Decants and moves
Moving residents to alternative accommodation, either temporarily or permanently, due to significant repairs or their home being unfit for habitation can cause disruption, stress, and inconvenience. This page offers guidance, reports, and learning for landlords and residents to help navigate this key topic.
Learning from severe maladministration
We use our learning from severe maladministration reports to promote learning from cases that share a common theme.
In this report we share learning from cases involving temporary moves, known as ‘decants’ by the social housing sector.
The report highlights cases of residents facing multiple relocations, prolonged temporary accommodation and unaddressed poor living conditions. It also shares our key lessons from these cases, along with statements from landlords detailing the improvements they have made in response to our findings.
This report is part of a series aimed at helping landlords prepare for the introduction of Awaab’s Law, which will establish statutory repair timescales and record-keeping requirements for the first time.
Read the learning from our casework involving temporary moves
Guidance
Landlord expectations
Landlords can read the expectations to find out how to respond to complaints about decants and moves, proactively and implement learning from our casework.
Resident expectations
Residents can read the expectations to understand their landlord’s responsibilities and when to contact the Ombudsman about concerns related to the temporary or permanent relocation to alternative accommodation.
Reports
Spotlight report on complaints about repairs
Delivering a good repairs service should be a high priority for landlords. However, dissatisfaction with day-to day repairs consistently accounts for over a third of the complaints made to the Housing Ombudsman each year. This report looks at the common causes of repair related complaints and shares recommendations for learning from complaints.
Wider orders a review of repairs and decants
We carried out an independent review of repairs and decants at Peabody housing after a resident’s complaint about her family being placed in hotel rooms for a year and a half. We provided 31 recommendations for Peabody to improve their services.
Centre for learning podcasts
Podcast
We publish our podcasts on SoundCloud, offering the opportunity to listen to the latest insights from the Ombudsman while on the go.
Tune in to hear about current topics such as damp and mould, noise complaints, and casework from the Ombudsman. Our playlists also feature interviews with special guests, providing updates and insights from across the housing sector.
Case studies
The case studies are examples from our case work. We will always try to show one example where a landlord did things right and received a finding of no maladministration and an example where a landlord did not act in the correct way and received a finding of severe maladministration or maladministration.
No maladministration
We found no maladministration in the landlord’s response to a resident’s complaint following a gas leak. While the landlord was not responsible for the gas leak, it contacted the resident to discuss a decant and acted reasonably in the situation. The landlord attempted to address the resident’s concerns by investigating the gas leak and communicating with the resident about the situation.
We found it was reasonable for the landlord to confirm the ownership and responsibility of the gas pipes and supply, and it was appropriate to signpost the resident to the gas supplier.
When the resident requested a managed transfer, the landlord explained clearly why the resident did not meet the criteria, and its decision was appropriate and in line with its management transfer policy. We did not find any maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the residents’ concerns.
Severe maladministration
We found severe maladministration after a resident was left in temporary accommodation for over 3 years.
The resident was decanted from her property for major works with very little discussion or consultation. She was originally expected to live there with no floor or window coverings and had to ask for storage facilities as no account had been given to the smaller size of the temporary accommodation compared to her existing home.
The landlord placed her belongings a significant distance away from her temporary accommodation and did nothing to help overcome the issues to accessing them.
We also found severe maladministration for how the landlord handled the repairs in the home, as well as the associated complaint handling.
The landlord was ordered to pay £4,050 in compensation, apologise to the resident and to produce a set of procedures to manage the temporary decant process to ensure residents are well informed prior to being decanted. This includes the terms and conditions of any decant lead-in time, duration and storage and accessibility of belongings. These changes also included the landlord considering regular reviews of the circumstances of residents and updates to them throughout the decant.
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Resident information
When to use the Housing Ombudsman Service
If you are unable to resolve the complaint with your landlord directly via its complaint procedure, this service may be able to provide you with further assistance.
View the residents' pages to find out how to raise and complaint to your landlord and when to escalate your complaint to the Housing Ombudsman Service.