{"id":65,"date":"2024-12-06T07:12:29","date_gmt":"2024-12-06T07:12:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/housing-law-wales\/?p=65"},"modified":"2024-12-11T17:02:52","modified_gmt":"2024-12-11T17:02:52","slug":"damp-and-mould-complaints","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/housing-law-wales\/damp-and-mould-complaints\/","title":{"rendered":"Damp and Mould Complaints"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been listening to Dan Hewitt’s podcast, The Trapped<\/a>, this week.\u00a0 It’s a pretty depressing listen and, in a way, it tells us nothing we don’t already know.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Their defence, based on tenant satisfaction and the fact the they carry our huge numbers of repairs every day, needs to be taken seriously.\u00a0 However, there are egregious cases which may well be the tip of the iceberg.\u00a0 In England, following the awful and tragic death of Awaab Ishak<\/a> a two year old boy who died from respiratory arrest after prolonged exposure to damp and mould in his Rochdale social home,\u00a0 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<\/a>.\u00a0 That is not yet in force as there is wrangling over the terms of the regulations<\/a>.\u00a0 Meanwhile, the English Housing Ombudsman Service (“HOS”) has proactively written reports – a spotlight report<\/a> and follow-up<\/a> – which have been the basis for its enforcement action on damp and mould.\u00a0 To say that its work in this area has been controversial would be an understatement.<\/p>\n

Into this space comes the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales’ (“PSOW”) second thematic report, entitled Living in Disrepair<\/em><\/a> – and concerns both disrepair and its associate, damp and mould.\u00a0 It was published on 13th November 2024.\u00a0 Thematic reports are a quite controversial (at least in the academic literature) but now generally adopted power available to Ombuds.\u00a0 We know that people with more social capital are more likely to exercise rights through complaints and approach Ombuds.\u00a0 Accordingly, focusing on individual complaints may further exacerbate the disadvantage of the already excluded.\u00a0 However, there are concerns about the extension of the role of the Ombuds away from its “small claims role” into regulatory territory\u00a0 and whether, as the great administrative lawyers Carol Harlow and Richard Rawlings put it in their classic text on Law and Administration<\/em>, Ombuds \u201c\u2026 are really well-placed and sufficiently well-equipped to act as advisers on good administration\u201d.<\/p>\n

You can take a view as to where the PSOW’s report fits on this spectrum of views.\u00a0 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).\u00a0 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.\u00a0 That may be a good thing, but it leaves the question of the salience of the issue a little open.\u00a0 There are identified themes in the report: complaint v service request; quality of pre-letting inspections; occupiers in vulnerable conditions; complaint handling generally.\u00a0 These are similar themes to those identified by the English HoS.<\/p>\n

On the question of complaint v service request, we do have the clear comment that<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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”.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 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”.\u00a0 The recommendations, in summary, are that social landlords should<\/p>\n