Mid Devon District Council (18UD) - Regulatory Judgement: 30 April 2025
Published 30 April 2025
Applies to England
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Our Judgement
| Grade/judgement | Change | Date of assessment | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Consumer | Not assessed yet | ||
| Rent | Our judgement is that there are serious failings in the landlord delivering the outcomes of the Rent Standard and significant improvement is needed | New judgement | April 2025 |
Reason for publication
We are publishing a regulatory judgement for Mid Devon District Council (Mid Devon DC) as we have concluded that there are serious failings in how it is delivering the outcomes of the Rent Standard. This judgement is based on responsive engagement carried out following a self-referral from Mid Devon DC.
Summary of the decision
There have been serious failings in how Mid Devon DC is delivering the outcomes of the Rent Standard. Mid Devon DC has overcharged around 40% of its tenants and undercharged around 60% of its tenants as a result of errors that it has made in setting rents over a prolonged period.
How we reached our judgement
We began our responsive engagement with Mid Devon DC when it made a self-referral to us in September 2024 after it had identified issues relating to rent setting. Our engagement with Mid Devon DC focused on understanding the nature of the errors that it had made in setting rents and the actions it is taking to address the issues.
Our responsive engagement about these issues included reviewing documents and information provided by Mid Devon DC, and follow up meetings and discussions. Our judgement is based on all the relevant information we obtained from Mid Devon DC during the responsive engagement process. In making our decision, we have considered how well Mid Devon DC is delivering against the outcomes of the Rent Standard.
Summary of findings
Rent – Serious failings in delivering outcomes – April 2025
The self-referral from Mid Devon DC in September 2024 related to a potential failure to deliver the outcomes of the Rent Standard, in particular the failure to apply correct property valuations as the basis for formula rent in 2002 and not correcting property valuations until the error was highlighted in 2024.
When the correct property valuations were applied, Mid Devon DC identified that 1,243 tenants had been overcharged, and 1,622 had been undercharged. The total impact on the council’s Housing Revenue Account of the undercharged rent over the period is estimated to be £8m. The total overcharged amount for the period is estimated to be £7.5m.
Mid Devon DC has been transparent in its approach and has written to affected tenants to make them aware of the issue. Mid Devon DC has confirmed that new tenancies are now charged at the correct rent, that rent charged has been corrected for those tenants overcharged, and that undercharged rent will be corrected only upon changes of tenancy. Mid Devon DC is continuing to investigate the issues and has sought external legal support to inform its plan to correct the errors. Mid Devon DC has advised us that it will be starting work to confirm the refunds due to individual tenants.
Taking into account the extent of these issues and potential impacts on tenants, we have concluded that there are serious failings in how Mid Devon DC is delivering the outcomes of the Rent Standard.
Mid Devon DC continues to engage constructively with us as it addresses the issues that led to this situation. Our engagement includes ongoing monitoring of how it is delivering its plan. Our engagement with the landlord will be intensive and we will seek evidence to give us the assurance that sufficient change and improvement is being made. Our priority will be that any relevant risks to tenants are adequately managed and mitigated, and that affected tenants have appropriate redress.
Background to the judgement
About the landlord
Mid Devon DC owns around 3,000 social housing homes.
Our role and regulatory approach
We regulate for a viable, efficient, and well governed social housing sector able to deliver quality homes and services for current and future tenants.
We regulate at the landlord level to drive improvement in how landlords operate. By landlord we mean a registered provider of social housing. These can either be local authorities, or private registered providers (other organisations registered with us such as non-profit housing associations, co-operatives, or profit-making organisations).
We set standards which state outcomes that landlords must deliver. The outcomes of our standards include both the required outcomes and specific expectations we set. Where we find there are significant failures in landlords which we consider to be material to the landlord’s delivery of those outcomes, we hold them to account. Ultimately this provides protection for tenants’ homes and services and achieves better outcomes for current and future tenants. It also contributes to a sustainable sector which can attract strong investment.
We have a different role for regulating local authorities than for other landlords. This is because we have a narrower role for local authorities and the Governance and Financial Viability Standard, and Value for Money Standard do not apply. Further detail on which standards apply to different landlords can be found on our standards page.
We assess the performance of landlords through inspections and by reviewing data that landlords are required to submit to us. In Depth Assessments (IDAs) were one of our previous assessment processes, which are now replaced by our new inspections programme from 1 April 2024. We also respond where there is an issue or a potential issue that may be material to a landlord’s delivery of the outcomes of our standards. We publish regulatory judgements that describe our view of landlords’ performance with our standards. We also publish grades for landlords with more than 1,000 social housing homes.
The Housing Ombudsman deals with individual complaints. When individual complaints are referred to us, we investigate if we consider that the issue may be material to a landlord’s delivery of the outcomes of our standards.
For more information about our approach to regulation, please see How we Regulate.