The Guinness Partnership Limited (202403344)

Decision
Case ID	202403344
Decision type	Investigation
Landlord	The Guinness Partnership Limited
Landlord type	Housing Association
Occupancy	Assured Tenancy
Date	28 October 2025

Background

1. The resident has been a tenant of the landlord for over 5 years. He lives at the property (a 2-bedroom flat) with his partner and 2 children. He reported damp and mould caused by a leak from the roof on several occasions. The last landlord visit to the property, before the resident complained, was in November 2023. The resident asked us to investigate his complaint. He said promised works had not been completed and the landlord had not paid the compensation offered during the complaints process.

What the complaint is about

2. The complaint is about the landlord’s response to the resident’s:
   1. Reports of a leak from the roof of the property.
   2. The associated complaint.

Our decisions (determinations)

3. We found the landlord responsible for:
   1. Service failure in its response to the resident’s report of a leak from the property roof.
   2. Service failure with its complaint handling.

We have made orders for the landlord to put things right.

Summary of reasons

Response to a leak from the roof of the property

4. Through its complaints process the landlord correctly identified that it had failed to respond appropriately to the residents reports about a leak at the property. It responded by offering a reasonable amount of compensation and by arranging relevant works. However, the landlord failed to update the resident about completed repairs or follow up on the resident’s request for a managed move

The associated complaint

5. The landlord failed to acknowledge all the resident’s complaint points in its internal complaints process. It has since addressed some of these issues but it’s delay in doing so was not in line with the Code.

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	Compensation order The landlord must pay the resident £1025, made up as follows: •         £200 for failing to respond effectively to the resident’s request for support with a management transfer. •         £100 for service failures with its complaint handling. •         £825 already offered in September 2024. 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 25 November 2025
2	Other order   The landlord must contact the resident about the managed move and rehousing he requested help with during the complaint’s process. It should, for instance, provide the resident with the information he needs to progress any application and answer any questions about the process.	No later than 25 November 2025

Recommendations

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

Our recommendations
If the landlord hasn’t already done so, it should follow up with the resident to arrange the internal repairs it agreed to carry out after the roofing work was completed.

Our investigation

The complaint procedure

Date	What happened
Between January 2023 and November 2023	The resident raised reports about a leak from the property roof and damp and mould at the property. On 17 November 2023 the landlord visited the property. Noting water damage from a returned leak, it said it would pass the repairs to subcontractors. There is no evidence of this happening.
19 January 2024	The resident called the landlord to complain. He said his children were unwell because of the issues at the property. He said that despite being told repairs were with the landlord’s subcontractors, he had had no contact. The landlord recorded that the resident had accepted its offer of £250 in compensation and for the relevant repairs to be completed.
26 January 2024	The landlord raised a repair order to address the issue with the roof. It is not clear when/if this was completed.
1 February 2024	The landlord issued a stage 1 response. It set out its account of events, which it later described at stage 2 of its process as being “not entirely accurate.” It offered £250 compensation.   The landlord also visited the property on this date. It did not detect any mould but recorded seeing water stains and bubbling plaster.
4 February 2024	The resident asked to escalate his complaint. He was disappointed that the roof repairs had not started and disputed information in the stage 1 response, such as the landlord’s claim that it had completed a mould wash at the property in April 2023.
8 February 2024	The resident added to his complaint that he had a leaky boiler, plaster coming off around the kitchen window and other issues in the kitchen. He said the bathroom was “rotten” and that he felt his electric bills were too high. He asked for a management transfer. (With the exemption of the request for a management transfer, the landlord has recently set up a new complaint to address these issues.)
9 February 2024	The resident and his partner called the landlord to stress that the issues had been ongoing for 2 years and that they felt they were affecting their children’s health.
13 March 2024	The resident agreed to allow the landlord to extend the time to respond to his complaint but asked that it would help him to move house in the meantime.
14 March 2024	The landlord wrote to the resident, saying it was waiting for a date to complete the external repairs. It said once these were completed, it could “move to any internal repairs.” It said it would support the resident with his managed move request.
19 March 2024	The landlord provided its stage 2 response. It acknowledged that it had failed to pass reports of damp and mould onto its subcontractors, apologised for the length of time the family had been inconvenienced by the issues and failures in communication. It offered to increase the compensation offered to £725, to include £600 for the time, trouble and inconvenience caused, £100 for poor communication and £25 for its delayed response at stage 2.   The landlord set out the steps it had taken to prevent the failures happening again, such as the development of an identification process for cases of damp and mould. It said contractors were due to visit on 21 March 2024 and it would follow up with the resident after that date.
20 March 2024	The landlord told the resident that contractors were now due to visit on 27 March 2024 and that it would be in contact to complete internal repairs after that date.
Referral to the Ombudsman	The resident remained unhappy with the landlord’s response and asked us to investigate his complaint. He said the repairs had not been completed properly and the landlord had failed to pay the offered compensation. He also said the landlord had placed scaffolding around the house which he had complained about separately as it had been there for months.

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 response to the resident’s reports of a leak from the roof of the property.
Finding	Service failure

 

 

Investigation scope

6. The resident had also said that the situation had a detrimental impact on his 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 he 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 he 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.
7. Since the resident came to this Service, he has complained to us and the landlord about scaffolding. This does not form part of the investigation under this reference number. If he is unhappy with its response, he can ask us to consider looking at this matter in future.
8. The resident has also informed this Service about other concerns. He says problems remain with the roof and that the internal repairs at the property have not yet been completed. However, these issues have not been through the landlord’s complaint’s process and so they do not form part of this investigation. If the resident completes the landlord’s internal complaints procedure about these issues and remains dissatisfied, he can ask us to consider them then.

Response to reports of a leak from the roof of the property.

9.  In its stage 1 response, the landlord acknowledged that it had not responded appropriately to the resident’s reports of problems with the roof. However, it provided an account of events that was not accurate. This was one reason for his request to escalate to stage 2.
10. In its stage 2 response, the landlord accepted that it had included an inaccurate account in the stage 1 letter. This frank acceptance of its error was reasonable. It also accepted that it had failed to pass on the reports the resident made about damp and mould to its subcontractors on a number of occasions. It acknowledged that it had failed to return telephone calls from him and that it failed to acknowledge his complaint escalation request. It therefore increased the offer of compensation considerably and said it would carry out the required works.
11. When a landlord has acknowledged its failings, as is the case here, the Ombudsman will consider whether any redress it has offered is sufficient to put things right and to resolve the resident’s complaint satisfactorily. In considering this the Ombudsman takes into account whether the offer of redress (such as an apology, compensation and a plan to complete the works), was in line with our Dispute Resolution Principles; be fair, put things right and learn from outcomes.
12. On the whole the landlord’s final response to the resident’s complaint in March 2024 was appropriate. It acknowledged its stage 1 response had not been accurate, it acknowledged where it had gone wrong and set out the learning it had taken from the case. It offered compensation which is in line with the Ombudsman’s guidance on remedies.
13. However, when the resident asked us to investigate, he said that the landlord had still not confirmed completion of the works and had not paid the offered compensation.
14. Further, when the resident added to his complaint on 8 February 2024, he asked the landlord to support him with a managed move. He said he felt it was “the only way out of this dreadful living situation” and as such, his request should have been addressed in the landlord’s stage 2 response. There is no evidence that, despite saying it would, in an email on 14 March 2024, the landlord took steps to support this application, leaving this issue unresolved for the resident.  This Service has therefore made orders that we consider should ensure this issue is addressed for the resident and acknowledges the impact of having to wait for support to make any application to move that he might have wished to progress.
15. The records show works were ordered in January and March 2024 but they are not clear when they were completed. In response to the resident’s subsequent queries the landlord said that because of its poor communication, it would offer him a further £100, taking the total compensation up to £825.
16. The landlord’s increased compensation in September 2024 recognises that its communications with the resident about the repairs continued to be poor. The further compensation was reasonable, but this repeated failure to update the resident demonstrated a lack of learning from the complaint and was a further failing.

Complaint	The handling of the complaint
Finding	Service failure

 

17. Our Complaint Handling Code (the Code) sets out when and how a landlord should respond to complaints. The landlord’s published complaints policy complies with the terms of the Code in respect of timescales.
18. The landlord took 11 working days to respond at stage 1 of the complaints process (19 January to 1 February 2024). It acted outside its policy and the Code but there is no evidence that such a short delay had an adverse effect.
19. The landlord took 32 working days to respond at stage 2 (4 February to 19 March 2024). However, it appropriately sought an extension on 8 March 2024, which the resident agreed to. Further, it recognised that it had been late in escalating the complaint in its stage 2 response, offering a payment of £25 as acknowledgement of this error.
20. The Code also says that where residents raise additional complaints during the investigation, these must be incorporated into the stage 1 response, if they are related. If not related, the new issues should be logged as a new complaint.
21. On 8 February 2024, just after the stage 1 response, the resident asked the landlord to consider a number of other repairs. These do not appear to relate to the roof repairs but it would have been in line with the Code if it had set up a new complaint to deal with them.
22. It has since, in November 2024, recognised this error and offered to set up a new complaint. However, they would have been addressed at an earlier date if it had logged them at the time.