St Albans City and District Council (202420328)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202420328

St Albans City and District Council

19 June 2025


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:
    1. Handling of the residents reports about the condition of the property, including boiler problems, damp and mould and other health and safety issues.
    2. Response to the resident’s complaint about its handling of her antisocial behaviour, and noise nuisance reports.
    3. Handling of the resident’s request for rehousing.

Jurisdiction

  1. What the Ombudsman can and cannot consider is called the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. This is governed by the Scheme. When a complaint is brought to this service, the Ombudsman must consider all the circumstances of the case, as there are sometimes reasons why a complaint will not be investigated.

The request for rehousing

  1. Paragraph 42.j of the Scheme says that the Ombudsman may not consider complaints, which in the Ombudsman’s opinion, fall properly within the jurisdiction of another Ombudsman, regulator or complaint-handling body. The resident’s complaint about the landlord’s alleged failure to respond appropriately to her request for re-housing and her banding under the landlord’s allocation scheme is a matter that falls within the jurisdiction of the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO).
  2. Complaints about assessments of bandings decisions within a choice-based lettings scheme, are matters for the LGSCO to consider.
  3. The resident’s remaining complaints are investigated below.

Background

  1. The resident has been a tenant at the property for over 10 years. She lives at the property with her children and has reported that the family suffer from health conditions she believes are linked to exposure to damp and mould.
  2. In August 2023 the resident reported noise nuisance from her neighbour (the neighbour) to the landlord. She had made prior reports as well and the landlord had provided her with noise monitoring equipment, which had been collected on 14 September 2023.  On 5 December 2023 the resident reported that the property was not suitable because of damp and mould, which she said was affecting her daughter’s health.
  3. In June 2024 the resident said that the landlord cancelled works for a mouldy floor to be replaced in the WC. She also asked for works to install extractor fans, recommended 2 years prior, to be completed.
  4. The date is not clear from the evidence, but at some point prior to August 2024 the landlord installed extractor fans in the property.
  5. On 9 August 2024 the resident complained to the landlord. She listed health issues she said she and her family had been experiencing at the property from when she first moved in. She believed these were caused by water damage, high humidity and mould. She referred to some tests that she said showed there was mould at the property. She also complained that the landlord had not informed her of the results of the noise monitoring equipment, the extractor fans had been installed incorrectly and explained difficulties she had experienced trying to get contractors to attend to repairs, including to replace the flooring in the WC following a leak.
  6. The landlord provided its stage 1 response on 11 September 2024. It referred to a recent visit, where it said it had not found evidence of a damp and mould problem. However, it had raised a number of repairs. It offered to reinspect with a senior surveyor who specialised in damp and mould. It apologised that the resident had not been given the noise monitoring results and said she could use a new app to monitor noise. It apologised for any communication issues she had with contractors and said it would raise her concerns with them.
  7. The resident asked to escalate her complaint on 30 October 2024, considering that her concerns had been “disregarded”. She said that the inspection had failed to notice “clear signs” of water damage. She thought the testing equipment did not show the “hidden mould” present. She asked it to complete other forms of testing. She also complained that repairs appointments had not been kept. She raised concerns about the quality of contractor’s work to, for instance, the installation of extractor fans. She said a fan had been placed too close to the boiler and this had to be shut down because of safety concerns for several days.
  8. The landlord responded at stage 2 of its complaints process on 12 November 2024. It provided information about its testing equipment and said it had not detected any spores or issues within the air and would arrange for its damp specialist to contact her. Repairs had been rescheduled because of staffing issues and it apologised for that. It explained it had to turn off the boiler while it was isolating a gas leak detected during its annual check.
  9. The resident complained to the Ombudsman because the landlord did not contact her to arrange a further damp inspection and that it continued rearranging repair appointments. 

Assessment and findings

Scope of the investigation

  1. Throughout the complaint and in communication with the Service, the resident said this situation had a detrimental impact on her and her family’s health and wellbeing.  The Ombudsman is unable to assess the cause of, or liability for, impacts on health and wellbeing. The resident may be able to make a personal injury claim if she considers that their health has been affected by the landlord’s actions or inaction. This is a legal process, and the resident may wish to seek legal advice if she wants to pursue this option. As this issue is more effectively resolved and remedied through the courts it will not be considered in this report.
  2. The resident complained about the condition of the property over a period of many years. However, she did not raise a complaint with the landlord until August 2024. Complaints should be raised promptly so that landlords can take action to resolve the issues, and as time passes records become available and memories fade. This investigation is therefore focused on the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of issues at the property from August 2023, up to her complaint and the landlord’s responses to it.

On the landlord’s handling of the condition of the property

  1. In the landlord’s stage 1 response, it set out that upon receiving the resident’s complaint it had contacted the resident on 13 August 2024 and using a damp meter and air quality monitor, conducted an inspection at the property on 29 August 2024.
  2. The landlord’s damp and mould policy is dated November 2024 but is the policy that it provided to the Ombudsman as being relevant at the time. It says that it will investigate reports of damp and mould in a timely manner and implement all reasonable repairs and improvements to eradicate or manage damp within the property. It’s arranged visit to the property within a reasonable time showed it took the complaint seriously and was responsive to her concerns. We will say more below, however, about its response to the repairs it detected.
  3. The landlord said the inspection on 29 August 2024 did not reveal evidence of damp and mould. The resident disagreed with this assessment in her complaint escalation – and sought further testing. The resident referred to issues reported in a damp survey in 2022, but the landlord was entitled to rely on the results of the more recent 2024 survey. She referred to issues with damp and mould in the WC. The landlord responded to this by saying it would undertake to complete some repairs to the grouting and to the flooring in that area. It was not obliged to undertake further testing where it had not found evidence of the problem.
  4. Nonetheless, in its response, the landlord acknowledged the resident’s ongoing concerns and noted that she no longer used the living room at the property because of them. It had inspected the living room and explained that it had not found evidence to substantiate her claims. However, it acknowledged she had recently cleaned the property and offered a visit from a damp specialist if the problem occurred again. Its actions showed it appreciated the potential seriousness of the issue and was ready to respond if required.
  5. The landlord offered this further inspection again at stage 2 of its complaints process. This was an appropriate response to her concerns.  The resident says that she tried to arrange this, but the landlord did not contact her. The landlord said it has been unable to contact the resident although it has not provided evidence of this. As this was an offer made in its stage 2 response, it should have documented its efforts to make this contact.
  6. The landlord addressed the resident’s concerns that the property’s condition was affecting her family’s health. The resident referred to tests she had undertaken which indicated levels of arsenic in her hair, and that her daughter had been exposed to high levels of mould. The resident’s concerns are understandable, however, the landlord’s response, that it had been unable to find any building defect that could link to the health concerns she reported, was reasonable. It had taken action to inspect and test for damp and mould and had not found any. As it had not discovered either problem, it could not comment further on the tests the resident relied upon.
  7. The landlord acknowledged the resident’s complaint about problems with communications with its contractors and that some appointments had been delayed. It explained it would raise the communications issues with them. It apologised for the inconvenience caused by delays to arrange appointments. Learning from complaints is one of the expectations set out in the Code, which the landlord undertook to do with its contractors. This was a reasonable response.
  8. However, there were repeat delays. The landlord had agreed to replace flooring in the resident’s WC following an initial delay, on 19 November 2024. The records show this work was completed on 22 May 2025. This was an inappropriate delay. While the landlord’s repairs policy says that repairs to floor coverings would usually be the resident’s responsibility, the landlord had taken on this repair, saying that it would complete it in its complaint correspondence. Its policy says that non-emergency housing repairs will normally be completed within 28 days. There is no evidence to explain why this repair took so long to complete and this delay is therefore inappropriate.
  9. The resident had complained about an issue with the works done to install extractor fans. She said, in her stage 1 complaint, on 9 August 2024, that a February 2022 inspection had recommended the installation of extractor fans. She said when they were installed, they were done incorrectly. At stage 1 the landlord noted that extractor fan vent covers were required to be added to the newly installed extractor fans.
  10. In the resident’s stage 2 escalation she said that on 23 August 2024, both the boiler and extractor fan had to be shut off due to safety concerns as the fan and boiler were too close together. The landlord told the resident the boiler was turned off on the 23 August 2024 because a leak had been identified on an annual inspection. It said it was the usual process for the boiler to be turned off until the leak was found.
  11. However, the landlord’s records show that the boiler was initially turned off on 23 August 2023 because an engineer considered the extractor fan was too close to the boiler flue. On the same day an engineer undertook work to make that safe and discovered a gas leak. The boiler was then kept off until the leak was repaired. The landlord’s response to the resident’s complaint was therefore only partially correct, and it failed to fully acknowledge her concerns. The evidence shows this was a significant issue of concern for the resident, and so it was even more important than usual for the landlord to provide a robust and accurate response.
  12. Furthermore, a record on 12 May 2025 shows that the extractor fans had still not, by this date, been installed correctly at the property. A job to recall the works and provide external covers was not completed until that date. Given that the landlord had said, at stage 1 of the complaints process in September 2024, that it would provide external covers for the fan, this was an unreasonable delay. This is also not in line with its damp and mould policy, where it says it will implement all reasonable repairs and improvements to eradicate or manage damp. It did not do this within a reasonable timeframe.
  13. This failure, along with the unexplained delays completing the WC flooring works and incomplete explanation about the boiler failure, undermined the landlord’s otherwise reasonable handling of this aspect of the resident’s complaint. Taken together, along with the failure to provide evidence it’s damp and mould specialist had tried to contact the resident, amount to unremedied failings by the landlord.

On the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports about antisocial behaviour, including noise nuisance.

  1. At stage 1 of the landlord’s complaints process, it apologised to the resident that it had not told her the results of noise monitoring at the property. It said it had some problems downloading the information she had provided. It said if the resident was interested in using its new noise app, she could do so, and it gave her details to arrange this.
  2. The resident, in her escalation, said that the landlord should have informed her it was having issues with its technology. The landlord did not respond to this point at stage 2, which was inappropriate. Not doing so was counter to the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code, which explains each point made in a resident’s complaint should be addressed.  
  3. The resident also told the landlord, in her October 2024 complaint escalation, that she was still experiencing noise nuisance issues. While the resident had said she would use the new app to make reports, the landlord did not respond to this report at stage 2. While this was a noise report rather than a complaint about the landlord’s service, it should have told her how it would handle it.
  4. Taken together, these omissions were a failing in the landlord’s approach.

Determinations

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme there was service failure in:
    1. The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports about the condition of the property, including boiler problems, damp and mould and other health and safety issues.
    2. The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports about antisocial behaviour at the property.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 42.j of the Scheme, the Ombudsman did not investigate the complaint about the resident’s request for rehousing.

Orders and recommendations

Order

  1. Within 4 weeks of the date of this report, the landlord must provide evidence that it has:
    1. Contacted the resident to discuss any ongoing noise nuisance. (The landlord did not respond to the resident’s report that she was still experiencing issues. We are aware the resident is due to move from the property but are unclear when this might be and the landlord should be responsive to any current issues.)
    2. Paid the resident the sum of £200 to acknowledge the failings found in this investigation in regard to the resident’s concerns about the condition of the property.
    3. Paid the resident the sum of £100 in light of the failings found here in its responses to the resident’s complaints about its handling of her ASB reports.

Recommendation

  1. If the resident still wishes it, arrange an appointment with the landlord’s damp and mould expert to visit the property. This was offered at stage 2 and evidence of the landlords attempts to contact the resident has not been provided. We acknowledge this may no longer be necessary if the resident is due to move or has already moved.