Housing in disrepair? Take compensation or escalate to stage 2 complaint?

[desperateforhelphelp]

Hello all,

I have been lucky and was awarded a council property a year ago. However, two months after moving on, I discovered that whenever it rained our roof would leak. I contacted the council, had someone to look around and said that they needed to get scaffolding put up to fix the roof repair. No problem. But that was in November 2023. We are now in July 2024. Since then my ceiling is very damaged and the leak has spread across the ceiling.

I have made several complaints with no resolution and have taken this to the housing ombudsman. The council have replied to the ombudsman relaying their apologies and that someone would get back to me by such date to arrange the scaffolding and have awarded me compensation (roughly £200.00).

I am tempted to take the compensation and wait. But they have not relayed what date they will put scaffolding up and when the roof will be repaired. What should I do? Escalate this to a stage 2 complaint or accept the stage 1 response and wait?

Bump

On what grounds is the award being made? Because in your position I would be going back to the ombudsman with more evidence incl photos and asking that they direct the Housing Association to deal with the leaking roof within a specified time frame. And because the HA hasn't dealt with it for 2 years, that £100 a year doesn't really seem enough. It depends upon whether you now have mould in the property and what other issues there are.

What are you hoping to achieve, because if its a repaired roof Environmental Health might be better able to achieve that. Again it depends upon the extent of the disrepair.