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Guildford Borough Council (202325281)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202325281

Guildford Borough Council

19 August 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 an odour in her property.
  2. This report has also assessed the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

  1. The property that was the subject of the complaint is a 3-bedroom house. The landlord, which is a local authority, owns and manages it. The landlord let the property to the resident under a secure tenancy agreement in November 2020. The resident moved into temporary housing in November 2022, and then alternative permanent accommodation around September 2023. The landlord has recorded that one of the resident’s children has autistic spectrum disorder (ASD).
  2. On 30 October 2022, the resident contacted the landlord to report “a chemical type smell in the property” that was making her “feel unwell”. The landlord moved the household into temporary accommodation. The council’s environmental health (EH) service commissioned specialist contractors to run air and soil sampling tests. On 13 March 2023 the landlord informed the resident that it would need to carry out remedial works to prevent vapours entering the property. It stated that she would not be able to stay in the property while it took those measures, and offered her a permanent move.
  3. The resident raised a complaint on 2 May 2023. She said the landlord had still not given her any information about the air and soil sample tests. She added that she could not accept being moved permanently out of her home without any “proper evidence” the odour was “toxic” to her and her family.
  4. The landlord replied to the resident on 15 June 2023. It appreciated this had been a “very stressful situation” for her and stated that it:
    1. had kept her up to date with all the information that was available.
    2. was unable to provide the test reports as they were part of an ongoing investigation.
    3. had to carry out “extensive work” to the property to determine the cause of the odour and eliminate it.
    4. had asked EH to send her GP the relevant results from the sampling tests.
    5. understood she had accepted a permanent move to another property with the option to return to her previous one, if and when it was deemed habitable.
  5. The resident sent a stage 2 complaint to the landlord on 27 September 2023. She asked it for an update on the cause of the contamination in her property, which she said she had asked for “repeatedly”. She said she had been experiencing many different health symptoms and wanted to know what she and her children had been breathing in.
  6. The landlord sent the resident its stage 2 response on 5 March 2024. It outlined the actions it and EH had taken to identify the cause of the odour. It acknowledged the situation had been “very unusual” and summarised the findings of EH’s investigations. It added that it had:
    1. acted promptly to move the resident into temporary housing and engaging a specialist contractor.
    2. paid her a home loss payment in line with its decant policy, reimbursed her for all out of pocket expenses and covered all removal costs.
    3. fallen short when handling her complaint, which was due to staff shortages.
  7. The resident asked the Ombudsman on 9 September 2024 to investigate the complaint. She said that the landlord had not given her copies of the reports commissioned by EH. She said she needed to see the information to establish whether her ill health had been caused by her previous property. She added that if, according to the landlord, the property was “safe and not toxic”, she wanted to move back there “as promised”.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. The resident stated that her physical and mental health was adversely affected by the odour, and having to move into temporary housing. We acknowledge the serious nature of the resident’s concerns. However, we are unable to draw conclusions on the causation of, or liability for, impacts on health and wellbeing. Matters of personal injury or damage to health, their investigation and compensation, are not part of the complaints process. These are more appropriately addressed via the courts or the landlord’s liability insurer (if it has one) as a personal injury claim. We have, however, considered any distress and inconvenience caused to the resident as a result of any failings by the landlord.
  2. The activities of environmental health (EH) are separate to those of the council in its capacity as a social landlord. The Ombudsman is therefore unable to assess whether EH should have provided its reports to the resident in their entirety. This is because EH falls under the remit of the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO). The resident is able to refer any complaint about the actions and/or decisions of EH to the LGSCO for further investigation if she remains dissatisfied. Furthermore, she may be able to make a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to obtain those reports, and may wish to contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) for further advice.

Reports of an odour in the property

  1. We note the resident’s concerns and anxiety about the presence of a harmful odour in her property. However, the Ombudsman’s role is not to investigate the cause of the odour or the risks involved. Our role is to consider whether the landlord’s handling of the resident’s concerns was in accordance with its policies and procedures, and good practice. We have assessed whether it acted reasonably, taking into account what is fair in all the circumstances of the case.
  2. The Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS) sets the minimum standard for housing safety. It lists 29 common hazards, the impacts these can have, and the potential causes. This includes Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs). The Government’s HHSRS guidance states that some VOCs may cause short-term irritation and allergic reactions to the eyes, nose, skin and respiratory tract. Higher concentrations can result in headaches, nausea, dizziness and drowsiness.
  3. The evidence shows that the landlord reacted promptly to the resident’s reports on 30 October 2022. It inspected the property on 4 November 2022 and found that the “smell was most evident in the small WC”. As a precaution, it decided to move the household into temporary accommodation on 7 November 2022 until it could establish the cause of the odour. It liaised with EH, which quickly engaged specialist contractors to carry out investigations for possible contamination. Furthermore, it sent its heating contractor, on or around 7 November 2022 to investigate if there were any issues with the air source heat pumps. The landlord has demonstrated it had reasonably considered any potential risks. It is also evident it had responded to the resident’s reports in a timely manner, and with appropriate urgency.
  4. Furthermore, the landlord acted appropriately by ensuring the resident was supported by a single point of contact (SPOC) for the duration of her decant. The records show that the SPOC kept in regular contact with the resident and responded promptly to her enquiries, often on the same day. Furthermore, the evidence shows that, following the decant, the landlord took all reasonable steps to support the resident by:
    1. obtaining approval to source private rented accommodation when suitable social housing wasn’t available.
    2. ensuring the private landlord received the deposit and rent in a timely manner.
    3. making arrangements for the landlord to cover the shortfall in council tax for the private rented property.
    4. sourcing 3 available properties and viewing them to determine whether they would be suitable for the resident to move into permanently.
    5. ensuring its contractor fitted an additional toilet into the new property to meet her son’s needs.
    6. liaising with EH to obtain an independent assessment from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) of the risks from any possible contamination of the property.
    7. providing the resident’s general practitioner (GP) with the information it was able to share from the results of EH’s air and soil analysis tests.
    8. arranging reimbursement of costs associated with the resident’s stay in temporary accommodation.
    9. carrying out all necessary works to the new property to ensure it met the needs of the household.
    10. paying the resident a home loss payment of £8,000 in line with its decant policy.
  5. The resident had chased the landlord for the results of the air and soil samples several times between November 2022 and September 2023. However, internal communication records show that the SPOC did follow this up with the EH service on a number of occasions. The landlord made reasonable efforts to liaise between EH and the resident so it could provide as much transparency as possible about the ongoing investigations. The records show that the SPOC provided the resident with regular updates on the EH tests between December 2022 and June 2023. On 13 March 2023 the landlord told the resident on the same day it received information from EH that the specialist contractor had:
    1. not identified a significant presence of contamination on the site
    2. considered the development to be suitable for residential use.
    3. recommended sealing potential entry points for vapours and ventilating the property to remove the presence of any VOCs.
  6. The landlord acted appropriately by managing the resident’s expectations and explaining that the remedial works would take a long time. It told her that she would have to move permanently, and gave her the option to either bid or accept a direct offer. Furthermore, despite paying the resident a home loss payment, it also gave her the option of moving back into her previous property if and when it was deemed habitable. In this way the landlord went over and above what would normally be expected. The landlord also made reasonable efforts to manage her expectations by explaining that it could not guarantee that her previous property would become available again. We have therefore found there was no maladministration in its response to resident’s reports of an odour in her property.

Complaint handling

  1. The landlord’s complaints policy sets out a 2 stage formal complaints process. This states that it will:
    1. acknowledge all complaints within 5 working days.
    2. respond to stage 1 complaints within 10 working days.
    3. respond to stage 2 complaints within 20 working days.
  2. The policy also states that if it cannot respond within 10 (or 20) working days it will explain the reason for the delay and give an expected response date. This should not exceed a further 10 (or 20) working days without good reason. It adds that it will agree suitable intervals for keeping the resident informed about their complaint and will provide them with the Ombudsman’s contact details. This is broadly in line with the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code).
  3. The landlord has not provided any evidence to show it acknowledged the resident’s initial complaint, or her escalation request. It took 30 working days to respond to the resident’s stage 1 complaint, and 111 working days to issue its stage 1 response. There is no evidence the landlord made any attempt to contact the resident to let her know its response would be late. It did not explain the reasons for the delay or agree suitable intervals for keeping the resident informed about her complaint. This was a departure from the Code and its complaints policy. Its excessively protracted complaint handling, and poor communication would likely have caused the resident avoidable distress and inconvenience.
  4. The landlord acknowledged its poor complaint handling in its stage 2 response. It explained that lack of resources had impacted staff’s ability to respond on time to complaints. The Ombudsman recognises that social landlords have limited resources and that staff shortages can stretch these and interrupt its service delivery. However, we do not accept this was a good enough reason to account for the extent of the failure. The landlord could have taken other action to reduce the impact on the resident. For example, best practice would have been, as defined in section 5.15 of the Code (2022), for the landlord to “provide the Housing Ombudsman’s contact details so residents can challenge the landlord’s plan for responding and/or timeliness of a landlord’s response.
  5. The Code requires landlords to undertake thorough complaint investigations and to address all aspects of a complaint. The resident raised concerns that the landlord had not provided her with the results of the air and soil sample tests that EH had arranged. There is an internal record from 29 January 2024 showing that the landlord had asked EH on several occasions if they could release their reports and/or explain the results to the resident. The record indicates that the landlord was unable to provide the reports because EH had not made them available. The landlord ought to have explained this to the resident as part of its complaint response. It is unclear why it had not done so. That it had not responded to this part of her complaint was a failing.
  6. The landlord acknowledged in its stage 2 response that its complaint handling was poor. It also provided an explanation for this. However, considering it had departed from its complaints policy, it ought to have offered the resident some redress to recognise the likely impact of its failings. For this reason, we have made a finding of maladministration and will order the landlord to pay £200 to the resident to put things right.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was no maladministration in the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of an odour in her property.
  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 of the date of this determination, the landlord must:
    1. Apologise to the resident for its poor complaint handling in line with our guidance on making apologies. The apology should come from a senior member of staff.
    2. Pay the resident £200 compensation in recognition of the distress and inconvenience caused by its poor complaint handling.
  2. Within 8 weeks of receiving this report the landlord to review its complaint training. This must emphasise that complaint handling staff must contact residents whenever it expects there to be delays in issuing responses, and agree revised timescales wherever appropriate. It must also emphasise the importance of providing the resident with the Ombudsman’s contact details when it is unable to respond within the timescales set out in the Code. The landlord must provide the Ombudsman with details of its review, and any changes it has made to its service within 10 weeks of receiving this report.