Living next door to Notting Hill Housing Trust property - anyone else had problems with regards to repair issues?

[finecheese]

Hola,

Am currently in dispute with NHT with regards to a HUGE damp problem affecting 4 rooms in our house due to a leak on their property next door. To cut the very long and boring story short - we have had to call out a private surveyor to come and work out what the problem is on THEIR side and even after they have seen the report there has been little action to sort the problem. We now have mushrooms growing in our house (not happy about my 9 month old breathing in live spores!) due to damp and will have to have carpets ripped up, industrial humidifiers put in blah blah, all because they have sat on this for days and days and we obviously cannot start repair work until the leak is fixed on their side.

We get on well with our neighbours and they have done their best to push this through too but to no avail. I want to take this as far as I can with the Housing Trust and will be trying to claim compensation for time and inconvenience.

I wondered if anyone else has experienced anything similar and might have general advice or ammunition (!) which might help?

Yours in need of a giant gin and tonic, finecheese xxx

Hi. I have worked for a number of Housing associations (not NHT!) some good, some bad...my rambling advice would be as follows...Keep a good record of all the contact that you have had, and all of your costs/time. Even though they're causing the problem some of the less customer/people friendly organisations behave like its down to you to "prove" the extent of the problem before they will compenstate. take photos of everything. Get the name of who is in charge of the property and try and only deal with that person, do not allow yourself to get passed from pillar to post when you get in touch. Pin them down to giving you some deadlines for action and make sure they stick to them. If you feel that you have waited a reasonable amount of time then make a formal complaint. Its a regulatory requirement that they have a proper complaints proceedure, with specified timescales for dealing with them. If you go through the proceedure and are still not satisfied then you can escalate your complaint to the Housing Ombadsman who will look at it impartially, and may award further compenstaion and recommend changes to practice. Both NHT and the ombudsman should have more about this on their websites. The NHT website should also state their repairs policy so you'll be able to see if they are sticking to thier own proceedures.As stressed and frustrated as you might be, try and not lose your rag with them, but keep the pressure up! Some organisations have still not caught on to the customer service revolution happening in many other industries and have an awful long way to go, if thats the case make sure you let thier chief executive know. If you can bear to do it then you could contact your local paper, - that happens a lot round my way, if they run a story (helps that you have a baby!) it always seems to focus minds into action! good luck.

SHOCKINGBADMOTHER Thankyou thankyou for your advice. It helps to know that I'm kind of going down the right track. My DH is ready for me to go down with placards and a tannoy! But I am taking the nagging calmly and assertively approach. Looks like its all moving forward a bit now - THANK GOD. Its just reassuring to hear that I am not being paranoid about the shocking level of service too and that its a sometime industry norm. Again thanks for taking time to help me out (smile)