Specifically on the issue of damp, mould and pest infestation, the report said: “There is presenting evidence of service failure that may be indicative of a systemic failing. The ombudsman intends to conduct a further investigation beyond this initial complaint, to establish whether there is any evidence of systemic failings in the landlord’s handling of these issues.”
Areas for Clarion to “learn and improve” will be identified, the ombudsman said.
A Clarion spokesperson said it was “disappointed” with the “public comments” about a wider investigation and will be writing privately to the ombudsman.
“Clarion is determined to continue to drive improvements in the service we provide all our residents,” the spokesperson added.
On the latest case, the spokesperson said: “This was a complex and challenging case, which has concluded with the resident moving to a new Clarion home.
“We are disappointed by the judgement made by the ombudsman, as we don’t believe it reflects all of the support that our colleagues provided. This is particularly the case regarding the resident’s vulnerabilities; we have provided evidence that when alerted to these, they were taken into account.
“We fully accept that we were too slow to act in the early stages of this case, have apologised for this and conducted a full internal review into what went wrong.
“However, a number of issues were exacerbated by the resident refusing to grant Clarion staff access to the property over a period of time. Housing associations do not have the same power as private and local authority landlords to access homes and we’d like to see this changed, so the problem does not recur in the future.
“As an organisation, Clarion is determined to learn from every case. We will continue to work closely with the ombudsman and are reviewing our approach to pest control and how to account for specific vulnerabilities among our residents.”
Clarion last year apologised to tenants after ITV exposed squalid conditions on the Eastfields Estate in south London.
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