The report forms part of its series relating to Awaab’s Law, helping landlords prepare for the new legislation in October.  

The report sets out cases in which poor triaging led to cases that should have been categorised as emergencies not treated as such, alongside cases where the issue was labelled as an emergency, but delays occurred in dealing with the problem.  

A third area of the report looks at priority repairs due to the individual circumstances of the household. These are cases that may not have been an emergency under a landlord’s policy, but should have been dealt with much more urgently due to vulnerabilities present in the home. 

Failings led to children being left without access to their bathroom for 6 months after a ceiling collapsed and debris continuing to fall. Another case involves a domestic abuse survivor, who was living without a replacement external door for 6 months despite her ex-partner being on bail. A further case involves a resident with breathing difficulties being without heating and hot water for 5 months during the winter.  

The report identifies common causes for service failure, including limited records and communication, poor coordination with other parties, and the wrong trades being sent to do works. 

In several cases, emergency repairs are not completed until ordered by the Ombudsman. 

The landlords mentioned in this report are: 

• Accent Housing 
• Brent Council 
• Clarion 
• Guinness Partnership 
• Hackney Council 
• Harlow Council 
• Lambeth Council 
• L&Q 
• Newlon Housing Trust 
• North Tyneside Council 
• Sovereign Network Homes 

Richard Blakeway, Housing Ombudsman, said: “From October, Awaab’s Law will apply to emergency repairs as well as damp and mould. Landlords report that 9 out of 10 emergency repairs are handled on time, so confidence will be higher for meeting these obligations than in other areas. 

“This does not diminish the human impact when things go wrong handling priority repairs. 

“While there is more convergence around timescales for emergency repairs compared to other areas, 1 in 3 landlords still have more than one response time for an emergency repair and what constitutes an emergency situation can vary between landlords, beyond issues such as electrics, gas and flooding. This suggests some landlords will need to take more action to be ready for an aspect of Awaab’s Law that has been discussed less than damp and mould. 

“Our cases provide clear and consistent lessons. Central are reports of ‘no access’ to the property leading to the landlord closing the case. This is despite sometimes limited evidence of the resident being notified by the landlord it would be attending and policies typically stating entry will be forced in an emergency.”

He added: “Another pattern is making temporary fixes but permanent resolution being severely delayed, recreating potentially hazardous conditions. 

“There is plenty within this report for landlords and their Member Responsible for Complaints to consider as the sector focuses on the importance of connecting the circumstances of the person living in the property to its condition.”