Clarion Housing Association Limited (202447149)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202447149

Clarion Housing Association Limited

17 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

The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of damp and mould at the resident’s property.

Background

The resident is an assured tenant. The property is a 2-bedroom ground floor flat. It was a new build when the resident moved into it in January 2022. He lives there with his partner and young child.
On 17 November 2023 the resident told the landlord there was mould in the property. He explained he had taken steps to remove and prevent it, but it kept coming back. He was concerned for the health of his 1 year old child who he said had been “in and out of hospital on a regular basis with chest and breathing problems”. He asked the landlord to investigate if an underlying issue with the property was causing the mould.
The landlord inspected the property on 21 December 2023. Its operative found mould in a bedroom and told the landlord that it should:
1. Arrange for a surveyor to investigate the damp proof course to determine if that was the underlying cause of the mould.
2. Carry out mould treatment in the bedroom.
On 14 February 2024 the resident formally complained to the landlord that it had not completed either of these actions. He said it had offered to treat the mould but was “ignoring the root cause” of the problem.
On 22 March 2024 the landlord issued its stage 1 response to the complaint. It acknowledged and apologised for its overall delay in resolving the damp and mould problem in the property. It said:
1. It had delayed in responding to resident’s initial report of mould. It had originally intended to inspect the property on 22 November 2023, but failed to attend the appointment.
2. It failed to attend an appointment it had arranged for 20 February 2024 to treat the mould. It was 7 March 2024 before it attempted to treat it, although the resident said the treatment was not required as he had already cleaned the mould away himself.
3. It had surveyed the property on 7 March 2024 but had not yet resolved the underlying cause of the damp. It explained this was because:
  1. It had identified during an “end of defects” inspection in January 2024 that a defect in the cavity walls or damp proof course was the likely cause of the damp.
  2. The builder of the property was responsible for resolving such defects but it had gone into administration in August 2022.
  3. The landlord was therefore liaising with an agent of the builder and would appoint a new contractor to complete the required remedial work.
4. Its initial communications with the resident once it identified there were defects in January 2024 was poor. However, following its March 2024 survey, it had updated him about its proposed course of action and agreed it would update him “every 10 days or as needed”.
5. It was unable to estimate when it would complete the remedial work as it was still in the process of securing a new contractor, but it would keep the resident updated.
6. It had exceeded the 20 working day target, as set out in its complaints policy at that time, for issuing a stage 1 response.
The landlord apologised for all of the above failings and offered the resident £365 compensation.
The resident responded the same day and asked the landlord to escalate the complaint to stage 2. He said the main outcome he sought was for it to resolve the underlying cause of the damp and mould. However, he also wanted it to increase its compensation offer to reflect:
1. The detrimental impact the damp and mould had on his family’s mental and physical health.
2. That he had thrown away personal belongings damaged by mould.
3. That he had taken time off work to facilitate appointments.
On 7 June 2024 the landlord issued its stage 2 response to the resident’s complaint. It said:
1. It was satisfied its stage 1 response was “full, fair and reasonable in its findings and conclusions”.
2. It appointed the new contractor in late May 2024.
3. It expected the new contractor would develop a “scope of works” for the remedial work during June 2024.
4. It was unable to provide a date for when the contractor would then carry out the remedial work. As such, it recognised this was an “open action plan”. It would consider paying the resident further compensation for the delay once it had completed the work.
5. It was sorry for its delay in issuing the stage 2 response. It offered the resident £75 compensation for this.
In response to the resident’s request that it compensate him for damage to belongings, health, and loss of earnings, it said:
1. He should make a claim for damage to personal possessions through his home contents insurance. If this was unsuccessful, he should let it know. It would then consider directly compensating him.
2. If he did not have contents insurance, he could make a claim against its public liability insurance policy. He could also make a claim against this insurance policy for personal injury. It could not guarantee any such claim would be successful as its insurers would deal with it on a legal liability basis. It provided him with details of who to send the claim to and the information he should provide in support of his request.
3. It would not compensate him for loss of earnings due to having to take time off work to attend appointments. It only compensated residents if it failed to attend a pre-arranged appointment, and the amount was set at £15. It had already offered the resident £15 for each of the 2 prior appointments it had failed to attend.
On 16 June 2024 the landlord issued an addendum letter to its stage 2 response. By then it had received a list from the resident detailing the cost of personal items damaged by the mould, totalling £298. He provided photographs in support of this. In its addendum letter, the landlord said it believed he could have cleaned rather than disposed of some of the items. However, it said as a “goodwill gesture” it would reimburse him the full £298.
In February 2025 the resident referred his complaint to us. He told us that the landlord carried out external groundwork in December 2024 but it had not carried out any internal work. He said mould kept reappearing even though he regularly cleaned it away with mould wash. He was concerned about the impact of this on his child who had been “in and out of hospital because of respiratory illnesses caused by mould”. He told us the main outcome he sought was for the landlord to fully resolve the underlying cause of the damp and mould.
In May 2025 the landlord applied a mould wash treatment inside the property. By June 2025 it was satisfied it had resolved the complaint. It paid the resident an additional £800 compensation to reflect that it took an additional 15 months from the date of the stage 1 response before it had fully completed all the required internal and external work.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

When the resident referred his complaint to us, he said that the landlord’s delay in resolving the damp and mould in his property had damaged his family’s mental and physical health. He asked us to consider ordering the landlord to compensate him for this.
We have not done so. This is because compensation for such matters is best considered as part of a personal injury claim. Such claims are dealt with via insurance or the courts where independent medical experts are appointed to give an impartial view of the likely cause of any injury or illness. If the resident wishes to pursue this further, he may seek independent legal advice.

The landlord’s handling of damp and mould

When a resident reports damp and mould, we expect landlords to adopt a zero tolerance approach to tackling it. We expect them to:
1. Check the cause of the damp and mould right away.
2. Conduct thorough inspections in line with policy timeframes. In this case, the landlord’s damp and mould policy is not specific about what that timeframe should be. It states it will diagnose and resolve damp and mould in a “timely and effective manner”.
3. Complete effective repairs once the problem has been diagnosed. In this case, the landlord’s repairs policy requires it to schedule non-emergency repair appointments within 28 calendar days of an issue being reported.
4. Clearly explain intended action, timeframes and next steps to residents.
In its initial response to the resident’s report in November 2023 that there was mould in his property, the landlord failed to follow all of the above steps. For example:
1. When it first received the resident’s report, it arranged an appointment for the following week, but it failed to attend. It then delayed in rescheduling the appointment. In total it took 5 weeks before it carried out an initial inspection in December 2023. This was not a “timely” response. It was an inappropriate delay, particularly as the resident had told it that his one year old child had regularly been admitted to hospital with chest and breathing issues.
2. Following its initial inspection in December 2023, it identified that it should apply a damp and mould treatment and that a surveyor should conduct a more detailed inspection. In line with its repairs policy, it should have completed both these actions within 28 days. It failed to do so. It was 11 weeks later, in March 2024, before it attended the mould treatment and survey appointments.
3. It carried out a defects inspection of the property in January 2024 which identified damp and mould as an issue. It should reasonably have expedited the appointment of a new contractor, in place of the original builder, given the resident had by then reported his concerns about the mould. However, it gave the resident no assurances at that time it would do so and no indication of its intended course of action following the defect inspection.
4. It was 2 months later, in March 2024, before it told the resident it was treating the matter as a defect issue and was appointing a contractor to resolve it. By this time he had raised his formal complaint. That it took for him to complain before it communicated its intended course of action to him was unreasonable.
We are satisfied that the landlord appropriately acknowledged these failings through its complaint responses.
It provided a summary of events in its stage 1 response, starting with the resident’s report of mould in November 2023 up to the date of its stage 1 response in March 2024. It acknowledged its failings during that time. It apologised to the resident for the inconvenience caused by these failings and said it was sorry to hear of his child’s poor health. It offered him £365 compensation. We are satisfied this was a reasonable compensation offer based on the circumstances at that time. We have assessed compensation in more detail below.
The landlord said in its stage 2 response in June 2024 that it was satisfied the stage 1 response was “full, fair and reasonable in its findings and conclusions”. It acknowledged that since the stage 1 response was issued, it had not yet progressed the remedial work. However, we note that it asked the resident 3 weeks prior to issuing the stage 2 response if he wished it to attend the property again to carry out mould wash treatment. It was appropriate that the landlord offered the resident this support to control the mould pending it completing the remedial work. The resident declined the offer and indicated he was content at that stage to continue treating the mould himself.
The landlord only appointed the new contractor the week before it issued the stage 2 response. It said in the response that it anticipated the contractor would develop a “scope of works” in June 2024. It explained that it had put an “open action plan” in place, given it did not yet know when the contractor would then carry out the remedial work. This was reasonable as until the landlord knew what work was required, it was not in a position to commit to a timeframe.
If there are outstanding actions when the landlord issues a stage 2 response, its complaints policy requires it to “continue to track and monitor” the actions through to resolution. This is also a requirement of our Complaint Handling Code.
The development of a scope of works, and then the completion of that work, were outstanding actions at the date of the landlord’s stage 2 response in June 2024. We are satisfied it subsequently completed these actions. It has provided us with evidence which shows:
1. It carried out further surveys of the property in July and August 2024. It passed the information from the surveys to the contractor who developed the scope of works and agreed these with the landlord in late October 2024. While this was later than June 2024 as it anticipated in its stage 2 response, it subsequently compensated the resident for its further delays in completing the remedial work. We have assessed compensation in more detail below.
2. The remedial work involved reducing the ground level outside so that water would drain more effectively. The contractor carried out drill hole investigations in October 2024. It then commenced the work in early December 2024 and completed it 4 weeks later.
3. The landlord initially anticipated it would carry out some internal work on the cavity walls. However, it carried out a borescope inspection which “showed no blockage to the cavity”. It inspected the property in April 2025 and determined that the only internal work required, was a mould wash treatment.
4. The landlord encouraged the resident to agree to the mould wash treatment and explained it was “more in depth” than the treatment he had been applying himself. The resident accepted this offer and the landlord carried out the treatment in early May 2025, applying it to affected areas throughout the property.
5. The landlord contacted the resident 4 weeks after it had applied the treatment and asked if any mould had returned. He confirmed it had not, although said that it was difficult to know for sure it would not return given there had been a spell of dry weather.
Given this, we are satisfied that in line with its complaints policy, the landlord tracked and monitored outstanding actions at the date of its stage 2 complaint response through to resolution.
We acknowledge that the resident is concerned the landlord should have carried out internal work. He has explained to it that “the issue lies in the cavity of the wall on the back of the plasterboard”. However, it was reasonable for the landlord to rely on advice from its professional staff when determining that it would not carry out any internal work, and that only a mould treatment was required. It contacted the resident a month after it completed the mould treatment to check it had not returned. It has advised him that if it does return, he should let it know. This is appropriate advice.
Through its complaint responses, and once it completed the remedial work, the landlord offered the resident a total of £1,538 compensation. This comprised:
1. £300 at stage 1 for its delays between November 2023 and March 2024 in resolving the damp and mould, and also for its poor communications.
2. An additional £800 in June 2025 to reflect that it took an additional 15 months from the date of the stage 1 response, before it had fully resolved the complaint.
3. £50 at stage 1 and £75 at stage 2 for its delayed complaint responses.
4. £15 for the appointment it did not attend in November 2023. It had already paid the resident £15 shortly after it failed to attend an appointment in February 2024.
5. £298 to cover the cost of the personal belongings the resident told it he had thrown out due to the mould.
In line with our Remedies Guidance and the landlord’s compensation policy, we are satisfied that the above compensation amounts were reasonable.
The landlord initially offered the resident £300 for inconvenience caused by its delays and poor communication. However, it told him in its stage 2 complaint response it would pay further compensation once it had resolved the complaint.
By June 2025 it had completed the remedial work and checked with the resident that the mould had not returned following the treatment it had applied in May 2025. It then offered an additional £800 compensation which meant it followed through on the commitment made in its stage 2 response. We are satisfied that £1,100 was a reasonable level of compensation to reflect distress and inconvenience caused by the landlord’s overall delay and poor communications.
In his escalation correspondence, the resident asked the landlord to compensate him for loss of belongings, damage to health, and loss of earnings due to the time he took off work to facilitate appointments. The landlord provided him with appropriate advice about insurance, including details of how to make an insurance claim against it, in its stage 2 response.
The landlord also explained in the stage 2 response that it would not compensate him for loss of earnings due to having to take time off work to attend appointments. This was in line with its compensation policy which states it does not pay compensation for “a resident’s loss of earnings when taking time off work to allow access to their home for repairs to be carried out. This is an obligation in the tenancy agreement or lease.” It explained it only paid compensation when it missed an appointment and that this was a fixed amount of £15. It offered this amount of compensation for the missed appointments in November 2023 and February 2024. We are therefore satisfied its position in relation to compensation for loss of earnings was reasonable.
At the same time as the landlord issued its stage 2 response, it received evidence from the resident showing the cost of items he had thrown away due to the mould. This totalled £298. The landlord sent an addendum letter to the stage 2 response confirming it would pay him the full amount as a “goodwill gesture”. It was not obliged to pay this and could have advised the resident to make a claim for these items through its liability insurance if he felt it was responsible for the cost. However, it was reasonable that given the distress and inconvenience the resident had already experienced due to its acknowledged failings, it agreed to pay him the full amount.
Overall, we are satisfied the landlord offered reasonable redress to the resident’s complaint about its handling of damp and mould, prior to our investigation. It acknowledged and apologised for its failings, offered a reasonable amount of compensation, and carried out remedial work to address the underlying cause. While we acknowledge that only time will tell if this work has been successful, the landlord has appropriately advised the resident to let it know should the damp and mould return.

Determination

In accordance with paragraph 53.b of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord offered the resident reasonable redress in response to his complaint about its handling of damp and mould.

Recommendation

If the resident reports the mould has reappeared, the landlord should respond promptly and conduct further investigations into the cause. It should be particularly mindful of the fact a young child with health conditions lives at the property, and prioritise its response accordingly. If the resident is unhappy with its response, he may raise a further formal complaint.