Damp and Mould Complaints

I’ve been listening to Dan Hewitt’s podcast, The Trapped, this week.  It’s a pretty depressing listen and, in a way, it tells us nothing we don’t already know.  What is valuable about it, though, is that it lays bare the state and condition of the social housing sector’s responses to disrepair, and their failures.  Their defence, based on tenant satisfaction and the fact the they carry our huge numbers of repairs every day, needs to be taken seriously.  However, there are egregious cases which may well be the tip of the iceberg.  In England, following the awful and tragic death of Awaab Ishak a two year old boy who died from respiratory arrest after prolonged exposure to damp and mould in his Rochdale social home,  there is to be a prescribed timeframe for social housing landlords to take action to remedy hazards: s. 10A, Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, inserted by s 42, Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023.  That is not yet in force as there is wrangling over the terms of the regulations.  Meanwhile, the English Housing Ombudsman Service (“HOS”) has proactively written reports – a spotlight report and follow-up – which have been the basis for its enforcement action on damp and mould.  To say that its work in this area has been controversial would be an understatement.

Into this space comes the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales’ (“PSOW”) second thematic report, entitled Living in Disrepair – and concerns both disrepair and its associate, damp and mould.  It was published on 13th November 2024.  Thematic reports are a quite controversial (at least in the academic literature) but now generally adopted power available to Ombuds.  We know that people with more social capital are more likely to exercise rights through complaints and approach Ombuds.  Accordingly, focusing on individual complaints may further exacerbate the disadvantage of the already excluded.  However, there are concerns about the extension of the role of the Ombuds away from its “small claims role” into regulatory territory  and whether, as the great administrative lawyers Carol Harlow and Richard Rawlings put it in their classic text on Law and Administration, Ombuds “… are really well-placed and sufficiently well-equipped to act as advisers on good administration”.

You can take a view as to where the PSOW’s report fits on this spectrum of views.  Actually, if you compare it with the HOS’ reports, it is a bit wishy washy, despite the PSOW herself indicating her strength of feeling on the issue as well as disrepair being a significant part of the housing complaints brought to her office (housing complaints representing 17% of the total number of complaints).  One of the things I’ve noticed when I’ve looked at the PSOW’s web page is how many of the complaints are dealt with by early resolution.  That may be a good thing, but it leaves the question of the salience of the issue a little open.  There are identified themes in the report: complaint v service request; quality of pre-letting inspections; occupiers in vulnerable conditions; complaint handling generally.  These are similar themes to those identified by the English HoS.

On the question of complaint v service request, we do have the clear comment that

Service users should not have to raise complaints to see that remedial work is done and, similarly, should not have to repeatedly chase public bodies in order for a complaint to be initiated. Where a service user has had to do this, then I would consider that the public body has had a reasonable opportunity to respond to the issues raised.

But, for example, on the question of occupiers in vulnerable situations, we we don’t really have an idea of what the PSOW regards as “vulnerable situation”.  Most of the stuff found by Dan Hewitt can be regarded as a vulnerable situation, but there is no indication of what this really means here; there is also an elision with vulnerable occupiers.

Whereas the HoS issued clear and measurable guidance and recommendations for senior management, which are subsequently used as a guide in relation to maladministration, there is less clear material in the PSOW report.  There are recommendations to improve practice with the acknowledgement that it is difficult to make recommendations based only on a snapshot, and the parting comment that “We trust that all local housing authorities and social landlords accept our comments and action the above matters”.  The recommendations, in summary, are that social landlords should

• undertake a stock survey to identify properties suffering from (or at risk of) damp and mould;
• undertake a full and proper pre-letting inspection
• regularly undertaken proper review of first contact service requests and work orders to ensure they are complete; properly prioritise repairs in accordance with their published policies; properly record repeated service requests as complaints when work hasn’t been done; and “engage independent surveyors to inspect properties where complaints of serious disrepair are made and/or where damp is alleged, coupled with respiratory complaints from occupants, to avoid a ‘Rochdale event'”
• social landlords should reflect on this report.

As I say, a bit wishy washy – certainly compared to the HOS.  But, it will be interesting to see what is made of it.