How our housing disrepair compensation calculator works

Our housing disrepair compensation calculator turns every published Housing Ombudsman decision that includes a financial award into a quick, issue-specific benchmark. Instead of guessing what the Ombudsman might order, you can see what it actually ordered in cases like yours. The calculator groups decisions by the issue they involve — damp and mould, heating failure, repairs delay, antisocial behaviour and more — and shows the median award plus the middle 50% range. That gives you a realistic starting point before you complain, speak to a solicitor or negotiate with your landlord.

You can use the calculator before you complain, after you receive an offer, or when deciding whether to escalate to the Ombudsman or seek legal advice. The numbers are a reference point, not a target.

Behind the numbers sits the full Landlord Record index of 16,224 published determinations, including 9,417 decisions that ordered financial compensation. The median award across all compensated decisions is £450, the average is £808, and the middle half of awards fall between £200 and £900. Landlord Record analysis of Housing Ombudsman decisions (Open Government Licence v3.0).

How to use the calculator

The calculator is designed to take under a minute. Follow three steps:

1. Pick your issue. Choose the theme that most closely matches your complaint. The list covers the most common problems the Ombudsman sees — responsive repairs, health and safety, estate management, information management, moving and buying, occupancy rights, planned works, relations, antisocial behaviour and financial issues. Within those themes you will find more specific tags, such as damp-and-mould or heating-hot-water.
2. Read the range. The calculator returns three headline numbers for the issue you selected. The median is the midpoint: half of awards were lower, half were higher. The 25th percentile is the value below which a quarter of awards sit; the 75th percentile is the value above which a quarter sit. Together they form the inter-quartile range — the middle 50% — and that is where most straightforward cases land.
3. Interpret the benchmark. If your case is complex, prolonged or caused serious health impact, the appropriate award may sit above the 75th percentile. If the impact was minor and short-lived, it may sit below the 25th percentile. Use the range to compare any offer your landlord has already made, and to decide whether the Ombudsman route or a court claim is more likely to deliver the outcome you need.

If your complaint involves multiple issues, start with the theme that best describes the main problem. The calculator treats each theme separately, but combined failures sometimes push awards above either individual range.

The table below shows the top 8 issues by number of compensated decisions. You can see the median and middle 50% range for each. For a complete list, use the compensation calculator.

Understanding the numbers

The median is the middle point: half the awards are smaller, half are larger. It is robust against extreme values, which is why we use it as the headline. The 25th and 75th percentiles show where the bulk of awards cluster. Focus on the median first, then check whether your situation feels closer to the lower quarter, the upper quarter or beyond it.

What the calculator cannot do

The calculator has clear limits. It is not a legal valuation tool, it does not know the facts of your case, and it cannot predict what an Ombudsman investigator will decide. The Ombudsman applies its published remedies guidance to each complaint individually. That means two cases with the same issue tag can produce very different awards because the duration, severity, evidence and landlord response differ.

The calculator also cannot account for non-financial remedies. The Ombudsman frequently orders apologies, repairs, policy reviews and staff training alongside — or instead of — money. Those orders improve your living conditions and future service, even though they do not appear in the compensation figure. If you need a court order to force a specific repair, or if your financial losses are large and well documented, a solicitor-led claim may still be the better route. Our damp and mould compensation guide explains how those cases are typically handled.

Finally, the calculator does not replace professional advice. If you are unsure about your rights, the strength of your evidence, or whether to pursue the Ombudsman route or a court claim, consider speaking to a qualified housing adviser or solicitor. The calculator is a starting point for informed conversation, not a substitute for it.

How the figures are derived

We publish this methodology so you can judge whether the calculator is reliable enough to inform your next step.

We start with the complete set of published Housing Ombudsman decisions in the Landlord Record index. For each decision we extract the total compensation ordered by the Ombudsman. We only count amounts greater than zero; we ignore cases where no money was ordered or where the landlord offered redress that was never formalised into an order. We then tag each compensated decision with the themes recorded in the determination — these are normalised, kebab-case issue tags drawn directly from the Ombudsman's own categorisation.

For every theme that appears in at least 30 compensated decisions, we compute a full distribution: the count, minimum, 25th percentile, median, 75th percentile, mean and maximum. At present that gives us 29 issue-level distributions, drawn from a total pool of 9,417 compensated decisions. Landlord Record analysis of Housing Ombudsman decisions (Open Government Licence v3.0).

A single decision can contribute to multiple themes if the complaint involved more than one issue. That overlap is intentional: it mirrors how tenants experience problems, and it prevents us from artificially splitting mixed cases. We use percentiles rather than a simple average because the average is pulled upward by a small number of very large awards. The median and inter-quartile range give a truer picture of what most tenants receive.

The largest single award in the index is £358,282, but outliers usually involve years of failure, multiple linked defects or serious health impact. For most complaints, the median and middle range are the figures to focus on.

Try the calculator now

The calculator is free to use and updates automatically. You do not need an account, and we do not collect personal information about your complaint.

Ready to see where your issue sits? Open the compensation calculator, pick the problem that matches your complaint and compare your expectations against real Ombudsman data. If you want a deeper breakdown of how compensation is decided, read our housing disrepair compensation guide . You can also explore the highest-compensation rankings to see which landlords have been ordered to pay the largest awards.

Landlords can also use the calculator to benchmark redress offers against published outcomes. Offers well below the median may be viewed unfavourably if the complaint is escalated.

Sources

The findings and process described here are defined by the Housing Ombudsman Service. For the authoritative position — including its Scheme, Complaint Handling Code and remedies guidance — see the Housing Ombudsman website .

For the Ombudsman's approach to remedies, read its guidance on remedies . For the legal framework behind disrepair claims in England, see the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, section 11 on the landlord's repairing covenant.

This page summarises and explains that material; it is not produced by the Ombudsman and does not constitute legal advice.