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Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing (MTV) (202346165)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202346165

Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing (MTV)

26 March 2025


Our approach

The Housing Ombudsman’s approach to investigating and determining complaints is to decide what is fair in all the circumstances of the case. This is set out in the Housing Act 1996 and the Housing Ombudsman Scheme (the Scheme). The Ombudsman considers the evidence and looks to see if there has been any ‘maladministration’, for example whether the landlord has failed to keep to the law, followed proper procedure, followed good practice or behaved in a reasonable and competent manner.

Both the resident and the landlord have submitted information to the Ombudsman and this has been carefully considered. Their accounts of what has happened are summarised below. This report is not an exhaustive description of all the events that have occurred in relation to this case, but an outline of the key issues as a background to the investigation’s findings.

The complaint

  1. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of:
    1. The resident’s reports about his front door and his fire safety concerns.
    2. The resident’s reports about a communal light.
    3. The resident’s reports about a communal door.
    4. The associated complaint.

Background

  1. The resident is a leaseholder of the landlord. The property is a flat in a block. This is served by at least 5 external communal doors that provide entry from the outside to different flat number ranges within the block.
  2. The landlord did a fire risk assessment (FRA) in November 2021. The FRA noted that some fire doors showed signs of wear and tear. The FRA recommended for them be investigated by July 2024.
  3. The landlord received reports for issues with a communal light and the frame of communal door A in November 2022. The landlord says its contractor attended in November 2022 for the light repair. The landlord says its contractor attended between December 2022 and March 2023 for the repair to the frame of door A.
  4. In October 2023, the landlord re-raised the light repair after the resident reported it was not done. In November 2023, the landlord raised repairs for the lock for communal door B. It says its contractor completed these the same month. In December 2023, the resident chased the light repair. The same month, the landlord raised another repair for the frame for door A. It also internally flagged that the fire door survey was outstanding after the 2021 fire risk assessment had recommended one.
  5. On 9 December 2023, the resident made a complaint. He said the communal light repair was still outstanding. He said the landlord had ignored queries about replacement of broken communal doors. This is understood to include the external communal door, door C, that provides entry to the flat numbers his flat falls under. He said the landlord had also ignored queries about the replacement of his front door due to it not meeting fire regulations.
  6. In late December 2023 and early January 2024, the landlord says its contractor completed repairs to communal door A. In mid January 2024, the landlord updated the resident about the fire door survey and repairs to communal door A and the light. The resident raised dissatisfaction with the accuracy of the information about when his communal door had been repaired. He asked for his complaint to be escalated.
  7. The landlord provided a stage 1 response on 16 January 2024. It noted the resident had escalated his complaint before it had completed its investigation. It said it was doing a fire door survey on 19 January 2024. It said the resident’s door was his responsibility, but this would be confirmed after its survey. It detailed repairs for communal door B and said that it would do any further necessary work or replacement. It said that the light repairs had been recalled but it could not provide any further explanation. It apologised for its delayed response and awarded £50.
  8. In late January 2024, a contractor carried out the fire door survey and identified that the resident’s front door required replacement. The landlord also raised a repair to replace a communal door and frame after its contractor recommended this. This is understood to relate to door A. In late February 2024, the landlord issued a Section 20 notice for the fire door works. In early March 2024, the landlord says its contractor replaced a part for the light. In mid March 2024, the landlord spoke to the resident and noted he said the lock for the communal door to his flat needed replacing.
  9. The landlord provided a stage 2 response on 26 March 2024. It said it would progress the fire door installation after the Section 20 notice. It said it had agreed to replace the communal door and would install this when the door had been manufactured. It estimated this to be in 4 to 5 weeks. This is understood to relate to door A. It noted that after a repair in November 2022, the light was not raised again until October 2023. However, it noted that a recall was not booked in and the light was not repaired until 6 March 2024. It apologised that the resident had experienced repairs delays, gone to time and trouble, and experienced incomplete and delayed responses to his complaints. It increased its award to £400.
  10. Around this time, the resident sent photos to us of communal door C showing it had a missing lock.
  11. In April 2024, the landlord says it replaced another part for the light. In late May 2024, the landlord replaced communal door A. In June 2024, the landlord told us the replacement fire doors would be installed within 12 weeks. It noted that it had delayed in replacing the communal door and said it would offer a further £100 to recognise the further time and trouble the resident had experienced.
  12. The resident recently says that the communal door he was complaining about, door C, was never replaced, However, door C’s lock was replaced around Autumn 2024.

Assessment and findings

The resident’s reports about his front door and his fire safety concerns

  1. The resident explains his front door needed repair as it was bowing. He says he contacted the landlord about this but it did not do anything. He says he then contacted the landlord again after he obtained a quote to replace the door himself but it would not let him do this. He says he contacted the landlord a couple of months before he complained.
  2. Before the resident complained in December 2023 and raised concerns about the door, the evidence we have seen is limited. It is evident the landlord did a FRA in 2021 that recommended for the doors to be investigated by July 2024, due to wear and tear.
  3. The landlord then progressed investigation of the fire doors just before the resident complained. Its contractor completed a fire door survey in mid January 2024. It issued a Section 20 notice to leaseholders in late February 2024. It then said in June 2024 that the front door would be replaced by around September 2024. The resident confirms his front door was replaced.
  4. The landlord’s January 2024 survey of the fire doors was by its 2021 FRA recommended deadline of July 2024. It is then not disputed that fire doors, including the resident’s front door, were replaced by around September 2024. The landlord’s overall handling of the fire doors was therefore reasonably timely. It is not evident the issue impacted the fire risk and caused significant detriment. However, the evidence and the resident’s account indicate there were issues with the landlord’s recordkeeping, communication and management of the resident’s expectations.
  5. The landlord has acknowledged there were delays and communication issues which caused the resident time and trouble. The £500 that the landlord has offered is in line with what we may consider applicable where there has been maladministration but no permanent impact. In our opinion, this is proportionate to any issues and impact evident, and the landlord has provided reasonable redress about the resident’s front door and his fire safety concerns.

The resident’s reports about a communal light

  1. The resident says the communal light was not repaired after this was reported November 2022. We are unable to take a clear view on this, particularly given the lack of evidence for further reports until almost a year later. The resident then reported that the communal light was not working in October 2023 and chased this in December 2023. The landlord confirms the communal light was repaired in early March 2024.
  2. The communal light repair exceeded the landlord’s normal timeframes for routine and non-routine repairs. This is not satisfactory as the issue affected visibility during access to the block at night and caused distress and inconvenience to the resident.
  3. The landlord has not disputed that the repair was delayed. It has acknowledged issues that led to this, such as a lack of action for one report, and it has acknowledged this impacted the resident. It has also said it had performance issues with a previous contactor and it is continuing to try to improve its current service delivery.
  4. As noted above, the £500 that the landlord has offered is in line with what we may consider applicable where there has been maladministration but no permanent impact.  In our opinion, this is proportionate to any issues evident, and the landlord has provided reasonable redress about the communal light.

The resident’s reports about a communal door

  1. The resident complained in December 2023 that the landlord had ignored queries about replacement of broken communal doors. The landlord has supplied some repairs records from November 2022 to around March 2024. It says the communal door was replaced in May 2024. The resident tells us that the door he was complaining about was not replaced. He says it was not fixed until Autumn 2024. He says issues with the door meant people including drug dealers were able to access the communal area, which caused distress to him and his young daughter.
  2. The resident’s block is served by multiple external communal entrance doors for different flat number ranges. It is evident that when the landlord’s responses refer to the communal door repair, this relates to multiple doors (doors A and B) rather than the single door the responses make out. None of these are the external communal entrance door for the resident’s flat range (door C) which he said had issues with a lock before the landlord’s stage 2 response.
  3. The resident’s account refers to the landlord repairing communal door C in January 2024 and Autumn 2024. This confirms it has done some repairs in periods. However, from when the resident complained in December 2023 to Autumn 2024, when he says the door was fixed, is around a year. This exceeds the landlord’s normal timeframes for routine and non-routine repairs and is longer than we would expect. The delays in the full resolution to issues with door C will have clearly caused frustration and distress to the resident and his daughter. The landlord has not satisfactorily acknowledged this. This leads the Ombudsman to find a service failure in the landlord’s response about the communal door.
  4. The landlord’s compensation offer goes a long way to financially remedy the issues and impact evident, so we order a further £50 in recognition of the unacknowledged distress and inconvenience caused to the resident by this aspect.
  5. The resident raises dissatisfaction that when the communal door for his flat, door C, was repaired around Autumn 2024, the postman was not provided a key as they were with other communal doors. He says this affects his receipt of post as this is reliant on hearing the postman at the communal door. He has the option to complain to the landlord for this issue, however we have made a recommendation about this.

The landlord’s complaint handling

  1. The landlord’s stage 1 response was delayed by around 2 weeks and the resident escalated his complaint due to this. The landlord’s stage 2 response was then delayed by around a month. This was not entirely satisfactory but the landlord kept the resident updated about the delays and awarded £400. This included compensation for complaint delays. The landlord then awarded a further £100 after contact from us to further recognise the time and trouble the resident had experienced.
  2. The landlord was positive to keep the resident updated, acknowledge issues with its handling and award compensation. The total £500 it awarded is in line with our remedies guidance where there is maladministration but no permanent impact. This goes a long way to remedy the complaint handling issues and impact evident.
  3. However, the landlord has not acknowledged the issues with the communal door complaint. It detailed actions for different doors to the one the resident complained about. This meant that its responses failed to address the complaint in any meaningful way. It also mismanaged his expectations about the communal door replacement since this referred to another door. It is recognised that investigation of a complaint about a block with multiple communal doors may be confusing, but this is not appropriate in the context of a complaint. This leads the Ombudsman to find a service failure in the landlord’s complaint handling.
  4. The landlord’s compensation offer goes a long way to financially remedy the issues and impact evident, so the further £50 we have ordered is also to recognise the unacknowledged distress and inconvenience caused to the resident by this aspect.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was:
    1. Service failure in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports about a communal door.
    2. Service failure in the landlord’s complaint handling.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 53.b. of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was reasonable redress in the landlord’s handling of:
    1. The resident’s reports about his front door and his fire safety concerns.
    2. The resident’s reports about a communal light.

Orders and recommendations

  1. The landlord is ordered, within 4 weeks, to pay the resident £50 compensation in recognition of the distress and inconvenience caused by the issues identified. This is in addition to the £500 it offered, which it should pay to the resident if it has not already.
  2. The landlord is recommended to liaise with the resident to establish if he has any current concerns about the communal door, to consider appropriate action.
  3. The landlord is recommended to review the resident’s concerns that his postman has not been provided a key for his communal door, as they have been for other communal doors at the block, to consider appropriate action.
  4. The landlord is recommended to review how it investigates complaints about repairs to communal elements such as doors, to ensure it investigates the correct elements complained about.
  5. The landlord is recommended to ensure it maintains and supplies adequate repairs records.