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Birmingham City Council (202337963)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202337963

Birmingham City Council

25 September 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:
    1. Handling of the resident’s reports of damp and mould.
    2. Complaint handling.

Background

  1. The resident is a secure tenant of the landlord. The property is a 2 bedroom flat in a block of similar properties. The landlord does not have any vulnerabilities recorded for the resident.
  2. On 16 January 2023 the resident reported that there was damp and mould in her living room. A job was raised to inspect the property with a target completion date of 27 February 2023. However, the inspection did not take place until 25 April 2023.The contractor’s repairs records from that visit say there was a suspected leak from a neighbour’s flat upstairs and that they had advised the neighbour to report this to the landlord. The resident says she was not advised of this and was only told there may be a problem with the insulation around the balcony
  3. On 16 November 2023, following a phone call from the resident the landlord raised a job to address damp and mould in her living room. On 23 November 2023 the resident raised a formal complaint stating that despite ringing the landlord multiple times for help nothing had been done about the damp and mould.
  4. In its stage 1 response on 28 November 2023 the landlord confirmed that no further damp or mould inspections had been carried out since 25 April 2023 when the job was cancelled after the neighbour upstairs was told to report a possible leak to the landlord. It said an inspection had now been booked for 19 December 2023. It said it found her complaint partly justified due to the lack of co-ordination between repairing the leak in the flat above and dealing with the damp and mould in her property, and apologised for that. However, it said she could also have raised a recall repair if the damp and mould was still an issue.
  5. The resident escalated her complaint as she said she had been told the damp and mould was connected to poor insulation around the balcony and had never been told of a possible leak in the property above. She said her young son was now suffering from frequent chest infections, she had to replace 2 sets of curtains due to mould and the miscommunication and failure to resolve the damp and mould was causing her much distress.
  6. In its stage 2 response on 8 December 2023 the landlord said she had been made aware of the possible leak from the property above at the inspection in April. It said the contractor had no record of discussing an insulation issue but said it would investigate further if she could provide dates and times of when she was told that. It said it had found no service failure in its notifying her of the possible leak but had identified a delay in its contractor inspecting the property after her original report. It said there was “room for improvement in the timescale taken to respond to jobs”.

Events after the end of the internal complaints process (ICP)

  1. The resident referred her complaint to us as she was dissatisfied with the way the landlord handled her complaint. In September 2025 the resident confirmed to us that after the inspection on 19 December 2023, work to to address the mould was carried out in February 2024. However, she said the damp and mould had since returned and spread to the bedroom and the wall had started to swell and crack. She said despite numerous visits the landlord had not identified the root cause of the damp and mould but that no leak had ever been found in the property above. She also said that plastering work it had carried out to the wall had been of very poor quality.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. The resident believes that the damp and mould has affected her son’s health. Although we would give consideration to any distress and inconvenience the resident or her family experienced as a result of any errors by the landlord, it is outside the Ombudsman’s role to draw conclusions on the causation of, or liability for, impacts on health and wellbeing. This is because we cannot establish whether there was a direct link between the landlord’s actions or inaction and the resident’s son’s health. This would be more appropriately dealt with as a personal injury claim through the courts or the landlord’s liability insurer. This is in line with paragraph 42(f) of the Scheme which states:
  2. ‘The Ombudsman may not consider complaints which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion concern matters where the Ombudsman considers it quicker, fairer, more reasonable, or more effective to seek a remedy through the courts, other tribunal or procedure.’
  3. The resident has referred to the damp and mould returning and spreading to the bedroom. She has also referred to the wall cracking and swelling and stated that the quality of plastering carried out as part of repairs is poor. We have mentioned these issues in order to add context to the complaint. However, this report will not be investigating the more recent issues. This is because they took place after the end of the internal complaints process (ICP) and no further complaint has been made to the landlord. Therefore, the landlord has not had the opportunity to investigate these additional events through its internal complaints process.
  4. This is in line with paragraph 42 (a) of the Scheme which states ‘The Ombudsman may not consider complaints which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion are made prior to having exhausted a member’s complaints procedure, unless there is evidence of a complaint-handling failure and the Ombudsman is satisfied that the member has not taken action within a reasonable timescale.’
  5. Therefore, this report will focus on events from when the resident first reported the damp and mould in January 2023 up until the landlord issued its final response on 8 December 2023. The resident is able to raise a new complaint with the landlord about more recent events.

Handling of the resident’s reports of damp and mould

  1. In October 2021 the Ombudsman released its Spotlight report on damp and mould. This included 26 key recommendations for landlords which included that landlords should:
    1. Adopt a zero-tolerance approach to damp and mould interventions.
    2. Ensure that their responses to reports of damp and mould are timely and reflect the urgency of the issue.
  2. In line with those recommendations, when the resident reported that there was damp and mould in the property on 16 January 2023 it would have been appropriate for the landlord to have demonstrated that zero tolerance approach and arranged to inspect the property in a timely manner. However, the landlord failed to do so and the property was not inspected until 3 months after the original report. The repair records are limited but confirm that the inspection was cancelled on 3 March 2023 due to snow and rebooked for 25 April 2023. Although the snow was unavoidable it would have been appropriate for the landlord to have sought an earlier replacement inspection date as the resident had already been waiting 6 weeks at that point, and ended up having to wait 13 weeks for the damp and mould to be inspected. This timeframe was not reasonable or in line with the recommendations in the spotlight report.
  3. Once the property was inspected on 25 April 2023, the landlord’s contractor’s decision to ask the neighbour upstairs to report a possible leak was reasonable as they thought this may be the cause of the damp and mould. However, rather than cancelling the job at the resident’s property they should have ensured that an alternative plan was in place if no leak was found. It failed to do so. The landlord has confirmed that no leak was found in an inspection of the neighbour’s property the following day. However, because the job for the resident’s property had been cancelled the landlord took no further steps to try to find the root cause of the damp or to treat the mould in the resident’s property.
  4. It would also have been appropriate for the landlord to have communicated with the resident to update her on what action it was taking and the outcome of its investigation. However, it failed to do so. The resident has advised that she was not told about the possible leak from the flat above at the April inspection and had only been told that the cause could be poor insulation around the balcony. It is noted that when the job was raised the notes include a reference to there being a flat above. However, this was in response to one of a number of questions the resident was asked as part of raising the job, which was “What is above the ceiling?”
  5. The landlord stated in its complaint response that the resident had been informed about the possible leak, and that there was no mention of insulation in the contractors notes. However, the contractors notes are very brief and although they do not mention insulation, they also do not confirm that the resident was informed of a possible leak. Instead, they just confirm that the neighbour upstairs had been contacted. The notes also mention that a [named gentleman] had been informed of the outcome. However, it is not clear who the gentleman is. It is not a name that the resident recognised and the landlord did not make any enquiries during the complaint investigation to ascertain who the gentleman was.
  6. The landlord’s failure to continue with its investigations into the source of the damp and mould, or to take any steps to update the resident led to the resident wrongly assuming that the landlord was in the process of arranging further investigations when it was not. It was not reasonable to expect her to request a recall appointment when she had no idea that the job had been cancelled and was waiting patiently for the landlord to continue its work.
  7. The resident mentioned in her complaint on 23 November 2023 that she had contacted the landlord several times asking it to address the damp and mould. However, the records the landlord has provided are limited and it has not been possible to confirm the dates of any contact, although the repair records from 16 November 2023 mention that a job to inspect the damp and mould would be raised as a result of a call from the resident.
  8. At that point the mould had been in the property for 10 months and as such it would have been appropriate for the landlord to have inspected the property as a matter of urgency. However, it failed to do so and this resulted in the resident making a formal complaint on 23 November 2023.The landlord’s handling of the complaint will be discussed further in the complaint handling section of this report. The property was eventually inspected on 19 December 2023.
  9. Although the landlord took appropriate steps to apologise for some of its failings, it would also have been appropriate for it to pay compensation for the failings and the impact they had on the resident. This included considerable distress and inconvenience such as having to replace two sets of curtains that were ruined by the mould, worrying whether the mould was impacting the heath of her son and feeling upset that she couldn’t keep her home “looking nice”. In light of this impact, we will be ordering the landlord to pay compensation of £575. This is in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance for cases of maladministration where was a failure which adversely affected the resident, where the landlord has failed to address the detriment to the resident and its attempts to put things right were not proportionate to the failings identified.
  10. As the root cause of the damp and mould has still not been established, we will also be ordering the landlord to carry out an inspection of the property.

Complaint handling

  1. The Ombudsman’s complaint handling code states that landlord’s should provide complaint responses within 10 working days at stage 1 and within 20 working days at stage 2. The landlord provided its responses within those timeframes. However, we also expect landlord’s to carry out a thorough investigation, for information in the complaint responses to be accurate and for the complaint responses to show residents that their opinions and time are of value. The landlord failed to do so.
  2. The investigation at both stages largely consisted of the landlord emailing its contractor with details of the complaint, the contractor replying the same day with very basic details obtained from its repair records which were often just a sentence or two. The landlord then used that limited information to issue the complaint responses the next day. For this reason, its complaint responses lacked detail and did not give the impression that it had undertaken a thorough investigation. For example it mentioned that the job had been cancelled after the April inspection but did not fully explain why. It also apologised for the delay in carrying out the original inspection but did not explain the reason for the delay.
  3. The complaint responses also contained inaccuracies such as quoting the job number for the job that was raised in November 2023 whilst referring to the job that was raised in January 2023. It also stated that the resident had been informed of the possible leak upstairs at the April inspection, when the repair records did not support this.
  4. The landlord’s complaint responses also made reference to the complaint being “partly justified”. The Ombudsman does not consider the use of the word justified to be appropriate to describe a resident’s complaint as it could be interpreted to suggest that the resident’s complaint was either unreasonable or should not have been raised. The complaint handling failings caused additional distress to the resident and she advised the Ombudsman that the impression she got from the landlord’s responses was that it just did not care.
  5. In light of the failings identified above and the impact of those failings on the resident, the Ombudsman has made a determination of maladministration in respect of the landlord’s complaint handling. In line with our remedies guidance for cases where there was a failure which adversely affected the resident, we will be ordering the landlord to pay the resident compensation of £200. We will also be ordering the landlord to apologise for the failings and the impact on the resident.
  6. The landlord has already agreed to review its complaints policy and the use of the term “justified”, after concerns were raised in a recent case 202423479. Therefore, no further recommendations or orders have made in this report in respect of that.

Special report

  1. In January 2023, after concerns about the landlord’s complaint handling and compensation, the Ombudsman released a special report. The report made various recommendations to the landlord. Some of the issues identified in this case are similar to the cases highlighted in the report. It is disappointing that changes had not already been made at the time of this complaint in 2023. However, the landlord has committed to act on the recommendations in that report and also committed to introducing a new Damp and Mould strategy. Therefore, we have not made any orders or recommendations as part of this investigation, which would duplicate those that were made to the landlord in the special report.

Determination

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

Orders and recommendations

  1. Within 4 weeks of the date of this report the landlord is ordered to:
    1. Apologise for the failings identified in this report.
    2. Pay total compensation of £775, comprised of:
      1. £575 for the impact of its failings in respect of its handling of the resident’s reports of damp and mould
      2. £200 for the impact of its failings in respect of its complaint handling.
    3. Arrange a damp and mould inspection of the property. Should damp and mould be present in the property, provide a timebound action plan to the resident and the Ombudsman detailing the steps it intends to take to identify the root cause of the damp and mould, the remedial action it intends to take to resolve the damp and mould issue and when it will take this action.