Sanctuary Housing Association (202418488)

Background

1. The complainant rented out the property, which is a second floor flat, to a series of private tenants. This report refers to the ‘leaseholder’ who is the complainant and the ‘landlord’ which is the freeholder. The leaseholder did not reside at the property at any time during the period of time we have investigated. The landlord inspected the property in August 2023 following a report of rising damp.

What the complaint is about

2. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of reports of rising damp.
3. We have also considered the landlord’s complaint handling.

Our decision (determination)

4. There was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of reports of rising damp.
5. There was maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling.

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

Summary of reasons

The landlord’s handling of reports of rising damp

6. There were extensive delays in completing the surveys and resulting repairs required to resolve the leaseholder’s reports of rising damp. The landlord’s communication with the leaseholder during this period was poor and not in line with its policy. There were significant and largely unexplained delays in the landlord’s handling of the section 20 consultation process.

       Complaint handling

7. There were significant delays in the landlord’s complaint handling. The landlord issued a second, unnecessary stage 1 complaint response to the leaseholder’s escalation request, against its complaints policy. The landlord did not appropriately identify, put right, or learn from this failing.

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.

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 leaseholder first contacted the landlord about rising damp prior to August 2023, possibly in January or before. The landlord has considered in its complaint handling events which gave rise to this complaint, from August 2023 onward. This was reasonable and so we have investigated events from August 2023 up until the landlord’s stage 2 complaint response.
9. Both parties agree that the repairs were completed in or around October 2025. The landlord has not had the opportunity to consider events between its stage 2 complaint response of October 2024 and the repairs being completed in October 2025 through its internal complaints process. A key part of our role is to assess the landlord’s response to a complaint. It is not reasonable to investigate the landlord’s handling of the damp proofing works during this period. If the leaseholder is unhappy about any elements of the landlord’s service during this time period, she should raise a new complaint.

What we have investigated

10. The landlord was right to apologise in its stage 1 complaint response for delays in arranging a specialist damp survey between 09 August 2023 and 27 October 2023. The landlord’s repairs and maintenance policy gives examples of times when it may be appropriate to instruct a surveyor to attend following an inspection. Typically, the landlord states that it aims to complete this further survey within 10 working days. In this case, it took the landlord 57 working days to complete the follow up survey, which was avoidable and unnecessary.
11. The landlord explained that this was due to staff sickness. However there is no evidence to show what steps the landlord took in an attempt to reduce the delay during the period of staff sickness. There is no evidence the landlord appropriately learned from this failing.
12. A section 20 process was required to determine the costs that leaseholders would be liable to pay to complete the repairs. This was in line with the landlord’s policies and the overarching legislation. The evidence shows that the landlord took steps to progress the section 20 consultation process promptly after it received the specialist damp survey. However, there is no evidence that it communicated with the leaseholder during this time, resulting in her contacting the landlord on several occasions such as 15 December 2023 for updates. The landlord was right to describe this communication as ‘poor’ in its complaint responses.
13. The evidence shows that delays throughout 2024 were primarily due to issues encountered during the section 20 consultation process. The landlord’s account indicates that it experienced difficulties in obtaining the required number of quotes for the work, although the nature of these challenges is unclear. In its stage 2 complaint response, the landlord acknowledged that some delays were caused by the time taken to approve and progress certain quotes, which was within its control.
14. There were some further delays due to complex legal queries the landlord had to investigate to progress the section 20 consultation process. The evidence suggests that these queries first arose in February 2024, but there is no evidence that the landlord had found a solution by the time of its stage 2 complaint response in October 2024.
15. We cannot state what timeframe was reasonable for the landlord to resolve these challenges, due to their complex legal nature. However, the landlord’s communication with the leaseholder during this time was sporadic, rarely proactive, and often lacking important information. For example, it promised to update the leaseholder ‘in due course’ in its stage 1 complaint response of 19 June 2024.However, it did not provide the leaseholder with any update on the works until 6 August 2024, after she had contacted the landlord several times.
16. There is no evidence that the landlord contacted the leaseholder again. This resulted in the leaseholder going to unnecessary time and trouble to request updates from the landlord. The landlord’s repairs and maintenance policy states that the landlord will provide clear information about ongoing repairs and communicate proactively with residents and leaseholders. The landlord failed to follow its policy, which was a failing.
17. The landlord offered a total of £200 compensation during its complaints process for the delays experienced and its poor communication with the leaseholder. However, from the time of the landlord’s first inspection of 11 August 2023 and its stage 2 complaint response of 18 October 2024, there was a delay of 1 year, 2 months and 7 days. Given the time, trouble and likely inconvenience caused to the leaseholder, alongside the evidenced time and trouble gone to, this amount of compensation was not reflective of the impact of the landlord’s failings.
18. There is also no evidence that the landlord conducted any learning from the failings it identified in this case. As a result of all of the above failings, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of reports of rising damp. The landlord is ordered to conduct a senior management review of its handling of this case. It should consider, as a minimum, why there were significant delays in progressing the repairs in this case and what actions it could have taken to reduce them. It must also consider its communication with the leaseholder during the process, and how this could be improved in future cases.
19. Our remedies guidance states that where there has been maladministration which has caused adverse effect, and the landlord has made an offer that was not proportionate to the impact caused, compensation of up to £600 considered. In view of the significance of the delays seen in this case, and with consideration that the repairs remained outstanding at the time of the stage 2 complaint response, we have ordered the landlord pay £600 compensation to the leaseholder. This replaces the £200 already offered.

20. The landlord’s complaints policy states that it must log complaints and escalation requests within 5 working days. It must respond to stage 1 complaints within 10 working days of the complaint being logged, and to stage 2 complaint requests within 20 working days. There was an 8 working day delay in logging the leaseholder’s stage 1 complaint, which resulted in a 5 working day delay in issuing it stage 1 complaint response. This was a failing.
21. The landlord declined to escalate the leaseholder’s request to escalate her complaint to stage 2. It said that because she had accepted the £100 compensation offered at stage 1, those matters were closed. The landlord’s complaints policy states that residents and leaseholders ‘have the right to request that their complaint is escalated to Stage 2 if they remain unhappy with the response at Stage 1’. It states that escalation requests ‘will only be declined where it is clear that there is more that can be offered as part of the Stage 1 response as new information has been provided. If the customer remains unhappy or requests escalation, this will not be declined.’
22. The landlord’s decision to raise a new stage 1 complaint response was therefore not in line with its complaints policy. It was a failing that resulted in unnecessary time, trouble, distress and inconvenience to the leaseholder. The landlord acknowledged some delays in complaint handling at stage 2 of the complaints process, but attributed this to its delay in escalating the leaseholder’s second stage 1 complaint response. It did not recognise its failure to correctly escalate her complaint initially or its unnecessary second stage 1 complaint response.
23. The landlord offered £150 compensation for a delay ‘from 26 August 2024 to 18 October 2024’ in responding to the leaseholder’s complaint. This delay was unexplained and was a failing. However because the landlord did not follow its policy and escalate the leaseholder’s complaint appropriately, the delay should have been considered from her first escalation request of 5 July 2024. This was a total of 75 working days. The landlord also did not consider its 5 working day delay at stage 1. Therefore, the landlord offered £150 compensation in respect of a 19 working day delay beyond its expected timescales, but should have considered a 65 working day delay beyond these timescales in total.
24. We have ordered the landlord to pay the leaseholder £250 compensation for its complaint handling delays, which replaces the £150 already offered. The landlord must also arrange complaint handling training to ensure escalation requests are handled appropriately and in line with its policies.

Learning

25. Our Dispute Resolution Principles are to ‘be fair’, to ‘put things right’, and to ‘learn from outcomes’. In this case, the landlord did not effectively use its internal complaints procedure to identify areas for learning or complete learning centred actions.

Knowledge information management (record keeping)

26. There were some records and pieces of information that we would have expected to see during this investigation which were not submitted by the landlord. For example, details of its property inspections and several instances of contact it had with the leaseholder. The landlord made reference in its stage 2 complaint response to ‘poor record keeping’, but did not elaborate on what it meant by this or how this may have impacted its service delivery. It also did not identify any learning from any record keeping failures it may have identified.