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Sparrow Shared Ownership Limited (202211908)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202211908

Sage Housing Limited (SHL)

24 October 2024

 

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 reports of damp and mould in the property.
  2. The Ombudsman has also considered the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

  1. The resident is a shared ownership leaseholder who purchased the property from new. She signed her lease on 8 November 2021 and moved in on 20 November 2021. The property is a 2-bedroom ground floor flat within a residential block. The landlord is the freeholder of the block.
  2. The resident initially contacted the landlord in relation to damp and bubbling paintwork on 23 December 2021. She chased the landlord in January and February 2022 before raising a complaint in March (and again in April 2022 after the first complaint was not acknowledged).
  3. In the landlord’s stage 1 response sent on 27 April 2022, it said it had arranged for its defects surveyor to attend on 29 April 2022 and offered £120 compensation for the delays and inconvenience caused to her. The resident said the landlord promised an update within a week of the inspection but heard nothing, so she chased at the end of May 2022. A contractor carried out some work to an area affected by damp/mould in June 2022. This did not resolve the issue, so the resident requested to escalate the complaint to stage 2.
  4. The resident reported continued damp issues on 23 August 2022. She contacted this service in September 2022 as the landlord had not responded to her or issued a stage 2 response. After contact from this service, the landlord told the resident a damp specialist and senior surveyor would attend on 23 November 2022. There is no evidence to confirm if the surveyor attended on this date, but the surveyor did attend on 29 November 2022.
  5. The landlord issued its stage 2 response and upheld the complaint on 21 December 2022, in which it said;
    1. The surveyor found damp and mould on the visit and he would work with a contractor to resolve the issues.
    2. It offered a total of £300 compensation made up of;
      1. £200 for the delay actioning the defects.
      2. £50 for distress caused.
      3. £50 for the delay responding to the stage 2 complaint.
  6. It is not exactly clear when, but the surveyor and contractors told the resident they were going to inspect the roof of the building and would advise her of the outcome. The resident said she has never received an update and remained unhappy with how the landlord handled her reports, however she said there is now no evidence of damp or mould in the property.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. The Ombudsman acknowledges the resident initially raised concerns about the balcony/shelter, as she thought its structure could cause problems including damp walls. The landlord responded to this concern, and there is no evidence of this matter being raised as part of the complaint under investigation here. Further, the resident also raised a patio door defect, and delays with a radiator repair which was removed due to the damp wall.
  2. The resident confirmed in a call with this service on 10 January 2024 she wished for this Service to investigate the landlord’s handling of damp and mould, as the other issues were resolved. As a result, these matters are not considered further (reflected at paragraph 42.a. of the Scheme). Instead, this investigation is focused solely on the landlord’s handling of her reports of damp and mould in the property.

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

  1. The leaseholder agreement says the leaseholder must: “keep the premises in good repair and condition; not make any alterations to the exterior of the premises or in any way interfere with the outside of the building; give notice as soon as possible of any defect or want or repair to the building or common parts”.
  2. The agreement also says the landlord is responsible for maintenance and repairs of all structural parts of the building which includes the roof, foundations and external walls.
  3. The landlord’s shared ownership and leaseholder repairs policy says a defect is where something is wrong with a resident’s new home that can be to do with the building structure. It says the defect period for new properties generally lasts 12 months from when they were built.
  4. The landlord’s defect management policy (October 2021) says:
    1. It is committed to resolve defects that arise within a reasonable time, and with the least amount of disruption to the resident as possible.
    2. Defects can be reported through a portal or by phone. Communications with residents, developers and contractors will be conducted through a shared online portal which gives residents live updates and maintains an audit trail.
    3. Where the resident or the developer are unable to access the portal, the defect advisor will communicate via the most appropriate method available and will contact the resident to confirm receipt of the defect report in the following timescales;
      1. Emergency Defects – 4 working hours.
      2. Urgent defects – 1 working day.
      3. Non urgent (routine defects) – 5 working days.
  5. The landlord emailed the resident on 22 December 2021 to tell her about its new portal for reporting defects to be used in the new year. The resident replied to the email the following day and reported bubbling paintwork by the front door of her property. She said she had used a damp meter on the wall which showed a reading of 48% and it needed urgent attention. Although the resident chased the landlord by phone on 28 January 2022, there was no evidence that it took any action in relation to the damp report until 25 February 2022 (approximately 2 months later) when it asked for pictures. The resident sent pictures of the damp paintwork the same day, but there was no evidence the landlord took any action for approximately another 2 months, when it requested a damp inspection on 21 April 2022. Even then, the evidence suggests this was only prompted after the resident raised a formal complaint on 11 April 2022. The delays and lack of action were unreasonable and a failing.
  6. The landlord sent its defects surveyor on 29 April 2022. The resident also said a damp contractor attended (unclear whether the contractor was sent by the landlord or the developer) who conducted tests to the affected walls. However, she said nothing further was done. The surveyors report or test results carried out by the contractor have not been provided to this service. There was no evidence any party used the portal or communicated with the resident. The landlord should have done more to monitor the situation and kept the resident updated which was a failing.
  7. The landlord sent a contractor in early May 2022. However, whilst the door was inspected, there are no records to confirm what work (if any) was carried out in relation to the damp. In an email to the landlord sent 20 May 2022 the resident said she had chased the contractor directly to ask when the damp and defective plasterboard would be removed, but she had not received a response. The lack of updates and poor communication led the resident to escalate the complaint to stage 2 on 6 June 2022, which caused further inconvenience.
  8. Following the complaint escalation, the contractor attended 4 days later and addressed the mould (sanded the wall, treated the mould, filled the wall, and repainted the area) which was reasonable. The resident said the contractor attended again in July 2022 and removed her lounge radiator as the wall was very damp. The resident said the contractor said he would raise the continued damp with the landlord, but there is no evidence he did so.
  9. The resident reported continuing damp issues approximately two and half months later. She contacted this service after no contact from the landlord in relation to either the reports of damp or a stage 2 response. It was not until contact from this service (chasing a stage 2 response) the landlord acted. It sent its surveyor and damp contractor again in November 2022. However, this was 3 months after the reports of continued damp, 7 months after they had originally attended, and was only after being prompted by this service. The delays were unreasonable and caused inconvenience to the resident as she lived with the ongoing expectation that the damp would be dealt with and she continually had to chase. Again, this service has not seen any surveyor reports but it is acknowledged that damp was present.
  10. In a phone call with this service the resident said the surveyor and damp contractor told her they would assess the roof and would tell her the outcome.  However, whilst she said the damp and mould had now resolved, she had not received any update as of December 2023, 1 year after the stage 2 response. The lack of update was a failing and caused further inconvenience.
  11. The presence or potential presence of damp and mould in a property is a significant matter that presents a risk to health and safety of its occupants. This service would expect the landlord to have completed detailed assessments and/or retained accurate contemporaneous records of any assessments it undertook, whether visual or technical to verify with certainty what action, if any it could undertake. Information related to the findings and conclusions of the surveyor’s inspections at each stage of the complaint process were not provided to this service. It is therefore not possible to say whether the landlord should have completed further work after the first surveyor visit. A request was made to the landlord for it to provide the missing information, however it was not provided. The landlord’s record keeping in this case was poor and cannot but have hindered cohesive and effective management of repair needs at the property.
  12. We encourage landlords to self-assess against the Ombudsman’s spotlight reports following publication. In May 2023 we published our spotlight on Knowledge and Information Management. The evidence gathered during this investigation shows the landlord’s practise was not in line with that recommended in the spotlight report. We encourage landlords to consider the findings and recommendations of our spotlight report unless the landlord can provide evidence it has self-assessed already.
  13. The landlord’s overall handling of the resident’s reports of damp and mould was poor. It failed to resolve the defects in a reasonable time with minimal disruption as per its policy. The evidence showed long delays where no action was taken, poor communication (with the resident continually having to chase for updates), and the landlord only acting with any sense of urgency after the resident escalated her complaint. The Ombudsman would have expected the landlord to accept responsibility and monitor the situation. The landlord expected residents to use the portal to report defects, yet there was no evidence its contractors or developers used the portal to keep the resident updated. The landlord’s lack of urgency or proactive involvement, coupled with poor communication, ultimately left the resident with damp and mould for an unreasonable length of time. The lack of communication over a prolonged period also caused uncertainty and exacerbated the resident’s frustration and disappointment.
  14. Where the Ombudsman has identified failings in the landlord’s response to the substantive issue, it is then for this service to consider how the landlord responded to those failings through the operation of its complaints process. In this case, (although the stage 2 response was delayed) the landlord accepted and acknowledged that there had been failures leading to unacceptable delays and that this had caused detriment to the resident. It apologised for the delays and time, trouble and inconvenience caused, and offered £300 compensation which the resident did not accept. It has also since introduced a damp and mould policy in November 2022 which has been cross referenced with the recommendations in this service’s Damp and Mould Report, “It’s Not Lifestyle” which is a positive step. It is not clear if/when the damp and mould issues were resolved or whether the landlord diagnosed what caused the damp in the resident’s property. However, the offer of compensation was not proportionate to the failings identified by our investigation. The Ombudsman therefore makes a determination of maladministration, and an increased order of compensation of £600 is made to reflect the inconvenience, time and trouble caused to the resident.

Complaint handling

  1. The resident emailed the landlord’s defects email address on 22 March 2022 to raise a complaint. She said she also left a voicemail with the complaint details as she said its phones were not answered. The landlord’s policy in use at the time said complaints can be raised online, or by email, phone, or letter, and acknowledged within 2 working days. However, there was no evidence it did so, which was a failing. The resident had to re-raise the complaint on 11 April to a different email address. This caused inconvenience and delayed the start of the complaint investigation.
  2. The landlord’s complaint policy states that stage 1 responses should be sent within 10 working days (extended to 20 working days for complex cases). Once it acknowledged the complaint, the stage 1 response was sent 11 working days later, which was not significantly outside its policy timeframes. However, the response should have been sent by 5 April 2022 and it did not apologise for its failure to escalate the complaint in the first instance, which represents a failing.
  3. The landlord’s complaint policy states that stage 2 responses should be sent within 25 working days (extended to 40 in complex cases). The resident requested to escalate the complaint to stage 2 of the complaints process on 6 June 2022. She incurred further inconvenience having to chase a response in August 2022, before contacting this service which she should not have had to do. The landlord did not send a response until 21 December 2022, some 141 working days after the escalation. This was despite the resident being told on a call it would issue a stage 2 response within 20 working days of 24 October 2022. This raised her expectations and caused further frustration and inconvenience when it did not issue a response in the timeframe given.
  4. The landlord’s complaint policy said there were informal complaint stages where it would try and resolve complaints before stage 1 and try to deal with dissatisfaction before the complaint reached stage 2. It is not clear from the records whether the landlord attempted to resolve the complaint either informally before stage 1, or before it was escalated to stage 2. The landlord has now updated its complaints policy to remove these informal stages, in line with the statutory requirements of the Ombudsman’s April 2024 Complaint Handling Code.
  5. The landlord acknowledged failings and made some attempt to put things right as it offered £50 for the delayed stage 2 response. The resident confirmed she has not accepted this compensation, however the offer was not proportionate to the period of delay and the length of time the resident therefore experienced before she could bring her complaint to this service. The Ombudsman therefore makes a determination of maladministration in relation to the landlord’s complaint handling. An order has been made that it pays £150 in compensation for the distress, inconvenience, time and trouble caused by its failure to acknowledge the original stage 1 complaint, and its unreasonably delayed stage 2 response.

Determination

  1. In accordance with Paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was maladministration in relation to the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of damp and mould in the property.
  2. In accordance with Paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was maladministration in relation to the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks of the date of this report, the landlord is ordered to:
    1. Provide a written apology to the resident for the failings identified in this report.
    2. In the apology letter/email, the landlord should confirm its position to the resident regarding damp and mould in the communal area. It should also provide an update in relation to the surveyor’s findings/any repairs that have been completed to the block to address damp and mould, including to the roof.
    3. Pay directly to the resident (and not offset against any monies owed) £750 in compensation made up of £600 for handling of damp and mould and £150 for complaint handling (less £300 if this has already been paid following the stage 2 response) to acknowledge the time, trouble, distress, and inconvenience caused.
    4. Provide evidence of compliance with the above orders to this service.

Recommendation

  1. Self assess against the recommendations made in the Ombudsman’s spotlight report on Knowledge and Information Management (p37 – 50) – KIM-report-v2-100523.pdf (housing-ombudsman.org.uk)