Peabody Trust (202204607)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202204607

Catalyst Housing Limited

28 June 2023


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 the landlord’s handling of the resident’s:
    1. Reports of damp and mould in her property.
    2. Request for additional rehousing priority due to overcrowding and for medical reasons.

Jurisdiction

  1. What we can and cannot consider is called the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. This is governed by the Housing Ombudsman Scheme. When a complaint is brought to the Ombudsman, we must consider all the circumstances of the case as there are sometimes reasons why a complaint will not be investigated.
  2. The landlord has confirmed to the Ombudsman that it allocates properties via a choice-based lettings system on behalf of the local authorities in the area in which the resident was seeking to be rehoused.
  3. The Ombudsman cannot consider complaints about applications for re-housing that meet the reasonable preference criteria (dealt with by the local authority or any other body acting on its behalf, which includes housing associations). This includes complaints about the assessment of such applications and the award of points or banding. Such complaints are considered by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO).
  4. Paragraph 42k of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme sets out that this Service may not consider complaints that “fall properly within the jurisdiction of another Ombudsman, regulator or complaint handling body”.
  5. Therefore, after carefully considering all the evidence, the following aspect of the complaint is outside of the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction: the landlord’s handling of the resident’s request for additional rehousing priority due to overcrowding and for medical reasons.

Background and summary of events

Background

  1. The resident has an assured non shorthold tenancy which began in September 2011. The property is a two bedroom first floor flat.
  2. The resident has two young children and an older daughter who suffers from a condition known as wheeze. The resident suffers from high blood pressure, but the landlord has said it had no vulnerabilities recorded on its system.
  3. The landlord has provided a copy of its responsive repairs policy which says that it aims to deal with emergency repairs within 24 hours. For routine repairs, the policy says that the landlord will offer the next available appointment.
  4. The resident has maintained that the issues affecting her property had a negative impact on her and her children’s health. It is beyond the remit of this Service to draw conclusions on the causation of, or liability for, impacts on health and wellbeing as these matters are more suitable to be dealt with through a personal injury claim. As such, the Ombudsman will not consider this aspect of the resident’s complaint. Nonetheless, consideration has been given to the general distress and inconvenience which the situation may have caused the resident.

Summary of events

  1. Subsequent internal landlord correspondence shows that it noted that it completed a mould wash at the resident’s property in November 2021; however, this was not recorded in the landlord’s repair notes.
  2. On 5 January 2022, the landlord’s repair notes show that the resident reported that her bathroom heater was not working. The resident also says that she reported damp and mould on 6 January 2022, but no one came to inspect her property until 4 February 2022.
  3. The resident asked for a complaint to be escalated to stage two of the landlord’s complaints process on 1 February 2022. She said that mould always came back within several weeks and that her property was overcrowded and that it was affecting her children’s health. The landlord has said that it cannot provide a copy of the stage one response because it was issued by a member of staff who has left and a copy was not saved correctly.
  4. On 6 February 2022, the landlord attended the resident’s property and took pictures of the mould and damp.
  5. The landlord visited the resident on 16 February 2022 to discuss the complaint. The outstanding issues recorded were with damp and mould and overcrowding.
  6. On 22 February 2022, the landlord recorded that a repair order was raised for a mould wash in two bedrooms and the living room. The repair notes show that the landlord was also going to check the loft insulation was adequate. There are no follow-up notes to show that these repairs were completed.
  7. Internal correspondence from the landlord dated 22 February 2022 said that it had visited the resident a couple of times over the previous two years, including as recently as 6 February 2022 with the last mould wash in November 2021. The correspondence said that the resident was overcrowded and mould kept occurring due to excess moisture in the air. The resident was drying her clothes which generated more moisture and she had an electric dehumidifier which she emptied several times a day. The heaters and windows had been checked and they were all working. The landlord said that it advised the resident to keep the window vents open.
  8. The landlord provided its stage two complaint response on 3 March 2022 which said the following:
    1. With regards to the issue of overcrowding, it said it calculated that the resident had three habitable rooms according to the Housing Act (including the lounge) and the property could sleep four people. The total number of people living in the resident’s property was three. The landlord said that the resident’s housing conditions did not meet the requirements for statutory overcrowding.
    2. In response to the issues with damp and mould, the landlord said that they were being caused by unsatisfactory housing conditions and a lack of ventilation in the property. It said that it expected the resident to clean the affected areas regularly.
    3. A further damp and mould inspection had been booked for 10 March 2022. It added that it expected the resident to clean off the mould to help keep it under control and recommended she open windows, heat her home and reduce clutter.
    4. The landlord said that it would be obtaining some recordings of the moisture levels and monitoring these. It added that if the resident was struggling with the costs of heating her home, it could arrange a referral to its wellbeing team to see if it could provide any support.
  9. On 20 July 2022, the landlord arranged a damp survey as mould was reported in the resident’s property.
  10. On 29 September 2022, the Ombudsman informed the landlord that some of the information that had been requested as part of its investigations was missing, including details of the handling of damp and mould.
  11. There was further internal landlord emails on 22 December 2022 where the repairs surveyor reiterated that the property had been inspected before and that there was overcrowding.
  12. On 5 May 2023, the Ombudsman asked the landlord to provide further information regarding the reports of damp and mould made by the resident. The landlord asked for an extension until 26 May 2023. The landlord provided information on 30 May 2023 – it provided internal correspondence showing there had been a further property inspection on 30 March 2023 – but did not provide all the evidence which had been requested by this Service.

Assessment and findings

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of damp and mould in her property

  1. The landlord’s repair notes do not show any reports of damp and mould in 2021. However, internal correspondence provided by the landlord indicates that a mould wash was completed in November 2021. The landlord’s records therefore appear to show a discrepancy and it has failed to provide a timeline of events as requested. Given the lack of information, there has been a service failure here as the landlord should have clear records of when the resident first reported damp and mould concerns and the repairs it had completed in response.
  2. On 22 February 2022, the repair notes showed that a repair was raised for a mould wash in two bedrooms and the living room. The landlord was also going to check the loft insulation was adequate. The notes do not say whether the repairs were completed and whether a further visit occurred. Although the repair notes showed that the next reported repair was five months later, the landlord’s records are unclear. There was a service failure on the landlord’s part in this regard as it has not demonstrated that it reviewed the effectiveness of the repairs it raised nor whether it followed its responsive repairs policy timescales with regards to routine repairs.
  3. In the landlord’s internal correspondence and stage two complaint response, it has said that the resident’s living conditions were unsatisfactory and that the damp and mould was caused by a lack of ventilation. The landlord said it had arranged a damp and mould inspection for 10 March 2022, but it said that the resident should be cleaning the affected areas on a regular basis. The stage two response also said that the resident should open windows, heat her home and reduce clutter to reduce condensation to prevent the mould.
  4. Whilst giving tips to the resident is helpful, it is not solely the resident’s responsibility to deal with the damp and mould, especially as the landlord had accepted that the resident’s housing conditions were unsatisfactory and that there were overcrowding issues (contrary to what it concluded in response to the resident’s re-housing request). There was a service failure in this regard as the landlord has not provided copies of contemporaneous inspection reports, show that it considered steps it could take to alleviate damp and mould in the property or provide records that it had followed up on the proposed March 2022 inspection.
  5. The landlord has said that the property was not ventilated properly but it has not provided enough information regarding this. It has not specified if the bathroom and kitchen had working fans or if the windows had the correct vents. The landlord did confirm that all the windows opened and that the heating worked but this was the extent of its investigations.
  6. The landlord has failed to demonstrate that it conducted a thorough investigation into why the moisture levels were high. The landlord has said that the resident was drying clothes and this contributed to the moisture, but this was not an unreasonable activity for the resident to do. There was a service failure in this regard as the landlord failed to be pro-active in addressing the damp and mould that it acknowledged was present in the property.
  7. The landlord said it had no records of any vulnerabilities recorded on its system but the correspondence provided showed that the resident had made it aware that her children had some health conditions, including wheeze. The resident was concerned that the damp and mould would affect her children’s health and she again raised this when she escalated her complaint to stage two. The landlord does not appear to have conducted a risk assessment or taken into account the household’s health concerns (apart from a medical review to determine the resident’s priority for a transfer). There was a service failure in this regard and the landlord has not demonstrated that it sought to reassure the resident or consider actions it could take in relation to her concerns about the effects of the mould on her children’s health.
  8. Overall, the landlord’s record keeping has been poor as it has not been able to provide basic information such as detailed inspection reports and its stage one complaint response. There have also been discrepancies with regards to repairs undertaken and not enough information has been provided to show what repairs were completed and when. There was therefore a service failure with regards to the landlord’s record keeping.

Determination (decision)

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, the Ombudsman finds maladministration with regards to the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of damp and mould in her property.

Reasons

  1. The landlord does not appear to have undertaken a thorough investigation into the resident’s reports of damp and mould. The repair notes do not evidence that jobs were completed and the landlord has not been able to provide evidence of a thorough survey where it checked the ventilation properly.
  2. The landlord has concluded that it could not do anything beyond completing some mould washes and that the resident needed to clean the affected areas, but this placed the onus on the resident despite it acknowledging in internal emails that there was overcrowding and that the property provided unsatisfactory housing conditions. The resident was likely to have been uncertain as to how the landlord intended to work with her to reach a long-term solution to the mould problem and the landlord failed to consider whether more actions were needed given the resident’s children had health conditions which included respiratory illnesses.

Orders

  1. The landlord is ordered to write to the resident within four weeks of the date of this report to apologise for the service failures identified in this report.
  2. The landlord is ordered to inspect the resident’s property within four weeks of the date of this report to review the presence of damp and mould (it should also ensure that all the vents and fans are fitted in the appropriate positions and are working correctly to ensure that the property is properly ventilated); it should write to the resident and this Service within two weeks of that inspection with a detailed inspection report.
  3. The landlord is ordered to pay the resident £300 compensation for the distress and inconvenience caused to her by the failings in its handling of her damp and mould reports.
  4. Within eight weeks of the date of this report, the landlord is ordered to review its repairs record keeping processes in line with the Ombudsman’s Spotlight Report on Knowledge and Information Management (May 2023) and create an action plan to show how it will ensure that its repairs logs contain accurate and timely information.
  5. The landlord should reply to this Service with evidence of compliance with the above orders within the timescales set out above.

Recommendations

  1. The landlord should consider follow-up visits to the resident’s property every three months between now and early next year to review the damp and mould situation, providing follow up reports to the resident and completing any repairs found within four weeks from the date of inspection.
  2. The landlord should write to the resident to signpost her as to how she can escalate her complaint about her re-housing banding priority to the Local Government & Social Care Ombudsman.
  3. The landlord should reply to this Service within four weeks of the date of this report to confirm its intentions in regard to these recommendations.