Guide

Damp & Mould Compensation: What the Ombudsman Awards

A data-led guide to typical Housing Ombudsman compensation for damp and mould, what affects the amount, and how to estimate your own case.

By the Landlord Record research team

Independent analysis of published Housing Ombudsman decisions. Reviewed against Housing Ombudsman published guidance. Last updated: 30 May 2026.

Resident photographing damp and mould evidence for a Housing Ombudsman compensation complaint.

This is general information, not legal advice.

Landlord Record is independent and is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, the Housing Ombudsman Service. We organise and analyse decisions published under the Open Government Licence.

In the current Landlord Record dataset, the typical Housing Ombudsman compensation award for damp and mould is £800, with a middle range of £400 to £1,425 across 4,159 published decisions that include compensation. That is a benchmark, not a promise — the Ombudsman decides each case on its own facts.

Our index currently holds 18,208 Housing Ombudsman decisions across 627 landlords. Damp and mould appears in 5,081 published decisions, making it one of the most common issues raised in complaints. Landlord Record analysis of Housing Ombudsman decisions (Open Government Licence v3.0).

Damp and mould is one of the most distressing problems a tenant can face. It can damage belongings, make rooms unusable, aggravate respiratory conditions, and undermine the sense that your home is safe. When a social landlord fails to act, the Housing Ombudsman can step in — and compensation is one of the remedies it can order. But the amount is not fixed. It depends on what went wrong, how long it went on, what evidence you have, and how seriously you were affected.

The issue has received renewed attention following the inquest into the death of Awaab Ishak, which highlighted the dangers of prolonged exposure to damp and mould in social housing. While compensation cannot undo harm, the Ombudsman's awards reflect the seriousness of these failures when they are evidenced. See our guide to Awaab's Law explained for more on the proposed changes to damp and mould response times.

Use these figures as an indicative guide only. A short delay with a minor patch of damp is treated very differently from months of unresolved black mould, repeated failed repairs, poor communication, or evidence that your health or use of the home was seriously affected. The Ombudsman weighs severity, duration, impact and evidence — not just the label on the complaint.

What the Housing Ombudsman actually awards for damp and mould

The table below shows real compensation distribution by issue tag. Damp and mould sits alongside other common disrepair issues such as repairs delay, heating and hot water failure, and leaks. A single decision can involve more than one issue, so rows should not be added together. The median (the middle award) is usually the best quick benchmark because a small number of very high awards can pull the average upwards.

The "middle range" shows the 25th to 75th percentile — in other words, the range within which half of all awards fall. If your case is relatively straightforward, you should expect to sit somewhere inside that band rather than at the top.

Issue	Typical award	Middle range	Decisions
Complaint handling delay	£500	£250 to £950	10,658
Repairs delay	£600	£300 to £1,100	8,012
Damp and mould	£800	£400 to £1,425	4,159
Record keeping	£600	£300 to £1,100	3,693
Leak water ingress	£750	£375 to £1,300	3,045
Communication failure	£500	£250 to £850	2,635
Asb	£350	£200 to £650	1,757
Decant	£978	£475 to £2,100	1,083
Heating hot water	£550	£250 to £1,052	1,074
Service charge	£300	£150 to £582	910
Poor communication	£600	£350 to £1,050	879
Complaint handling	£300	£150 to £700	879
Vulnerable resident	£700	£350 to £1,300	810
Disrepair	£950	£500 to £1,759	744
Vulnerability	£750	£400 to £1,400	677
Noise nuisance	£350	£200 to £650	672
Record keeping failure	£700	£350 to £1,350	634
Missed appointments	£650	£350 to £1,100	485
Pest infestation	£600	£250 to £1,150	450
Communication failures	£700	£400 to £1,100	434
Communication	£400	£160 to £700	427
Compensation	£425	£200 to £1,015	387
Risk assessment	£500	£300 to £850	361
Staff conduct	£300	£150 to £650	355
Asbestos	£600	£400 to £1,150	339
Fire safety	£488	£250 to £850	298
Ventilation	£650	£400 to £1,150	258
Reasonable adjustments	£550	£250 to £950	253
Roof repair	£750	£400 to £1,335	221
Roof leak	£750	£400 to £1,350	213
Rehousing	£450	£200 to £792	198
Poor record keeping	£600	£350 to £1,131	194
Window repairs	£708	£400 to £1,200	194
Health and safety	£585	£350 to £1,000	191
Condensation	£520	£300 to £1,005	189
Temporary accommodation	£800	£450 to £1,500	172
Missed appointment	£368	£150 to £706	172
Complaint handling failure	£300	£150 to £550	167
Drainage	£575	£250 to £1,108	160
Communal cleaning	£350	£150 to £600	154
Water ingress	£800	£400 to £1,320	152
Window repair	£700	£375 to £1,451	149
Communal repairs	£450	£250 to £750	145
Adaptations	£400	£200 to £925	143
Risk assessment failure	£650	£350 to £1,000	142
Grounds maintenance	£300	£150 to £550	142
Pest control	£548	£300 to £940	142
Windows	£700	£400 to £1,300	139
Access issues	£500	£225 to £900	139
Neighbour dispute	£258	£100 to £500	134
Mediation	£300	£150 to £500	131
Mutual exchange	£450	£200 to £1,000	125
Window replacement	£688	£350 to £1,212	120
Compensation dispute	£500	£225 to £1,025	117
Bathroom repairs	£700	£375 to £1,323	115
Electrical safety	£685	£306 to £1,200	114
Management transfer	£500	£250 to £800	113
Cctv	£350	£150 to £675	113
Extractor fan	£625	£350 to £1,062	108
Subsidence	£800	£450 to £1,375	105
Kitchen repairs	£600	£300 to £1,025	103
Overcrowding	£500	£250 to £900	101
Guttering	£550	£250 to £1,168	100
Parking	£300	£100 to £650	98
Poor workmanship	£700	£375 to £1,000	95
Contractor conduct	£400	£200 to £775	95
Gas safety	£338	£150 to £600	94
Roof repairs	£750	£400 to £1,250	94
Equality act	£838	£600 to £1,500	94
Rent arrears	£325	£150 to £746	94
Scaffolding	£650	£300 to £1,200	93
Compensation delay	£600	£300 to £1,135	93
Delay	£700	£475 to £1,250	92
Safeguarding	£525	£250 to £1,138	90
Insulation	£600	£300 to £1,050	90
Insurance claim	£625	£300 to £1,200	89
Contractor oversight	£710	£450 to £1,200	89
Communal areas	£300	£150 to £575	89
Noise	£300	£150 to £700	87
Section 20 consultation	£700	£250 to £1,000	87
Disability	£500	£250 to £1,000	85
Information request	£250	£150 to £400	85
Kitchen replacement	£600	£300 to £1,000	83
Action plan	£475	£250 to £800	80
Fly tipping	£375	£200 to £694	78
Health impact	£1,280	£675 to £2,622	76
Flooring	£560	£162 to £940	75
Major works	£350	£162 to £800	75
Contractor management	£800	£425 to £1,283	74
Anti social behaviour	£375	£231 to £750	74
Boiler repair	£415	£165 to £750	72
Garden maintenance	£400	£250 to £800	70
New build defects	£450	£250 to £969	70
Management move	£500	£275 to £700	69
Transfer request	£400	£200 to £712	68
Front door	£600	£350 to £966	66
Vulnerability support	£500	£300 to £962	64
Communication delay	£250	£138 to £500	64
Leak	£900	£600 to £1,510	64
Flooding	£600	£275 to £1,015	63
Communal door	£400	£238 to £650	63
Vulnerability recording	£600	£360 to £1,188	63
Vulnerable household	£1,070	£656 to £1,630	62
Noise transference	£475	£200 to £700	62
Fence repair	£300	£200 to £600	61
Cladding	£400	£250 to £750	61
Planned works	£400	£225 to £600	61
Compensation inadequate	£600	£388 to £1,012	60
Fencing	£500	£200 to £862	59
Covid 19	£250	£112 to £450	58
Ceiling collapse	£900	£585 to £1,612	58
Communal lighting	£400	£200 to £650	57
Boiler	£600	£300 to £1,300	57
Loss of amenity	£1,756	£970 to £3,022	56
Heating	£600	£250 to £1,290	55
Planned works delay	£500	£200 to £788	55
Loft insulation	£789	£312 to £1,188	54
Pests	£500	£250 to £1,100	53
Security	£425	£244 to £862	52
Information request delay	£350	£244 to £600	52
Soundproofing	£400	£194 to £712	52
Draughts	£500	£288 to £712	52
Trip hazard	£550	£350 to £989	51
Antisocial behaviour	£650	£325 to £1,075	51
Damp	£500	£250 to £871	51
Right to buy	£375	£162 to £738	50
Shared ownership	£350	£150 to £800	49
Disability access	£575	£338 to £1,200	48
Complaint escalation	£300	£150 to £725	48
Rehousing request	£575	£212 to £950	47
Wet room	£550	£300 to £925	47
Energy costs	£700	£350 to £1,140	46
Hate crime	£575	£350 to £800	46
Rent account	£300	£200 to £620	45
Boundary dispute	£425	£188 to £562	44
Inspection delay	£425	£188 to £625	43
Rodent infestation	£650	£400 to £1,250	43
Vulnerable residents	£920	£550 to £1,475	43
Aids and adaptations	£675	£400 to £1,348	42
Managing agent	£450	£300 to £812	42
Expectation management	£300	£200 to £500	41
Door repair	£600	£400 to £800	41
Mental health	£350	£200 to £1,000	41
Excess cold	£950	£400 to £1,300	41
Damaged belongings	£675	£438 to £1,344	40
Front door repair	£500	£344 to £1,068	40
Lift breakdown	£500	£208 to £662	40
Inspection failure	£350	£212 to £650	39
Ews1	£450	£300 to £655	39
Door replacement	£500	£300 to £750	39
Complaint delay	£500	£285 to £890	39
Reimbursement	£300	£150 to £681	38
Defects	£475	£200 to £888	38
Communication failings	£450	£206 to £1,200	38
Compensation request	£300	£200 to £700	38
Domestic abuse	£400	£200 to £900	37
Noise disturbance	£300	£150 to £500	37
Evidence gathering	£300	£188 to £525	36
Succession	£500	£200 to £900	35
Risk assessment delay	£500	£300 to £800	35
Boiler replacement	£578	£175 to £851	35
Lift repair	£700	£312 to £933	35
Hot water	£650	£250 to £895	35
Redecoration	£500	£188 to £846	35
Flooring damage	£412	£235 to £819	34
Vulnerability assessment	£460	£300 to £738	34
Fire door	£550	£250 to £1,000	33
Compensation policy	£400	£150 to £750	33
Discrimination	£475	£238 to £925	32
Energy efficiency	£350	£225 to £648	32
Cavity wall insulation	£575	£138 to £1,081	32
Complaint not logged	£275	£100 to £481	32
Void property	£450	£282 to £771	32
Shower repair	£550	£200 to £1,266	32
Tree maintenance	£450	£175 to £672	31
Lighting	£550	£200 to £925	31
Communal area	£285	£100 to £550	31
Water pressure	£600	£300 to £1,175	31
Harassment	£400	£200 to £650	31
Damage to belongings	£888	£450 to £1,569	30
Rat infestation	£862	£600 to £1,825	30
Temporary heating	£600	£215 to £1,012	30
Heat loss	£920	£462 to £1,269	30
Gas leak	£500	£278 to £720	30
Action plan failure	£500	£350 to £638	30

Source: Landlord Record analysis of Housing Ombudsman decisions (Open Government Licence v3.0).

For damp and mould specifically, compare your case to the damp-and-mould row, but also consider whether the complaint involves broader responsive-repairs failings. Across all responsive-repairs compensation decisions in the dataset, the median award is £550 across 11,539 decisions. A damp complaint may also include repairs delay, heating failure, poor complaint handling or missed appointments — each of which can affect the total remedy. The Ombudsman looks at the whole picture, not just the damp itself.

Do not treat the highest award as a realistic starting point. High outliers usually reflect unusual facts, several linked failures, serious health impact, or a very long period before the problem was resolved. The average can be skewed upwards by those outliers. For most readers asking "how much compensation can I get for damp and mould?", the median and middle range are more useful than the maximum.

What affects the amount

The Housing Ombudsman does not use a fixed tariff or formula for damp and mould compensation. Instead, it applies its published remedies guidance and weighs the individual circumstances of each case. The main factors are set out below.

Severity of the damp or mould

A small patch of condensation is treated very differently from widespread black mould across several rooms, structural penetrating damp, or recurring leaks that the landlord has failed to repair.

Duration

How long the problem lasted and how long you were affected. Prolonged failures — especially where the landlord had notice but did not act — tend to attract higher remedies.

Evidence you keep

Photographs, dated repair reports, complaint emails, inspection notes and medical evidence all strengthen a case. The Ombudsman is evidence-led, so a clear timeline matters.

Health impact

If damp or mould has affected your health, living conditions or use of the home, the Ombudsman may treat the failing as more serious. Awards can be higher where the impact is evidenced.

A practical way to estimate your own case is to start with the median for damp and mould, then move up or down the range depending on how your facts compare to a typical decision. If the damp was minor, reported once, and fixed within a reasonable time, you are likely below the median. If it was severe, prolonged, affected your health, and the landlord ignored repeated reports, you may be above it. The Ombudsman does not apply a formula, but the published decisions show clear patterns: well-evidenced, serious cases attract stronger remedies than thinly documented or minor ones.

The Ombudsman also looks at what the landlord already did. A landlord that inspected promptly, offered a fair temporary remedy, communicated clearly and completed works within a reasonable time may receive a lower adverse finding than one that ignored reports, missed appointments, gave unclear updates or failed to follow a surveyor's recommendation. Complaint handling matters too: even if the repair was eventually completed, poor handling can add a separate compensation element for distress, inconvenience and time and trouble.

Financial loss is treated differently from general inconvenience. If you paid for dehumidifiers, cleaning, or replacement belongings because the landlord failed to act, keep receipts and explain why the cost was necessary. If belongings were damaged, keep photographs, inventories and any insurance information. If you are claiming a room could not be used properly, keep a dated record of how the damp affected daily life. The Ombudsman is evidence-led, so a clear timeline can matter as much as the physical condition of the home.

The Ombudsman can also decide that non-financial remedies are more important than money. It may order the landlord to inspect, complete works, apologise, review a policy, change a process, train staff or check whether the same problem affects other residents. When you estimate your own outcome, think about the remedy you actually need. A fair result may be a mix of completed repairs, explanation, apology, process change and compensation.

Disrepair claim vs the free Ombudsman route

If you are a social housing tenant, you have two main routes when your landlord has failed to deal with damp and mould: the Housing Ombudsman complaint route and the court route (a housing disrepair claim). They are very different in cost, speed, risk and outcome.

The Housing Ombudsman route is free. You normally need to exhaust your landlord's internal complaints procedure first. Once you escalate, the Ombudsman will look at whether the landlord's handling amounted to service failure or maladministration. It can order compensation, but the amount is decided under its remedies guidance and reflects distress, inconvenience, time and trouble — not court-style damages. The Ombudsman can also order non-financial remedies such as repairs, apologies and policy reviews. This route is usually faster and less risky than court, and it does not require legal representation.

A housing disrepair claim is a legal claim, usually about whether the landlord breached repair or fitness obligations and what damages or other court remedies should follow. Court claims can involve formal procedure, legal costs, expert evidence and litigation risk. Before court, the housing conditions pre-action protocol expects the parties to exchange information and try to narrow or resolve the dispute. If you lose, you may be ordered to pay the landlord's costs. You should take independent legal advice before starting litigation.

If you mainly need repairs completed, an apology, complaint handling put right and a compensation benchmark based on real Ombudsman data, the free complaint route may be the practical first step. If you are considering litigation, read the process carefully and consider independent legal advice. See our plain-English guide to housing disrepair compensation and how housing disrepair claims work.

Whichever route you choose, start with the evidence and the outcome you need. Neither route guarantees compensation, and neither should be chosen only because a headline award looks attractive. If you are still inside the landlord's complaint process, keep the complaint focused: identify the defect, when you reported it, what happened next, what impact it had, what records support that account and what you want the landlord to do. That same timeline will help whether the case later goes to the Ombudsman, a solicitor or another advice service.

Estimate your own award

To make the data usable, Landlord Record provides an Ombudsman compensation calculator. It is not a legal valuation and it cannot predict an individual decision. It uses the same live award distribution behind this guide to show where past published decisions sit.

The best way to use it is to choose the issue closest to your complaint — damp and mould — then adjust your expectations for severity. A case involving a small patch reported once and repaired within weeks should not be compared with a long-running failure affecting several rooms, repeated appointments, poor communication and months of complaint chasing.

If your complaint involves more than one issue, run more than one comparison and then read the decision examples behind the numbers. The calculator is designed to orient you in the published Ombudsman data, not to replace judgement. A well-evidenced moderate case can be stronger than a serious allegation with a thin timeline, and a completed repair can still leave a separate question about distress, inconvenience or complaint handling.

You can also browse the underlying records for damp and mould, compare the highest-compensation rankings, or read the responsive-repairs issue page. If your complaint involves more than one issue, run more than one comparison and read the decision examples behind the numbers. The category pages are useful when your complaint is broader than a single issue tag.

Sources

The compensation figures on this page come from Landlord Record's structured analysis of published Housing Ombudsman decisions under the Open Government Licence. For the official remedies approach, read the Housing Ombudsman guidance on remedies .

For landlord repair obligations, see the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, section 11 (repairing obligations) and the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 . For court-route context, see the GOV.UK page on housing disrepair claims . For damp-specific obligations, see our guides to whether your landlord is responsible for damp and mould and Awaab's Law explained.

Frequently asked questions

How much compensation can I get for damp and mould?

In the current Landlord Record dataset, the median Housing Ombudsman compensation award for damp and mould is £800 across 4,159 published decisions that include compensation. The middle range is £400 to £1,425. Your own figure depends on the severity, duration, evidence and impact of your case.

Can I claim compensation for mould in a rented property?

If you are a social housing tenant, you can complain to your landlord and then escalate to the Housing Ombudsman if the complaint remains unresolved. The Ombudsman can order compensation where it finds service failure or maladministration. If you are considering a court claim, that is a separate legal route with different costs and risks, and you should take independent legal advice.

Is my landlord responsible for damp and mould?

Social landlords are normally responsible for structural damp, penetrating damp, rising damp, and mould caused by defects or repair failures they should have fixed. They are generally not responsible for condensation caused solely by tenant lifestyle. Your tenancy agreement, the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 and the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 set out the obligations. See our guide to whether your landlord is responsible for damp and mould for more detail.

How do I prove damp and mould for a claim?

Keep clear, dated evidence: photographs of the damp or mould with a timestamp, copies of repair reports and inspection notes, emails or letters showing when you reported the problem, any medical evidence linking the condition to your health, receipts for damaged belongings, and a simple timeline of what happened and when. The Ombudsman decides cases on evidence, so a well-documented account is one of the most important things you can prepare.

How long does a damp and mould claim take?

The Housing Ombudsman route is usually faster than court proceedings, but you must normally exhaust your landlord's complaints procedure first. The Ombudsman process itself can take several months depending on complexity. A court claim can take considerably longer and involves formal procedure, costs and litigation risk. Neither route guarantees compensation.

Can I get compensation for black mould affecting my health?

Yes, if the Ombudsman finds that the landlord failed to meet its obligations and that the failure adversely affected you, it can order compensation that reflects the impact on your health and living conditions. Higher awards are possible where the health impact is serious and well evidenced, but compensation is not automatic and each case is decided on its own facts.