Sovereign Network Homes (202347567)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202347567

Sovereign Network Homes

7 August 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:
    1. the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of damp and mould.
    2. the landlord’s handling of the associated complaint. 

Background

  1. The resident holds an assured tenancy which began in August 2020. The property is a 2 bedroom flat within a scheme let to those over the age of 55. The landlord has no recorded vulnerabilities for the resident, however she suffers with asthma and fibromyalgia, and her husband has a heart condition.
  2. The landlord’s earliest records of damp and mould in the property date back to 2022. On 2 February 2022 the landlord visited the property to undertake an inspection and noted that it was “very well looked after” but had high humidity levels. It raised a job to repair the kitchen extractor fan and noted that the window units needed to be replaced to have trickle vents.
  3. Between May and October 2022 the resident was in contact with the landlord on approximately 9 occasions to chase what the progress was with the trickle vents. The repair was marked complete on 22 November 2022.
  4. On 8 March 2023 the landlord raised a complaint for the resident, but her contact on that day was not seen in its records. She continued to chase the landlord into June 2023, informing it she had not received any contact. On 16 June 2023, the landlord issued a stage 1 complaint response. It said it was upholding her complaint and had “raised a job for the issues to be resolved”.
  5. The resident continued to chase the landlord and on 18 July 2023, she said that its investigations had been “absolutely rubbish and not good enough”. The landlord issued a stage 2 response on 25 September 2023. It said that:
    1. it had raised further repair works to overhaul the bathroom, test the floor for rising damp and renew the windows. Once the works had been completed, it asked that she monitor the issue.
    2. it had reviewed historic repair records and noted that she had refused the installation of two passive air vents in September 2022. It asked that she reconsider allowing the works to be completed to improve the situation.
    3. it wanted to offer her £100 for the inconvenience it had caused.
  6. Following the conclusion of the complaint, the resident continued to chase the landlord for an update and enlisted the support of her MP. She requested that it arranged for an independent damp survey, as she was not confident that the landlord had fully addressed her concerns. The survey was undertaken on 13 May 2024. The report noted that a mould wash was required and it recommended that the landlord tested the levels below ground using a drainage specialist.
  7. In recent contact with the Ombudsman, the resident advised that she remains unclear as to what the outcome of the independent investigation was and alleges that the landlord has stopped communicating with her.

Assessment and findings

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

  1. Aspects of the resident’s complaint relate to the impact of her living conditions on the health of her and her husband. Where the Ombudsman identifies failure on a landlord’s part, we can consider the resulting distress and inconvenience. However unlike a court we cannot establish what caused the health issue, or determine liability and award damages. This would usually be dealt with as a personal injury claim.
  2. The landlord does not have a specific damp and mould policy. However, in a response sent to the regulator of social housing (RSH) on 16 December 2022 it said that it had committed to responding to each damp and mould report within 10 working days, with follow up contact within 3 months to check that issues have not returned. It says that if it identifies complex cases then it will bring in independent experts to investigate the underlying cause.
  3. In this case, it is clear that the were gaps in the landlord’s communication with the resident and it did not respond to her reports of damp and mould consistently within 10 working days. Instead, records show that she had to chase it on a number of occasions for progress updates. For example, she contacted the landlord approximately 7 times about the issue between July and September 2023. The delay in responding to the resident caused her considerable inconvenience, time and trouble.
  4. The distress that the resident felt is highlighted in an email she sent the landlord dated 5 September 2023 when she informed the landlord that her anxiety was “overloading with not knowing what is happening”. The landlord failed to respond promptly to her concerns about her wellbeing which demonstrated a lack of empathy. There is no evidence that it adopted a risk based approach or considered what measures it could put in place to safeguard the resident. Furthermore, its vulnerability records were not updated to accurately reflect the additional needs within the household which was unreasonable.
  5. The landlord’s early investigations highlighted that although the property was well looked after, there were high levels of humidity throughout. Although it raised a number of remedial works to try to mitigate the problem, it was delayed in completing them in accordance with its repairs and maintenance policy. For example, it first recognised that trickle vents were required during an inspection in February 2022, but they were not installed until November 2022. The delay was outside of the 28 day time scale expected in accordance with its policy and caused the resident avoidable distress.
  6. The landlord’s stage 1 complaint response of 16 June 2023 was inadequate. It did not demonstrate that it had taken reasonable steps to understand the resident’s experience from when she first reported the issue. Whilst it “upheld” her concerns it did not explain what it had felt had gone wrong, and it offered her no compensation or remedy for the inconvenience, time and trouble caused to her, which was unreasonable. Furthermore it took no learning from her complaint and as a result the resident continued to experience a lack of communication from the landlord between June and September 2023.
  7. It is recognised that the landlord was unable to fit an air circulation system and two passive air vents which its property manager identified as being required around June 2022, because the resident refused their installation. The landlord was entitled to rely on the expertise of its property manager to install the equipment and under the terms of her tenancy agreement, the resident was obliged to give it access to do so.
  8. When the resident refused the works, there is no evidence that the landlord discussed her concerns in more depth and it offered her no reassurance as to what the purpose or benefits of the works were. This was a missed opportunity to manage the resident’s expectations. It later accepted that it would not do the works because the resident was planning to move. Without an affirmative date for a move, it did not revisit the issue again until its stage 2 response in September 2023, some 15 months later. The delay in discussing the requirement for the works in further detail with the resident was unreasonable.
  9. The landlord failed to consider all options available to it to identify the root cause of the damp. For example, despite being aware of the high humidity levels within the property, it did not install data loggers until March 2024, approximately 2 years after it first highlighted that humidity was an issue, and 6 months after it had concluded her complaint. Furthermore, investigations into the cavity wall remain “outstanding” according to the landlord’s records. The delay in considering a planned approach to investigating the damp was inappropriate and did not demonstrate a commitment to resolve matters at the earliest opportunity.
  10. The landlord’s final response on 25 September 2023 was an opportunity to put matters right for the resident. Despite acknowledging that it was “partially upholding” her complaint, it made no comment about what it felt had gone wrong or what it had learnt from her experience. Instead, it attributed partial blame for failing to resolve the damp on the resident by focussing on her refusal to allow it to fit the passive air vents a year earlier. This was unreasonable, as its investigations failed to acknowledge that there were shortcomings in its own handling of the damp and mould. Consequently the £100 it offered her in compensation for the inconvenience caused was not reflective of her lived experience. 
  11. Furthermore the landlord placed the onus on the resident to carry out further monitoring of damp and mould in the property. This was unreasonable, as the landlord should have taken ownership to revisit the property to see that its proposed interventions had worked, in accordance with the Government’s Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS) obligations.
  12. Overall there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of damp and mould. It is understood from records seen that the cause of the damp was complex as the property had been built on a village pond. However contrary to the information that the landlord provided the RSH, it did not instruct an independent expert to assess the situation until May 2024, 6 months after it had concluded her complaint. Whilst it had conducted its own ad-hoc investigations since 2022, the delay in obtaining the view of an independent specialist was unreasonable and contributed to the resident’s feeling that it was not treating the matter with urgency and transparency.
  13. The independent specialist gave the resident general advice about managing the damp in her home, but also recommended that the landlord complete a mould wash and instruct a drainage specialist. Since closing her complaint, the landlord has not communicated the outcome with the resident which is unreasonable. Its records show that it has obtained a report from a drainage specialist on 19 June 2024, but it has taken no steps to arrange for a mould wash in accordance with the recommendations that were made. By failing to do so, the landlord has been unable to demonstrate that it is committed to improving its communication and resolving the issue for the resident.
  14. It is noted that within its evidence file, the landlord has included 2 examples of its assessment against the Ombudsman’s Spotlight on Damp and Mould. An order has been made for the landlord to update the Ombudsman on progress made on the recommendations that were made, particularly those still showing as red and amber on its action plan.

The landlord’s handling of the associated complaint

  1. The landlord is expected to keep contemporaneous records of its interactions with residents so that they can be referred to at a later date. In this case, the landlords internal records note that on 8 March 2023 it raised a complaint for the resident, but it was unclear the exact context of the complaint because a record of the interaction was not seen.
  2. The landlord’s complaint policy states that residents should expect to receive a stage 1 response within 10 working days, as is consistent with the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code). However, a response did not follow until 16 June 2023, 66 working days later. The delay was inappropriate, and yet the landlord made no acknowledgement or apology for its service failure which was unreasonable.
  3. As highlighted in paragraph 14 of this report, the stage 1 response did not demonstrate that the landlord had adopted the Ombudsman’s dispute resolution principles of “be fair, put things right and learn from outcomes”. Its comments on the matter were very limited and did not demonstrate that the landlord had undertaken a thorough investigation. As well as failing to apologise for its complaint handling delays, the landlord failed to consider an offer of compensation for its service failure and took no learning from her complaint, which was inappropriate.
  4. It is clear in the resident’s correspondence dated 18 July 2023 that she was dissatisfied with the landlord’s response, referring to it as “not good enough”. It would have been reasonable for the landlord to have considered this as an expression of dissatisfaction and escalated the matter to stage 2, in accordance with its complaint process. However, it failed to do so promptly and a final response was not sent for another 49 working days which was inappropriate.
  5. The landlord’s final response was an opportunity for it to review how it had dealt with the resident’s complaint, offer appropriate redress and put in place learning to ensure that the situation did not happen again. However it did not acknowledge its complaint handling failures and as a result failed to put matters right for the resident, resulting in a finding of maladministration.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of damp and mould.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the associated complaint.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

  1. The landlord is ordered to apologise to the resident for the failures noted within this report, within 4 weeks.
  2. The landlord is ordered to pay the resident £450 in compensation. The amount is to be paid directly to the resident and not offset against any arrears, within 4 weeks. The amount is made up of:
    1. £100 it offered at stage 2 of its complaint process, if not already paid.
    2. £250 for the inconvenience and distress caused to the resident by the landlord’s handling of her reports of damp and mould.
    3. £100 for the time and trouble caused to the resident in bringing her complaint to the landlord.
  3. The landlord is ordered to write to the resident and update her of the outcome of the independent damp and drainage surveys which took place in May and June 2024. A copy of the correspondence should be sent to the Ombudsman, within 4 weeks. The correspondence should explain:
    1. when it will complete the mould wash recommended within the report dated 13 May 2024, in accordance with its repair and maintenance policy
    2. what further steps it will take to monitor the property in line with its HHSRS obligations.
  4. The landlord is ordered to update the Ombudsman and the resident of the progress it has made following its most recent assessment against the Spotlight on Damp and Mould. In doing so it should explain what its updates are with regards to recommendations still showing as red and amber on its action plan, within 4 weeks.
  5. The landlord is ordered to update the Ombudsman and the resident of what training it has implemented for its staff on complaints handling, since the Code became a statutory requirement in April 2024.

Recommendations

  1. It is recommended that the landlord contact the resident to discuss the vulnerabilities within her household, and update its records accordingly.