 days specified in its repairs policy.

  1. The resident brought her complaint to the Service on 8 April 2025. To resolve the complaint, she would like the landlord to identify the source and treat the root cause to prevent damp and mould from recurring.
  2. Following notification from the Service, the landlord contacted the resident on 31 July 2025. It said that, having prepared the evidence for the Service, it recognised that the resident’s concerns regarding a long-term solution had not been fully addressed. It offered the resident an additional £50 in compensation, bringing the total amount to £325.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. The resident’s statement that the landlord’s handling of this case has negatively impacted her health has been noted. It is beyond the expertise of the Service, however, to determine a causal link between the landlord’s actions (or lack thereof) and the impact on the resident’s health and well-being. These matters are better addressed by the courts, which are better equipped to determine the reason a health condition has deteriorated. Should the resident wish to pursue this matter, she may want to seek independent legal advice first.
  2. The resident’s claim that the landlord has poorly managed this matter over the past 20 years has been noted. The Ombudsman encourages residents to raise complaints with their landlords promptly, to enable the landlord to investigate the matter while evidence is still available and reach an informed conclusion. As issues become more historical, it becomes harder for the landlord or an independent body like the Ombudsman to conduct an effective review of the actions taken.
  3. In this case, there is an added complexity because the damp and mould issues affected the property seasonally, and the areas affected were inside the resident’s home.  The landlord’s duty to repair was reliant on its knowledge that the issue reoccurred. We do not have the evidence to thoroughly investigate the historic events. Consequently, this investigation will focus on events from November 2024, when the resident reported that damp and mould had reoccurred, leading up to her formal complaint in December 2024.

The landlord’s response to damp and mould 

  1. When investigating a complaint, the Ombudsman applies its Dispute Resolution Principles, which include treating people fairly, following fair processes, and putting things right. The Ombudsman must first consider whether a failure on the landlord’s part has occurred and, if so, whether this adversely affected or caused detriment to the resident. If the Ombudsman found that a failure adversely affected the resident, the investigation will then consider whether the landlord has taken enough action to put it right and learn from the outcome.
  2. Under the Landlord and Tenant Act, the landlord is responsible for repairing the structure of the property and taking reasonable action to keep it in repair.
  3. The landlord’s damp and mould policy (2024) says it has a zero-tolerance approach to damp and mould. It would triage cases into two categories:

a.     Stage 1 cases are those where households need support and guidance on heating and ventilation, with low-level interventions such as gutter repairs or wiping down surfaces.

b.     Stage 2 cases are where the resident escalated the issue or where remedial works at stage 1 were unsuccessful. The landlord’s specialist damp and mould partner will contact the resident, inspect the property and identify the remedial works necessary to prevent the damp and mould from recurring. The surveyor may instruct a third party to carry out the works, and it would return in 6 months to ensure the issue was resolved or that it had identified and implemented alternative solutions.

  1. The resident reported damp and mould in November 2024. The landlord responded by instructing its operatives to wash the mould and apply stain block on the walls. This was appropriate. The repair did not proceed as planned because the operatives on 17 December 2024 did not have the necessary equipment. In its January 2025 complaint response, the landlord acknowledged that this was a failure. It said it had since completed mould wash, applied stain block and redecorated the hallway on 8 January and 9 January 2025.
  2. In respect to the resident’s request for a long-term solution to addressing the root cause, the landlord also said in its stage 1 response that its surveyor had inspected the property on 8 January 2025. It said the surveyor would report on the works necessary for a long-term solution, and its repairing contractor would complete these on 23 January 2025. The landlord’s response here was reasonable; it set out its intentions for long-lasting repairs, which followed its process for stage 2 damp and mould cases (as explained in paragraph 14 above).
  3. Following the resident’s escalation on 30 January 2025, the landlord advised internally that, according to its tracker, the surveyor had inspected the property on 8 January 2025, but the landlord had been unable to locate the report. The loss of this key document meant the landlord did not have an expert diagnosis of what had been causing the damp and mould, and it follows, it did not have an effective and long-lasting solution to prevent it from recurring.
  4. It would have been appropriate for the landlord to ask its surveyor to produce a copy of the report or to inspect the property again. Instead, the landlord contacted its repairing contractor to ascertain whether they had diagnosed the root cause, to which the contractor replied that its day-to-day responsive repairs operatives were not surveyors, and they were not instructed to identify the cause.
  5. In its final response letter in March 2025, the landlord recognised that the resident had reported damp and mould in 2017, 2018, and 2019, but due to poor record-keeping, it was unable to find evidence of what works had been carried out. The landlord’s damp and mould policy (2024) outlines the landlord’s “commitments to respond both reactively and proactively to address known or suspected cases of damp and mould”. According to its policy, it should have followed the process it had outlined in its Stage 1 response, which was to instruct its surveyor to inspect the property and subsequently complete the necessary repairs. It also failed to recognise that the area affected by damp and mould was not communal, and also affected her bedroom. Therefore, it failed to fully appreciate how she was adversely affected by the outstanding repair.
  6. Following our initial contact with the landlord, it wrote to the resident, and us, on 31 July 2025. It acknowledged that it had missed the opportunity to resolve the complaint at an earlier stage, but in the ‘spirit of putting things right’, it said:

a.     It was sorry for the errors in its complaint response, which led to it failing to consider the resident’s concerns about her and her daughter’s health.

b.     Due to poor record keeping, it was unable to locate the surveyor’s report (from January 2025); consequently, it was unable to determine the root cause of the recurring damp and mould.

c.      It would increase its compensation offer by £50 to a total of £325.

  1. It was reasonable that the landlord recognised that it had failed to update the resident about its long-term solution. It was not appropriate that it did not share details of the steps it would take to complete the repairs and ensure it is effective and long-lasting.
  2. The landlord instructed its surveyor to return to the property on 13 August 2025. The surveyor reported that at the time of the inspection, there was no damp and mould, which indicated the works the landlord had carried out in January 2025 had delivered short-term benefits. The report said that the mould was likely to recur unless the walls and ceiling of the stairwell are insulated, and the door is replaced. The resident told us in October 2025 that she had no information from the landlord about its intention to do the works or the time for completion, leaving her concerns ongoing and her complaints unresolved.
  3. In assessing the level of compensation, we have considered that the landlord’s failures have affected the resident but not permanently. We also considered that the damp and mould affected the property seasonally, and that the landlord has taken some action to mitigate the impact on the resident, but it did not go far enough to trace and repair the source. Its offer of revised compensation of £325 was a sufficient amount of compensation, which falls within the recommended range in our remedies guidance.
  4. However, its failure to complete the repair, and learning from the outcome meant it had not taken sufficient steps to put things right, amounting to maladministration. As such, we have made orders for the landlord to complete the works in full, as explained in the orders section below.

The landlord’s handling of the associated complaint

  1. The Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code) says landlords are expected to make reasonable efforts to understand why a resident remains unhappy as part of its stage 2 response. The Code says that where something has gone wrong, a landlord must acknowledge this and set out the actions it has already taken, or intends to take, to put things right.
  2. In this case, the landlord failed to recognise in its stage 2 response that the resident was complaining about the lack of a long-term solution to complete the repairs. After the involvement of the Service, it recognised that it had failed to address the crux of her complaint, but it repeated the same error again.
  3. The landlord should have clarified in its subsequent response what its long-term plan was to resolve the issue, and when any prospective work was likely to be completed. Although the landlord increased its compensation in its additional response, this was insufficient to resolve the complaint. We ordered the landlord below to provide this information to the resident within 4 weeks.

Determination

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

Orders

  1. The landlord is ordered to complete the following actions and send evidence of compliance to the Service by 22 November 2025:

a.     Pay the resident’s bank account £325, offered in its internal complaint process, if it has not done so already.

b.     Apologise in writing to the resident for the failures identified in this report. The landlord must ensure the apology is specific to the failures identified in this decision, meaningful and empathetic in line with our apologies guidance.

c.      Take all steps to complete the work as identified by its surveyor on 13 August 2025. It should share the work schedule with the resident. If it is not possible to complete the works by the deadline set, it must discuss this with the resident, and summarise the alternative approach agreed upon in a letter to the resident and the Service.