Hyde Housing Association Limited (202335962)

Background

1. The resident lives in a property with her daughter and grandchild. She began raising concerns about the bedroom windows being draughty in November 2022 with the landlord. The landlord raised several repairs, but the issue remained. The issue remained outstanding following the resident’s complaint. We issued the landlord with a notice of material change in November 2025 based on the resident’s concerns of water ingress from the windows and health impact. The resident explains she has ongoing issues with the windows in the bedroom.

What the complaint is about

2. The complaint is about the landlord’s response to the resident’s:
   1. Reports of a draught from the bedroom windows.
   2. Complaint.

Our decision (determination)

3. We found maladministration in the landlord’s response to the resident’s:
   1. Reports of a draught from the bedroom windows.
   2. complaint.

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

Summary of reasons

A draught from the resident’s bedroom window

4. The landlord acknowledged some of its failings but not all we have identified during our investigation. Therefore, its offer of redress was not reasonable. The resident complained about multiple windows in the bedroom, but the landlord’s response seems to suggest a remedy to only one window. Its records do not make it clear when it replaced the window or whether the work met the promised timescales provided in its complaint response. While the resident confirmed that the landlord replaced one window in January 2025, we have seen evidence that the issue with draughts remained outstanding. The landlord failed to show that it considered the household’s vulnerabilities, even though the resident reported a health impact.

The complaint

5. The landlord failed to respond within the timescales set out in its policy. It delayed substantially in escalating the resident’s complaint from January 2024. Its inaction led to a significant delay in the complaints process. It acknowledged there was a complaint handling failing, but it did not take consideration of the full time period. It also did not consider all issues raised by the resident or explain why it had not. As such its offer of redress was not proportionate. Its response also did not fully address all the issues raised.

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.

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.

What we cannot consider

6. The resident raised concerns about the impact of the situation on her health. She explained it worsened the household’s asthma and led to her grandchild developing asthma. It would be fairer, more reasonable, and more effective for the resident to make a personal injury claim for any injury, or impact on health. The courts can deal with this type of dispute as they will have the benefit of independent medical advice to decide on the cause of any injury and how long it will last. We’ve not investigated this further. We can decide if a landlord should pay compensation for distress and inconvenience.
7. This investigation will focus on the period of time leading to the resident’s formal complaint until the landlord’s final response. In the interest of fairness, we may investigate the events following the landlord’s final response particularly where it made commitments to complete repairs in its response. The resident told us that the windows issue in the property continued into January 2026 causing draughts and water ingress. She also reported this to the landlord in December 2025, but this seems to refer to further repair concerns with the windows. The landlord’s complaint process did not consider this period. If the resident wants to pursue this, she may want to raise another complaint about the ongoing concerns.

What we can consider

8. The evidence shows that the landlord made several attempts to fix the draught between 2022 and 2024 which was appropriate. However, the issue continued. We see this in its repair records which shows some of the instances such as in October 2023, December 2023, and January 2024. As the issue continued to reoccur, the landlord should have investigated the root cause to try to resolve it much sooner. This was especially as the resident had explained there was an impact to health on vulnerable members of the household. The failure to do so was unreasonable.
9. The landlord’s records were also unclear. They did not explain which windows it repaired, where the windows were located or what the repair was. In some instances, its records referred to wooden windows, and in others, it referred to UPVC windows. It is unclear whether the bedroom complained of had both a wooden frame window and a UPVC window, or these windows were in separate rooms. This raises concerns with its record keeping.
10. The landlord explained internally in September 2024 that the draught kept coming in even after it filled the gaps from outside. It said this was from the top where vents had broken off and the other window did not close on the inside so there was a breeze no matter what, but again it did not specify the windows location. The landlord’s poor record keeping and lack of knowledge of the history of the repairs affected its further actions.
11. In its stage 2 response, the landlord acknowledged that there were delays, and communication issues. To put things right, it committed to replace the window in the resident’s property. Records show that it was aware of the need to replace a window from at least January 2024. It did not do so until a year later in January 2025. However, it did not provide reasons why it did not do so earlier. Additionally, while the landlord followed up on this commitment, the resident told us it did not complete it until 3 months after its stage 2 response. Its records provide no clarity on when it completed the replacement. This caused further frustration in addition to the one caused by its failure to follow on its stage 1 response, which it had acknowledged.
12. While delayed, the landlord met its commitment within its final complaint response. However, its efforts only seemed to focus on resolving the issue with one window in the bedroom. The resident complained about draughts coming from multiple windows. She was also concerned about a wasps’ nest outside the bedroom windows. As such, it should have looked to resolve the issue with both windows in the bedroom and any concerns with cracks identified by its pest control contractor. It is unclear what action it took around the other windows, and it failed to address fully the concerns which the resident raised in her escalation request.
13. Based on this the landlord’s offer of resolution was not reasonable and enough to put things right for the resident. The landlord’s repair records show that the resident raised another issue with the bedroom window on 3 February 2025 as there was still a draught after it had sealed the window. Its records say it attended 2 days after, in line with the timeframes in its repairs policy, and resolved the issue. It is however unclear whether the sealing works related to the second window, or the replaced window.
14. The resident also complained about the room’s temperature. She raised concerns about the radiators in the bedroom in her escalation in January 2024. We have seen no evidence that the landlord took any action to ensure the temperature remained at an acceptable and habitable level. This was inappropriate. The Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 (HFHHA 2018) says that a comfortable internal temperature is around 21 degrees. The resident reported the temperatures fell so low it affected her family’s health, suggestive of excess cold. Excess coldness is one of the 29 hazards mentioned within the Housing Health and Safety Rating System. The Decent Homes Standard infers an obligation on a landlord around such hazards.
15. The landlord had a statutory duty under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 to ensure the property is fit for human habitation and remedy any potential causes of such hazards within a reasonable period. The evidence suggests it failed to do so and this was inappropriate.
16. The landlord’s compensation policy explains it will pay up to £250 compensation for delays it considers to be low level. This is the same for low impact distress and inconvenience. It also says it will pay a maximum of £250 for a resident’s time and trouble. Had the landlord fully resolved all of the resident’s concerns promptly, we would have likely found its offer of £450 reasonable. However, as the issue around the draught continued into at least February 2025 and we have found additional failures to what it identified, we do not consider its offer reasonable.

17. The timeframes for responses to complaints within the landlord’s complaints policy mirror those within the Housing Ombudsman Code (The Code). The landlord provided its stage 1 response 11 working days outside the 10 working day timeframe explained in its policy. It has also not shown that it requested any extensions, or kept the resident informed around the delay in its response.
18. The landlord failed to escalate the resident’s complaint within a reasonable timeframe. She requested an escalation on 30 January 2024. It provided no acknowledgement but appears to have responded to the concerns she raised as its records show it raised works on the same date. She then continued to chase it and asked to escalate again on 31 May 2024 to the “third stage”. However, it did not provide an acknowledgement until 29 August 2024, over 6 months after her initial escalation request in January 2024. It also inaccurately said she had asked to escalate in June 2024. The landlord did not act in line with its policy as it failed to recognise, and act on the resident’s multiple requests for escalations and chase up emails.
19. The landlord provided its stage 2 response on 20 September 2024. This was a delay of over 7 months. This was significantly outside the 20 day timeframe provided in the landlord’s policy to respond at stage 2. The significant delay in its response was inappropriate and contributed to an unnecessarily prolonged complaint process and time and trouble to the resident having to chase this.
20. The resident also raised concerns about multiple windows in the bedroom which the landlord did not address. In her escalation she also raised concerns about a wasps’ nest outside her window which the landlord failed to address or evidence it raised as a new complaint. These were further failures by the landlord.
21. The landlord offered the resident compensation of £200 for its complaint handling failings and the resident’s “effort”. It is however unclear what it meant by effort. It is unclear if it meant effort in raising the complaint, or effort in continuously raising the repairs. This is another instance of concerns with its communication, and a lack of transparency. In this instance we have considered effort to mean the resident’s attempts around chasing the complaint response. This is due to the repeated nature of doing so for such a prolonged period of time.
22. The landlord acknowledged that it failed to escalate the resident’s complaint, and that it did not follow its complaints process. Its response however suggests that it only considered its failing from June 2024 and not from January 2024. Additionally, we have identified further failures as mentioned above. Based on this we find that there was maladministration and have ordered it to pay additional compensation.

Learning

23. We have identified the following learning points which the landlord’s service could benefit from:
    1. It should properly consider communications from residents. This will allow it to understand their aims and avoid unnecessary delays such as with its complaint handling in this instance.
    2. Where it is unclear what the resident seeks, it should clarify this with them. In this instance, the resident’s complaint was about multiple windows in the bedroom, but its remedy related to only one window according to its complaint response.
    3. It should follow its policies and procedures around complaint handling.
    4. It should provide clear explanations around its compensation offers and what each aspect relates to.

Knowledge information management (record keeping)

24. The landlord did not have sufficient records to provide enough detail to allow for identification of which items it completed works to or what works it completed. For example, in this instance, it was unclear if it had completed works to just one window in the bedroom or both windows. Doing so would also have allowed it to understand whether its complaint remedy was necessary for both windows, or, just one.

Communication

25. The landlord should ensure it provides prompt and appropriate updates to residents around any delays or outstanding issues with repairs.