Origin Housing Limited (202336436)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202336436

Origin Housing Limited

28 June 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

The resident’s complaint is about the landlord’s response to her reports of damp and mould.

Background

The resident holds an assured tenancy for a one bedroomed flat. She has advised that she has experienced problems with damp over roughly a decade. After a gap of several years, she contacted the landlord to report the matter in 2023.
The resident is over 70 years old, and has advised that she has asthma and COPD. She notes that she did not have these conditions a decade ago, and is concerned that the conditions in her home have contributed to them.
The resident says she reported damp in July 2023.
The landlord’s surveyor inspected the property on 23 October 2023, and found “severe” damp in an area of the resident’s bedroom. They identified a defective section of guttering, which allowed water to splash on the external wall, which they thought had likely caused penetrating damp. They recorded that the property was habitable, but recommended the remedial works were carried out urgently due to the resident’s age and the current weather conditions.
The surveyor requested the following works to be completed:
1. Its roofer to clear and inspect the gutter, and to remake the joint of the gutter;
2. Its heating contractor to drain down and remove the radiator in the resident’s bedroom;
3. Its repairs contractor to hack off the affected area of wall, and to replaster it;
4. Its heating contractor to refix the radiator following the work to the wall;
5. Its repairs contractor to renew the skirting board below the radiator;
6. Its repairs contractor to repoint the external kitchen wall.
The landlord’s records show that the surveyor requested these works on 24 October 2023.
The landlord’s damp and mould policy does not specify a timeframe for the completion of repairs to remedy damp and mould, but does say that it will assess timescales based on a risk rating, the resident’s needs, and the circumstances and extent of the work required.
The resident’s son contacted the landlord on 10 November 2023, chasing an update. He highlighted her age and health conditions, and told the landlord she had been unable to live in her home for over three months. He expressed his dissatisfaction with the landlord ignoring her, said the landlord had carried out four inspections and provided different advice each time, and he requested a schedule of the works that would be done. He asked the landlord to “backdate” the resident’s rent account to reflect that she was unable to live in the property, and for it to pause the rent until the works had been completed.
The landlord says it raised the repair jobs to its contractors on 11 November 2023, and scheduled them to be completed on 4 December 2023.
On 15 November 2023 the landlord contacted the resident’s son and advised that it would treat his expression of dissatisfaction as a stage 1 complaint. The landlord issued its stage 1 complaint response on 1 December 2023, in which it:
1. Apologised that it had taken “almost six weeks” for the repairs to start and that the resident had had to chase for an update;
2. Explained this delay was due to a backlog of jobs raised to its repairs contractor, which the complaint handler had escalated to the landlord’s management;
3. Offered £100 compensation, while clarifying that accepting this would not prevent the resident from contacting this Service.
Later that day, the resident replied to the landlord and highlighted that she had reported damp issues three to four years previously. She acknowledged she had lived with the problem for “a long time” before raising it again, but asked the landlord to look back at its actions since an earlier incident several years ago, in which she said her kitchen had ‘collapsed’.
The resident contacted the landlord again in the early hours of 16 January 2024. She explained she had been kept up at night worrying, and felt no one at the landlord wanted to listen to her. Its repairs contractor had turned up the day before, and the operative had explained they usually did decoration work and had to go away to get the right tools. When they returned, they had hacked off the plaster, which revealed “extremely” wet and blown bricks which had swollen over time. The resident asked for a surveyor to come and inspect the area, and the operative advised her that they thought someone should attend and use a camera to look behind the brickwork, and left after speaking with their office. The resident explained she had put her life “on hold” to be available for repairs to be completed that week, and was especially frustrated to receive a satisfaction survey from the contractor asking for her feedback “now works are complete”. The resident said she was “amazed” that the landlord had not put a project manager in place to coordinate the works, explained she would go to her local law centre for advice, and asked the landlord to call her.
Once the landlord’s office opened, the resident called it and asked for her complaint to be escalated to stage 2. The resident’s son then contacted the landlord in support of her. He said his mother had “half a damp wall barely hanging on inside her home”, and that she was seeking legal advice and they would pursue the matter “to the full extent of the law”, including personal liability against staff at the landlord or contractor. He ended by asking the landlord to “imagine it was your mother and pull your fingers out”.
Later on the same day, the resident emailed the landlord to advise that she had now spoken with the local law centre. It had advised her she had “a good case in law”, that she would have grounds to appoint her own builder and ask the landlord to pay for this, and that the landlord should have escalated her complaint to stage 2 due to the length of time the repairs had remained unresolved for. She wanted to add that the contractor had told her she had been flagged as a “difficult tenant” in the past, which she thought was because she had tried to demand her rights and should be addressed with the contractor. She asked the landlord for a copy of the damp survey and a floor plan for her property.
On 13 February 2024 the landlord issued its stage 2 complaint response letter. It:
1. Said the resident had clarified that she had stayed with friends “from time to time” for the sake of her health and wellbeing, and that it was sorry to hear this;
2. Confirmed that the external works to the wall and guttering had been completed;
3. Advised that its contractor would provide quotes for the internal repairs by 16 February 2024, and it would contact the resident once it had agreed these. It explained that it anticipated the works to be completed by 8 March 2024;
4. Told the resident its complaints team would monitor the completion of the works on its complaint tracker, and that a surveyor would inspect them once done;
5. Increased its offer of compensation to a total of £700, made up of £650 for the “long delays” in resolving the repairs, and £50 for the resident’s trouble in making a complaint and staying with friends;
6. Gave an overall apology for the resident’s experience.
The resident contacted this Service on 26 February 2024, and explained that while she understood the landlord had said the repairs would be done by 8 March 2024, she had not received any updates regarding an appointment.
On 10 April 2024 the resident confirmed to us that the work had been done and the landlord had offered her an extra £150 for decoration of the bedroom. She was still waiting for this.
On 20 May 2024 the landlord confirmed to us that it had requested bank details from the resident that day, to make the payment, and that it had offered her an additional £50 for the delay and inconvenience it had caused by not resolving that issue sooner. This brings the total offer of compensation from the landlord to £900.

Assessment and findings

We acknowledge that the resident is unhappy with the landlord’s handling of the issues of damp and mould over several years. She has explained that while the landlord carried out some repairs in the past, she wanted it to carry out more investigation into the root cause. She does recognise that there was a gap of three to four years when she did not raise the issue to the landlord. The scope of this investigation will cover the point from which she raised the matter to the landlord in 2023. This is because the landlord is required to take action from the point it is aware, or would reasonably be expected to be aware, of an issue.
We also acknowledge that the resident is worried that she has developed respiratory health conditions because of living with damp. We do not make decisions on medical matters, but we will examine the landlord’s response to the resident’s raising of this concern.
The landlord’s compensation guidance for its staff advises that personal injury claims should be dealt with through a claim against its liability insurance. It would have been appropriate for the landlord to explain to the resident how to submit a claim, for the impact she said the damp and mould had had on her health, to its insurance team, and it has not provided evidence which shows this has been done.
The resident has explained several times to the landlord that she felt she had not been listened to, and taking the step of referring her to its insurance team would have been an important step in demonstrating it had recognised her concerns.
The resident also told the landlord that she was concerned that she had been labelled “difficult” by its repairs contractor, for asking for her rights as a tenant. The landlord’s internal records show it had asked for details from its repairs contractor about its interactions with the resident, but it did not provide any details of this in its stage 2 complaint response, and we have not seen evidence that it received a response from the contractor. It is therefore understandable that the resident has not been reassured that the landlord took appropriate steps to fully understand her experience.
The landlord assessed the resident’s property as habitable in its inspection in October 2023, but it has not demonstrated that it offered her advice about how to safely manage the “severe” damp in her bedroom, or that it reviewed this decision after the work carried out to the wall on 15 January 2024. The resident and her son described the wall as having holes, and it is noted that the radiator had been removed to allow the work to be done.
The repairs were not completed until over four months after the damp survey was carried out, and this period covered the coldest months of the year. The landlord’s surveyor had recognised the works were needed urgently, however there were clear delays to these being arranged by its contractor. The landlord explained that this was due to a “backlog” of repair requests with the contractor.
This suggests insufficient oversight on the part of the landlord. Under section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act (1985), the landlord is responsible for ensuring that repairs to the structure of the building are completed. It can use suitably qualified contractors to complete this work, but this does not transfer the responsibility. The landlord advised the resident that it had escalated the matter to its management in its stage 1 complaint response, but it did not explain to her what action it would take as a result. This failed to demonstrate appropriate learning had been taken, especially after the further delays the resident experienced.
The resident raised valid questions about whether the contractor’s staff had been given appropriate information before attending, and described the disruption she had been caused by setting aside time for the appointments.
In its stage 2 complaint response, the landlord said it would track completion of the works through its complaint tracker. It is not clear whether the landlord has a similar tracker operating for repairs that are not escalated to its complaints team.
The resident said she reported the damp in July 2023, and it is not clear what happened between this time and the damp survey towards the end of October 2023. The landlord has not advised us of when it first logged the report of damp and mould.
The resident’s son, acting on her behalf, asked the landlord for a reduction in her rent over the period that she waited for the repairs to be completed. The landlord did not directly address this request in its stage 2 complaint response, although it did increase its offer of compensation. We do not require landlords to agree with all requests for compensation, but we do expect that they provide clear answers to these requests so that residents know they have been heard. The landlord should use its complaint process to ensure that its rationale for decisions are explained to residents, and in this case this was not done.
We have noted that the landlord did make it clear when it offered compensation to the resident that this did not prevent her contacting this Service, and we recognise that this particular action was an example of good practice on its part.
Taken altogether, the landlord’s failure to use the complaints process to ensure that the urgent repairs were completed in a timely way, its failure to demonstrate that it had reassessed its response as the situation developed, and its failure to use its complaint process to respond directly to matters that the resident raised, constitutes maladministration.
The landlord’s overall offer of compensation is proportionate to its failures and we will not ask it to increase this, however we have made orders below to ensure that the complaint is resolved, in our opinion, more satisfactorily.

Determination

In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of damp and mould.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

Within four weeks of the date of this report, a senior manager (of director level or above) must apologise to the resident for the impact of the landlord’s failures to appropriately address and resolve the resident’s concerns in a timely way. It must provide us with a copy of this once completed.
Within four weeks of the date of this report, the landlord must explain to the resident how she can submit a personal injury claim to its insurers, and confirm to us once this has been done.
Within four weeks of the date of this report, the landlord must take appropriate steps to verify whether its contractor has a warning flag in relation to the resident’s behaviour and why she was given this impression by its operative, and it must confirm to her what the outcomes of its enquires are. If there is a warning flag, it must explain to the resident why this is in place, what effect it will have on the scheduling of repairs to her property, and how long this will be in place before it is reviewed.
In accordance with paragraph 54(g) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord must consider the learning from the resident’s case, and advise us within six weeks of the date of this report of the steps it will take to ensure:
1. Inspections are carried out in a timely way after it receives a report of damp and mould;
2. Where severe damp is found, repairs will be treated urgently;
3. Urgent repairs are raised and accepted by contractors in an appropriately timely way, and monitored by the landlord to ensure they are completed in line with its responsibilities;
4. It has considered whether specifying target timescales for severe cases of damp or mould would be helpful;
5. Alternative contractors are sought in cases where its primary contractor does not have current capacity for the work;
6. It reviews the safety of the property as works progress, to ensure it considers whether it is still habitable or a temporary move (decant) is required, in line with the information it has available at any time;
7. It keeps residents informed of the plan for repairs and progress of works at regular intervals;
8. Consider the resident’s feedback regarding the information that is provided to the operatives who attend repair jobs, and whether a ‘project manager’ would help in cases where multiple repairs and contractors are involved;
9. It has considered whether its complaint handlers could benefit from refresher training or a reminder regarding cases where a referral to its insurance team would be relevant.

Recommendations

We recommend that the landlord consider whether it would be helpful to implement a regular inspection routine of its guttering on blocks of flats, to ensure that it identifies and addresses blocked or defective guttering before it causes damage to its properties.