Royal Borough Of Greenwich (202215160)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202215160

Greenwich Council

21 April 2023

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 concerns:
   1. The landlord’s response to issues with damp and mould, following wastewater leaks at the resident’s home.
   2. The Ombudsman has also assessed the landlord’s record keeping.

Background

2. The resident is a tenant of the landlord and lives in a two-bedroom ground floor flat.
3. On 1 April 2022, the landlord raised a job to attend the resident’s property due to a resurgence of waste water from her toilet. On 21 April 2022, it is understood that it attended a recurrence of the issue, which it noted had been caused by a blocked stack. 
4. The resident raised a formal complaint on 22 April 2022. The resident complained that as a result of the leaks, her flooring needed to be removed and had caused a bad smell. The resident advised that the flooring had not been actioned due to the presence of asbestos. She said that the resurgence of waste water the previous day, resulted in her having to stay in temporary accommodation for the night. Her main concern was that the floor had now caused her property to become damp and had affected the walls. She said that this impacted her because she had had to take three days off work, and implied that the situation affected her daughter’s health condition. She also implied that damage had been caused to her belongings, and that the landlord had not done enough to help her.
5. The landlord issued its stage one response on 4 May 2022. It apologised for the resident’s experience and the inconvenience caused. It said that the damaged floor tiles at the resident’s home had been removed on 27 April 2022, and implied that an appointment to screed the floors had been undertaken on 29 April 2022. It said that new floor tiles would be laid once the screed was dry. It said that an appointment had been arranged to inspect the damp and mould issues on 11 May 2022, and that the inspector would arrange for the completion of any remedial works identified.
6. The landlord inspected the damp and mould on 12 May 2022. Its operative noted “floor screed carried out and [dehumidifier] in place”.  It noted a number of plaster repairs to be undertaken in a bedroom, the living room, hallway and kitchen.
7. The resident escalated her complaint on 23 May 2022. She was dissatisfied as she believed that her property was uninhabitable due to the mould, which she said affected her mental health. She said that she had had a dehumidifier for the past two weeks, which used seven pounds worth of electric per day, which she was struggling to afford.
8. The landlord issued its final response on 20 June 2022. It said that it had delayed in carrying out remedial repairs so that the property could dry out before attempting plaster repairs and that the de-humidifier was used to assist with the drying out process. It said that a specialist damp contractor had been contracted to undertake remedial works which included re-plastering, decoration of the affected areas, and new floor tiles to the bathroom, hallway and toilet. It said that it understood that this contractor was already undertaking these repairs at the resident’s home at that time. It apologised for short notice that it gave for an appointment to carry out a mould wash 16 June 2022, and said that this had been rescheduled to be undertaken on 25 July 2022. It awarded £100 compensation for energy costs associated with the use of the dehumidifier.
9. The resident referred her complaint to this Service as she believed that the landlord had not returned her property to the way it was before the waste water leaks, and said that damp and mould reoccurred following the completion of painting works to the affected areas. To resolve the complaint, she wanted the landlord to complete the necessary repairs.

Assessment and findings

10. The landlord has a repairs policy. It states that it will complete non-urgent repairs within twenty working days. It also states that if an inspection is required before raising a repair, it will inform its residents at the inspection when the repair should be completed.
11. The resident highlighted that the landlord’s handling of damp and mould impacted her and her daughter’s health. Although the Ombudsman does not doubt the resident’s comments, and acknowledges that the situation must have been distressing for her, unfortunately, the Ombudsman cannot draw conclusions on the causation of, or liability for, impacts on health and wellbeing. Nonetheless, consideration has been given to the general distress and inconvenience which the situation may have caused the resident.
12. The resident also advised this Service that she had to take time off work in order for the landlord to undertake repairs to her property but did not specify if she believed that she should be compensated for this. In general, this Service would not propose a remedy of compensation to reimburse a complainant for their time off work and for loss of wages. A request for actual lost earnings would require assessment of liability and a claim to the courts. It would be outside the complaint’s procedure and the Ombudsman’s remit.
13. In her complaint to this Service, the resident’s primary dispute was that she believed that the landlord has not sufficiently rectified issues with the damp and mould, which are understood to have occurred as a result of the wastewater leaks. She also implied that other remedial repairs to rectify damage from the leaks remained outstanding, but was not specific about the nature of these. Therefore, this investigation will focus on the landlord’s response to the resident’s concerns with damp and mould, which she raised as part of her initial complaint, and was the only issue that she clearly raised as part of her stage two complaint. If the resident has concerns with the landlord’s handling of any other repairs, then she should contact the landlord and raise a separate complaint, so that it has an opportunity to address those concerns at both stages of its complaint procedure.
14. It was apparent from the resident’s initial complaint that the landlord appropriately resolved both waste water leaks within an emergency timeframe. It is not disputed that the resident suffered with damp and mould (understood to have resulted from those leaks), and that the landlord was responsible for repairs to address the situation.
15. The evidence shows that the landlord inspected the damp and mould within a reasonable timeframe. However, the corresponding repair record made no specific reference to damp and mould, nor what had been assessed or confirmed to be the cause or extent of the problem. It did not detail which rooms had been affected, nor how the various plaster repairs identified related to resolving the situation. This was an example of insufficient record keeping. This was unreasonable as it means that the landlord has not been able to demonstrate that it robustly investigated the matter, or that that the remedial plaster repairs it proposed to remedy the situation were reasonable in the circumstances. 
16. Furthermore, it was not seen in the evidence following the inspection, that the landlord communicated its findings to the resident, in addition to what works were required, why they were needed and when they would be completed. This was unreasonable and showed that its communication was poor. It was clear that the resident found it difficult to have her expectations managed in that regard. Following enquires made on her behalf by her by her local MP, the resident contacted the landlord on 11 June 2021, and advised it that she was unaware of what action was being taken to address the damp and mould, and she reported that the issue had worsened. This was one month after the inspection had taken place, and demonstrates that the landlord did not act in line with its repairs policy which states that it will advise residents at the time of inspection when repair work should be completed. This was a service failure.
17. The landlord should have explained at that stage how it was going to resolve the situation, and provided a clear timetable for when individual works would be undertaken. This may have given the resident greater confidence in the landlord’s actions. If the landlord had communicated clear next steps and expectations, it may have alleviated some of the resident’s distress and saved her time and trouble in pursuing the matter.
18. It was unreasonable that the landlord’s final response gave no consideration to the resident’s concern that the situation was impacting her health, and that she believed damp and mould issue made her property uninhabitable. The landlord’s lack of empathy and failure to address these concerns would likely have given the impression that it failed to take the resident’s concerns seriously.
19. The landlord did not provide specifics in its final response about when the remedial plaster repairs to address the damp and mould begun, and when these would be completed. Nor did it clarify when the decoration works it agreed to undertake would be completed. This was another example of the landlord’s poor communication.
20. The only date it provided was for a mould wash, which it agreed to undertake on 25 July 2022. The evidence shows that this was originally arranged to take place on 16 June 2022. However, the resident raised a concern that the appointment had been prematurely scheduled, due to other repair work being undertaken on that date. It was not apparent why the landlord pushed the appointment back by a considerable five weeks. If there was a reasonable explanation for this delay, then the landlord should have clarified this with the resident, as it is reasonable to assess that because mould wash removes mould, then mould would have remained untreated and worsened.
21. In considering the above, the repair records provided by the landlord are not comprehensive, not only because they do not account for when many individual repairs begun, but they do not include completion dates (as opposed to target dates) for the majority of repairs. This indicates that the landlord did not have a good understanding of it repair activities. It is vital that landlords keep clear, accurate and easily accessible records to provide an audit trail. If there is disputed evidence and no audit trail, we may not be able to conclude that an action took place or that the landlord followed its own policies and procedures. The landlord’s unclear records have prevented the resident from having her concerns robustly assessed by this Service, as it has not been possible to determine if the landlord attended repairs in a timely manner, nor sufficiently explained any delays. The landlord’s record keeping was poor enough in this case to be considered a service failure.
22. On the 15 July 2022, the landlord raised repairs which included work to seal and paint walls in the hall, toilet, bathroom, and living room. It is understood that these were the ‘decoration’ works it outlined it would undertake in its final response. Landlords should be be cautious about what they consider to be decoration works in cases of damp and mould, as if it considered this to involve paint treatments and sealant, then these works should have been treated as a repair obligation, and not classed as ‘decoration’ which would usually be considered a resident’s responsibility.
23. The above repair requests indicate that plaster repairs had been completed by that date, and only painting and treatment works remained. However, correspondence between the landlord and resident shows that those works were scheduled to take place on 12 October 2022, which was unreasonably almost four months following its final response, and three months following the earliest indication of plaster works having been completed. This was unreasonable and considerably exceeded the landlord’s timeframe for routine repairs. In internal correspondence on 13 October 2022, the landlord’s operative noted that the decoration team were undertaking work in the resident’s property that week, and that the delay had been due to the lack of availability of appointments. This does not sufficiently explain the delays, as the landlord has not provided a reasonable explanation for its lack of appointments nor demonstrated that it communicated this to the resident. Therefore, it has not remedied the additional inconvenience the resident would have experienced as a result. 
24. It is reasonable to assess that that all works were completed in October 2022, as in correspondence with the landlord the following November 2022, the resident said that painting had been completed the month before, but said that damp and mould had returned despite this.
25. The landlord inspected the resident’s property again on 28 November 2022. The corresponding record noted that all works in regards to the waste water leaks had been completed. However, this did not mean that the damp and mould situation had been fully resolved, as on that date, the landlord observed that the property was still experiencing damp due to a high presence of moisture. The inspection notes indicated that the issue was due to poor ventilation. It is a positive that the landlord not only noted that it provided the resident with ventilation advice, but appropriately ordered vents to be installed in the living room and both bedrooms. Nonetheless, this was the first assessment of the damp seen in the evidence. This was unreasonable as it was seven months after the resident’s initial report of the issue. As the the landlord has not demonstrated that it assessed the damp and mould sufficiently in the first instance, it has not been able to demonstrate that its delay in identifying ventilation issues and resolving damp and mould was reasonable or avoidable.
26. Overall, there were a number of service failures in the landlord’s handling of repairs to address damp and mould in this case. These were its failure to demonstrate that it initially robustly assessed the issue, carried out remedial work within a reasonable timeframe, its consistent poor communication, and its poor record keeping. Given the above failings, the resident is due compensation, in part, to remedy the inconvenience, distress and time and trouble she would have understandably been put to over a considerable period as result of the ongoing remedial works and having to live in damp conditions with mould. To remedy this, an order has been made for compensation in line with The Ombudsman’s Remedies Guidance (published on our website). The remedies guidance suggests that the Ombudsman may award compensation of £100 to £600 for instances where the landlord has failed to acknowledge its failings and has not made sufficient attempts to things right, but where there has been no apparent permanent impact.
27. As of January 2023, the resident said that she was still waiting to have the air vents installed and that the damp and mould persisted. The landlord said that it has installed the vents since, though it is not apparent when. Also, it is not apparent if it assessed the damp or mould following the installation of the vents, which it said it would as a result of its inspection in November 2022. Given the landlord has not demonstrated that it resolved the damp and mould issue sufficiently during or following its complaint process, an order has been to remedy this.

Determination

28. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in respect of its response to issues with damp and mould, following waste water leaks at the resident’s home.
29. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in respect of its record keeping.

Orders

30. Within four weeks of this report, the landlord is ordered to:
    1. Apologise to the resident for the service failures identified by this investigation.
    2. Pay the resident £550 compensation. This is £500 for the distress and inconvenience caused by its response to the resident’s concerns with damp and mould and its poor communication, and £50 for its poor record keeping. This in addition to the £100 it previously offered in its final response, which it should now pay to the resident if it has not already done so. 
    3. Write to the resident, copying in this Service, and confirm when it installed the vents and provide a current update on the situation with damp and mould. If the landlord has not untaken an inspection since installing the vents, then it should complete this within the same time frame, and agree with the resident a schedule for any further works identified as a result, within a reasonable timeframe.
    4. Carry out a review of its staff’s training needs in relation to communication with residents, and its record keeping practices, to seek to prevent a recurrence of the service failures identified by this investigation. The landlord should write to this Service detailing the outcome of this review.
    5. The landlord should carry out a self-assessment against the recommendations made in the Housing Ombudsman’s Spotlight on Damp & Mould (2021), and provide a copy to this Service.