Epping Forest District Council (202300969)

Background

1. The landlord inspected the property at some point in 2024. It identified repair issues which it needed to resolve. On 19 November 2024, the resident made a complaint to the landlord about its failure to progress the repairs.

What the complaint is about

2. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of repairs.
3. We have also assessed the landlord’s complaint handling.

Our decision (determination)

4. There was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of repairs.
5. There was service failure in the landlord’s complaint handling.

We have made orders for the landlord to put things right.

Summary of reasons

6. The landlord delayed unreasonably in raising several repairs it identified during its second inspection of the property in 2025. In its complaint responses, it told the resident these had already been raised, despite the evidence indicating otherwise. It has not provided evidence that it has since completed all the relevant repairs – over 6 months on from its stage 2 complaint response. While the landlord made a reasonable offer of redress for its failure to progress repairs following the initial inspection in 2024, it failed to acknowledge these later failings.
7. The landlord inappropriately excluded the resident’s initial complaint from its complaints process on legal grounds. This caused the resident to approach us for assistance and delayed her in accessing its complaints process. The landlord failed to acknowledge this in its complaint responses or make a reasonable offer of redress for it.

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.

Recommendations

Our recommendations are not binding, and a landlord may decide not to follow them.

Our investigation

The complaint procedure

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.

8. In its stage 1 complaint response, the landlord said that it had inspected the property “in 2024” and raised repairs. However,the landlord has failed to provide us with a record of this inspection. The repair logs it has provided also show only 2 repairs raised for the property in 2024, neither of which relate to issues relevant to this complaint.
9. The landlord acknowledged that it had failed to complete the repairs identified during its 2024 inspection. It said that it had recently completed a further inspection which had identified the same repair issues. The landlord has again failed to provide us with a record of this inspection. Landlords should have appropriate processes in place to make and maintain full records of property inspections, their findings and recommendations. It is of concern that the landlord appears not to have taken such an approach.
10. The landlord has provided us with an internal email dated 3 September 2025. In this email it asked its repairs contractor to raise repairs for the bedroom, lounge, bathroom and hallway of the property – including plastering and redecorating and removing asbestos from the ceilings. Based on the timing, it is reasonable to believe that these were the repairs identified by the second inspection referred to in its stage 1 response.
11. The landlord’s records show that, between 2 and 5 September 2025, it also raised repairs for the kitchen extractor fan, plasterwork on the bathroom ceiling and to install a ‘positive input ventilation’ (PIV) system. The timing of these would indicate they were also identified during its inspection.
12. The landlord completed the extractor fan repair on 8 September 2025, 4 working days after logging it. This was within the 30 working days its repairs policy allows for routine repairs. The bathroom ceiling repair was completed on 15 September 2025, also within this timeframe.
13. The landlord’s contractor did not install the PIV system until 31 October 2025. The landlord then took until 19 November 2025 to install and test the power supply to the system. While this was beyond the landlord’s routine repair timescale, the installation of such a system could not reasonably be considered a routine repair. It is evident part of the delay was due to the contractor needing to inspect and quote for the job and the landlord needing to arrange an asbestos survey for the area the work would be carried out in. Due to this, we do not consider the length of time taken to complete the work to be unreasonable.
14. Following its email to its contractor on 3 September 2025, the landlord chased the repairs up with its contractor on 14 October 2025 (after the retrofit assessment referred to in its stage 2 complaint response) and 24 November 2025. Its records show that it then raised the repairs to 2 alternative contractors on 28 November 2025. The reasons for this are unclear. This represented a delay of almost 3 months between the landlord’s inspection and it raising the required works. However, there is some mitigation in that it made attempts to chase up and expedite this with the initial contractor.
15. On 28 November 2025 the landlord also raised a repair to a roofing contractor to “provide costs for the investigation into leaks to the roof”. This was an issue which the resident had raised in her original complaint. The landlord said it had referred to a roofing contactor in its stage 1 response – issued on 5 September 2025. However, we have seen no evidence that it did so prior to this date.
16. The records provided by the landlord do not show whether any of the repairs raised on 28 November 2025 have now been completed. We have been unable to contact the resident to establish this. We have therefore made an order for the landlord to start these works, if it has not done so already.
17. In its stage 1 complaint response the landlord also said it would arrange “removal of kitchen units to treat the condensation related mould on the walls, if the units cannot be suitably refixed the kitchen will be upgraded.” We have seen no evidence that it ever raised or completed this repair. Due to this we have also ordered it to start this work.
18. In its stage 1 complaint response, the landlord offered the resident £100 compensation for its failure to complete the repairs identified by its 2024 survey. In its stage 2 complaint response, the landlord increased this to £250 in recognition of the distress caused to the resident.
19. While this represents a reasonable offer of redress for its failure to appropriately follow up the repairs from 2024, the landlord failed to acknowledge that:
    1. It significantly delayed in raising many of the repairs identified following its second inspection in September 2025.
    2. The evidence suggests it failed to raise the treatment of mould behind the kitchen cupboards at all, despite this featuring in its complaint response.
    3. Its stage 1 and 2 complaint responses referred to all repairs as having already been raised, when the evidence suggests they had not.
    4. The repairs were still outstanding at the point of its stage 2 complaint response, with no clear timeframe as to when they would be completed.

In addition, the evidence available does not suggest the landlord has yet completed these works– over 6 months after its stage 2 complaint response.

20.  Our finding of maladministration is due to the issues outlined above. Our order of £750 in compensation is in keeping with our compensation guidance for instances where a landlord has failed to acknowledge failings which have had a significant, but not permanent, impact upon a resident.
21. We note that it identified further repair issues during its visit on 14 October 2025. While these are outside of the scope of this investigation, we have recommended that the landlord incorporate these into its compliance with our order if they remain outstanding.

22. The resident first raised a complaint with the landlord on 19 November 2024. The landlord responded on 3 December 2024. It told her it was unable to accept her complaint as “our complaints process cannot be used for disrepair claims as these follow a legal process.”
23. The Code says that landlords may only exclude matters from their complaints process where legal proceedings have started. This is clarified as being when details of a claim have been filed at court. We have seen no evidence that the resident had done this. The landlord’s exclusion of the complaint was therefore inappropriate. This obstructed the resident’s access to the complaints process until our intervention some months later.
24. The landlord failed to acknowledge this within its stage 1 complaint response. It also failed to do so in its stage 2 response, despite the resident escalating her complaint partly on this basis.
25. The landlord acknowledged the resident’s stage 1 complaint on 19 August 2025, 5 working days after we wrote to it. This was in keeping with the timeframe set by its policy and the Code. It provided its stage 1 complaint response on 5 September 2025, 13 days after its acknowledgement. While this exceeded the 10 working days its policy and the Code allow, the detriment caused to the resident by this minor delay was limited.
26. The landlord provided its stage 2 complaint response 4 working days after the resident escalated her complaint. This was within the 20 working days its policy and the Code require.
27. Due to the landlord inappropriately excluding the resident’s initial complaint from its process, we found service failure. Our order that the landlord pays the resident £100 compensation is in keeping with our compensation guidance for a minor failure which the landlord has failed to acknowledge or put right.

Learning

28. The Code requires landlords to follow any remedy proposed as an outcome of a complaint to completion. Landlords should have appropriate processes in place to monitor repairs they have agreed to complete as an outcome of a complaint.

Knowledge information management (record keeping)

29. The landlord has failed to evidence that it created and maintained records of the 2 separate inspections it completed of the property. It is important that landlords appropriately record the findings and recommendations of such inspections in a consistent accessible format.

Communication

30. The landlord has not provided any evidence of its direct communications with the resident outside of its complaint responses. However, it is evident that, following the inspection in 2025, the resident was in direct contact with the surveyor who attended about the outstanding works. Providing a single point of contact, who is familiar with the case, is good practice and can reduce resident frustration at repeatedly explaining the situation to separate staff members.