Clarion Housing Association, the UK’s largest housing association, has been fined after an investigation by the Housing Ombudsman revealed that its failure to repair a child’s bedroom window for four years led to severe mould issues, resulting in serious illness for the family living there.
Clarion was found to have shown “no urgency” in addressing the window repair, leaving it boarded up despite numerous complaints. The tenant reported that the mould exacerbated his asthma and negatively impacted his son’s mental health.
Clarion issued an apology, stating, “We sincerely apologise to the resident and their family in this case. The issue took too long to resolve, and our communication was inadequate. Since then, we have implemented improvements to prevent this from happening again.”
The case is one of several involving “severe maladministration” highlighted by the Housing Ombudsman to demonstrate that some social landlords are unprepared for the upcoming Awaab’s Law regulations, which mandate the prompt resolution of serious health hazards in homes. Awaab’s Law is named after two-year-old Awaab Ishak, who died in 2020 after prolonged exposure to mould in his family’s home.
While Awaab’s Law initially only applies to social landlords, the Labour government has pledged to extend the law to private landlords as well.
Housing Ombudsman Richard Blakeway commented that in many cases, landlords have “lost sight of the person”, focusing more on the building than the individuals living within it, and neglecting their legal obligations to tenants.
Other examples cited by the ombudsman include L&Q Housing Association, which failed to replace windows that had been identified as needing replacement for over a decade, Tower Hamlets Council, which delayed window repairs for 134 weeks, and Accent Housing Association, which was ordered to pay compensation to a family with two disabled children after their window was boarded up for nine months following damage caused by antisocial behaviour. According to the ombudsman, Accent incorrectly told the residents they were responsible for the repair.
All the issues of poor housing is mostly to do with Housing Associations as they are normally exempt from most letting regulations – such as not needing a HMO License etc.
The Private Rental Sector is mostly well looked after properties from landlords/managing agents.
The standards should be the same across the boad and every single letting property registered on a central register where any issue can be reported and a guaranteed response time has to met for repair etc – otherwise its gets referred to the local council to enforce accordingly.
Repair issues solved!!! No waiting 4 years for a window to be repaired!!
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Lots of housing associations are council ALMOs.
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No comment from Polly Bleat or Generation Rant?
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Nothing from NRLA, either.
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Were you expecting one?
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It would have been nice to have seen a response but, no.
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