Yorkshire Housing: Family 'forced to eat Christmas dinner on floor' after Leeds-based association's failings

Yorkshire Housing has been ordered to pay £3,780 for failing the resident and her two young children. 

The Housing Ombudsman found three cases of “severe maladministration” in how the association handled reports of a leak, damp, and mould, complaint handling and considering the woman’s welfare.

Yorkshire Housing has accepted the Ombudsman's findings, highlighted today, which relate to its handling of the case between 2020-2022. The housing association, based in Central Place, Leeds city centre, owns and manages around 20,000 homes in the region.

The resident, who had lived in the two-bedroom property since 2005, first reported a potential leak to the landlord in October 2020. 

The association was aware of the resident's poor mental health, the report says, but failed to take appropriate action to support the family during their move to temporary accommodation because of the state of their flat. 

The Ombudsman also found the association failed to follow its own decant and repairs policy for vulnerable residents, failing to consider the needs of the resident and provide the necessary support.

In addition to these failures, the resident's initial complaint was ignored, and a stage two complaint remained unanswered, “leading to the perception that the resident was unimportant and that the landlord did not care”, the Ombudsman said.

The resident had repeatedly informed the landlord about the negative impact on her mental health caused by the events, lack of communication, and support. 

She reported that because of the temporary accommodation the household was moved to she was “eating their Christmas dinner on the floor” and “sleeping on mattresses for months”. 

The Ombudsman ordered a senior member of staff from the landlord to apologise to the resident, complete all remaining repairs in the permanent address within six weeks and £3,780 in compensation.

Housing Ombudsman Richard Blakeway said: “This is a distressing case where a landlord failed to provide adequate support for a resident with young children and mental health, despite being aware of their condition for over a decade.

“The landlord's neglect of its own decant and repairs policies, as well as its failure to provide a named officer for the resident, was both avoidable and unacceptable. 

“The heavy-handed approach taken at times only exacerbated the adverse effect on a vulnerable individual and their young children.

“While I absolutely recognise the challenges facing social landlords because of the housing crisis, these issues relate firmly to the landlords management responsibilities and policy commitments to residents.”

The Ombudsman is highlighting the case as it publishes its new statutory Complaint Handling Code this week, which will be effective from April 1. 

In a statement, Yorkshire Housing said it “fully accepted” the Ombudsman’s findings and that its handling of the case “fell well below the standards our customers rightly expect from us”.

The association added that it had completed an independent review as it outlined the steps it had taken over the last two years to prevent the incident happening again. 

This includes improving the complaints process and providing customers with a single named point of contact to support them if they need to move into temporary accommodation. 

A spokesperson for Yorkshire Housing said: “We are genuinely sorry for the distress and upset this has caused and we have been liaising directly with our customer to make sure that their home is now up to the standard we would expect.

 “This has included our Chief Executive speaking at length to the family to personally apologise and hearing first-hand what changes we needed to make to prevent cases like this from happening again. 

“We fully accept the judgement in this case and remain committed to listening to our customers to make sure we deliver the high standards that they expect and we work hard to achieve.”