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Oxford City Council (202404375)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202404375

Oxford City Council

23 September 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 how the landlord handled:
    1. the resident’s reports of damp and mould.
    2. the resident’s reports of antisocial behaviour.
  2. We have also considered the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

  1. The resident is a secure tenant of the landlord, a city council. The property is a 2-bedroom flat which the resident shared with her daughter. In December 2024 the resident and her daughter were placed in emergency temporary accommodation for an unrelated matter. The resident does not intend to return to the property.
  2. The resident reported damp and mould in the property throughout 2022. On 26 January 2023 the landlord inspected the property and found “no obvious issues”, but noted there was condensation. The resident continued to report damp and mould over the coming months and explained it was impacting her daughter’s health. Throughout April to June 2023 the landlord completed a series of works to try and address suspected water ingress into the property. It also installed a fan in the kitchen, and completed a mould treatment.
  3. On 1 August 2023 the resident reported persisting damp and mould. Throughout November and December 2023 the landlord made several unsuccessful attempts to access the property above the resident’s to inspect for a leak. At some point around this time the resident made a stage 1 complaint about how the landlord had handled her reports of damp and mould. She also requested compensation for belongings she said were damaged.
  4. The landlord completed a damp and mould survey on 3 January 2024. It identified water ingress from the walkway outside the front of the property and noted that external repairs were necessary to resolve things.
  5. On 11 January 2024 the landlord issued a stage 1 response. It explained that it needed to complete further investigations to determine the full extent of the walkway failure for the entire block, and that it would update her on this once a decision was made. It explained it would attend the property to treat any damp and mould in the meantime.
  6. Over the following 2 weeks the landlord completed mould treatment and applied a waterproofing treatment to the walkway. On 30 January 2024 the landlord wrote to the resident and advised it had identified “immediate works” that needed to be carried out to resolve the ingress from the walkway, and that it would complete these as soon as weather permitted. It also offered the resident £350 as a “goodwill gesture” as compensation for her sofa and curtains which appeared damaged by mould.
  7. On 7 February 2024 the landlord raised works to clean the resident’s carpet. On 5 March 2024 the resident escalated her complaint to stage 2. She considered the landlord had failed to address the damp and mould in the property or offer suitable compensation to put things right.
  8. The landlord emailed the resident on 4 April 2024 and explained that it needed to complete major works on the walkway and acknowledged that temporary measures had been unsuccessful. It explained it was unable to provide timescales for these works. However, it advised it would outline an action plan for alternative works it could complete in the meantime within the next 5 working days.
  9. On 1 May 2024 the landlord issued its stage 2 response. It summarised the steps it had taken in response to the resident’s concerns. It advised it did not consider a decant (move to temporary alternative accommodation) was appropriate. It acknowledged it had failed to complete an effective repair and that the resident had first reported the issue some time ago. In recognition of this it offered her £300, and a further £100 reimbursement for the future costs of running a promised dehumidifier.
  10. The landlord also advised that the “repair to the walkway will commence within the next week (weather permitting)”, and that a surveyor would inspect the property to ensure it was drying out. It also explained it had not considered antisocial behaviour (ASB) concerns she raised in an earlier email as these were unrelated to her original complaint. However, it assured her it had passed these concerns onto the relevant team.
  11. On 8 May 2024 the landlord completed a series of works on the walkway for the entire block. On 22 May 2024 the landlord noted it hoped these works would function as a temporary repair until it could complete a major renovation of the walkway.
  12. On 19 July 2024 the resident brought her complaint to the Ombudsman. She complained that the property was still affected by damp and mould, and that the landlord had failed to address her ASB report. In December 2024 the landlord relocated the resident and her daughter to emergency temporary accommodation. The landlord completed a damp and mould survey on 13 March 2025 and found extensive evidence of both damp and mould. The surveyor recommended a range of works to address this. It is unclear whether the landlord intends to proceed with the major works to the walkway.
  13. The resident remains unhappy with the landlord’s handling of the complaint because she does not consider it has offered enough compensation.

Assessment and findings

Jurisdiction

  1. Paragraph 42.a of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme sets out that we may not consider matters which have not exhausted the landlord’s complaint procedure, unless we can see evidence of a relevant complaint handling failure. When the resident first brought her complaint to the Ombudsman she raised concerns about how the landlord handled her reports about ASB.
  2. The resident did not raise these concerns with the landlord in her original complaint. She appears to have raised first raised them in an email on 19 February 2024, and the landlord responded to this at the time and advised it had passed it onto the relevant team. The resident then made no further reference to these issues in her stage 2 escalation request on 5 March 2024. The landlord explained at stage 2 that it had not addressed these concerns in its final response because they were unrelated to the original complaint. Therefore, this aspect of the complaint has not exhausted the landlord’s process.
  3. Given the resident did not raise this issue at stage 1, or as part of her stage 2 request, the landlord’s decision not to address it at stage 2 was appropriate. For these reasons, in accordance with paragraph 42.a of the Scheme, the resident’s complaint about the landlord’s handling of her reports of ASB is outside the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.

Scope of investigation

  1. The resident has complained about the landlord’s handling of her reports of damp and mould from 2020 onwards. We do not typically investigate matters which were not brought to the landlord’s attention as a complaint within 12 months of the issue arising. The landlord has not supplied us with the resident’s original complaint. However, the resident has advised she made a stage 1 complaint in November 2023. Given the lack of evidence in the records, we accept the resident’s account.
  2. Given she complained in November 2023, this investigation will only consider the landlord’s actions from November 2022 onwards, as matters before this did not take place within 12 months of the complaint.
  3. The resident has explained that she wants the landlord to reimburse her for possessions she says were damaged by damp and mould. She also wants it to compensate her for damage to her and her daughter’s physical and mental health. The resident has added that she suffered a loss of earnings of between £30,000 to £60,000, which she says was incurred as a result of her ill health. She would like the landlord to reimburse her loss.
  4. The Ombudsman cannot consider the liability for the damage to the resident’s belongings. This is because it is better to deal with issues of liability through the courts, or an insurance claim. We also do not consider the effects of the damp and mould on the resident’s or her daughter’s health, or claims about loss of earnings due to ill health. This is because the courts can offer an expert analysis and opinion on causation and liability for issues of personal injury. For this reason, this investigation will not consider these described impacts. It will, however, consider whether any distress or inconvenience may have been caused to the resident.

How the landlord handled the resident’s reports of damp and mould.

  1. The landlord’s repairs policy states it will complete repairs within a reasonable timeframe. When residents report a repair, it will tell them how soon it will get the work done. This would depend on how urgent it was. Its policy classifies repairs into 3 categories:
    1. Emergency repairs which it aims to complete within 24 hours.
    2. Urgent repairs which it aims to complete within 3 days.
    3. Routine repairs which it aims to complete within 28 days.
  2. The landlord also had a duty under the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS) to ensure that it provided the resident and any other household members with a home free from hazards. The HHSRS regards damp and mould as potential category 1 hazards which are especially harmful to children aged 14 years or less.
  3. We consider the landlord took a chaotic approach to address the resident’s reports of damp and mould from March 2023 until December 2023. We can see the resident reported damp and mould throughout the property repeatedly throughout this period. She also repeatedly explained that it was harming her 5 year old daughter’s health. Throughout this period the landlord completed the following works:
    1. Window inspection on 5 April 2023.
    2. Cleared gutters to prevent water ingress into the property on 27 April 2023.
    3. Installed a kitchen fan and completed a mould treatment on 8 June 2023.
    4. Inspected the property above the resident’s on 15 December 2023 and did not identify a leak.
  4. These measures are all generally reasonable methods of addressing water ingress, condensation, and removing mould. We also note that the resident did not allow access on 4 occasions. However, there is no record throughout the period of any inspection of the property for damp and mould. Therefore, the extent of damp and mould within the property during this period is unclear, and so it is also unclear whether the works listed above were reasonable in the resident’s specific circumstances.
  5. We would expect the landlord to have completed an inspection promptly after the resident’s first report on 2 March 2023. We would then expect it to have categorised the urgency of any repairs according to its repairs policy and by taking into account any potential risk to the resident and her child as per the HHSRS guidance. It failed to do so at any stage from March 2023 to December 2023, despite the resident reporting that the works it completed had failed to address the issue via emails in August, November, and December 2023. While we note the resident did not allow access on 4 occasions, the landlord has not recorded what works it was attempting to complete on any of these occasions.
  6. In keeping with our Spotlight Report on Damp and Mould (2021) we expect landlords to take a “zero-tolerance” approach to damp and mould. This means the landlord should have taken proactive steps to address the underlying causes of damp and mould and implement strategies to treat it and prevent it returning. With this in mind, we are not persuaded the landlord took appropriate steps to diagnose the damp and mould issue and implement a suitable strategy to address it from March 2023 to December 2023. We consider this likely caused the resident distress.
  7. On 3 January 2024 the landlord completed a damp and mould inspection. It identified water ingress into the property via the walkway which was causing condensation in the property. The surveyor recommended a survey of the walkway to determine a scope of works, and explained to the resident that these would be required to improve the situation “internally”. The landlord acted reasonably by thoroughly inspecting the property, diagnosing the issue, and explaining this diagnosis to the resident.
  8. The landlord then summarised this position in its stage 1 response on 11 January 2024. It explained it needed to carry out further investigations as the issue was impacting the entire block. It also explained it would complete a mould treatment in the property, and asked the resident to provide receipts for the furniture she said was damaged by mould. It did well to explain its action plan to the resident, and by offering to reimburse her for damaged items. However, we note that it failed to set out any timescales for future works as per its repairs policy.
  9. The landlord completed a mould treatment on 19 January 2024. It is unclear how it categorised these works according to its repairs policy, however, we consider it acted reasonably and proactively in completing these works within 8 days of the stage 1 response. It also applied waterproof treatments to the walkway as a temporary means of resolving the water ingress on 25 January 2024. Again, we consider this was reasonably prompt.
  10. Following this the resident continued to report damp and mould in the property through February and April 2024. She also noted it was impacting her and her daughter’s health. We can see the landlord raised works to clean her carpet on 7 February 2024. However, there is no evidence that it considered what other measures could be taken during this period, given the works had “obviously not worked” as it acknowledged in internal emails on 12 March 2024.
  11. We recognise the landlord had diagnosed in January 2024 that the ingress could only be resolved by major works, and that these types of works take considerable time to plan and execute. However, we would expect it to have considered other means of mitigating the impact on the resident in the meantime. For instance, it could have supplied a dehumidifier or completed further mould washes. We can see no evidence it did so here. We consider this was a missed opportunity to protect the property while the major works were pending, and that this likely caused the resident distress.
  12. We can see the landlord then mistakenly cancelled a scheduled visit on 14 March 2024, which meant it had to be delayed until 25 March 2024. There is then no record of this visit or of what works it was related to. This was poor record keeping, and demonstrates a lack of proactive repairs management as was the case throughout 2023. The mistaken cancellation also likely compounded the resident’s distress.
  13. The landlord wrote to the resident on 4 April 2024 and explained it was unable to provide timescales for the major external works. However, it committed to outlining an action plan of measures it could take in the meantime within 5 working days. Internal emails on the same day indicate the landlord had decided to “go for decant…or regular cleans and dehumidifier.”
  14. The landlord then failed to provide this plan within the timescale it committed to. In its stage 2 response on 25 April 2024 the landlord explained that it would be unlikely to complete the walkway renewal within 12 months. However, it explained that it:
    1. Would remove all debris and plants from the walkway and apply a waterproofing agent.
    2. Intended to start these works within the next week if the weather permitted. These works should resolve the damp and mould within the property.
    3. Did not consider the damp and mould was severe enough to warrant a decant.
    4. Had assessed the property on 12 April 2024 and identified “little damp or mould.”
    5. Would provide the resident with a dehumidifier.
  15. The landlord acted appropriately by setting out timescales for the interim works which it intended to complete.
  16. However, it is unclear how it decided that the damp and mould was not severe enough to warrant a decant, since the only inspection evidenced in the records was completed on 3 January 2024. Given the passage of time, we do not consider it would have been reasonable to decide on the suitability of a decant based on this inspection.
  17. We can also see internal emails from 25 April 2024 which note that a member of staff visited the property and “did not see much [damp and mould]”. We do not consider an internal email of this kind was appropriate evidence for the landlord to rely on in assessing the extent of the damp and mould. The landlord does not have policy which sets out how it will make decant decisions. In the absence of this, we have assessed its actions based on what we consider was generally reasonable in the circumstances.
  18. Generally, we would expect that decisions about the suitability of a decant are based on a thorough inspection with detailed observations of the property, ideally supplemented by things like photo evidence and moisture readings. The only inspection of this type was completed 3 months prior, and therefore we do not consider the landlord’s April 2024 decision on a decant was suitably evidence based.
  19. The landlord did however acknowledge the length of time it had taken to find an effective “temporary or permanent repair” to the issue, and offered the resident £300 compensation for this. It acted positively here by acknowledging this failing and its impact.
  20. We can see the landlord cleaned the carpet around 2 May 2024 based on emails from the resident. However, there is no record of this on the landlord’s systems. This is further evidence of poor record keeping. However, given it raised these works on 7 February 2024, it exceeded the 28 day timescale for routine repairs outlined in its repairs policy.
  21. The landlord completed the interim external works on 8 May 2024. It had committed to commencing these by 2 May 2024, and so this was a reasonable timeframe to complete them within.
  22. However, in June 2024 the resident reported that the works had not resolved matters and asked the landlord to take further action. There is no indication the landlord attempted any further actions to address damp and mould from this point until the resident vacated the property in December 2024. This is despite the resident’s daughter’s school writing on 10 June 2024 and explaining that she had been absent for almost 20% of the previous academic year, and that it understood this was due to illness caused by damp and mould.
  23. We further note that the landlord failed to provide the resident with a dehumidifier at any stage despite its stage 2 commitment. There is also no indication it attempted any further mould treatments from April 2024 onwards, despite internal emails on 4 April 2024 acknowledging that it would do so as an alternative to a decant. We consider these missed opportunities to mitigate the impact of the issue on the resident likely caused her significant distress.
  24. Ultimately then, we consider the landlord took a chaotic approach to the resident’s reports of damp and mould from March 2023 until December 2024. We recognise the water ingress it identified as the principle cause of the issue could only be resolved via long-term major works. However, we consider the landlord failed to implement a suitable action plan to manage the issue while the resident waited for this. We consider that this likely caused the resident significant distress, and therefore we will order the landlord pays compensation to put this right.
  25. The landlord’s compensation policy does not set out how it calculates compensation payments for distress. For this reason, we have used our own guidance to calculate this. Our guidance sets out that payments between £600 and £1000 are appropriate to put right failures which have significantly impacted residents.
  26. The landlord has already offered the resident £300 as redress for the impact of its failure to effectively resolve the ingress and damp and mould issue up until its stage 2 response on 25 April 2024. However, we do not consider this is enough to put things right, not least because its failures persisted after the stage 2 response for a further 6 months.
  27. In calculating the appropriate sum of compensation we have considered that the landlord failed to suitably inspect the property from March 2023 until December 2023. We have also considered that it failed to take suitable measures to mitigate the impact of the issue on the resident from March 2023 until December 2024. We have considered how the resident repeatedly urged the landlord to take further action because of her concerns about her young daughter’s health.
  28. However, we have balanced this with the evidence of the positive actions taken by the landlord in attempting various works to resolve the issue throughout the period. Having done so, we consider the landlord should pay the resident a sum at the mid-range of our scale. Therefore, we will order it pays the resident £800 in compensation. This is inclusive of the £300 redress already offered at stage 2.

Complaint handling.

  1. The landlord’s complaint handling policy obliges it to address stage 1 complaints within 10 working days and stage 2 complaints within 20. It was unable to provide evidence of the resident’s stage 1 complaint, so we have accepted the resident’s account that she submitted this in November 2023. The landlord issued its stage 1 response on 11 January 2024, and so this was at least 20 working days late.
  2. However, the landlord offered the resident £100 compensation as redress for this at stage 2. Our guidance on compensation sets out that payments between £100 and £600 are sufficient to put right failures which have adversely, but not permanently, impacted residents. We have seen no evidence that the resident was caused significant distress or inconvenience as a result of the delay. Therefore, we consider the landlord has done enough to put this right by offering a payment at the lower end of our scale.
  3. The landlord was 20 working days late in issuing its stage 2 response. However, we can see it wrote to the resident 20 working days after she submitted her stage 2 escalation and explained it would need longer to fully address her complaint. Therefore, we consider it appropriately mitigated the impact of this delay by updating the resident and explaining the reasons for it. For this reason, we consider it handled the stage 2 complaint appropriately. 

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 42.a of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the resident’s complaint about how the landlord handled her reports of ASB falls outside of the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was maladministration in how the landlord handled the resident’s reports of damp and mould.
  3. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was no maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling.

Orders

  1. The landlord is to pay the resident £800 for its omissions in handling her reports of damp and mould. If it has already paid the £300 offered at stage 2, it is to evidence this and subtract it from the outstanding sum.
  2. The landlord is to apologise to the resident for the failings identified in this report.
  3. The landlord is to provide evidence of compliance with this order within 4 weeks of the date of this letter.

Recommendation

  1. The landlord should reoffer the resident the £100 it offered at stage 2 for stage 1 complaint handling delays.