Octavia Housing (202503838)

Background

1. The resident has lived in a 1-bedroom flat for 10 years. Over this time, she has had children and says she now needs a bigger property. She has applied to be moved on medical grounds. In September 2024, she reported damp and mould in the property. In October 2024, she complained about the landlord’s response to her requests for rehousing and her reports of damp and mould. The landlord has carried out works at the property and offered her compensation. The resident is not satisfied with this response and has asked us to investigate.

What the complaint is about

2. The complaint is about:
   1. The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of damp and mould at the property.
   2. The landlord’s handling of the resident’s requests to be rehoused.
3. We have also investigated the landlord’s handling of the associated formal complaint.

Our decisions (determinations)

4. We have found that:
   1. There was service failure in the handling of reports of damp and mould at the property.
   2. There was maladministration in the handling of requests to be rehoused.
   3. The landlord has made an offer which is sufficient to remedy the handling of the associated formal complaint.

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

Summary of reasons

Reports of damp and mould at the property

5. The landlord delayed in addressing the resident’s reports of damp and mould. It failed to assess the property promptly. It communicated poorly and it failed to consider moving her to alternative accommodation while the resident had said she could not use the bedroom.

Requests to be rehoused

6. The landlord delayed in responding to the resident’s requests to be rehoused. It did not respond for 5 months and, when it did, its response was unsatisfactory.

Complaint handling

7. The landlord delayed in responding to the associated formal complaint but its offer of £50 compensation was sufficient to remedy this failure.

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.

 Recommendation

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.

What we have not investigated

8. The landlord treated parts of the property with mould wash in 2023. The resident did not then contact the landlord about damp and mould until 14 September 2024. For that reason, we have not investigated events prior to that date. Her contact of 14 September 2024 marks the beginning of the new episode covered by this complaint.
9. The resident said in her request to escalate her complaint to stage 2 of the landlord’s internal complaint process that she had lost approximately £4,000 worth of property which had been damaged by mould. The landlord has declined to reimburse her saying that is a matter for her insurance. It is not our role to investigate the value of any property the resident has lost. However, we have considered whether the landlord’s response to her reports of this loss was appropriate.

What we have investigated

10. Our view on damp and mould is set out in our spotlight report on damp and mould “It’s Not Lifestyle”. The Ombudsman said that landlords must be “on the front foot” in tackling the issue.
11. The landlord should, therefore, have visited the property promptly to assess the problem. We have seen no evidence that it did so. The resident reported damp and mould in mid-September 2024. The landlord did not send anyone to assess the property for over a month. The landlord’s policy says that it will respond in “urgent” cases within 5 days and “routine” repairs within 15 days. It failed, therefore, to meet the requirements of its own policy. It also failed to meet our expectations for dealing with damp and mould.
12. The resident then contacted her councillor. The day after receiving contact from the councillor on 15 October 2024, the landlord arranged for a contractor to visit the property on 23 October 2024. Given the nature of the problems reported, and the impact on the resident, and her family, the landlord should have treated this case with more urgency, or otherwise explained why this timeframe was reasonable.
13. The contractor found problems such as eroded mortar which allowed water to seep into the property and blocked guttering. The landlord arranged for works to take place in February 2025, more than 3 months later. Even though these works appear to have been routine works, according to its policy, this was an inappropriate delay. The landlord had discovered damp and mould and a possible cause for it. It should have acted faster to remedy the problem.
14. Overall, there was a delay of 5 months between the initial report in September 2024 and the treatment in February 2025. Even allowing for the fact that it is not always possible for landlords to arrange for contractors to perform specialist works straightaway, this was an inappropriate delay. During this period, the landlord failed to communicate adequately.
15. This was particularly so as the resident had reported that, due to the damp and mould, she was unable to use the bedroom in the flat. The landlord was also aware that there were 4 people (the resident and her 3 children) living in a 1-bedroom flat in a situation where the resident had said the bedroom was unusable. This should have increased the urgency with which it responded to her reports. It should also have considered whether a move to temporary accommodation was appropriate.
16. The resident has claimed that the damp and mould at the property resulted in £4,000 worth of her possessions being damaged beyond repair. She told the landlord this in her escalation request and provided some evidence.
17. In its response, the landlord said it was “unable to reimburse for the loss of personal items”. It said, “This is in accordance [with] our tenancy policy and is a reason that we advise all residents to consider taking out their own insurance in order to protect against loss of items due to accidents or emergencies within their home.”
18. This was not an appropriate response. Where, as here, a landlord’s actions or inactions have, or may have, caused damage to a resident’s property, it should not simply tell residents to claim on their own contents insurance. Landlords should invite such residents to claim against their public liability insurance which will investigate the matter further. We have set this out as a learning point below.
19. The landlord has recognised that its response to the resident’s reports and damp and mould was inadequate because of the delays in investigating and remedying the problem. It has apologised, investigated, and offered compensation. In cases like this, we consider the landlord’s actions and decide whether its actions were sufficient to resolve the complaint satisfactorily. We consider whether its attempt at resolution (an apology, offer of compensation and a plan to complete works) was in line with our Dispute Resolution Principles; to be fair, put things right and learn from outcomes.
20. The landlord recognised that there had been unacceptable delay in its stage 1 complaint response. It said it had exceeded its response timeframes and offered the resident £150 in recognition of the distress and inconvenience she had suffered. While this was, in our view, at the lower end of what was appropriate, if the landlord had solved the problem prior to the issue of the stage 2 decision, this would have resolved the issue satisfactorily.
21. However, the landlord recognised in the stage 2 response that it had still not solved the problem with damp and mould at the property. It explained what it had done to try to solve the issue and increased the compensation on offer for the distress and inconvenience caused by its delays in solving the problem from £150 to £400.
22. Once again, had the landlord solved the problem by the date of the stage 2 response, in our view, this sum would have been sufficient to compensate the resident for the distress and inconvenience she suffered. However, it did not resolve the problem by this date.
23. The damp and mould persisted. The landlord commissioned a damp specialist survey. It received the report on 10 April 2025. It stated that the overoccupancy of the property caused condensation which led to damp and mould. It therefore recommended the installation of a positive input ventilation (PIV) system. This was installed in July 2025. The resident has reported that this has solved the damp and mould problem at the property.
24. Given that the landlord had received reports of damp and mould in the property in September 2024, it allowed an unreasonable delay before commissioning the damp and mould survey. This caused further delay after the stage 2 response. This had an ongoing impact on the resident for a further 3 months. The landlord was responsible for this delay.
25. We have, therefore, ordered the landlord to pay the resident a further £200 in addition to the £400 it has already offered in this case in recognition of the ongoing distress and inconvenience this delay caused. This is in line with our guidance on remedies.

What we have not looked at

26. The resident says that the landlord failed to deal appropriately with her requests to be rehoused due to overcrowding. We have no evidence that she raised this issue with the landlord during the year prior to her contact with her councillor on 15 October 2024. We have, therefore, not investigated before that date.
27. The resident says that, in 2025, the landlord claimed to have offered her an alternative property and said that she had declined this offer. She denies that this is the case.
28. The resident did not raise this concern in her complaint to the landlord of 17 December 2024. Nor has she complained about it, so far as we are aware, thereafter. Therefore, we are unable to consider this element of the complaint. Residents must complain formally to their landlord before they can come to us. If she complains to the landlord and is not satisfied with its response, she can bring this issue to us, and we will consider it as a separate complaint.

What we have looked at

29. On 15 October 2024, the resident wrote to her local councillor and asked for their assistance in dealing with her housing issues. She said the property was overcrowded as she had 3 children in a 1-bedroom flat. The councillor contacted the landlord the next day on her behalf.
30. The landlord’s allocations policy says that tenants can join its transfer list if their case is a high enough priority. Priority is categorised into 4 bands, A, B, C, and D. Band B includes those who are living in conditions which are, by law, overcrowded. (On the evidence we have seen, this includes the resident). Band B residents can apply for a transfer.
31. There is no record that the landlord responded to contact from the councillor until it was dealing with the resident’s formal complaint in March 2025. It then discussed her eligibility to move under the transfer scheme. An internal email stated that there was a waiting list of 8 to 12 years for 3-bedroom properties. A note states that an officer informed her that there were properties available for her to bid on in early March 2025.
32. In both its stage 1 and stage 2 response, the landlord said it had asked the lettings team to contact the resident. However, beyond this initial contact, we have seen no evidence that this team, in fact, contacted the resident. Regardless of whether it would, ultimately, have been able to move the resident, it failed to contact or update her within a reasonable period.
33. This was poor service. We have therefore ordered the landlord to pay the resident £250 which is in line with our guidance on remedies. This is inclusive of £50 the landlord awarded to her for poor record keeping and communication in its stage 2 response as poor record keeping and communication clearly contributed to these failures.

Our Complaint Handling Code (the Code) sets out when and how a landlord should respond to complaints. Our findings are:

34. The landlord’s published complaints policy complies with the Code.
35. Both the policy and the Code require the landlord to respond to a complaint at stage 1 within 10 working days. They require it to respond to an escalation within 20 working days or ask for an extension if necessary.
36. In this case, the landlord took 60 working days to respond to the resident’s complaint at stage 1 and 18 days to respond at stage 2. It therefore failed at stage 1 to meet the requirements of its own policy and our Code.
37. During the 60 days it took to investigate at stage 1, the landlord took steps to address the resident’s concerns. For example, it arranged for the exterior works to be done. Nonetheless, this was a lengthy and unacceptable delay. The delay in reaching a decision on the complaint contributed to the delays in addressing the resident’s concerns.
38. The landlord has apologised and paid the resident £50. In our view, while on the low side, this was sufficient to recognise its complaint handling failures and their impact. We have therefore made a finding that the landlord’s offer was sufficient and reasonable to redress its failure.

Learning

Knowledge information management (record keeping)

39. The landlord has acknowledged record keeping errors and apologised for them. It seems more than likely that poor record keeping contributed to the delays in this case.

Communication

40. Overall, the landlord delayed in communicating key messages to the resident. However, when it did communicate, it did so effectively and politely.