Southwark Council (202401391)

Back to Top

 

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202401391

Southwark Council

Final Report

10 June 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 response to the resident’s reports of damp and mould.

Background

  1. The resident is a secure tenant of the landlord. She lives in a ground-floor 1-bedroom flat. The resident has epilepsy.
  2. On 7 November 2023, the resident complained that:
    1. There was a damp problem in her flat that had been outstanding since September 2023.
    2. A contractor had inspected the damage on 3 October 2023 but she had not heard anything since.
    3. The issue was causing her stress and this was a trigger for her epilepsy. She asked for the repair to be prioritised.
  3. In the stage 1 response of 22 November 2023, the landlord acknowledged there had been delays. It confirmed there had also been a missed appointment on 21 November 2023 and that this would be investigated by its missed appointments team. The landlord advised an appointment had been booked for works to be completed on 1 December 2023. It said that while it would award compensation for the delays once the repairs were completed, the resident would need to claim under her contents insurance or its liability cover for any damages. A follow-up response confirmed compensation had been calculated at £150.
  4. The resident escalated her complaint to stage 2 on 14 December 2023. She said she was unhappy with the amount of compensation awarded. She stated that an inspection had identified the need to replaster the wall in her bedroom and that the amount was insufficient to cover the cost of redecorating. She later added that the issues had caused her to seizure more frequently. The resident said she was seeking costs to cover redecorating and for the distress caused.
  5. In the stage 2 response, dated 8 March 2024, the landlord acknowledged there had been further delays. It advised it was therefore awarding further compensation, which it said was made up of:
    1. £200 for a 20-week period (at £10 per week) for the impact of the delays.
    2. £50 for the missed appointment on 21 November 2023.
    3. £50 for the delayed stage 2 response.
    4. £70 for the time and trouble.
  6. The resident referred her complaint to the Ombudsman because she is unhappy with the amount of compensation awarded. She said this is not proportionate to the costs of decorating her bedroom and the impact on her health. The resident advised she is seeking more compensation.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. The resident believes the stress from her complaint issues caused her epilepsy to worsen. The courts are the most effective place for disputes about personal injury and illness. In personal injury claims, the parties appoint independent medical experts to provide insights on the diagnosis, prognosis, and cause of any illness or injury. Therefore, consideration will only be given in this investigation to the distress and inconvenience that any failings on the landlord’s part have caused.

Damp and mould repairs

  1. The available repair logs show that the landlord raised 2 repair instructions for a blocked rainwater pipe and water ingress into the resident’s flat on 1 and 6 September 2023. The landlord was required under its repairs policy to complete the repair to the pipe within 20-working days. It took until 1 December 2023 for the landlord to unblock the pipe. Therefore, the landlord exceeded its timescale by around 45-working days.
  2. While there was a delay in completing the repair, the evidence shows there were some reasons outside of the landlord’s control. This included 2 appointments for an initial inspection being rescheduled by the resident. However, the resident does not agree that she missed any appointments.
  3. The landlord was, however, responsible for most of the delays. It took no action, which is evidenced in the records, for 3-working days after the first instruction was raised. There is also no evidence it was progressing matters after the inspection on 3 October 2023. The missed appointment on 21 November 2023 further contributed. It therefore failed to meet its obligations to complete a repair within a reasonable period. It was appropriate then for the landlord to recognise, in its stage 1 response, its failure, apologise and take steps to put things right.
  4. The landlord’s complaints policy at the time said it would attempt to put the resident back in the position they would have been, foremost, through taking practical steps. This includes ensuring a service it failed to deliver is provided within an agreed timescale. When the resident complained she specified that the outcome she was seeking was for the repair to be completed promptly. It was appropriate then for the landlord to ensure the repair was completed when it said it would. Although not referenced in its response, we have seen that it also gave feedback to its roofing contractor. This was appropriate as it is in the spirit of learning that the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code) encourages landlords to adopt.
  5. The complaints policy states it may pay compensation if appropriate and, if so, when the issue has been “adequately resolved”. Therefore, it was not unreasonable for the landlord to wait for the repair to be completed to award compensation. The compensation policy states it may give a payment for different impacts, including for delays. It may pay between £5 and £20 for every week there is a delay, depending on the severity of the impact. The landlord also pays £50 for missed appointments and between £50-£250 for ‘time and trouble’. The compensation of £150 was, in our view, sufficient by the landlord’s own standards for the 5-week delay. It was also within the range the Ombudsman’s guidance on remedies recommends for an impact experienced over a brief period.
  6. On 13 December 2023 the resident’s flat was inspected for internal repairs. Although the findings of this have not been shared, the repair logs show that a job to complete a mould wash was raised a few days later. According to the records, 2 unsuccessful attempts were made to contact the resident to book this in. The landlord did then schedule an appointment with her on 3 January 2023. The evidence suggests the treatment was completed on 12 February 2023. This was 20-working days over the landlord’s published timescale. The bedroom wall was then replastered and rendering behind the rainwater pipe repaired on 26 February 2024. This was around 30-working days beyond the published timescale. The landlord, therefore, surpassed its timescales again, which is an indication of a failing. We have though seen that some of the delay was due to reasons outside of the landlord’s control.
  7. The main reason the resident gave for escalating her complaint was that she did not think the compensation was proportionate for the impact of delays. She advised that the stress had caused her to seek medical attention for her epilepsy. She also said that she expected to be caused further inconvenience by additional work that was required. The resident advised that her bedroom would need redecorating and that she believed the landlord was responsible for covering the cost.
  8. In the stage 2 response from March 2024, the landlord increased its compensation offer. It said this was because of an overall delay in completing the repairs associated with the rainwater pipe. The landlord explained it had calculated the compensation of £170 by deducting the £150 previously offered. Although not unreasonable, given that it had sent the resident a cheque for this amount, its response could have been clearer by stating what the overall compensation award was. Even so, the amount the landlord awarded at £320 was reasonable. It was in-line with the landlord’s compensation policy for situations where its service failure has caused a medium to high impact on a resident, as is the case here. It was above the amount the Ombudsman would have ordered it to pay, had we not identified any further failings. This is because it was not responsible for all the delays.
  9. The tenancy agreement states when “decorations are damaged following a repair, we may either repair that damage or pay you an allowance to have the damaged areas redecorated.” Therefore, it would have been appropriate for the landlord to consider if the resident’s case met the criteria. It would also have been reasonable for the landlord to advise the resident that she may be able to claim under its public liability insurance for the impact on her health. While it did refer to its details in its stage 1 response, this was only in reference to claiming damage to personal belongings.
  10. The landlord did fulfil its obligations by repairing the plaster works within the resident’s bedroom, however it should have considered putting her back in the position she would have been in, had the delay not occurred. In circumstances such as this, landlords normally offer residents decoration vouchers, dependant on the area affected.
  11. Given the delay in completing the repairs, the landlord should reimburse the resident for some of the costs associated with redecorating the bedroom. However, it would not be reasonable for the landlord to cover the full costs. This is because on review of the evidence, it is a small section of bedroom that was affected and while we acknowledge that the wallpaper previously used is no longer available, it is not reasonable for the landlord to be liable for this. Therefore, the landlord is ordered to pay £150 towards the costs of replacing the wallpaper.
  12. In relation to the resident’s request for reimbursement for a contractor to attend and hang the wallpaper, an additional order has been made for the landlord to contribute towards these costs and pay an additional £100. This is in recognition of the resident’s specific vulnerabilities and health conditions.
  13. In additional to the above, the landlord’s compensation policy also states that it will pay compensation for distress, such as worry and anxiety, at a rate of between £5 and £20 per week.
  14. It is not clear why the landlord chose not to offer the resident compensation for distress, as it is clear from the stage 1 complaint and the resident’s email dated 15 December 2023, that the situation was causing unnecessary distress and inconvenience, which the landlord failed to acknowledge, or attempt to put right.
  15. On this basis it is therefore reasonable to order the landlord to pay a total of £200 for the distress and inconvenience caused by its handling of the water leak. This is made up of £10 per week for the total of 20 weeks.

Complaint handling

  1. The landlord’s complaints policy states that it will respond to all stage 2 complaints, known as review phase, with 25 working days. The landlord appropriately acknowledged a delay in issuing its final response. The compensation it awarded at £50 was reasonable to account for being almost 30-working days over its published timescale of 25-working days. We have seen that, during that time, the landlord informed the resident that the response would be delayed, as it should have done.
  2. While the landlord has taken some appropriate actions, it did not address the resident’s specific request for compensation for redecorating her bedroom. It also failed to address her request to be compensated for the impact on her health. Its response was therefore inappropriate. It was not in line with the landlord’s complaints policy or the Code, both of which require all issues to be addressed.
  3. In light of this an additional order has been made for the landlord to pay the resident a total of £100 compensation, which includes the £50 offered at stage 2.  This sum is in line with our remedies guidance which says such sums are payable where there has been impact on those affected.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was service failure in the landlord’s response the landlord’s handling of a leaking drainpipe, and subsequent damage to the bedroom wall’
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling.

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks from the date of the report, the landlord is ordered to:
    1. Write to the resident to apologise for the failings identified.
    2. Pay a total of £870 (deducting any payment already made), comprising of:
      1. £320 offered in the complaints process, for delay and time and trouble.
      2. £200 for the distress caused in relation to the failings identified.
      3. £250 for reimbursement of costs towards the redecoration of the bedroom.
      4. £100 for failing to address parts of the complaint.

Recommendations

  1. It is recommended that the landlord:
    1. Review its staff’s training needs with regard to record keeping, complaint handling and remedies, including in light of the findings of this report, the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code, and our remedies guidance.
  1. Arrange for staff who deal with complaints to review the Ombudsman’s learning hub and complete the e-learning modules on complaint handling