Settle Group (202508914)

Decision
Case ID	202508914
Decision type	Investigation
Landlord	Settle Group
Landlord type	Housing Association
Occupancy	Secure Tenancy
Date	13 January 2026

Background

1. The resident has lived in the property (a house) since May 2019 with her children and currently lives with her two sons who are both autistic. She reports having experienced multiple significant long-lasting repairs issues in the house involving leaks, blown plaster, damp and mould, which has led to this complaint.

What the complaint is about

2. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of:
   1. Cracked and broken plaster on multiple walls including the living room, hallway and landing.
   2. Leaks from the bathroom contributing to damp and mould, and damaged and uneven flooring in the connected hallway.
   3. Multiple kitchen repairs issues including missing tiles on the floor, unstable kitchen units, and a leak under the sink.
   4. Missing doorframe in the living room.
3. We have also considered the landlord’s complaint handling.

Our decision (determination)

4. We have found that:
   1. There was service failure in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of cracked and broken plaster in multiple areas.
   2. There was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of leaks from the bathroom contributing to damp and mould, and damaged flooring in the connected hallway.
   3. There was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of multiple kitchen repairs issues including missing tiles on the floor, unstable units and a leak under the sink.
   4. There was service failure in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of a missing doorframe in the living room.
   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 handling of reports of cracked and broken plaster in multiple areas.

5. The landlord acknowledged and apologised for its main failing, which was originally getting the job specification wrong and underestimating the extent of work needed to fix the plaster. It did not however acknowledge that it should have arranged an inspection earlier and acted more promptly to mitigate the resident’s concerns.

The handling of leaks from the bathroom contributing to damp and mould and damaged flooring in the hallway.

6. There was extensive delay in the landlord’s response to the leak. It was aware of the ongoing leak from multiple reports by the resident and its surveyors but did not take action to prevent the leak or address the damp and mould. It also did not address how the hallway flooring was affected.

The handling of multiple kitchen repairs issues.

7. There was extensive delay in the landlord’s response to multiple kitchen repair issues. It should have taken more prompt action given the potential safety risks.

The handling of repairs to a missing doorframe.

8. There was extensive delay in the landlord’s response to a missing doorframe in the living room. It should have taken more prompt action.

The complaint handling

9. The landlord’s complaint responses were missing important information on when the resident first reported these issues and how much time has passed before the landlord arranged repairs or appointments. Without this information the landlord was not able to adequately review its own actions. It did not assess fairly what remedy would have been appropriate to reflect the impact on the resident or take on learning.

 

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.

Order	What the landlord must do	Due date
1	Apology order The landlord must apologise in writing to the resident for the failures identified in this report. The landlord must ensure: The apology is provided by a senior member of management. The apology is specific to the failures identified in this decision, meaningful and empathetic. It has due regard to our apologies guidance.	No later than 10 February 2026
2	Compensation order The landlord must pay the resident £1,125 (inclusive of the £280 previously paid to the resident which it may deduct from this total figure when it makes the payment) made up as follows: £75 in recognition of the distress and inconvenience caused by delays inspecting the plastering. £500 in recognition of the distress and inconvenience caused by delays in resolving the leaks from the bathroom, treating the damp and mould and failures to address the damaged hallway flooring. £300 in recognition of the distress and inconvenience caused by delays in completing repairs in the kitchen and resolving the leak from under the sink. £100 in recognition of the distress and inconvenience caused by delays in completing repairs to the missing doorframe. £150 in recognition of the distress and inconvenience caused by missing important information in the complaint responses. This must be paid directly to the resident by the due date. The landlord must provide documentary evidence of payment by the due date. The landlord may deduct from the total figure any payments it has already paid.	No later than 10 February 2026

 

Our investigation

The complaint procedure

Date	What happened
6 February 2025	The resident raised a formal complaint with the landlord with regards to: Damaged plastering in the living room and hallway. Uneven concrete flooring in the hallway. Missing doorframes. A loose bath panel. She had also previously reported issues with kitchen floor tiles and leaks in the kitchen (under the sink) and bathroom (from the toilet cistern). Although she did not specifically refer to these issues on her formal complaint, her complaint stated that the landlord had promised to arrange an overall inspection to capture all the outstanding repairs issues around the property by early February 2025, but failed to do so.
26 February 2025	The landlord issued a stage 1 complaint response which stated it had carried out an inspection on 18 February 2025 and would complete the following works from 14 to 17 March 2025: Patchwork repairs to the living room, hallway, stairs and landing walls. Hallway flooring repairs with screed or resin. Replace trim around doorframes. Replace missing floor tiles in the kitchen. Check the kitchen sink for possible leaks. It acknowledged there had been a delay to these repairs and a lack of communication causing distress and inconvenience to the resident, for which it offered £75 in compensation.
14 March 2025	The resident asked to escalate the complaint due to further complications with the repairs. The contractor had attended for the plastering however she said they had found more extensive work was needed.
20 March 2025	The landlord acknowledged the resident’s complaint escalation request.
17 April 2025	The landlord issued a stage 2 complaint response which stated: It acknowledged its previous job specification was incorrect and the plastering on the living room and hallway walls needed more extensive work. It had re-inspected on 27 March 2025 and identified more repairs, which it would deliver on 7 May 2025. It would provide a dehumidifier to the resident and send her £80 to cover the additional electricity costs of operating it. It acknowledged a lack of communication with the resident. However, with regards to the plastering, it said it had met its 90-working day repairs timeframe within its service level agreement. In recognition of the distress and inconvenience caused by the repair delays and poor communication, it offered £125 (on top of the £75 it offered at stage 1 and £80 of dehumidifier operational costs), bringing the total compensation offer to £280.
4 June 2025	The resident referred her complaint to our Service.
July to December 2025	The parties explained to us over further correspondence that: The landlord had completed patchwork repairs to the hallway and stairs landing in April 2025, but further issues developed with the plaster after these repairs. The resident eventually hired a plasterer on a private basis to complete repairs to the living room and redecorated it herself in July 2025, spending around £395. The landlord completed repairs to the doorframes, and some repairs to the bathroom (boxing in pipes) in early May 2025. In July 2025 the landlord decided to renew the kitchen. The related works commenced on 23 October 2025 and included renewal of the kitchen flooring.

 

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.

Complaint	Broken plaster on multiple walls including living room, hallway and landing
Finding	Service failure

10. The resident reported to the landlord in mid-January 2025 that she had been stripping the wallpaper from the living room and hallway for the purposes of re-decorating. She explained this wallpaper was old, thick and in poor condition, and the plasterwork underneath the wallpaper was damaged. She said it was ‘missing chunks’.
11. The landlord initially treated this as a service request and agreed to make an appointment for an inspection in two weeks. When this did not materialise, the resident then made a complaint.
12. The landlord carried out an inspection in February 2025 and decided that only patchwork repairs were required. On 14 March 2025, the day when the works were due to begin, the plasterer attended and found that significantly more extensive work was needed involving skimming and bonding.
13. Records show the landlord subsequently conducted intermittent patchwork repairs in late April 2025, then again in early May 2025. The resident remained unhappy about the quality of the works and sent in a video of the plaster ‘cracking all the way down’ and coming loose. The landlord carried out another inspection but did not do further repairs.
14. The resident eventually hired her own plasterer to complete the works to her satisfaction and redecorated the living room herself. While we understand her frustration, there is insufficient evidence to say that the wall plaster was in poor or unacceptable condition after the works in May 2025. We cannot say that the landlord should be responsible for the costs of her hiring a private plasterer.
15. The landlord has explained that in line with its repairs policy, it would conduct repairs to blown plaster (where there was no health or safety risk identified) within 90 days. Records show it met this target by sending out a plasterer to attend within that time. However it apologised for getting the job specification wrong at first and underestimating the amount of work needed. It has offered £200 in recognition of any distress and inconvenience caused (which also covered other issues in this complaint).
16. The resident explained she had not used her living room since January until June 2025. While the plaster was blown she did not feel she or the children could use the room, and she had removed or covered up all the furniture in anticipation a plasterer would soon attend. While we appreciate this was frustrating for the resident, she started stripping back the wallpaper and removing the furniture of her own initiative in January 2025 and we cannot say the landlord was responsible for the reported loss of use of the living room during that time.
17. Overall, we consider the landlord acknowledged and offered redress for its main failing, which was underestimating the extent of the works needed and failing to get the job specification right from the first inspection. It did not acknowledge or apologise for the delay with arranging an inspection in February 2025, which could have resolved matters earlier, causing distress and inconvenience to the resident. For this reason, we find there was a failing in the landlord’s handling of the plaster repairs.
18. We consider a further compensation payment of £75 (on top of any sums already paid) would better reflect the impact experienced by the resident as described above. This is in line with our remedies guidance, which suggests that where the landlord has already acknowledged and sought to mitigate most (if not all) of the impact caused by its failings, we would potentially find a service failure for which a financial redress up to £100 may be appropriate.

Complaint	Leaks from the bathroom causing damp and mould, damaged and uneven flooring in the connected hallway
Finding	Maladministration

19. Records show that the landlord received a report of a continuous uncontained leak from the toilet cistern (from the boxing around the pipes) from the resident on 12 November 2024. She raised this issue again on 8 January 2025 and explained it had damaged the flooring in the connected hallway.
20. The landlord conducted a damp and mould inspection on 15 January 2025 and confirmed the leak from the cistern which was causing the boxing to rot, noting that a plumber would need to attend for further inspection. For reasons that remain unclear, the landlord did not raise follow-on works for a plumber to attend.
21. Records showed that while attending other repairs on 20 January 2025, the landlord again identified that there was a leak under the bathroom flooring which was coming into the adjacent hallway. However it again did not arrange follow-on works.
22. There was an inspection of the overall property condition on 18 February 2025 (arranged as part of the stage 1 complaint resolution) during which the landlord had opportunity to follow up on this issue, but did not do so. Another damp and mould inspection in March 2025 merely repeated that the leak was still happening. It was not until 27 March 2025 when the landlord’s repairs manager attended for an inspection of the overall condition of the property (arranged as part of its stage 2 complaints resolution) that the ongoing leak from the toilet was re-examined. The landlord attended the same day to stop the leak.
23. The landlord agreed on 27 March 2025 to install boxing in the bathroom around the pipes and conduct a mould wash. The installation of the boxing was a reversal of its position from December 2024/January 2025, when it told the resident it could not do this. As part of its stage 2 complaints resolution, it sent the resident a dehumidifier on 9 April 2025 and did further repairs to the bathroom flooring in late April to early May 2025. It conducted a mould wash and stain blocking to the bathroom on 23 May 2025.
24. Records indicate the landlord did some work to replace the flooring in the bathroom as of early May 2025, however the resident has told us that the work was incomplete and the landlord subsequently applied more latex to the bathroom floor in early December 2025.
25. Records are unclear whether the hallway flooring (which the resident stated was affected by the leaks) has been fully addressed. The landlord had raised works at both stages and 2 for repairing the uneven hallway flooring with screed or resin but it remains unclear whether this work was completed. The correspondence records suggest the parties disputed which part of the hallway flooring the landlord needed to be responsible for as the resident had put down her own flooring in some areas.
26. Ultimately, as the landlord’s delay in following up with the leaks is very likely to have contributed to damage in the flooring of the connected hallway, it would have been reasonable for the landlord to consider either offering repairs to the resident, or financial redress in reimbursement of the costs it would take to fix the flooring.
27. Overall, the evidence shows the landlord was passive in its response to the leaks and the subsequent damp and mould and there was significant delay in taking action. It did not have oversight over the situation and failed to take a customer-focused approach to resolve the matter. Despite several reports from the resident, and multiple inspections to identify the cause of the leak, the landlord did not take any follow-up action to address it for 4 months (from November 2024 till late March 2025), indicating poor internal communication.
28. The failure to follow up with action would have caused distress and inconvenience to the resident and her family. The landlord has not acknowledged any failing in its complaint response in this regard nor offered any redress to recognise the impact, apart from offering a dehumidifier and reimbursing the related operational costs.
29. Due to these reasons, there was maladministration in the landlord’s overall handling of the bathroom repairs including damp and mould and hallway flooring.
30. We consider a compensation payment of £500 (inclusive of the sums already paid) would better reflect the impact experienced by the resident due to the above failings. This is in line with our remedies guidance which suggests that for an impact of medium severity and impact compensation in the range of £100 to £600 is appropriate.

Complaint	Multiple kitchen issues including missing floor tiles, unstable kitchen units, and leak under the sink
Finding	Maladministration

31. The resident had reported kitchen issues as early as July 2024 concerning missing floor tiles and a damaged kitchen unit which had become mouldy from a leaking sink. There was no record of any follow-up by the landlord at that time to stop the leak or to make any repairs for the floor or the unit.
32. The landlord carried out damp and mould surveys in December 2024 and mid-January 2025. The second survey identified mould growing behind the sink unit in the kitchen, however it stated ‘it would be unusual to treat the mould behind the sink unless the kitchen was renewed’. As part of its stage 1 response in mid-February 2025, the landlord said it would check the kitchen sink for possible leaks.
33. It was not until 27 March 2025 when the landlord’s repairs manager carried out an overall inspection of the property’s condition that the landlord identified the ongoing leak behind the kitchen sink again. It called a plumber on the same day to rectify the leak. It then conducted a mould wash and stain blocking on 23 May 2025 to the area under the sink.
34. In terms of dealing with the leak and subsequent damp and mould, there was a significant delay. Despite the problem being reported by the resident in July 2024 and then confirmed by surveyors in January 2025, the landlord took no action to stop the leak and mitigate the damp and mould that had formed until the end of March 2025. This lack of action over an extended period (around 6 months) would have caused the resident distress and inconvenience.
35. After the resident raised a complaint in February 2025, the landlord carried out an inspection on 18 February 2025 and raised works to replace the missing kitchen floor tiles. It did not address the unstable kitchen unit until mid-March 2025 when it identified the joist in the middle was ‘falling apart’. It conducted a repeat inspection in late March 2025, then informed the resident it would replace a number of kitchen facilities including the floor tiles and the base unit. This was confirmed in the stage 2 complaint response in mid-April 2025.
36. However the landlord put all of these works on pause while it re-assessed the situation on 7 May 2025. It told the resident it would renew the kitchen on 7 July 2025. It carried out the related works in October 2025 and fixed snagging issues in late November 2025.
37. While it is positive for the landlord to eventually renew the kitchen after completion of the local complaints process, the fact remains that there was a very significant delay to progressing the works. The resident was left with unsafe kitchen facilities (including a floor with missing tiles and structurally unsound unit) for a year from July 2024 to July 2025. The landlord could have put into place temporary repairs to mitigate the risk to the resident but missed multiple opportunities to do so. This was the case despite multiple inspections being carried out.
38. Overall, the landlord’s response to the kitchen issues was passive and there was extensive delay in responding to these issues. It had missed multiple opportunities to resolve the problem earlier or to mitigate the impact to the resident.
39. While the landlord has offered £200 at stage 2 in recognition of the resident’s general distress and inconvenience (which also covers other repairs issues in this complaint), we consider the amount offered did not reflect the distress and inconvenience she experienced.
40. Due to the reasons stated above, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of kitchen issues including missing floor tiles, an unstable kitchen unit and a leak behind the sink.
41. We consider a compensation payment of £300 (inclusive of the sums already paid) would better reflect the impact experienced by the resident as described above. This is in line with our remedies guidance which suggests that for an impact of medium severity and impact, compensation in the range of £100 to £600 is appropriate.

Complaint	Missing doorframe in the living room
Finding	Service failure

42. The resident reported doorframes missing or damaged in the living room and bedrooms in July 2024. The landlord attended in late August 2024, however records show it only rehung the doors in the bedrooms and replaced handles on upstairs doors.
43. The resident raised the issue of the living room door again on 24 January 2025. The landlord agreed to make an appointment to inspect the overall condition of the property in 2 weeks but failed to meet that target. The resident subsequently complained and the landlord raised a job to repair the trim around the living room door on 18 February 2025. There were several delays, the reasons for which remain unclear. The landlord ultimately completed the living room doorframe repair in early May 2025.
44. The delay of about 10 months from July 2024 would have caused the resident distress and inconvenience. We acknowledge there have been a large number of repair issues in the house during this time, and both parties have prioritised other repairs, which may account for some of the delay.
45. However it remains the case that the landlord could have resolved this issue in August 2024 when it dealt with the other bedroom doors, but did not do so. We therefore find service failure for this aspect of the complaint. We have ordered the landlord to make compensation for a sum of £100 in line with our remedies guidance.

Complaint	The complaint handling
Finding	Maladministration

46. Our Complaint Handling Code states that the landlord’s complaint handlers should consider all relevant evidence and information carefully; they should provide clear reasons for their decisions; and any remedy offered must reflect the impact on the resident as a result of any fault identified.
47. In order to do that, landlords should review the timeline of events to see when the resident first reported issues, so it could correctly identify the cause and duration of delays or non-action. It should use this as a basis to make reasonable offers of redress to the resident and identify learning. It should include this information in its complaint responses as part of its explanation to the resident on what has gone wrong and what it is doing to put things right.
48. We also consider it was important for the landlord to mitigate some of the emotional detriment caused by delays through acknowledgment of the resident’s experience. This is more so the case due to the reported vulnerabilities in the household of which the landlord was aware.
49. In this case, the landlord missed the opportunity to do so. While the landlord acknowledged the resident’s complaint and issued responses in good time, at both stages 1 and 2 it provided only limited information on what had happened on some components of her complaint. Crucially it lacked reviews on when the resident first made it aware of the various issues in her complaint, and how long she had been waiting for follow-up actions. This would have in itself caused distress and inconvenience to the resident.
50. This case contains many components (including: broken plaster, leaks in the bathroom, leak under the kitchen sink, missing tiles on the kitchen floor, missing doorframes, among others) raised at different times, which may have made it more difficult for the landlord to structure its response. However, it should still have examined the situation in suitable depth so it could offer a fair response to the resident.
51. Due to the reasons stated above, there is maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling.
52. We have ordered the landlord to make compensation in line with our remedies guidance, for a sum of £150 (at the lower end of the range of compensation we would consider reasonable for distress and inconvenience of medium severity and duration) to reflect the impact described above.

Learning

Knowledge information management (record keeping)

53. Our Spotlight Report on Knowledge and information management (KIM) set out that landlords should ensure their databases are capable of adequately capturing information about residents (including vulnerabilities) and repairs. Staff should be able to easily access information they require as this is essential for evidence-based decision-making.
54. In this case, there were multiple occasions where the landlord did not follow up on the resident’s reports of issues and did not acknowledge it later during complaints resolution. The landlord could potentially have resolved many of the repairs issues raised by the resident earlier if it had followed the guidance in our KIM Spotlight Report.