GreenSquareAccord Limited (202506388)
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Decision |
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Case ID |
202506388 |
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Decision type |
Investigation |
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Landlord |
GreenSquareAccord Limited |
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Landlord type |
Housing Association |
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Occupancy |
Assured Tenancy |
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Date |
25 November 2025 |
Background
- The resident lives in a house with his wife and daughter. The resident and his daughter have asthma. In November 2024, he reported damp and mould in his home and said the landlord had failed to address the issue for several years. He also told the landlord the condition of his home was worsening his asthma.
What the complaint is about
- The complaint is about how the landlord responded to:
- Reports of damp and mould.
- The associated complaint.
Our decision (determination)
- We have found:
- Maladministration in how the landlord responded to reports of damp and mould.
- No maladministration in how the landlord responded to the associated complaint.
We have made orders for the landlord to put things right.
Summary of reasons
The response to reports of damp and mould
- The landlord did not take a consistent or proactive approach to resolving the long-running damp and mould, did not act with the urgency its own policies require, and did not communicate clearly about the steps being taken. These issues left the resident living with an unresolved problem for longer than necessary.
The response to the complaint
- The landlord responded to the complaint in line with the requirements set out in the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code.
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.
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Order |
What the landlord must do |
Due date |
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1 |
Apology order The landlord must apologise in writing to the resident for the failures identified in this report. The landlord must ensure:
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No later than 23 December 2025 |
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2 |
Compensation order The landlord must pay the resident £1,500 to recognise the distress and inconvenience caused by its poor handling of his damp and mould reports. This includes the £785 it offered during the complaints process. This must be paid directly to the resident by the due date. The landlord must provide documentary evidence of payment by the due date. |
No later than 23 December 2025 |
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3 |
Survey The landlord must provide the resident with a copy of the September 2025 survey and set out:
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No later than 23 December 2025 |
Our investigation
The complaint procedure
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Date |
What happened |
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February 2024 |
The resident reported a hole near the gas meter in the hallway, and said water entered his home through it. |
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May – June 2024 |
The resident reported damp and mould throughout his home. The landlord inspected the property and said it needed to carry out a mould wash in all rooms, replace missing roof tiles, replace the bathroom extractor fan, and install a ventilation unit upstairs. |
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29 November 2024 |
The resident raised a complaint. He said he had been waiting for the landlord to complete repairs to address the damp and mould in his home. He explained he had reported the issue for several years and each time the landlord sent a different surveyor, who gave a different view on the cause, no repair work followed. He said he kept chasing updates, only to be told the landlord had no record of his earlier reports. |
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5 December 2024 |
The landlord issued its stage 1 complaint response. It acknowledged the resident had been reporting damp and mould issues for several years, but said its complaints policy only allowed it to investigate matters up to 12 months prior. It accepted that the resident had contacted it on at least 7 different occasions in 2024 to chase repairs it had agreed to complete, and it apologised for not completing them. It confirmed it had scheduled the repairs for the following weeks. It offered the resident £670 in compensation for the distress and inconvenience caused by delays, missed appointments, and poor communication. It also said it shared complaint outcomes with department managers and reviewed trends to improve its service. |
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13 March 2025 |
The resident asked the landlord to escalate his complaint to stage 2 of the complaints process. He said that he remained dissatisfied with how it handled his concerns. |
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16 April 2025 |
The landlord issued its stage 2 complaint response. It confirmed it had completed the mould wash, upgraded the bathroom extractor fan, and installed a ventilation unit upstairs. It apologised for failing to replace the missing roof tiles it had agreed to in 2024 and said it would contact the resident to schedule the work within the next 7 working days. It increased its compensation offer to £785. |
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Referral to the Ombudsman |
The resident asked us to investigate because he felt the landlord had still not addressed the damp and mould in his home. He also said his kitchen cupboards were falling off the walls because of the issue, and the property was not insulated. |
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.
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Complaint |
The landlord’s handling of damp and mould in the property. |
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Finding |
Maladministration |
- The landlord’s decision to limit its review to 12 months was not appropriate in this case. Its records confirm damp and mould has been a longstanding issue, with problems acknowledged in 2014, 2016, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2024 and 2025. This history indicates an underlying cause that has not been resolved. Its damp and mould policy requires it to identify the cause and keep cases open until it has clear evidence that the problem is fixed, so it needed to understand the full repair journey. Its complaints policy says it does not operate a blanket exclusion and will consider complaints individually, applying discretion where there is good reason. A long-running pattern of damp and mould is exactly the situation where reviewing records beyond 12 months is necessary.
- By limiting its review to the previous 12 months, the landlord acted against its own policies, missed key context, and reduced its ability to address the problem in a way that meaningfully improved the resident and his household’s living conditions.
- There was a significant delay in repairing the hole in the hallway reported in February 2024, which the landlord did not complete until December 2024. Although there is no evidence linking this repair to the cause of the damp and mould, it formed part of the wider repairs the resident had been waiting on when he raised concerns about the condition of his home. When assessing how a landlord responds to failure, we apply the Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles of acting fairly, putting thigs right, and learning from outcomes. The landlord acted fairly by accepting the delay and apologising in its stage 1 complaint response, and it put things right by scheduling work, giving a firm date, and completing the repair as promised.
- However, it also said it would share the complaint with managers for learning, but the records show further delays to other repairs after this point. This suggests the landlord did not embed that learning in a way that improved its repair monitoring.
- The landlord also acknowledged delays in completing the works identified at the June 2024 damp and mould inspection, taking 6 months to carry out the mould wash, 7 months to upgrade the bathroom extractor fan and ventilation system upstairs, and 11 months to replace the roof tiles. While accepting these delays and eventually completing the works aligned with the ‘fair and ‘put things right’ principles, the resident still had to chase progress after the landlord had identified its failings. The landlord’s damp and mould procedure requires it to act with urgency and clearly and regularly communicate with residents. The continued delays and lack of proactive follow-up fell short of this approach and left the resident and his family living with damp and mould for longer than necessary.
- The resident told the landlord that he and his daughter have asthma, which increased their vulnerability to damp and mould. The landlord’s damp and mould procedure says people with pre-existing respiratory conditions are more sensitive to mould and may need additional support. There is no evidence the landlord reassessed its priorities or adapted its approach in this case. The absence of any targeted support or increased urgency fell short of the procedure and meant the landlord missed an important opportunity to safeguard a household who were more vulnerable to the effects of damp and mould.
- The landlord did not take a consistent or joined-up approach to diagnosing and resolving the damp and mould. Its damp and mould procedure requires it to undertake effective inspections and recognise that simply removing surface mould will not prevent the issue from reappearing. There was no evidence of a comprehensive assessment of the underlying cause since 2018, when it identified condensation, penetrating damp, and poorly insulated walls and proposed installing a data logger to determine the correct remedial works. This was postponed due to Covid-19, and the landlord has not shown that it followed it up, even though at one stage it was considering rehousing the resident because of the ongoing problem. The June 2024 inspection raised works, but did not explain the cause, so the landlord still lacked a clear understanding of the problem it needed to resolve.
- Although the records show a fuller survey was completed more recently in September 2025, which again pointed to issues with the external walls and listed potentially intrusive works, the resident told us he has not been given clear follow-up information about what has been agreed. The damp and mould procedure requires the landlord to communicate clearly with residents about the steps being taken and any timeframes for the work, but there is no evidence this happened. The resident also said a temporary move was mentioned during the inspection, but he received nothing in writing to confirm this or explain next steps. This lack of post-inspection communication means the landlord did not follow its damp and mould procedure and has left the resident uncertain about the plan to resolve the long-standing problem.
- Finally, the landlord offered the resident £785 in recognition of the distress and inconvenience caused by its failings. While this was a positive step, it does not reflect the duration or seriousness of the failings identified by this investigation. The damp and mould remains unresolved years after the first report, and the household’s asthma is an aggravating factor because it reasonably increases the worry and practical impact of continued delays. Under the Ombudsman’s Remedies Guidance, such circumstances justify a higher award. The guidance suggests £1,000 or more for situations involving significant impact over a long period. In this case, we have made an order for the landlord to pay the resident a total award of £1,500 to put things right.
- While the level of redress falls within the range often associated with severe maladministration, we have not made that finding here. The landlord engaged with the resident and took some steps to address the reported issues. Taking this into account, we have found maladministration in how the landlord handled damp and mould in the property.
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Complaint |
The handling of the complaint |
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Finding |
No maladministration |
- The Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (‘the Code’) sets out when and how a landlord should respond to complaints. Our findings are:
- The landlord has a published complaints policy which complies with the Code’s timescales.
- The landlord acknowledged the stage 1 complaint on the same day and issued its stage 1 response 5 working days later. This met the Code’s requirement to acknowledge within 5 working days and issue a full response within 10 working days of the acknowledgement.
- The landlord acknowledged the stage 2 complaint 6 working after it was raised, which was slightly outside the Code’s 5-day requirement. However, this short delay did not affect the overall handling of the complaint, as the stage 2 response was issued 20 working days later, keeping in line with the Code’s 20-day target.
- Both complaint responses were detailed and clear, addressed the issues raised and explained the landlord’s position, which showed good complaint handling.
- The landlord followed the Code in how it handled the complaint. We therefore have found no maladministration.
Learning
Scope of investigation
- The landlord could reflect on how it defines the scope of investigations in long-running cases, and when it is appropriate to exercise discretion to review a fuller repair history. This would help ensure important context is not missed where issues have developed over several years.
Communication
- There were no written follow-ups after inspections, which left the resident unsure about the findings and what repairs had been agreed. This information was only provided after the resident had raised his formal complaint. The landlord could reflect on how it confirms inspection outcomes in writing, so residents have a clear record of the next steps.