Southway Housing Trust Repairs
Disrepair Claims and Compensation
Reported the damp months ago and nothing has changed? Southway took its homes over from Manchester City Council on a promise of investment, and where that investment has not reached your property you can force the repairs through and claim compensation for the time you have lived with it.
We act for tenants of registered providers across England. See our wider guide to housing association disrepair claims.
Southway Housing Trust Repairs Not Being Done
Southway was created when tenants in south Manchester voted to transfer out of Manchester City Council ownership in 2007. The case put to tenants at that ballot was investment, that a registered provider could borrow against the stock and modernise homes in a way the council could not. Thousands of homes across Didsbury, Chorlton, Burnage, Withington, Old Moat and Fallowfield changed hands on that basis.
Where that investment landed, it worked. Where it did not, tenants are now nearly two decades into the same kitchen, the same single glazed windows and the same damp that was supposed to be dealt with. If your home sits in the second group and the repairs line keeps closing jobs that were never fixed, the promise made at transfer does not enforce itself. The statutory repairing duty does, and that is what a claim relies on.
Transferred from council ownership, still bound by Section 11
Upfront cost to start a claim
Success fee, agreed in writing first
Why Your Tenancy Type Changes Your Options
Transferred tenants are not in the same legal position as council tenants, and the difference catches people out.
What you have
- • An assured tenancy under the Housing Act 1988, not a secure council tenancy
- • The full Section 11 repairing covenant and the Section 9A fitness duty
- • Awaab's Law deadlines, because Southway is a registered provider of social housing
- • Access to the Housing Ombudsman once the internal procedure is exhausted
What you do not have
- • The statutory Right to Repair scheme, which applies only to secure council tenants
- • Any route back to the council's repairs service, since ownership transferred permanently
- • Protection from possession proceedings brought on Section 8 grounds, which work differently from the secure tenancy regime
None of that weakens a disrepair claim. It simply means the fast informal routes available to council tenants are closed, and the formal ones matter more. Your starting point is what your agreement actually says, which our guide to tenancy agreements and tenant rights breaks down.
Southway Repairs and Complaints, the Facts
What the landlord has published about its own service, and what it means when your repair has stalled.
How to report a repair
[INSERT: reporting routes and the published emergency, urgent and routine target timescales]
The complaints procedure
[INSERT: stage one and stage two deadlines, then the Housing Ombudsman route]
Stock, transfer and areas
[INSERT: confirmed number of homes, transfer date, and the south Manchester neighbourhoods covered]
Damp and mould position
[INSERT: published damp and mould policy and any Housing Ombudsman determination with case reference]. Your underlying protections are on our tenant rights page.
The Duties Southway Owes You
Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 requires your landlord to keep the structure and exterior in repair and the installations for water, gas, electricity, sanitation, space heating and hot water in working order. That duty transferred with the stock and binds Southway exactly as it bound the council. The Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 added Section 9A, requiring the home to be fit to live in throughout the tenancy rather than only at the start.
As a registered provider of social housing, Southway is also inside the scope of Awaab's Law, introduced under the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023. That replaces the old reasonable time standard with fixed deadlines for investigating and acting on serious hazards, and the scope widens as the rollout progresses. Our breakdown of the Awaab's Law rollout phases shows which hazard types are in scope now and which follow later.
The practical consequence is that there are three separate ways a claim can be framed, and they are not interchangeable. A disrepair claim under Section 11 needs notice and a defect in something the landlord is responsible for repairing. A fitness claim under Section 9A does not require the property to be in disrepair at all, only unfit. An Awaab's Law breach turns on a missed deadline, which is a matter of dates rather than opinion. Choosing the wrong one is a common reason claims run longer than they should, which our housing disrepair claim guide explains in more detail.
Where any of these is breached, you can recover damages for the distress, inconvenience, ruined belongings and health effects you have suffered, and force the outstanding works to be completed at the same time.
The Closed Job That Was Never Fixed
Large providers measure performance on jobs completed, not problems solved. An operative attends, treats the mould, records the job as complete, and the performance figure improves. The wall is damp again by February and a new job number is raised, which will also be completed.
From the tenant's side it looks like being ignored. From the system's side every target was met. This gap between the repair log and the actual condition of the home is the single most common pattern we see with transferred stock, and spotting it is most of the work. Our guide to identifying negligence in social housing sets out what separates a slow service from a legal breach.
Mould returning in the same position after treatment, the signature of an unaddressed structural cause
Case Examples From Transferred Social Housing
Illustrative examples of the case types we handle. Details are composite and do not describe a single identified client. Real outcomes are covered in our housing disrepair success stories.
A household reports mould in a back bedroom across three winters. Each visit treats the surface and closes the job. A surveyor instructed on the claim finds a failed extractor and cold bridging. The four closed jobs become the strongest evidence in the file, because each one proves notice, and damages run from the first report rather than the survey.
A home still has its original windows and heating long after neighbouring properties were upgraded. The promise itself is not directly enforceable, but the condition it left behind is, because the failing components are exactly the ones Section 11 and the fitness duty cover.
A boiler is condemned at a gas safety check and the household is given plug in heaters while a replacement is scheduled into the following financial year. Temporary heating does not discharge the duty, and the claim covers both the period without heating and the electricity bills the household absorbed.
A stage two complaint is upheld, an apology and a goodwill payment are offered, and the complaint is closed as resolved. The disrepair itself is still there. An upheld complaint is useful evidence rather than a remedy, and the claim is what actually produces the schedule of works.
Why Southway Tenants Instruct Us
How the funding works is set out in full on our No Win No Fee page.
We Assess Before We Accept
If the evidence will not carry a claim we say so at the assessment rather than after months of correspondence. An honest no is worth more than a hopeful maybe.
No Win No Fee
Nothing to pay upfront and nothing to pay if the claim does not succeed. The success fee is capped and agreed in writing before anything is signed.
We Pull the Full Repair History
With transferred stock the record often runs back to council ownership. Disclosure of the whole history frequently shows a defect reported years earlier than the tenant remembers.
Disrepair We Handle for Southway Tenants
Damp and Black Mould
Dismissed as condensation in most cases. In pre war terraces and poorly ventilated flats the cause is usually structural and returns after every treatment.
Leaks and Water Ingress
Burst pipes, failed seals and overflowing gutters. The landlord must stop the leak and make good everything it damaged on the way through.
Heating and Boiler Failures
Space and water heating are named in Section 11. An ageing boiler patched repeatedly rather than replaced is a repairing failure, not a budgeting decision.
Unsafe Electrics
Exposed wiring, repeatedly tripping consumer units and water reaching fittings are emergency category hazards rather than routine jobs to be queued.
Rodents and Infestations
Repeat treatments without sealing the entry point guarantee the problem comes back. The structural defect is the landlord's responsibility.
Structural Defects
Progressive cracking, movement and failing brickwork, which need monitoring evidence gathered over months rather than a single inspection.
These problems cluster in predictable ways across transferred stock, and our overview of common disrepair in council and housing association properties covers what tends to appear together.
When the Disrepair Starts Affecting Health
Damp and mould are not only a condition problem. Prolonged exposure is associated with respiratory symptoms, worsened asthma, repeated chest infections and disturbed sleep, and the effect is sharpest on young children and older residents. Households often normalise it, assuming the winter cough is simply the season.
Where a GP record links symptoms to conditions at home, the claim can carry a personal injury element alongside the repair and the general damages. That requires medical evidence rather than assertion, so the earlier symptoms are raised with a GP and recorded, the stronger that part becomes.
Worth Knowing
Not all mould is visible. It grows behind furniture, inside wall voids and under flooring long before it appears on a surface, which is why a landlord inspection that finds nothing is not proof there is nothing there.
Our guide to detecting hidden mould covers the signs that justify asking for an intrusive survey.
How a Southway Disrepair Claim Works
Four stages, no cost to you at any point unless the claim succeeds. Our compensation calculator gives a realistic starting range before you call.
Free Assessment
We review your repair history and the condition of the property, then tell you honestly whether the claim is worth running.
Evidence and Survey
We compile your reports, photographs and correspondence, and instruct an independent surveyor to establish the true cause.
Letter of Claim
A formal letter of claim goes to the provider under the pre action protocol, with a schedule of works and a deadline for disclosure of the full repair history.
Repairs and Settlement
We press for the works to be completed and negotiate damages for the period you lived with the disrepair.
Not a Southway Tenant
Manchester's stock is split between several providers after transfer, and the picture changes again across Greater Manchester. If your landlord is someone else, start from the page that covers you.
We act for council, ALMO and housing association tenants in England and Wales. We do not take private rented sector, leaseholder or shared ownership claims.
The Evidence That Decides a Claim
What to Gather Now
- Every job reference number, with the date reported and whether the job was later marked complete.
- Photographs taken across seasons, because damp that disappears in summer and returns each autumn tells a surveyor more than a single image.
- All correspondence, including the complaint responses, which often concede more than tenants realise.
- GP records where the conditions triggered or worsened a respiratory problem in the household.
What Most People Get Wrong
Tenants assume they need to prove the cause of the damp. They do not. That is the surveyor's job. What the tenant needs to prove is notice, which means showing the landlord knew. Every job number, every portal message and every ignored email does that work.
If your own records are thin, the landlord's repair history can be disclosed, and with transferred stock that record frequently reaches further back than the tenant expects.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I claim against Southway even though tenants voted for the transfer
Yes. The ballot decided who owns and manages the homes, it did not waive anyone's statutory rights. The Section 11 repairing covenant transferred intact, and a registered provider is subject to the same duties a council landlord would be, plus regulatory oversight the council did not have.
Does the Right to Repair scheme apply to me
No. That statutory scheme covers secure council tenants, and transferring out of council ownership moved you to an assured tenancy. It is one of the few things tenants genuinely lost at transfer. Awaab's Law deadlines and the Section 9A fitness duty both still apply to you.
My complaint was upheld but nothing was repaired
An upheld complaint is evidence rather than a remedy. It establishes that the landlord accepted something went wrong, which is useful in a claim, but it does not compel the works or compensate you properly. A claim does both, and the upheld complaint usually strengthens it.
Can I be evicted for bringing a claim
As an assured tenant your landlord must establish a ground under the Housing Act 1988 and obtain a court order, and bringing a disrepair claim is not a ground. Our guide to Section 8 notices explains how possession actually works for assured tenancies.
What if I am in rent arrears
You can still claim. Part of any compensation may be set against arrears, so the net figure can be lower, and we explain that at the assessment rather than after settlement. Arrears do not reduce the landlord's repairing duty.
Is there a time limit
Generally six years from when the disrepair began, and three years for any personal injury element. With a problem running back many years, the earliest period may fall outside the limitation window even though the defect is continuing.
The Southway Housing Trust Complaints Procedure and What Comes After It
Challenging the landlord that your own neighbourhood voted to create feels different from challenging a distant council, and that hesitation is exactly why some claims never start. It should not be a factor. A registered provider carries statutory duties and regulatory obligations, and enforcing those duties is not an attack on the organisation, it is the mechanism the law provides when a home has not been kept to standard. You can read about the team who would handle your case.
Go Through the Complaints Procedure First
Start with the formal complaint rather than another repairs call. The complaints procedure creates a dated written record, it forces a response at defined stages, and the Housing Ombudsman will usually expect you to have completed it before taking a case. Treat each stage response as evidence and keep it, particularly where it concedes a delay or an error. Where tenants lose ground is by cycling through repairs calls that generate job numbers but never a reviewable decision.
Set a Limit on How Long You Stay in It
Internal procedures are designed to resolve things internally, which also means they are designed to keep things internal. Give the process a defined window, usually the published stage deadlines plus a short margin, and treat a second missed deadline as the point to escalate rather than the point to complain again. A goodwill payment offered without a repair is not a resolution. Our guide on getting disrepair advice quickly covers what to do at that point.
What Happens When We Take Over
Once instructed, we move the matter out of the customer service queue entirely. A letter of claim under the pre action protocol goes to the provider's legal team with a schedule of works, a deadline for disclosure of the full repair history and a request for survey access. Providers that absorbed a year of unanswered emails usually respond inside the protocol deadline, because the costs consequences of ignoring it are real and quantifiable in a way that a tenant complaint is not.
Stop Treating the Symptom
One practical point while the claim runs. Cleaning mould off a wall removes the evidence and does nothing to the cause, so photograph thoroughly before you touch anything, and never redecorate over an affected area while a claim is live. Longer term, the only thing that resolves structural damp is addressing the defect, which our guide to preventing damp and mould recurring explains alongside what the landlord has to do.
What You Actually Recover
A successful claim has two halves and tenants consistently underestimate the first. The works are enforced, normally under a schedule with dates attached, so the defect is resolved rather than patched again. Damages then cover the period you lived with it, calculated largely as a proportion of the rent you paid, plus belongings ruined by damp or water, plus any injury element. Where the effect has been on mental health rather than physical health, that is also recoverable, which our guide to emotional distress in disrepair cases sets out.
If your repair has been outstanding for months, or the same job keeps being closed and reopened, that is the point to get it assessed rather than wait for another winter. Contact our team and we will tell you within 24 hours whether the claim is worth running.
Start Your Claim Today
Free assessment. No obligation. Housing association specialists.
Start Free Assessment → 📞 Call 07460 754041Submit Your Enquiry
Use the quick form to send your details directly.
Claim Pages
Ready to Get the Repairs Done
Free assessment, no obligation, and an honest answer about whether your claim is worth running.
What Could Your Claim Be Worth
Damages depend on how long the disrepair has run, the rent paid during it, the belongings damaged and the effect on your health. We give you a realistic range once we have seen the evidence, not before.
Use the compensation calculator