Sovereign Network Group (202415333)

Decision
Case ID	202415333
Decision type	Investigation
Landlord	Sovereign Network Group
Landlord type	Housing Association
Occupancy	Assured Tenancy
Date	15 December 2025

Background

The resident has been a tenant of the landlord since 2014. The property is a 1–bedroom flat on the first floor of a 3-storey converted house. The complaint is about repairs that have now been completed by the landlord.

What the complaint is about

The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of a leak and the associated damage.
We have also investigated the landlord’s complaint handling.

Our decision (determination)

We have found there was:
1. Reasonable redress in the landlord’s handling of a leak and the associated damage.
2. No maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling.

We have not made orders for the landlord to put things right.

Summary of reasons

The leak and the associated damage

There were significant delays in the landlord addressing the leak, caused in part by issues gaining access to the rear of the building. When it did gain access, there were further delays in it investigating the cause of the leak and carrying out the repairs. The landlord accepted its failures and offered substantial compensation, which it increased following the work being completed, as well as changing the bedroom carpet.

Complaint handling

The landlord issued its stage 1 response on the date contained on its acknowledgment communication. It also issued its stage 2 response on time and promptly addressed the resident’s query about the compensation calculation.

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.

Recommendations

Our recommendations are not binding, and a landlord may decide not to follow them.

Our recommendations
We recommend the landlord pays the resident the £4,830.50 it offered to her on 31 May 2024 and following the completion of the repairs on 7 February 2025, if it has not already done so. Our finding of reasonable redress is made on the basis that this payment is made.
We recommend the landlord provides the resident with details of its public liability insurer. This is in respect of any claim she may wish to make for damage to personal possessions caused by the leak.

Our investigation

The complaint procedure

Date	What happened
22 February 2024	The resident contacted the landlord to complain about a leak in her ceiling. She said she had initially reported the issue in September 2023 and had been chasing up on it on a regular basis since then. She added that continuous rain had caused further damage to her bedroom carpet.
8 March 2024	The landlord issued its stage 1 response. It said: It accepted the resident had initially contacted it in September 2023. An emergency repair was raised and it attended within 4 hours to ensure the ceiling was safe. It had then raised a job on 28 September 2023, and a contractor attended shortly after this date. It had chased the contractor since then, and the work was confirmed in March 2024. Scaffolding was required to the rear of the property, which meant access was needed to the flat below. However, it had been struggling to contact the tenant of that flat. It accepted the repair had exceeded the timescales in its policy. It offered £594 compensation. The was calculated from 42 days after the repair up to the date of the response.
9 March 2024 to 17 April 2024	The resident emailed the landlord to say she was unhappy with the progress of repairs and the level of the customer service provided by it. She also informed it that the ongoing leak was impacting her health.
23 May 2024	The landlord issued its stage 2 response. It said: It had provided the resident with updates since the stage 1 response, but it understood further rain was impacting the ongoing leak and the damage caused by it. It was still encountering difficulties with the neighbour in accessing the garden to erect the scaffolding required to carry out the repair. It had applied for an injunction to gain access. It offered mould washes and the use of drip trays to catch the water. It had agreed with its contractor an alternative way of looking at and possibly carrying out repairs to the roof. This involved the use of a cherry picker, and a date of 10 June 2024 was scheduled. It could not offer the resident a transfer, as this was handled by the local authority. The property was deemed safe, so an emergency temporary transfer would not be possible. It was in the process of reviewing the compensation calculation and would provide this by 30 May 2024. It offered to pay for a carpet clean to address the damage to the carpet in the bedroom.
31 May 2024	The landlord offered the resident compensation of £2,508.47. This was calculated as 20% of her rent for the loss of use of the bedroom. The offer replaced an earlier offer made on 24 May 2024, which was for £2,272,67.
Referral to the Ombudsman	The resident brought her complaint to us and said: The damp and mould caused by the leak had damaged her carpet and the flooring underneath. She had also had to dispose of a number of items – including a bed, bedding, towels and personal items – which were soaked and destroyed. She had been unable to sleep in the bedroom due to fear of the ceiling collapsing and worry about the damp and mould. The repair was still outstanding, and she felt she was living in a property which was a significant health and safety risk. Although she had accepted compensation, this was on the basis she believed the repair to resolve the leak was impending. She later discovered this was not the case.
9 January 2025	The landlord completed the repairs to resolve the leak.
7 February 2025	The landlord offered further compensation of £2,322.03, calculated from 11 June 2024 to 9 January 2025.

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	The landlord’s handling of the leak and the associated damage
Finding	Reasonable redress

What we did not investigate

The resident told us the situation has had an impact on her health and wellbeing. It would be fairer, more reasonable and more effective for her to make a personal injury claim for any injury caused. The courts are best placed to deal with this type of dispute, as they will have the benefit of independent medical advice to decide on the cause of any injury and how long it will last. We have therefore not investigated this further. However, we can decide if a landlord should pay compensation for distress and inconvenience.

What we did investigate

The landlord’s repairs policy says it is responsible for keeping the structure of the property in a good state of repair. The policy explains that when a repair is reported, it assigns the repair one of 3 priorities. These are emergency, routine and complex repairs. The landlord defines these priorities as follows:
1. Emergency repairs are those where there is a risk to someone’s health or safety. It aims to respond within 4 hours to make safe.
2. Routine repairs are those repairs which are unlikely to cause serious health and safety problems or damage if not fixed straight away. It aims to attend within 2 weeks and to complete the repairs within one calendar month.
3. Complex repairs are larger repairs which take longer to arrange – for example, where it needs specialist contractors, surveys, or further investigation. It aims to complete planned repairs within 90 days.
The landlord’s damp, mould and condensation (DMC) procedure sets out that when it receives a report of damp, mould or condensation it will initially ask a serious of questions. This is to determine the cause, including if there is an active leak and if the walls or ceilings are wet to touch. If the resident answers yes to either question, it will immediately raise a repair to trace and identify the leak or repair the pointing on the external wall.
The landlord attended on the same day the resident’s repair was initially reported to ensure the ceiling was not in danger of falling in. This was appropriate and in keeping with its response timescale for an emergency repair.
The landlord raised a works order on 28 September 2023 and said its contractor attended in early October 2023. This was in keeping with its responsive repair timescale. The landlord has not been able to provide an exact date of when its contractor attended. This suggests that its record keeping was not as robust as it should have been.
The landlord has not disputed that the resident contacted it regularly to request an update on the repair. It said that following its contractor attending, the work needed approval, and the contractor would be sending a quotation. Despite it chasing the contractor at the end of October 2023 and again in December 2023, following further contact from the resident, it does not appear that it did any further chasing until after the complaint had been made in March 2024. It also did not provide the resident with any update from December 2023 until its stage 1 response on 8 March 2024. This was over 3 months later, and was not appropriate.
The landlord said it encountered difficulties in accessing the rear of the property, where it needed to erect scaffolding, which also contributed to the delays taken in completing the repairs. Access to the garden could only be gained via the ground floor flat, and the tenant of that flat was not co-operating with it. While we have seen evidence to support that access was not being provided, the landlord did not need this to carry out an inspection of the flat roof for part of the property, which it initially suspected was contributing to the leak to the property. The landlord asked its contractor on 23 May 2024 if it could access the roof without the need for scaffolding, via the use of a cherry picker from the front of the property. However, this was only after the resident had escalated her complaint. There was no evidence that the landlord had been looking at alternative options to assess the damage and if possible, repair it prior to this time. This was a missed opportunity by it.
In its stage 2 response, the landlord said it offered the resident mould washes and the use of drip trays while the repair was outstanding. While this demonstrated it acknowledged the impact the issue was causing her, mould washes would not resolve the matter until the cause of the leak was identified and repaired. In addition, the landlord accepted the positioning of the leak (to the ceiling) meant that the drip trays were not effective or practical.
The landlord informed the resident in its stage 2 response that it had gone through the process of obtaining an injunction and that the process was not a “quick solution”. Whilst this provided the resident with some explanation, it did not confirm how long its own legal team took to approve the process of obtaining the injunction. This meant that there were further delays. The landlord’s internal correspondence on 25 July 2024 said it would be proceeding with forced access on the next day to the flat below the resident’s property. However, it appears from the records provided that this did not occur. No explanation was provided for this.
The resident enquired with the landlord at the beginning of September 2024 as to who had put up scaffolding at the front of the property. While she was aware the landlord needed to erect the scaffolding to address the repairs, she was not informed about it beforehand. The landlord confirmed after checking that the scaffolding had been erected by a subcontractor working for the previous contractor, which had initially been tasked with carrying out the repairs to the flat roof (before being replaced by the landlord). It informed the resident that this was an old instruction and that the scaffolding would be taken down. It advised that it needed scaffolding to the rear which had been tasked to a different contractor. This demonstrated the landlord was not fully aware of what was going on with regards to the repairs. This was a failing by it, and the impact would have caused a degree of distress and inconvenience to the resident.
The landlord told the resident on multiple occasions in September 2024 that the scaffolding to the rear would be erected by 26 September 2024. It said it would then carry out the work within 7 days. As well as addressing the downpipe at the rear, the landlord said it would address the flat roof for repairs. However, the scaffolding was not put up at that time, nor were any repairs carried out. This was because the tenant refused access, and the matter went back to court. The information provided shows the injunction was not granted until the end of October 2024, over 13 months since the issue was initially raised by the resident.
The resident reported further saturation to her bedroom caused by rain and water ingress on 26 September 2024. The landlord acted appropriately by arranging for a leak survey to be carried out on 3 October 2024. The survey inspection noted that the flat above the resident’s was vacant at the time, but that no access was provided. As the bedroom for that flat was directly above the resident’s bedroom where the leak was occurring, this was a missed opportunity for the landlord to determine whether there was a leak in that flat as well and whether this was causing the leak to the resident’s property.
The leak survey identified an issue with the pointing to the external brickwork as well as some cracked bricks, which the landlord felt was causing the water ingress. Based on this, it felt that the repairing of the pointing and replacing the damaged bricks would resolve the matter. However, the leak survey noted that if the leak persisted after the pointing and cracked bricks were replaced, a roofing specialist might be needed to gain access to the flat roof. This would require access to the flat above the resident’s.
Following the completion of the repairs on 9 January 2025, although the landlord accepted that its operative needed to return to carry out some snagging works, it awarded further substantial compensation. The amount offered of £2,322.03 took into account the period from 11 June 2024 (which was covered at stage 2) up to 9 January 2025. This was a reasonable approach at the point of the repairs being completed.
The further compensation offered by the landlord was appropriately based on a high level of impact for delay, distress and time and trouble under its compensation policy. It also included a proportion of rent for the loss of use of her bedroom, which was made on a discretionary basis. When assessing this case we have considered that the landlord later acknowledged further failures and that it agreed to replace the carpet, as opposed to cleaning it as previously offered at stage 2. It also confirmed that the total compensation has already been paid to the resident, including the shortfall between its initial correspondence of 24 May 2024 and 31 May 2024. These actions demonstrated a resolution-focused approach and aligned with our dispute resolution principles.

Complaint	The handling of the complaint
Finding	No maladministration

While the resident made her complaint in February 2024, the escalation of her complaint was made after 1 April 2024, at which point our Complaint Handling Code became statutory. This sets out that landlords must have a 2-stage complaints process. It also requires landlords to acknowledge a complaint or escalation request within 5 working days. Landlords must issue a stage 1 response within 10 working days of acknowledging the complaint. They must also issue a stage 2 response within 20 working days of an escalation acknowledgement. The landlord’s applicable complaints policy, including prior to April 2024, reflected these expectations.
The landlord sent its stage 1 response by the deadline set out in its acknowledgement letter of 8 March 2024. However, this was 11 working days after it acknowledged the complaint, and so 1 day outside of the timescale contained in its policy. This could have been caused by the landlord not realising that 2024 was a leap year. Due to the limited information provided by the landlord, we cannot confirm whether it acknowledged the complaint within 5 days, so have not made a finding on this.
The landlord sent its stage 2 response within the timescale contained in its complaints policy. As the response itself did not provide details of any compensation (which it said was being reviewed), it followed this up with further communication a day later. It then appropriately amended this when challenged by the resident, as the landlord had not used the repair timescales from its policy at the time.
Overall, while the landlord’s response at stage 1 was a day outside of the timescale contained in its policy, the delay was minimal and likely had no significant impact on the resident. The landlord informed the resident in its acknowledgement communication of the date it would reply with, and it met that deadline.

Learning

Knowledge and information management (record keeping)

The landlord should improve its record keeping practices by ensuring that clear and accurate documentation is maintained. While it has provided records, there are gaps within these, especially in relation to its contact with its contractor. Our spotlight report on complaints about repairs and knowledge and information management can assist with this.
Landlords should also ensure that they use the correct policy to assess repairs, including timescales, and that if compensation is offered it accurately reflects these timescales.
It would have been helpful and good practice for the landlord to have set out in its stage 2 response that it would revise the compensation offered once the repair was completed. While it may not have been able to give details of the further amount it would pay, this could have highlighted to the resident that it was aware of the need to factor in any further impact after its stage 2 response.

Communication

The landlord evidenced periods of good communication with the resident. This was mostly after the resident had raised her complaint. However, there were initially significant periods following her reporting the repair where it failed to provide her with regular updates or evidence that it was regularly chasing its contractor over the repair. Good communication plays a key role in an effective repairs system as well as fostering transparency and trust, and the landlord should consider how it can improve its communication with residents.