Disrepair Compensation Amounts by Issue (2026 Data)

The typical Housing Ombudsman compensation award across all disrepair-related decisions is £450, with an average of £808. The middle half of awards falls between £200 and £900 . These figures come from 9,417 published decisions that include an ordered award. Landlord Record analysis of Housing Ombudsman decisions (Open Government Licence v3.0).

Our index currently holds 16,224 Housing Ombudsman decisions across 603 landlords. Compensation is recorded in 9,417 ordered-award decisions, totalling £7,607,904 .

Use these figures as a benchmark, not a promise. The Ombudsman decides each complaint on its own facts. A short delay with limited impact leads to a very different outcome from months of unresolved damp, repeated missed appointments, or evidence that the resident's health or use of the home was seriously affected. The amount you might receive depends on the specific defect, how long it persisted, what the landlord knew, what they did about it, and how it affected your daily life.

This guide is designed to answer the question "how much compensation can you get for housing disrepair?" with real data rather than guesswork. We break the figures down by issue — damp and mould, leaks, heating failures, repair delays and more — so you can compare your situation against the published record. Every figure in the table and every headline statistic comes from a query run at build time against our structured database of published decisions. If a figure is not available from the query, we say so rather than inventing a number. That matters because this is a YMYL topic: getting the numbers right affects how residents understand their rights and what landlords can expect.

Compensation amounts by issue

The table below shows the real distribution of ordered compensation by issue tag. A single decision can involve more than one issue, so rows should not be added together. The median is usually the best quick benchmark because a small number of very high awards can pull the average upwards.

How to read the table

Start with the issue closest to your complaint. Damp and mould, leak and water ingress, heating and hot water, repairs delay and complaint-handling delay can all sit inside a wider repairs complaint. If your case involves several failures, compare the whole pattern rather than picking the highest row.

Two cases can both involve damp and mould but sit in different parts of the range because the landlord response was different. A weaker case might be one where the landlord inspected quickly, completed work within a reasonable period and gave clear complaint responses. A stronger case might involve repeated reports, failed repairs, avoidable delay, unclear ownership inside the landlord, or evidence that the resident could not use parts of the home normally.

When you look at a row, ask three questions. First, does the issue tag match the main problem in your complaint? Second, does the number of decisions feel large enough to be a stable guide? A category with only a handful of awards can shift quickly when a single large decision is published. Third, are your facts closer to the typical case or to an outlier? The median and middle range are designed to answer that last question.

It is also worth understanding why the average can be higher than the median. The average is the simple mean: every award added together, divided by the count. If one decision includes an unusually large award — perhaps because several serious failings were linked — the average rises for everyone. The median is the middle value: half of awards are below it and half are above. That makes it more robust against outliers and usually a better guide to what a typical case might look like. We show both so you can judge for yourself.

Do not treat the highest award as a realistic starting point. High outliers usually reflect unusual facts, several linked failures, serious impact, or a long period before the problem was properly resolved. The average can move upwards because of those outliers. For most readers asking "what is the average housing disrepair compensation?", the median and middle range are more useful than the maximum.

Notable patterns by category

The issue table above is the most detailed view, but the Ombudsman also organises decisions by complaint category. For disrepair, the key categories are responsive repairs, health and safety, estate management and planned works. The summary statistics below show how compensation differs at that broader level.

Responsive repairs usually covers the day-to-day defects residents report — leaks, heating failures, broken fittings and similar. Health and safety can include more serious hazards or risks. Estate management and planned works often involve communal or scheduled work, which can affect compensation because the scope, notice period and disruption may be different from a single inside repair.

Remember that a single decision can span multiple categories and multiple issues. The statistics above describe the decisions that carry compensation within each bucket, not the total number of decisions in that category. A category with a higher median may reflect more serious or prolonged failures rather than a mechanically higher tariff.

If you are trying to work out which category your complaint belongs in, think about what the landlord was responsible for fixing and how the complaint was framed. A leaking pipe inside your home is typically responsive repairs. A broken communal door or unsafe shared walkway may fall under estate management. Major refurbishment or cyclical works that were poorly managed may be planned works. The category matters because it changes the context the Ombudsman uses to judge fairness.

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, then adjust your expectations for severity. A case involving short inconvenience and a prompt repair 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.

Keep a dated record of every report you made, every response you received, every inspection that took place, and every photograph that shows the condition of the home. Evidence of impact — such as medical letters, receipts for damaged belongings, or a diary of how the problem affected daily life — can matter as much as the label attached to the repair. The Ombudsman is evidence-led, so a clear timeline is one of the most useful things you can prepare.

Complaint handling can also affect the final award. A landlord may eventually complete the repair but still have handled the complaint poorly by missing response deadlines, failing to escalate, giving unclear updates or not learning from earlier reports. In those situations, compensation may recognise the extra time and trouble caused by the complaint process, not just the original disrepair. That is why a case with the same physical defect can end up with different compensation: the difference is in the landlord's response.

You can also browse the underlying records for damp and mould compensation, read our wider guide to housing disrepair compensation , compare the highest-compensation rankings, or view the responsive-repairs compensation page.

Sources

The compensation figures on this page come from Landlord Record's structured analysis of published Housing Ombudsman decisions under the Open Government Licence v3.0. For the official remedies approach, read the Housing Ombudsman guidance on remedies .

For the legislative framework behind disrepair, see the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 (repairing obligations) and the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 . For social housing consumer standards, see gov.uk social housing regulator standards .