The Housing Ombudsman awarded £5,000 in compensation after Sovereign’s inability to act on a leaking roof for 21 months left a vulnerable resident’s home uninhabitable.

The Hampshire resident contacted the landlord at least 37 times by phone during the 21 months and made regular references to the fact the ceiling had collapsed, the house was cold and that every time it rained he was having to empty multiple buckets of water.

Evidence indicated that the landlord did not make any substantive effort to consider the resident’s physical and mental health challenges, in responding to the resident’s service requests.

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The landlord failed to treat the matter with the urgency it required when it became apparent how bad the condition of the property was and how much distress it was causing the resident and his family.

The resident felt that the landlord had not been held “accountable” and that necessary systemic changes have not been made.

The Ombudsman also raised concerns around the landlord’s compensation policy, where it mostly relied on “goodwill gestures” rather than compensation.

Housing Ombudsman, Richard Blakeway, said: “The landlord’s failure to successfully undertake the repair in a timely manner led to the property becoming uninhabitable and caused significant distress and inconvenience for a vulnerable resident.

“When the landlord was made aware of the impact the situation was having on the resident, it failed to act with appropriate urgency.

“Whilst the landlord took some steps to address the impact of its failings – most notably rehousing the resident – these were not sufficient redress for the seriousness of the impact which the matter had on the resident.

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“The landlord is about to experience significant organisational change and the pressures of mergers can often be reflected in complaints. It is vital for the landlord to have a strong grip on complaints handling and the issues leading to service failure.”

A spokesperson for Sovereign Housing Association said: "We are very sorry that in this case we did not handle our customer’s leaky roof as quickly as we should have done or handle his complaint properly. We did not sufficiently consider or act on the fact that our customer was vulnerable. We repeat here the apology to our customer and we have paid compensation.

"We will continue to work to address the issues raised by this case and to work with the Ombudsman to ensure we always empathise with our customers and address their complaints as quickly as we can."