Vermin infestations in a light bulb, carpets wet from mould, mice nesting at the bottom of a sofa. Elderly residents waiting weeks for repairs for leaks, and dead rats.

These are some of the shoddy conditions provided by landlords who are receiving taxpayer funds to build Britain’s new homes, an investigation by The i Paper can reveal.

Thirty-three organisations – almost all of them housing associations – are getting a share of £9.5bn to build affordable homes under the Government’s Social and Affordable Housing Programme (SAHP).

Of them, six organisations had more than 100 findings of “maladministration” in the past year and 26 had at least 10, according to the Housing Ombudsman, which investigates complaints from social housing tenants, shared owners and leaseholders.

It calls into question the standards of these housing giants and how well they treat their tenants, say experts, with the number of residents they look after set to expand under the SAHP plan.

“The Government is dishing out money to organisations that are demonstrably failing their tenants,” said Professor Janice Morphet, an expert on social housing at University College London.

Clarion, Sanctuary, Hyde, Metropolitan, Stonewater and Places for People each had over 100 findings of maladministration last year. Clarion, Sanctuary and Hyde each had 10 or more findings of “severe maladministration”.

The ombudsman makes a “maladministration” verdict if failures are found to have “negatively affected” the resident, and a “severe maladministration” ruling when landlords make “serious or multiple” failures that cause “significant harm”.

While not all problems reported to the ombudsman are extreme cases, leaks, damp, mould and faulty heating – as well as mice, rats and other pests – are common complaints. In “severe maladministration” cases, other common failures include poor record-keeping, customer service and response times.

Severe maladministration findings by the Housing Ombudsman fell to 470 cases (2 per cent of all findings) in 2025–26, down from 714 cases (5 per cent) in 2024–25. Seven organisations receiving taxpayer funding had fewer than 10 maladministration findings in the ombudsman report.

Andrea Keenoy, Interim Housing Ombudsman, said this showed that “landlords continue to learn and improve by using their complaints as early warning indicators of something going wrong”.

But it is “very disappointing” that problems such as damp, mould and vermin are “still so common” among social housing providers, Morphet said.

Burnham’s housebuilding drive

The latest SAHP spending is part of a broader £39bn plan designed to construct 300,000 social and affordable homes across England over the next 10 years. The housebuilding grants given out so far range from £100m to £350m for each of the 33 selected providers.

With private housebuilders struggling in a stagnating market, Labour is relying on these social landlords to help them get anywhere close to their 1.5 million new homes target. Housing Secretary Angela Rayner has already admitted Labour has a “slim” chance of meeting this target, with housebuilders “scaling back and slowing down” projects.

At Labour’s annual conference this week, Andy Burnham announced the “biggest council housebuilding programme since the post-war era”, putting further pressure on the need for new social homes, soon.

This makes questions about how social housing providers treat their tenants, and about the quality and condition of their homes, even more urgent.

Soaked carpets, mouldy walls and mice-infested sofas

The largest of these organisations, Clarion Housing Association, owns and manages 120,000 homes across England. It is getting £350m in SAHP funding to build 2,977 new homes.

There were 304 maladministration and 10 severe maladministration findings against Clarion by the ombudsman last year. These judgements included dozens of cases of damp, mould and condensation.

In one case, Clarion delayed repairing a leak affecting a resident’s adapted bathroom, resulting in the resident’s child – who has additional needs – unable to use it for a year. Clarion was ordered to pay £1,450 in compensation by the ombudsman.

“I constantly get contacted by constituents where Clarion is failing to fix properties with serious issues such as repeated rat infestations, sloppy repair jobs, serious damp and mould which may have contributed to children’s asthma conditions,” Chris Coghlan, the Lib Dem MP for Dorking and Horley, Surrey, told The i Paper.

“Clarion told me a year ago that things have improved but sadly in my experience they only ever seem to fix something when they’re approached by an MP or a councillor. It’s completely unacceptable.”

In another case, reported by The i Paper, Clarion was accused of evicting formerly homeless and vulnerable tenants with complex needs from social housing in Islington, north London. Some of the tenants who faced eviction were in their mid-80s, and others had young children.

A Clarion spokesperson said that the company is “proud” to have been awarded Strategic Partner status by Homes England to help tackle Britain’s “severe housing crisis” and that it had “made significant investments to improve services and ensure residents receive the support they need”.

They added: “Every service failure is taken extremely seriously but is also an opportunity for continuous learning and improvement. We accepted the ombudsman’s findings, apologised to the resident and complied with the orders made. We have learned from this case and taken steps to strengthen our approach to repairs, complaint handling and support for vulnerable residents.”

Sanctuary Housing Association, which owns and manages around 125,000 homes across England and Scotland, is getting £350m to build 2,000 homes. It had 201 findings of maladministration and 12 findings of severe maladministration findings last year.

According to an October 2025 ombudsman report, Sanctuary only addressed work needed at the home of a woman with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease around six months after she reported “her carpets were wet from damp and mould”. Sanctuary was ordered to pay £2,467 in compensation.

‘I haven’t had a proper night’s sleep’

Tesha Murrain, 37, has been left without permanent housing since September 2025 after a mice infestation in her Sanctuary-owned flat in Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands.

At the height of the infestation, there were more than 20 rodents in the flat and all her furniture was “damaged”, she told The i Paper.

Sanctuary put Ms Murrain up in a hotel for the first five months, but she has spent the subsequent seven months sleeping on a mattress on her mother’s living room floor.

“I haven’t had a proper night’s sleep since it’s begun,” said Ms Murrain, who has complex migraines that prevent her from working.

She said Sanctuary offered her two other flats to move into, but has not provided her with viewings before she can make a choice.

She has been waiting to hear back from the Housing Ombudsman after lodging a complaint in November 2025.

“I’m grieving my home,” she said. “I was there for more than 15 years… That was my safe space.”

Ms Murrain does not think Sanctuary should receive grants to build more homes. “They seem not to be accountable to anyone. They are not safe or fit for purpose.”

“We are committed to addressing any concerns raised by our residents in a timely manner and to providing regular updates as any work required is carried out,” a spokesperson for Sanctuary said.

“We understand how upsetting any pest issues can be, and in Ms Murrain’s case we arranged alternative accommodation to allow our specialist pest control contractor to fully resolve them before she returned home.”

Hyde Housing Association, which has around 125,000 homes primarily in London and the South East, is getting £350m to build 2,250 homes. It had 105 maladministration and 10 severe maladministration findings last year.

A December 2024 ombudsman investigation found “repeated failings” at Hyde. In one case, the landlord failed to make a repair for nearly a year, leaving a vulnerable resident with peeling wallpaper, mouldy walls and damaged furniture.

A Hyde spokesperson said: “The findings of the December 2024 report don’t reflect our current performance, which has improved significantly over the past few years. When things do go wrong, our priority is to resolve them as soon as possible.” It said ombudsman findings showed fewer failures from 2025, adding: “The majority relate to complaints handled in 2023 and 2024. This is set against more than one million customer interactions a year.”

“We continue to work well with the ombudsman but don’t recognise some of its data,” they said, adding that the ombudsman had taken over a year to resolve customer complaints.

Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing, which owns and manages 57,000 homes in London, the South East, East Midlands and East Anglia, was awarded £300m to build 2,500 homes. It had 130 maladministration and three severe maladministration findings last year.

The ombudsman ordered Metropolitan to pay £3,650 to a Lambeth resident in November 2023 after failing to adequately respond to a mice infestation. The woman had to cut off the bottom of her sofa as the mice kept nesting in it.

A Metropolitan spokesperson said it had invested £197m in maintaining and improving homes last year. They said where services had fallen “below standards residents rightly expect”, the association worked with the ombudsman to “put things right” and learn lessons.

Places for People, which owns and manages 72,000 social or affordable homes across the UK, said it would “continue to work hard to bring maladministration figures down by investing in existing customers’ homes” and that it wanted to “build more to tackle the [housing] shortage”. Stonewater, which has 40,000 homes across England, declined to comment.

Long wait for repairs at retirement flats

Another Sutton Coldfield resident, Sallie Morgan, said she and her neighbours at Windsor Mews, a block of retirement flats, have been dealing with “dead rats, gutter problems and leaks” for years and accused Sanctuary of being “very slow” to respond.

“They’ve been negligent when it comes to doing what we consider to be normal and routine repairs for years,” the 73-year-old said. “This has caused water to pour down roofs and resulted in damp.”

Ms Morgan also said that “air bricks have broken” and been left without “protective guards”, allowing rats to get inside buildings’ roofs.

“You have to be over 60 to live here – none of us is physically capable of climbing into the loft and putting traps down, etc,” she said. “But when we report the issues to Sanctuary, it takes them weeks, if not months, to get anything done.”

A Sanctuary spokesperson said: “We have been working closely with residents from Windsor Mews – and their representatives – in recent months and have made very positive progress in line with an agreed repairs action plan. As always, we are committed to addressing any concerns raised by our residents and to providing regular updates as planned work is completed.”

Kate Henderson, chief executive of the National Housing Federation, the trade body for housing associations, said that “the quality of homes and services” is the sector’s “number one priority.”

Housing associations have “increased investment in their existing homes by 18 per cent over the last two years, spending a record £9.7bn on repairs and maintenance last year”, she added.

Today, over 90 per cent of housing association homes meet the Decent Homes Standard – more than privately rented and council homes.

However, two in five housing association homes were built before 1964. In some cases, this is considerably longer than these homes were designed to last. Added to that, 365,000 social renting households are overcrowded due to the shortage of social homes. Overcrowding considerably increases the risks of damp and mould problems.

“I don’t think there is enough pressure on them to improve conditions for residents. Andy Burham could say, ‘Look, we’re giving you all this money – but we are expecting better conditions’,” Morphet added.

A former senior official at Homes England, who left the government agency a few years ago, said housing associations “have been very focused on new-builds” and had “not invested enough” on repairs in recent decades.

“I share the view Homes England should look for better standards [on conditions and repairs] when giving money out,” they said.

Ten landlords getting funding haven’t been assessed

When it comes to social housing providers’ “consumer” performance – treatment of residents – the Regulator of Social Housing has not yet assessed 10 of the organisations getting SAHP funding.

While 12 of the organisations on the grant list have been assessed and given a C1 rating – the highest of four possible ratings – another seven were given C2 ratings, including Clarion. This means “there are “some weaknesses” in their consumer performance and “improvement is needed”.

The former senior Homes England official thinks that a housing provider should be able to show they have a C1 rating “before they get government money”, adding: “Homes England should insist on that benchmark.”

A Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesperson said: “We expect social housing providers to comply with the requirements set out by the Social Housing Regulator, which includes listening to tenants and fixing issues quickly”.

They added: “Homes England is already looking for better standards from social housing providers and are able to decline funding to those who fail to meet regulatory standards.”

Jonathan Walters, the chief executive of the Regulator of Social Housing, said it used information from the ombudsman alongside other evidence for its ratings. “We are taking strong action across the country to drive up standards.”

Burnham’s Britain is, as he laid out explicitly at Labour conference, in a bind when it comes to housing. There are more than 1.3 million households on social housing waiting lists, and experts agree building new homes will not only get this figure down, but also boost the economy.

But housing associations have been under immense pressure in recent years. They have been squeezed financially and scrutinised over their treatment of tenants and the conditions of their homes. 

Recent and forthcoming legislation, including Awaab’s Law and the Social Housing Bill, has strengthened social tenants’ consumer rights and will soon protect social housing stock from being sold off through Right to Buy.  

Rayner’s new rent settlement, which allows social landlords to increase rents by the Consumer Prices Index measure of inflation plus 1 per cent, also addresses the chronic underfunding this sector has faced for years.  

But there’s still work to be done. Following high-profile campaigns about poor conditions in social homes – including by Kwajo Tweneboa, who cared for his dying father while living with mould, damp and leaks – improvements have been made in good faith. The latest Housing Ombudsman report shows severe maladministration judgements fell by more than a third last year. 

Many housing associations are juggling the repairs of older homes with building urgently needed new ones. Grant funding is critical to them being able to get Britain building again.

However, to convince the public that they are worthy of this cash, landlords must continue improving their standards and treating social tenants – a group who have long faced stigma and poor service – with the respect they have always deserved.