Manchester City Council ordered to pay over £5,000 after showing disregard by letting an ‘unhabitable home’ to a family with 3 young children

The Housing Ombudsman has made 3 findings of severe maladministration findings for how Manchester City Council let a property to a young family in poor condition which resulted in significant distress and inconvenience for the household. 

Despite being aware of the rotten kitchen floor and damp being present in four rooms, the landlord progressed the home as ready to let.  

When the resident moved in, she complained about the amount of mould on the walls meaning she could not decorate as plaster peeled off when she tried. Soon after moving in one of her children tripped in the unsafe garden path resulting in a cut lip.  

In allocating the property, the landlord showed a disregard for the resident’s wellbeing and safety, including the implications of moving a family with children into the property where it had failed to investigate the underlying cause of the damp and mould. The landlord did not appropriately consider whether the property was fit for habitation and did not investigate these matters for several months when put on notice. 

The lack of action resulted in the resident handing the keys back and staying with family members in an overcrowded house whilst the landlord looked into the issues such as a roof leak and the damp and mould. She was not offered other accommodation by the landlord. This roof leak into the kitchen took the landlord 67 weeks to complete from first report. 

Despite the resident pushing for repairs to be carried out over the next couple of months, there were still various issues including water coming up through the kitchen floor, damp and mould, and holes in the roof causing leaks to several rooms including the kitchen and bedrooms. 

A couple of months later the resident moved her children into the home to get them settled for school. But the landlord surveyors report confirmed that much of the repairs stayed outstanding, including flooring in the kitchen and bathroom – this was of particular concern as the resident had a young child who was crawling. The above once again showed how the landlord did not have proper regard for its empty home’s standard or consideration of the ongoing impact on the family. 

It took ten months for the landlord to respond to the resident about re-letting standards and admit the home was not up to that standard, which is indicative of its poor communication throughout. 

The landlord’s clear disengagement from any resolution process when the resident instructed a solicitor to open pre-action protocol measures and using ‘legal proceedings’ as a reason to not progress certain repairs, was a serious failing and served to delay repairs and exacerbate the dispute, rather than resolve the matters raised. 

To compound some of these failings, the landlord took too long in setting up its rent adjustments due to the issues and at one point issued the resident with a heavy-handed arrears notice of £1,000. It took the resident 9 attempts to get across her point about this issue needing to be addressed due to the uninhabitable nature of the home, causing her more distress. 

On top of the arrears notice, due to much of the work not being done by the landlord, the resident took it upon herself to do them. She says this cost her thousands and the landlord, whilst aware of the situation, did not offer reimbursement for this. 

The Ombudsman ordered the Chief Executive to apologise in person to the resident and awarded £5,000 for the distress and inconvenience caused. The landlord was also ordered to calculate the costs of the works the resident had to undertake and reimburse her for those costs. 

The Ombudsman ordered a detailed review by the landlord to prevent future failure, including its handling of cases under the pre-action protocol, procedure for letting vacant properties and oversight of contractors.  

In its learning from the case, the landlord says it has carried out all repairs on the home and added additional insulation as requested by the resident. It says it has brought its ALMO in house, in a bid to drive further improvements. 

Read the full report

Damp and mould e-learning

The Ombudsman also found maladministration for the landlord’s record keeping, with failings in this area causing a cumulative impact on the resident who suffered additional time, delay, and distress and inconvenience as a result. 

In all cases of severe maladministration, the Ombudsman invites the landlord to provide a learning statement.