London Borough of Hackney (202301532)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202301532

London Borough of Hackney

2 December 2024

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

The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s:
1. Reports of damp and mould.
2. Housing application and requests to move.
3. Associated complaints.

Jurisdiction

What the Ombudsman can and cannot consider is called the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. This is governed by the Scheme. When a complaint is brought to us, the Ombudsman must consider all circumstances of the case as there are sometimes reasons why a complaint will not be investigated.
Paragraph 42.j. of the Scheme says that the Ombudsman may not consider matters which fall within the jurisdiction of another Ombudsman.
Part of the resident’s complaints to the landlord were about its handling of her housing application and requests to move. Such matters fall within the jurisdiction of the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO).
When the resident brought her case to the Ombudsman, one of the resolutions she wanted was for the landlord to move her. It is not within the Ombudsman’s authority to provide this outcome and we cannot make any orders to that effect.
We are satisfied that the landlord told the resident, during its complaint process, that she could refer the matters of its handling of her housing application and requests to move to the LGSCO. As such, we have decided that the resident’s complaint about those matters is outside of the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.

Scope of investigation

Paragraph 42.c. of the Scheme says that the Ombudsman may decide not to consider matters that were not brought to a landlord’s attention as a formal complaint within a reasonable period. A reasonable period is normally within 12 months of the matter arising.
The evidence seen shows that the resident had reported leaks from the flat above into her bathroom and hall at least 4 times between 13 September 2012 and 18 January 2019.
The landlord had attended each time to repair lights and had inspected for damp and mould on 18 December 2014. It raised 3 orders to treat damp and mould between 17 June 2015 and 15 September 2015 which were all later cancelled. It is not clear why.
In May 2017, the landlord had visited the flat above after the resident reported a leak affecting her bathroom and hall. In July 2018, it had inspected damp and mould again and carried out repairs including mould treatments.
We have seen no evidence that the resident had complained to the landlord about those historic leaks and damp and mould. As such, we have not investigated or assessed the landlord’s handling of those reports. The scope of this investigation is the leaks, damp and mould that the resident reported from 6 January 2022.
Paragraph 35.b. of the Scheme says that the Ombudsman can decide that a complaint is duly made when it has exhausted the landlord’s complaint process.
We accepted the resident’s complaint for investigation on 28 August 2023. In December 2023, the resident made a second complaint which included the landlord’s handling of damp and mould. The resident’s second complaint completed the landlord’s complaint process in May 2024.
We are satisfied that the subject of the resident’s second complaint is a continuation of the damp and mould and that the landlord has had an opportunity to consider the matter through its complaint process. As such we have investigated and assessed the landlord’s handling of the second complete as part of this case.

Background

The resident is a secure tenant. She lives in a 2 bedroom first floor flat with 2 adult children and her younger son. The resident and her adult daughter are disabled and 3 members of the household have health conditions including asthma, hypertension, and mental health issues. The resident was represented by her son during our investigation.
The landlord is a council which owns and manages the resident’s flat and the block it is in.
On 6 January 2022, the resident reported mould in various rooms. The landlord inspected the mould on 24 January 2022. It raised orders with a contractor to investigate the leak and to remove the affected ceilings in the resident’s flat and replace them when water damage had dried out.
The resident’s son made a formal complaint via the landlord’s website on 21 September 2022 which said:
1. A surveyor had inspected in January 2022 after a leak from the flat above.
2. No repairs had been done and his calls to chase progress had not been returned.
3. A disabled person lived in the home and the damp and mould was getting worse.
The landlord acknowledged the complaint via email on 22 September 2022 and chased its contractor.
On 23 September 2022, the resident called the landlord to report water coming through her bathroom light. The landlord raised a job for a contractor to attend and ‘make electrics safe’. The landlord’s repair records indicate that a contractor attended the same day and marked the job as completed. It is not clear what action was taken other than the contractor spoke to the neighbour above from Flat 12 who was unaware of a leak, but they were happy for someone to visit and investigate further.
On 13 October 2022, the landlord’s contractor renewed blown tiles around bath and installed a new bath panel in the flat above. It inspected the resident’s flat to quote for the repairs needed on 19 October 2022.
The landlord issued its stage 1 response via post on 20 October 2022. It said:
1. It had raised repair orders on 24 January 2022 but its contractor had a backlog which had delayed the work needed.
2. The contractor had recently inspected and the landlord was expecting its specification for the work. It would then give the contractor an order to do it.
3. It would monitor progress until the repairs were done.
4. It was sorry for the delays and offered £410 compensation.
On 30 November 2022, the resident’s son emailed the landlord to confirm he remain dissatisfied. He noted that he had not received the previous complaint response until he called the landlord to chase it up. The resident’s son highlighted that the proposed repairs had still not been done. He said the family had been living with damp and mould since January 2022 and it could affect the family’s health conditions, particularly the vulnerable members of the household. The resident’s son explained that there was water coming from the bathroom light on numerous occasions. He said the landlord’s explanation of the delay was not reasonable and it should have done more to make sure the repair was done. He did not consider the compensation offered to be adequate.
The resident gave the landlord her consent for her son to represent her regarding any tenancy matters on 5 December 2022.
On 16 December 2022 the resident’s son emailed the landlord asking if his mother’s complaint had been escalated. The landlord replied saying it had not escalated the complaint because his email (of 30 November 2022) had not asked it to. It had passed his email on to a manager to contact him as he had asked.
The repair work started on 19 December 2022. Later that day, the resident’s son emailed the landlord asking for the complaint to be escalated. He said that, although repairs were being done, “it does not reverse the damage caused”. The landlord acknowledged it had escalated the complaint the following day.
The repairs were completed on 5 January 2023.
The landlord gave its stage 2 complaint response on 9 January 2023. Relevant to this case it said:
1. It had tried to call him to discuss the complaint but he had not returned the call.
2. It understood that the repairs had been done and would arrange an appointment to inspect the work.
3. It was sorry for the delay in doing the repairs and resolving his complaint. It offered £610 compensation
4. He should get in touch if he wanted to make a personal injury claim against it.
The landlord inspected the repair work on 24 January 2023 and raised orders for follow on work to refit lights and paint some internal doors.
The resident’s son brought her complaint to the Ombudsman on 14 April 2023. He was dissatisfied with the time taken for the repairs to be done and said that the follow on work was still outstanding. He was dissatisfied with the time taken to resolve the complaint and the compensation the landlord had offered.
The resident’s son made a second complaint to the landlord on 5 December 2023. While this complaint was mostly about the family’s need for rehousing, he also complained about the condition of the property due to damp and mould.
The landlord gave its stage 1 response to the second complaint on 3 January 2024. Relevant to this case, it said:
1. He had reported damp and mould in January 2022 and the landlord had completed repairs in early January 2023.
2. The damp and mould had come back and it had inspected on 27 January 2023. It had asked a different contractor to quote for the work needed and had received its quote on 26 May 2023.
3. The repairs had been done during the week of 18 December 2023.
4. It agreed that there had been unreasonable delays in repairs being done on both occasions.
5. It apologised and offered £500 compensation.
The resident’s son asked for the second complaint to be escalated on 21 March 2024. Relevant to this case, he was dissatisfied with the landlord’s response regarding the damp and mould and said that the property had not been fit for habitation for 2 years. He also alleged that the officer that dealt with the complaint at stage 1 had put the phone down on him and failed to return his calls.
The landlord gave its stage 2 response to the second complaint on 30 May 2024. Relevant to this case it said:
1. His complaint about damp and mould was with the Ombudsman and it had not included it in its stage 2 investigation.
2. It would, however, honour the £500 compensation it had offered at stage 1.
3. Its stage 1 response had been late and it had not kept him updated as it should have done. Its stage 2 response had also been late.
4. The officer that dealt with the complaint at stage 1 had passed his messages on to a manager as he had asked. It was sorry the manager had not called him back.
5. It was sorry for the delays in its complaint responses and offered £60 compensation.
On 7 June 2024, the resident’s son reported damp and mould again. The landlord has informed this Service that an appointment was made for 12 June 2024 but was subsequently closed due to ‘no access’. The resident disputes that a contractor called him or attended that day.

Assessment and findings

Handling of reports of damp and mould

The scope of this investigation is 2 periods when the resident’s home was affected by damp and mould. The first was between 6 January 2022 and 5 January 2023 and the second was between 24 January 2023 and 18 December 2023.
It is not disputed that the landlord is responsible for the repairs needed to resolve the damp and mould. The focus of our investigation was whether the landlord had responded to the resident’s reports appropriately and kept her informed.
The landlord has a responsibility under the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS), introduced by the Housing Act 2004, to assess hazards and risks in its homes. Risks from damp and mould fall within the scope of the HHSRS. When damp and mould are reported, the landlord is required to consider if they amount to a hazard that it would be obliged to remedy.
In October 2021, the Ombudsman published a spotlight report on damp and mould which highlighted the common failings we had seen in our casework and made recommendations for landlords to consider. The landlord had assessed itself against our recommendations and introduced a new approach to responding to reports of damp and mould from December 2022.
After the resident reported damp and mould on 6 January 2022, the landlord inspected within 12 working days. We have not seen a survey report completed at the time or seen evidence that the landlord assessed whether the damp and mould could be a hazard under the HHSRS.
The available evidence suggests that the landlord had identified that the damp and mould was being caused by a leak from the flat above. It was appropriate that the landlord raised an order with its contractor for the leak to be investigated and for interim repairs to be completed to help dry out the affected areas of the resident’s flat. The order was later cancelled by the landlord before the repairs were completed.
The landlord did not provide us with its repair policy that was in place at this time so it is not clear what its policy timescale for responding to such repairs were. Given the nature of the disrepair, we would have expected the landlord to have considered the repairs needed with some degree of urgency.
The landlord’s repair records show that the works order was cancelled on 2 July 2022 but do not explain why. Later emails exchanged between the landlord and its contractor suggest that the contractor may have returned the order because it did not have the capacity to do the work.
We would have expected the landlord to have had arrangements in place to monitor the activities of its contractor and to have known when the contractor decided it could not do the work. We would have expected the landlord to have taken steps to make sure the repairs were done within a reasonable timescale.
However, we have seen no evidence that the landlord was monitoring the order or took any steps between 26 January 2022 and 21 September 2022 (when the resident complained) to make sure the work was done. This was a significant failing and contrary to the landlord’s obligations to make sure repairs are done within a reasonable timescale.
It was appropriate that the landlord attended on 23 September 2022 when the resident reported water coming through her bathroom light fitting. Its attendance to make safe on the day of the report was in line with what we would expect for such a repair.
While the landlord chased its contractor from 23 September 2022 after receiving the resident’s complaint, the leak from the neighbour’s flat was not repaired until 13 October 2022. This was over 8 months after the landlord had inspected on 24 January 2022. This was not a reasonable timescale and meant that the resident continued to be affected by the leak and the damp and mould it caused in the meantime. Although outside the scope of this investigation, the landlord has failed to address if its contractors took reasonable steps to make the electrics safe in the bathroom following the resident’s reports of leaks through the light fitting in 2022. The landlord has been asked to investigate this matter and provide an additional response.
There was then a further delay in the resident’s flat being repaired when the contractor queried whether an asbestos test was needed around October 2022. This suggests a lack of planning on the landlord’s part as it should have considered whether an asbestos test was needed before placing any order that may have involved the disturbance of asbestos containing materials (ACMs).
An asbestos test was done on 5 December 2022 which confirmed there were no ACMs in the rooms where repairs were needed. While the landlord did pass this onto the contractor promptly after receiving it, the landlord’s failure to arrange the test sooner caused an avoidable delay.
It meant that the work to repair the damage caused by the leak and treat the mould did not start until 19 December 2022 which was over 11 months after the resident had reported the issue. This timescale was not reasonable and could have been avoided if the landlord had not mishandled the repair.
The repair work finished on 5 January 2023. However, the damp and mould had returned by the time the landlord inspected the completed work on 24 January 2023. It was reasonable that the landlord asked a different contractor to inspect and give a quote for work needed to resolve the damp and mould.
By this time, the landlord had introduced its new approach to responding to reports of damp and mould. Part of this new approach was a commitment to include photographs in survey reports and risk assess damp and mould cases.
However, we have seen no evidence that a survey report or risk assessment was completed at any point, despite the surveyor’s visit on 24 January 2023. This casts doubt on whether the landlord’s new approach had been implemented effectively. The landlord should consider whether it has sufficient assurance that its revised procedures are being followed as intended.
The evidence seen suggests that the landlord did not receive its contractor’s quote until 4 months later on 26 May 2023. Further, the work did not start until 18 December 2023 which was almost 11 months after the landlord had inspected on 24 January 2023.
We have seen no evidence to account for this delay and the landlord gave no explanation for it in its responses to the resident’s second complaint. We have seen no evidence that the landlord was monitoring the repair or took any steps to secure the quote it had requested or ensure the repairs were done. This was another significant failing and was, again, contrary to the landlord’s obligations to make sure that repairs are done within a reasonable time frame.
Nor have we seen any evidence of the landlord keeping the resident informed at any point. This was a failing which contributed to the resident making the second complaint on 5 December 2023.
The resident reported damp and mould again on 7 June 2024 and the landlord made an appointment to inspect on 12 June 2024. This was in line with the landlord’s current commitment to inspect within 5 working days of receiving a report of damp and mould.
However, the landlord has stated that the inspection was not completed due to ‘no access’ and the works order was closed. The resident disputes that a surveyor called or attended that day. Given the history of damp and mould at this property and the landlord’s knowledge of the household’s vulnerabilities, we would have expected it to have made further attempts to arrange an inspection. This Service has seen no evidence that it has done so.
Overall, the resident’s home has been affected by damp and mould almost continuously from 6 January 2022. There were avoidable delays in the landlord addressing the leak that caused the damp and mould initially and the repairs needed in the resident’s home. The second period of damp and mould may have been avoided if the landlord had responded appropriately to her report of 6 January 2022.
The landlord’s failings amount to severe maladministration in its handling of the resident’s reports of leaks, damp and mould.

Handling of the associated complaints

The landlord has a 2 stage formal complaints process. Its policy says it will acknowledge complaints within 5 working days. It will respond to complaints at stage 1 within 10 working days and complaints at stage 2 within 20 working days.
The first formal complaint was made by the resident’s son via the landlord’s website on 21 September 2022. Although they did not specifically highlight that they were raising the complaint on their mother’s behalf, the landlord should have identified that the resident’s son was not a named tenant and asked them to complete a consent form to enable them to raise a complaint.
The landlord’s complaint records show it called the resident on 22 September 2022 but it is not clear whether the officer had spoken to the resident or her son. That call was a missed opportunity for the landlord to find out that the resident’s son was helping her to resolve the repair issues and had made the complaint on her behalf. The landlord sent a complaint acknowledgement email to the resident’s son’s email address.
Although the landlord acknowledged the complaint within its policy timescales, its stage 1 response was issued 20 working days after it had acknowledged the complaint. As such its response was later than the timescale given in its policy and required by the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code). The complaint response was also sent by post. The landlord identified that the resident’s son was not a named a tenant so did not send a copy to his email address. This was inappropriate. The landlord should have emailed the resident’s son to explain the issue, ask them to complete a consent form and confirm that a response had been sent by post.
It was appropriate that the landlord upheld the complaint and offered compensation for the acknowledged delay in resolving the damp and mould.
However, it would have been reasonable for the landlord to have better explained why nothing had been done to resolve the damp and mould for almost 9 months until it had received the complaint. The landlord’s explanation that its contractor had a backlog was not an adequate explanation.
It would have been reasonable for the landlord’s response to have said that it had repaired the leak in the flat above. This would have given reassurance to the resident that the leak had been resolved. It would also have been reasonable for the landlord to have given an anticipated timescale for doing the repairs identified by its contractor.
The landlord sent its stage 1 response to the resident. This meant her son was not aware that a response had been given until the landlord sent him a copy on 28 November 2022. This delay would have been avoided if the landlord had identified sooner that the son was acting on his mother’s behalf.
The landlord should have recognised the resident’s son’s email of 30 November 2022 as a request to escalate the complaint. The email clearly expressed dissatisfaction with various aspects of the landlord’s stage 1 response. The landlord could have contacted him to clarify his mother’s wishes regarding escalation. In not doing so, the landlord missed an opportunity to progress the complaint.
While the landlord missed opportunities to do so sooner, it was appropriate that it sought written consent from the resident for her son to act on her behalf. This meant that from 5 December 2022, the landlord had her authority for it to deal with her son regarding matters relating to her tenancy.
At this point, it would have been reasonable for the landlord to have contacted the resident’s son to clarify whether it should consider his email of 30 November 2022 as an escalation request. It did not do so and it missed a further opportunity to recognise the escalation request when the resident’s son emailed on 16 December 2022 asking whether the complaint had been escalated.
The son’s email of 16 December 2022 should have left the landlord in no doubt that he wanted the complaint to be escalated. Its response, that it had not escalated the complaint because he had not asked it to, was inadequate.
Further, it was inappropriate that the landlord still did not escalate the complaint until the resident’s son specifically asked it to do so in an email on 19 December 2022.
Part of the resolution that the resident’s son asked for in his email of 30 November 2022 was to meet with a manager to discuss the landlord’s handling of the damp and mould. Emails exchanged between the landlord and the resident’s son on 16 December 2022 and 20 December 2022 show the landlord had acknowledged his request and had committed to arranging a meeting.
Similarly, we have seen internal emails exchanged between the landlord’s officers between 16 December 2022 and 3 January 2023 asking for the relevant manager to arrange a meeting with the resident.
However, we have seen no evidence that a manager ever contacted the resident’s son to arrange a meeting. Nor have we seen any evidence that a meeting took place. The resident’s son told us he had heard nothing further about his request to meet with a manager after he had confirmed his preference for a face to face meeting on 23 December 2022. The same pattern was repeated in 2024 when again the landlord failed to arrange for a manager to contact the resident’s son to discuss the complaint. This was a failing by the landlord.
The landlord gave its stage 2 response, of 9 January 2023, 25 working days after the resident’s son had expressed dissatisfaction with the landlord’s stage 1 response. Allowing for the 5 days within the landlord’s policy for it to acknowledge an escalation request, this meant the response was given within the 20 working day timescale in its policy.
However, the landlord’s stage 2 response was inadequate. While the repairs had been completed on 5 January 2023, the resident’s dissatisfaction was about the time it had taken for this to happen and the landlord’s consideration of the vulnerabilities within the household. The landlord did not address those matters in its response.
Nor did it address the request to meet in person with a manager. This was a missed opportunity for the landlord to realise that no meeting had been arranged.
It was not reasonable that the landlord’s stage 2 response referred to the resident’s son not returning its call to discuss the complaint. It had tried to call him on 6 January 2023 and left him a voicemail. The landlord then gave its response on 9 January 2023. This meant the resident’s son had only 1 working day to return its call before it sent its response.
We understand that the landlord wanted to give its stage 2 response within its policy timescale. However, it was not reasonable for the landlord to blame the resident’s son for not being able to discuss the complaint with him before responding.
It could have arranged to speak with him at any point from having the resident’s consent to do so on 5 December 2022. Further, it would have spoken to him if it had fulfilled the commitment it gave (on 20 December 2022) to arrange a meeting with a manager.
There were further issues with the landlord’s handling of the second complaint made by the resident’s son on 5 December 2023.
It was reasonable that the landlord spoke with the resident’s son on 6 December 2023 to clarify the complaint and the resolutions he was asking for.
However, its stage 1 response was given 18 working days after it had received the second complaint. We have seen no evidence that the landlord had agreed an extension to the response timescale with the resident. Nor did it acknowledge the delay in its response and explain why it had happened. As such, its response was not given within the timescales set out in the landlord’s policy or the Code.
The landlord’s stage 1 response acknowledged that the resident’s son wanted an explanation of why it had taken 9 months for the damp and mould to be addressed after it had been inspected in January 2023. Despite this acknowledgement, the landlord gave no explanation.
It should have explained why it had taken from 27 January 2023 until 26 May 2023 for it to get a quote from its contractor. Similarly, it should have explained why it had taken until 18 December 2023 for work to start.
It was appropriate that the landlord acknowledged that there had been delays in it addressing the damp and mould. It was appropriate that the landlord upheld this part of the second complaint and offered compensation.
The landlord gave its stage 2 response, of 30 May 2024, 47 working days after it had received the resident’s son’s escalation. It was reasonable that the landlord’s stage 2 response acknowledged the delays with both of its complaint responses, its failure to arrange a manager to contact him and offered compensation.
In this response, the landlord also gave an explanation of why its complaint responses had been late. Part of the explanation given was the time taken for its service teams to provide information it needed to respond. The landlord should consider how it can make sure that its service teams provide information sooner in future.
The landlord’s response said that it had decided not to investigate the matter of damp and mould in its stage 2 investigation because it was to be investigated by the Ombudsman. The landlord’s complaint policy allows it to decide to exclude matters from further investigation even if the landlord has previously included them in a stage 1 response.
However, the principles within the Code are intended to promote a positive complaints culture that puts things right for residents at the earliest opportunity. Landlords should not consider a resident bringing a complaint to us as an automatic barrier that prevents the landlord from resolving the matters complained about.
Paragraph 4.14 of the Code at the time (the Code published in 2022) said that a landlord must not unreasonably refuse to escalate a complaint through all the stages of its process.
In this case, the second complaint referred to the landlord’s handling of 2 periods during which the resident’s home had been affected by damp and mould. The landlord had already dealt with its handling of the first period of damp and mould in its responses to the first complaint and in its stage 1 response to the second complaint.
However, it had only responded to the resident’s complaint about the second period of damp and mould in its stage 1 response to the second complaint. As such, it was unreasonable that the landlord excluded its handling of the second period of damp and mould from its stage 2 investigation of the second complaint.
In doing so, the landlord effectively refused to escalate this part of the resident’s complaint through all the stages of its process. This was not reasonable and meant the landlord missed the opportunity to investigate what had gone wrong and to put things right for the resident.
The landlord’s stage 2 response to the second complaint also failed to address the allegation made by the resident’s son that a staff member had put the phone down on him and failed to return his calls.
Overall, there were failings in the landlord’s handling of both complaints. Some of its responses were late, its investigations were inadequate and it did not respond to all the matters complained about. Its failings amount to maladministration.
On 8 February 2024, the Ombudsman issued the statutory Complaint Handling Code. This Code sets out the requirements landlords must meet when handling complaints in both policy and practice. The statutory Code applies from 1 April 2024.
The Ombudsman has a duty to monitor compliance with the Code. We will assess landlords using our Compliance Framework and take action where there is evidence that the requirements of the Code are not being met.
In this investigation, we found failures in the landlord’s complaint handling after 1 April 2024. We have referred these to our team responsible for monitoring compliance with the statutory Code.

Determination

In accordance with paragraph 52. of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was severe maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of damp and mould.
In accordance with paragraph 52. of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s associated complaints.
In accordance with paragraph 42.j. of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord’s handling of the resident’s housing application and requests to move are outside of the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.

Orders

Within 4 weeks of the date of this report, the landlord must provide evidence that it has complied with the following orders:
1. A director must contact the resident’s son to apologise in person (by telephone or meeting). The apology must acknowledge the failings identified and the impact they had on the resident and her family. The landlord must send us details of the manager, the date of the apology, method by which it was given and details of the discussion.
2. Pay the resident total compensation of £3,450. The compensation must be paid directly to the resident and not offset against any arrears. It is comprised of:
  1. £2,300 for the delays in carrying out repairs following the resident’s reports of damp and mould. This has been calculated at £100 per month for the 23 months that the resident’s home was affected by damp and mould from 6 January 2022 until 18 December 2023. The landlord may deduct the £910 compensation that it offered in its complaint responses if it can evidence that it has already paid this sum.
  2. £500 for the distress and inconvenience caused by its handling of the resident’s reports of damp and mould. The landlord may deduct the £200 it offered in its complaint response of 9 January 2023 if it can evidence that it has already paid this sum.
  3. £650 for the distress and inconvenience caused by its handling of the resident’s complaints. The landlord may deduct the £60 it offered in its complaint response of 30 May 2024 if it can evidence that it has already paid this sum.
3. Complete an adequate survey of the resident’s home to determine the cause of the current damp and mould. The survey must be done by a suitably qualified surveyor and must include (but does not need to be limited to):
  1. An assessment of whether there is still a leak from the flat above.
  2. Consideration of other potential causes of the damp and mould.
  3. An assessment of the risk(s) that the damp and mould poses considering the vulnerabilities of the household members.
  4. Identifying repairs needed to resolve the damp and mould.

The landlord must provide the resident and the Ombudsman with a copy of the survey report and risk assessment.

Within 6 weeks of the date of this report, the landlord must prepare a plan to complete the repairs identified in the survey ordered in in paragraph 105.c. above. The plan must specify the work to be done and the start and completion date for each repair. The landlord must send the resident and the Ombudsman a copy of its schedule of repairs to be done.
The landlord must use its best endeavours to complete the repairs within 8 weeks of the date of its survey report. It should keep adequate records to show how it has done all it could reasonably do in the circumstances to comply with this order.

Recommendations

The Ombudsman recommends that the landlord considers:
1. Whether it has sufficient assurance that its revised damp and mould procedures are being followed in the way it intended.
2. How it can make sure that its service teams provide information within the timescales necessary to support its complaint handling.
3. Providing the resident with a dehumidifier as an interim measure until the cause of the damp and mould is resolved.
Investigate if its contractor/s took steps to make the electrics safe in the bathroom following the resident’s reports of leaks through the light fitting in 2022 and provide the resident with a written response. If the landlord is unable to show that reasonable actions were taken to make the light fitting safe, the landlord should consider offering an apology and/or compensation and/or identifying learning/improvements to its service.