London Borough of Camden Council (202512741)

Background

1. The property is a flat on the 1st floor of a converted house. The resident and his wife are joint tenants and both registered disabled. The landlord has told us it is not aware of any vulnerabilities in the household.

What the complaint is about

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

Our decision (determination)

4. There was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of damp and mould.
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 arranging works to remove the redundant boiler flue it believed was causing damp. It also failed to follow up with the resident after the works. This meant that it failed to complete a mould wash as agreed, and to identify that it had not resolved the damp and mould in the property.
7. The landlord failed to acknowledge the resident’s complaint at both stages. Its stage 2 complaint response was provided significantly outside of its timescale, which it failed to acknowledge or offer redress for in the response itself.

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. The landlord’s stage 1 complaint response reviewed events from 22 February 2024. It explained that this was due to the resident’s previous complaint process covering matters up to that date. This was in keeping with our complaint handling code, which allows landlords to exclude matters from a complaints process if they have previously been considered under its complaints policy. Our investigation will therefore mirror this timeframe.
9. On 22 February 2024, the landlord inspected the property for damp and mould. It recommended a mould wash and raised a works order for this 2 working days later. The landlord’s repairs policy says that it will complete routine repairs within 20 working days. The landlord completed the mould wash on 12 March 2024. This was 13 working days after its inspection and in keeping with its policy’s timescale.
10. We have not seen any evidence the resident reported further issues with damp and mould until 7 November 2024. The landlord raised a works order for a new inspection on this date. It completed this inspection on 18 November 2024 – 8 working days later. This was an appropriately prompt response.
11. Based on its inspection, the landlord recommended a further mould wash and repaint of affected areas. Considering it had already done this earlier that year, and the mould had since returned, it would have been appropriate for it to investigate further.
12. Our Spotlight Report on damp and mould emphasises “the importance of focussing on an accurate diagnosis at an early stage”. The landlord has not evidenced that it made any attempt to diagnose the underlying cause of the damp and mould at this time.
13. The landlord took until 30 November 2024 to raise the works order for a further mould wash. This was 10 working days after its inspection. The landlord has not provided any explanation for this delay, which was unreasonable.
14. On 17 December 2024, the landlord attended to complete the mould wash. This was 12 working days after it had raised the works order, which was within its policy timescale. At this visit, the landlord found that the walls were “saturated” with water. It identified a redundant boiler flue in the exterior wall as the likely cause of this.
15. In its stage 1 complaint response, the landlord said that it had referred the matter internally. However, this had been sent to the incorrect team, and no action was taken. The matter was not progressed until the resident made his complaint over a month later. This indicates poor internal communication between the landlord’s staff. It would be reasonable to expect a team which receives a request relating to another service area to either pass this to the correct service area or advise the sender of their error. Neither appears to have been done in this case.
16. In its stage 1 response the landlord apologised for this ‘oversight’ and offered the resident £70 compensation. This was a reasonable amount for this single instance of service failure, which caused a delay of just over a month before it raised a works order to its gas contractor.
17. The landlord’s gas contractor attended on 7 February 2025, as the landlord had advised in its stage 1 complaint response. After this visit, the resident escalated his complaint on the basis that the gas contractor had told him “that there was no issue with the boiler/flue” and that “the problem cannot be fixed by them”.
18. This appears to have been a miscommunication between the resident and the gas contractor. The gas contractor’s notes recorded that the flue itself had been removed, and the hole sealed from inside, but that the outside terminal had been left in place. It said it was referring the matter back to the landlord for it to set up scaffolding and arrange for a “builder to seal and make good outside”.
19. The contractor also raised concerns about the exterior brickwork above the flue terminal being saturated as well. It said this indicated a potential roof leak. The landlord appropriately arranged a roof inspection which was completed on 19 February 2025 and did not identify any leaks.
20. In its stage 2 complaint response, the landlord said that it had inspected the property again on 4 March 2025. It wrote that following this it was “unable to establish if the cause of the damp was being caused by the redundant balanced flue”. Despite this, we have not seen any evidence that the landlord conducted further investigations to diagnose other potential causes. This would have been appropriate – particularly given its gas contractor had noted saturation of the wall above the point where the flue terminal was located.
21. The landlord offered the resident a further £300 compensation in its stage 2 complaint response. It said this was in recognition of the distress and inconvenience caused by living with damp and mould for a “considerable amount of time” as well as the “health risks and potential harm” this brought. We consider this to have been a reasonable offer of compensation, appropriate for the delays and failings up to that point. The landlord has told us that it paid this compensation to the resident in April 2025.
22. However, despite indicating it planned to remove the flue in its stage 2 response, the landlord failed to obtain a quote and raise a works order for this until 28 July 2025. This was a delay of over 3 months, which the landlord has not provided a reasonable explanation for. The landlord’s contractor invoiced it for the work on 28 July 2025, indicating it took a further month to complete this.
23. The landlord’s repairs policy categorises works where “scaffolding is needed” as ‘programmed repairs’. It does not provide a set timeframe for completing these but says that they will be “completed within an agreed timescale”. We consider the delay of 6 months between the landlord’s gas contractor’s inspection of the flue and its removal to be excessive and unreasonable. Particularly considering the landlord attributed damp in the property to its presence.
24. Additionally, the resident has disputed that the contractor removed the flue terminal from the exterior wall at all. On 3 December 2025, he provided us with current photos which appear to show it still present. The landlord has not provided sufficient evidence for us to be satisfied that this is not the case.
25. On 3 December 2025, the resident told us that the landlord had not contacted him regarding the damp and mould since its stage 2 complaint response. Our Spotlight Report on damp and mould highlights how “An aftercare programme can help landlords to quickly identify when matters have not been resolved without residents having to report the problem again”. As it was uncertain that the flue was causing the damp in the resident’s property, it would have been appropriate for the landlord to have followed this approach.
26. The landlord also failed to meet its commitment, made in its stage 1 complaint response, to reschedule the mould wash once the flue had been removed.
27. The landlord’s failure to resolve the damp and mould in the property and appropriately follow up with the resident since its stage 2 complaint response, means that we make a finding of maladministration. We have ordered the landlord to pay the resident a further £300 compensation for this. We have also ordered the landlord to have a surveyor conduct a damp and mould inspection of the property and confirm whether the redundant boiler flue has been removed from the exterior of the building.

28. The landlord’s complaints policy says that it will:
    1. Acknowledge stage 1 and 2 complaints within 5 working days.
    2. Provide its stage 1 complaint response within 10 working days of its acknowledgement.
    3. Provide its stage 2 complaint response within 20 working days of its acknowledgement.
    4. Provide the resident with an explanation and “clear timeframe for when the response will be received” when it needs an extension to the above timeframes.
29. The resident made his complaint on 21 January 2025 through the landlord’s online complaint form. The landlord’s website sent him an automated email saying that “a formal acknowledgement will be issued within 5 working days.” This wording suggests a written acknowledgement should have followed. We have seen no evidence that the landlord provided one.
30. However, the landlord’s complaints policy does not specify how it will acknowledge complaints. We note that in its stage 1 response the landlord said it had attempted to contact the resident by phone on 28 January 2025 – 5 working days after his complaint. We have made a recommendation above that the landlord clarifies this point.
31. The landlord provided its stage 1 complaint response on 6 February 2025. Whilst this was 12 working days after the resident made his complaint, we do not consider a delay of 2 working days to have caused significant detriment to him.
32. The resident requested to escalate his complaint to stage 2 on 18 February 2025. As with his original complaint, he did this through the landlord’s online form. He received the same automated email regarding a future acknowledgement. As with his original complaint, we have seen no evidence of the landlord providing this.
33. The landlord failed to provide its stage 2 complaint response until 15 April 2025. This was 40 working days after the resident had asked to escalate his complaint, well outside of its timescale. We have seen no evidence that the landlord contacted the resident to discuss an extension for its response, or when it expected to provide it.
34. The landlord failed to acknowledge or explain this lengthy delay in the stage 2 response itself, or to make an offer of redress for it. Due to this, we make a finding of service failure and order the landlord to pay the resident £100 compensation.

Learning

35. The landlord’s approach to damp and mould remedial works should include an element of aftercare to ensure it has resolved the issue to the resident’s satisfaction. This is particularly advisable in cases where the landlord is uncertain that it has correctly diagnosed the cause of the issues.

Knowledge information management (record keeping)

36. When providing information for this investigation, the landlord told us it was not aware of any vulnerabilities in the resident’s household. The resident has told us that both he and his wife are registered disabled and one of their children is asthmatic.
37. It is important for landlords to obtain and regularly update information on vulnerabilities of those living in its properties. Our Spotlight Report on Knowledge and Information Management found that where landlords failed to appropriately record resident vulnerabilities “wrong decisions were made, those most in need were not prioritised and residents were treated insensitively.”

Communication

38. The landlord has not provided us with any evidence of communication with the resident outside of its complaint responses. It is apparent from the complaint and responses that the landlord appropriately informed the resident of repairs appointments in advance.