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Sovereign Housing Association Limited (202103368)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202103368

Sovereign Housing Association Limited

22 July 2022

 

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 resident complains about the landlord’s response to:

a.     Her reports of an allergen within her property which were made up until 15 April 2021.

b.     Her reports of an allergen within her property which were made after 15 April 2021

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. After carefully considering all the evidence, in accordance with paragraph 39(a) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the following aspect of the complaint is outside of the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction;
    1. The landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of an allergen within her property made after 15 April 2021
  3. The Ombudsman investigates matters that have been through a landlord’s complaints procedure without a resolution having been reached. Part of this investigation is considering how the landlord responded to the complaint and whether its response was fair and reasonable taking into account the Ombudsman’s dispute resolution principles.
  4. This investigation focuses on a complaint made by the resident in February 2021 and again in April 2021, the final response to which was sent on 15 April 2021. This investigation will therefore be focussing on events that occurred up to and including this date, but will not include events that occurred after this point. This is because the landlord needs to have the opportunity to consider recent events as a formal complaint first. Therefore, if the resident is dissatisfied with the landlord’s recent actions, then it is recommended that she make a new complaint to it if she has not yet done so.

Background and summary of events

  1. On 20 February 2021 the resident raised concerns about how the landlord was responding to her reports of an allergen in her property, which she believed to be down to mould.
  2. On 11 March 2021 the landlord carried out a damp and mould survey. It was reported that there was no mould or damp present within the property.
  3. On 18 March 2021 the resident emailed the landlord to raise concerns about the survey that was carried out. She said that a specialist in cavity wall insulation was needed to carry out an inspection. She described the mould that she had found in the property and the impact she believed this to be having on her health.
  4. On 18 March 2021 the landlord emailed the resident had said that its cavity wall insulation specialist had confirmed that if there had been any failures in the cavity wall insulation this would be apparent from inside the property. The landlord said that it would arrange another inspection for a second opinion.
  5. The resident responded the same day and said that if there had been no failure in the cavity wall insulation, why was she experiencing an allergic reaction and why had there been a change to the external brickwork. The resident also said that she wouldn’t have black mould everywhere when inspections were carried out, as she cleaned her home daily due to her asthma. She believed that the landlord was ruling mould out as a potential problem due to that. The resident also requested that an independent survey be carried out rather than one by a landlord employee.
  6. In response the landlord said that it would cancel the second inspection as it would be an internal member of staff. It said that this could be rearranged, but it would be closing the complaint at stage one at this point.
  7. On 19 March 2021 the resident emailed the landlord and asked that her complaint be escalated to stage 2. She said that due to the absence of mould in her property she believed that the landlord was ruling this out as the cause of the problems she was experiencing. However, she cleaned her house daily due to the problems with breathing in spores. She said that though she was struggling to find the source of her problems, she was certain that these were related to the property as they did not occur outside the house. She described her symptoms and said that her daughter had started suffering from them too when she had stayed in the house. Ultimately, she was seeking a transfer in resolution of her complaint.
  8. The same day the landlord confirmed that it would be escalating her complaint and said that it did not disbelief that she was experiencing the problems that she was reporting. However, it had no clear indication of what it was looking for as her property was built with ‘standard materials, with nothing unusual about the construction’. In order for it to take action it needed to know what was causing the reaction.
  9. On 15 April 2021 the landlord sent the resident a response under the final stage of its complaints procedure. The landlord said that it was going to close the complaint and until it could get a definitive answer from the resident’s doctor about what was causing the resident’s reactions it could not assist any further. However, once it had this answer it would assist with resolving this should it be property related.
  10. This was followed by an email to the resident’s MP on 18 June 2021 where the landlord confirmed that it had been unable to locate a cause for the allergies the resident was experiencing. Though the resident’s doctor had said that the resident needed to be separated from the allergen, the landlord could not take this forward without knowing what the allergen was. The landlord confirmed that it would be cleaning the soffits on 23 June 2021 to reassure the resident and would attend to any further repairs reported.

Assessment and findings

  1. It is clear that this situation has been very distressing for the resident, and she has provided a number of documents to support her position. It may help if I firstly explain what the role of the Housing Ombudsman is and the limits of that role in this case.
  2. Firstly, the resident complains that there is an allergen present in the property, currently believed to be a mould or fungus, and has struggled to get confirmation of its presence. The Ombudsman cannot provide confirmation of whether an allergen is present in the property or seek to establish a causal link between her ill health and any action or lack of action by the landlord. This Service is not qualified to provide this assessment nor is it qualified to carry out its own inspections into whether there is an allergen in her property or not. Instead, the Ombudsman’s role is to consider whether the landlord’s actions in response to the resident’s reports were fair and appropriate.
  3. Secondly, events have progressed since the landlord sending the final response that has been considered in this investigation. This includes that the allergen has now been identified. As detailed in the jurisdiction section of this report, this investigation is limited to events that occurred up to and including the landlord sending the final response. However, considering the ongoing nature of this issue and the fact that the allergen has now been confirmed by medical professionals, recommendations have been made at the end of this report.
  4. In response to the resident’s reports, a damp and mould inspection was carried out of the property. This was an appropriate first response to see whether there were any issues which the landlord would be responsible for resolving. This inspection concluded that there were no problems with damp or mould in the property.
  5. The resident disagreed with this outcome and the landlord offered to carry out a further inspection in order to get a second opinion. This did not go ahead as the resident was not satisfied that this would be carried out by an internal member of staff.
  6. It is clear that the resident would have preferred an independent survey at this point and sometimes these can be an appropriate way to resolve a dispute. This is because they can provide a third party opinion, giving reassurance to both parties that all issues have been identified. However, in this case it was reasonable that the landlord didn’t agree to one at this point. This is because it had limited information regarding what the allergen was and so was reasonable that it wanted to wait for further information in order to scope further inspections.
  7. This brings us to the landlord’s final position that it wanted further information from the resident’s doctor regarding what the allergen was. This was not an unreasonable position for the landlord to take. Ultimately, it had carried out an inspection that failed to find an issue and offered a further inspection which was declined. Having further information about the allergen would allow the landlord to assess whether the allergen could be property related and help it direct its investigations.
  8. As mentioned previously, the resident’s allergen has now been confirmed and communication has been ongoing between the landlord and the resident regarding these matters. This has included further inspections being carried out as recently as last month. Those these actions and responses cannot be considered as part of this investigation, it is recommended that the landlord carry out an independent inspection if it has not done so already. The reason for this is due the potential risk to the resident with a confirmed allergen and the benefit to both parties of a third party opinion.

 

Determination (decision)

  1. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was no maladministration in the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of an allergen in her property made up until 15 April 2021.

Reasons

  1. The landlord carried out an inspection which did not identify any issues and offered a further inspection which was declined. It was then reasonable for the landlord to ask for further information regarding what the allergen was in order to narrow its investigations.

Recommendations

  1. It is recommended that the landlord arrange for an independent survey be carried out of the property, if it has not done so already, to check;

a.     For the presence of damp and mould

b.     The air quality

c.      The cavity wall insulation

  1. If this survey does identify any issues then it is recommended that the landlord produce a plan of action with the resident to resolve this and consider whether compensation is payable to the resident from the point of her first report of a problem.