In its new Mouldy Nation 2025 report, Uswitch Energy tracked damp and mould complaints made to the Housing Ombudsman between 2020 and 2024 for social housing properties.
The Housing Ombudsman received just over 16,000 complaints relating to damp and mould over the four-year period, with local authorities the subject of 5,100 complaints and housing associations the subject of 11,000 complaints.
Despite housing associations being the cause of twice as many complaints as local authorities, the two groups of social housing providers had the same rate of complaints, at around 35 complaints per 10,000 properties, and the same four-year increase in complaints of around 16 per cent.
Uswitch Energy’s report found that one-third of complainants were blamed by their housing provider when reporting problems with damp and mould. Furthermore, no remedial actions were taken by local authorities and housing associations in two-thirds of the complaints relating to them.
