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Southwark ordered to pay £10,000 to two residents after severe maladministration
The Housing Ombudsman has ordered a south London borough to pay almost £10,000 in compensation to two residents, following two severe maladministration findings.
Southwark Council was ordered to pay the sums for two cases, one relating to complaint-handling after heating loss and the other concerning damp and mould.
In Case A (202102902), a resident who was pregnant and had a young child was left without heating for six months in the coldest period of the year.
The landlord’s complaint responses were delayed, did not address the concerns of the resident, did not follow its own complaint policy and were issued without any apology or empathy, the ombudsman said.
It took for the ombudsman to issue a complaint-handling failure order and local MP to get involved before it was escalated.
The ombudsman ordered the landlord to apologise to the resident and pay £2,000 in compensation.
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Ombudsman makes severe maladministration finding after resident left with leaking roof for six yearsIn Case B the ombudsman found severe maladministration after a resident and his young family were left with a worsening leak that impacted multiple rooms for 11 months, with the landlord refusing his requests for rehousing and compensation.
The damp and mould side of the complaint was not fixed for 17 months, which was particularly distressing for the resident, whose children had eczema and allergies.
The ombudsman has had to take this timescale from resident reports as the repairs logs from the landlord were not kept. Southwark also failed to provide any survey reports when asked by the ombudsman.
The ombudsman ordered the landlord to pay the resident £7,541 in compensation, respond to the residents’ rehousing request and carry out a full inspection on the damp and mould in the property.
The landlord has said that since the ombudsman’s investigations it has established a dedicated damp and mould team, improved its voids process and carried out a review of its complaint-handling.
Richard Blakeway, the housing ombudsman, said: “It’s inexcusable for young families to live with disrepair for an extended period, especially as the landlord’s own records showed it was monitoring the issue.
“The council is a significant landlord in the capital and it is crucial for it to apply the lessons from these cases to help respond to the pressures on its services and to prevent residents experiencing avoidable detriment.”
In a statement provided to the ombudsman, Southwark Council said: “Both of these cases make for very difficult reading and we would like to apologise unreservedly for the distress caused to these families by our actions and processes.
“As soon as the ombudsman raised these with us, we made immediate changes to our processes to try to prevent such failures happening again.
“These steps include a dedicated damp and mould team; tighten our procedures for the voids team; a reviewed our approach to mutual exchanges to ensure that no one is blocked from moving again for repairs reasons and a thorough review of complaint-handling.”
The council added: “As the biggest social landlord in London, nothing is more important to us than ensuring our residents live in safe and comfortable homes.
“The challenges are enormous with growing demands and shrinking resources but we are determined to learn from every problem or challenge, and ensure we constantly improve and adapt our processes.
“We thank the ombudsman for helping and supporting us in that endeavour, and rightly calling out when things go wrong.”
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