Housing Ombudsman reports spike in social housing complaints

The Housing Ombudsman has slammed social housing providers for failing to meet legal requirements and safety hazards.

In a new report, the Ombudsman reveals a 329% increase in the number of interventions it has had to make to resolve issues for social housing residents.

Failings include social housing providers not addressing damp and mould issues, resulting in children missing school due to unhealthy living conditions.

In one case, repair delays forced a father to carry his severely disabled daughter up and down the stairs every day.

£4.9 million paid to social housing residents

The Housing Ombudsman reveals it made 21,740 interventions to put things right for residents, ranging from completing repairs to paying compensation and improving practices—a 329% increase.

According to the Housing Ombudsman, 73% of its decisions found maladministration, often because landlords did not follow legal requirements, policies, or processes.

The region with the highest proportion of upheld findings was London at 77%, while the lowest was 62% in the North East and Yorkshire, though every region saw an increase.

Nine landlords received more than five failure orders for not complying with the Complaint Handling Code or cooperating with investigations.

The total compensation paid to social housing residents has risen to £4.9 million.

Figures are a stark reminder of the housing emergency

Richard Blakeway, Housing Ombudsman, said: “These figures are another stark reminder of the scale of the housing emergency and the urgent need for social housing landlords to improve essential services and some living conditions.

“Both our complaint review and satisfaction surveys show that social housing residents deserve better.

“Every day social landlords do vital work and resolve requests successfully. But where things go wrong the causes are consistent: failing to meet statutory requirements or its own policies and procedures, including failing to recognise hazards, protracted repairs, and overlooking disabilities and health needs.

“These failings are compounded by poor communication, complaint handling and record keeping.

“Behind every statistic is a resident’s life that has been disrupted by landlord inaction or ineffectiveness. Our cases show this leads to children missing school, reports of declining health or people forced to sleep on sofas or floors.”

271 landlords with performance reports

Findings from the Housing Ombudsman reveal this year there are 271 landlords with performance reports, up from 163 the year before. Individual landlord performance reports are only issued if the landlord has five or more findings made in the financial year.

There were 126 landlords with a maladministration rate of more than 75%. Over half of the landlords with performance reports had at least one severe maladministration finding.

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