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Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing (MTV) (202302150)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202302150

Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing (MTV)

8 April 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 the resident’s service charge queries.
  2. The Ombudsman has also investigated the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint.

Background

  1. The resident has been a leaseholder of the property since 22 January 2009. The property is a 1-bedroom first floor flat. The resident has no recorded vulnerabilities.
  2. The resident emailed the landlord on 6 September 2022 and asked why it was charging her a higher service charge than a neighbour who had a 2-bedroom property.
  3. On 12 April 2023 the resident complained to the landlord. She asked why the landlord was charging her service charges for a 3-bedroom flat when she lived in a 1-bedroom flat. She said that she had realised this was happening in January 2023 but thought it may have been ongoing since she purchased the property. She said that she had queried this with the service charge team via emails and calls but it had not resolved the issue. She also said that she thought the landlord had double charged her for the fire tests but had not received a response to this query either.
  4. The landlord acknowledged receipt of the complaint on 19 April 2023 and said it would provide a full response within 10 working days. The resident chased a response on 9 May 2023 and the landlord replied to say that it was still waiting for a response from its service charge team and therefore needed an extension of a further 10 working days.
  5. The landlord provided a stage 1 complaint response on 10 May 2023. It apologised that its service charge team had not contacted the resident to resolve the issue within the required 20 working day period. It confirmed advice sent to her that morning by the team. This was that it could not amend her property details from 3-bedrooms to 1 because the land registry details of the property did not specify how many bedrooms it had. Therefore, it would meet her at the property to verify this. It awarded £90 compensation comprising £25 for service delivery failure, £40 for her time and trouble, and £25 for poor complaint handling.
  6. The landlord visited the property on 11 May 2023 and verified that the property had 1-bedroom. It emailed the resident on 12 May 2023 to confirm that it would update her the following week about how this would affect her account. The resident replied on 15 May 2023. She asked the landlord to respond to the other aspect of her complaint. She chased an update about the adjustments to her account on 24 May 2023.
  7. On 30 May 2023 the resident told the landlord she was not happy with the outcome of her complaint. She emailed it again on 1 and 2 June 2023 and confirmed that she did not want the complaint to be closed. The landlord responded on 2 June 2023. It said that it could not adjust her account from 3-bedrooms to 1 on its system until September due to the billing cycle.
  8. The resident received an automated email on 23 June 2023 confirming that the landlord had escalated her complaint to stage 2 of the complaints process. The resident approached us for assistance and we contacted the landlord on 3 July 2023 to ask it to respond to the stage 2 complaint.
  9. The landlord provided a stage 2 complaint response on 2 September 2023. It said that:
    1. It had applied a credit adjustment to the “last actuals”.
    2. It had changed its system to reflect that her property had 1-bedroom, not 3.
    3. She would receive the credit adjustments for 2023-2024 when it reconciled the period next year.
    4. Backdates for the previous 6 financial years would be credited to her account by the end of September 2023.
    5. It should have escalated her complaint to stage 2 of the process on 30 May 2023.
    6. It upheld her complaint and replaced its previous offer of compensation at stage 1 with and offer of £230. This comprised of £50 for service failure, £80 for her time and trouble, and £100 for poor complaint handling.
  10. On 25 September 2023 the landlord wrote to the resident and advised her that it would refund her £1,062.22 for 2022-2023 service charges. It emailed her on 5 October 2023 and said that it had reviewed her account for the previous 6 years. It said that the review had shown that it had made an adjustment to her account on 4 October 2021 for 2018-19, 2019-2020, and 2020-21. It said that charges for 2022-2023 were under investigation because “the system seems to have removed all costs entirely”. It said that additional adjustments would be visible on her account on 9 October 2023.
  11. On 13 May 2024 the landlord emailed the resident to tell her that it was still working on the backdated overpayments and would complete it by the following Wednesday.
  12. On 28 May 2024 an internal email showed a full review of the resident’s service charges. This showed what credits it had made to the residents account due to it incorrectly classifying the property as having 3-bedrooms. It showed that it had made the first credit in 2015 for financial year 2014-2015. No amendments were made in 2015-2018 because the property was classed as having 1 bedroom during that period. It made further credits for 2018-2022 on 4 October 2021 and 21 May 2024.
  13. On 3 June 2024 the landlord told us that it had reimbursed the resident £1,062.22 in error but would not reclaim this. It said that it recognised that significant failings had occurred which had impacted the customer financially. It said that it had also communicated badly and there had been a delay in correcting the problem. It awarded the resident a further £850 compensation comprising:
    1. £350 for her time and trouble.
    2. £350 for failure of service.
    3. £150 for poor complaint handling.

 

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. While we can consider how a landlord responds to service charge queries or provides service charge information, disputes about the level of service charges are more appropriately considered by the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber). The Tribunal has the function of judging disputes over issues such as service charges and can investigate and make further orders than the Ombudsman can. Because of that this investigation will consider the landlord’s responses to the resident’s queries but will not seek to determine the reasonableness of the service charge costs.

Service charges

  1. The sixth schedule, part 2 of the resident’s lease says that 1.755% of the maintenance charges for the building and common parts are applicable to the property. It says that any disputes or questions in relation to this schedule can be referred by either party to a chartered surveyor acting as an expert.
  2. The landlord’s service charge policy in place at the time of the complaint said that when it calculated the service charge of each individual property, it would apportion them in accordance with the tenancy or lease agreement. Examples of the apportionment methods it used were weighted beds, equal share, and fixed percentage.
  3. Despite the lease stating that the maintenance charges on the property should be charged at a fixed percentage the landlord used the “weighted beds” method instead. This meant that it apportioned the service charges based on how many bedrooms the property had. It is unclear why the landlord did not follow its policy and apportion the charges in accordance with the lease. It is also not clear what effect this would have on the amount charged. The resident may wish to pursue this question via a chartered surveyor, legal expert, or the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber).
  4. The landlord then classed the 1-bedroom property as having 3–bedrooms. There is evidence that this had occurred previously in 2015 because the landlord wrote to the resident to tell her that it had rectified the issue and advised her that it had credited her account. However, the system reverted back to showing the property as a 3-bed in 2018.
  5. The resident noticed there was a problem in September 2022 and then realised exactly what had happened in January 2023. The landlord should have had processes in place to prevent this error from re-occurring and to rectify the issue promptly, but it did not. This meant that the resident had to contact it on numerous occasions, costing her time and trouble. She knew that she was being overcharged which caused her considerable distress and inconvenience.
  6. Eight months after the resident raised the issue the landlord decided that it needed to inspect the property to find out how many bedrooms it had. The landlord’s records should have shown this, especially as it was using the weighted beds method to apportion service charges. Furthermore, the letter it sent to the resident in 2015 confirmed that it had made the same error previously, so it should have updated its records at that time. However, instead it visited the property which caused the resident further inconvenience.
  7. Even when the landlord had confirmed that the property had 1-bedroom on 11 May 2023 there was a further delay in resolving the problem. The landlord told the resident that it would update her the following week but it failed to do so. This meant that she took further time and trouble contacting it a further 5 times before it told her that it could not update the account until September.
  8. The landlord then incorrectly refunded £1,062.22 for 2022-2023. The letter it sent informing the resident about the refund did not explain how it had calculated it. When the landlord realised its mistake, it decided not to recoup this amount which was a reasonable and appropriate action to take in the circumstances.
  9. The resident asked the landlord to investigate whether it had double charged her for fire tests. However, we have seen no evidence that it responded to this query. There is evidence that it sent out a summary of rights and obligations with demands for service charges. This included advice on asking the First-tier Tribunal whether a resident is liable to pay service charges. However, we have seen no evidence that the landlord signposted the resident to the service when she queried this and other charges. The landlord’s failure to do meant that she was not aware of all her options. It also cost her further time and trouble because she kept chasing a response.
  10. The landlord conducted a full review of the resident’s service charge account in May 2024. This was more than 1.5 years after the resident first raised the query. The landlord’s failure to complete this at an earlier stage caused the resident considerable distress and inconvenience. She told us that it also led to her losing faith in the accuracy of the landlord’s calculations of service charges. The landlord has told us that it learned lessons from this review which have led to changes in its housing management systems and further training for complaint co-ordinators, which is a positive step. However, it would have helped the resident if it had completed this sooner.
  11. The landlord offered £130 compensation for this aspect of the complaint at stage 2 of the complaints process. However, this was not proportionate to the distress, inconvenience, time, and trouble experienced by the resident as a result of the failings and did not take into account that it had not fully resolved the error.
  12. Following the review, contact from this Service and an MP, the landlord apologised and revised its offer of compensation offering an additional £700 for this aspect of the complaint. We accept that this was more appropriate in recognition of its failings and represented an attempt to put things right. However, this was offered a significant time after the complaints process was exhausted. Additionally, it was prompted by this Service’s intention to investigate the complaint. This should have been an outcome and offer of redress identified at the time of the complaints process and it did not take into account the time and trouble the resident took to escalate the complaint to us.
  13. Therefore, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s service charge queries and we have ordered it to pay a further £100 compensation to reflect the time and trouble taken to escalate the complaint to us. We have also ordered the landlord to contact the resident to find out if she has any further queries outstanding.

Complaint handling

  1. The Housing Ombudsman’s complaint handling code in place at the time of the complaint (the Code) said that complaints handlers should have access to staff at all levels to facilitate quick resolution of complaints and have the authority to act to resolve disputes quickly and fairly.
  2. When the resident chased a response to the stage 1 complaint the complaint handler said that they needed longer to reply because its service charge team had not responded to queries. The complaint handler should have been able to escalate the issue to more senior members of staff to resolve the complaint within a reasonable period. The landlord’s failure to follow the code cost the resident time and trouble chasing a response.
  3. The Code also said that landlords must address all points raised in the complaint. However, in this case the landlord did not respond to the resident’s query about fire test charging. This cost the resident further time and trouble as she contacted it again to raise the query.
  4. The landlord’s complaints policy said that if a resident remained dissatisfied with its stage 1 response, they could raise this, and the complaint would be escalated to stage 2. The resident clearly expressed that she was unhappy with the outcome of her stage 1 complaint on 30 May 2023 but the landlord did not escalate the complaint until 23 June 2023. This cost the resident further time and trouble because she contacted the landlord on numerous occasions for an update.
  5. The landlord’s complaints policy also said that it would investigate and provide a resolution to a stage 2 complaint within 20 working days. This was in line with the Code. However, the landlord took 68 working days from the date the resident raised it to respond to the stage 2 complaint. This further delay and failure to follow the Code meant that the resident was waiting longer for a resolution which caused her distress and inconvenience. It also further delayed her access to an investigation by this Service.
  6. The landlord’s stage 2 complaint response also did not provide answers to all the resident’s queries. This meant that it did not identify all its errors and did not carry out a full review of the service charge account as part of the investigation. This delay meant that the resident had to continue to contact it and also had to contact us for help, costing her further time and trouble.
  7. The landlord offered £100 compensation at stage 2 of the complaints process to reflect its poor complaint handling. However, this was not proportionate to the distress and inconvenience, time, and trouble experienced by the resident as a result of the failings.
  8. Following the review, contact from this Service and an MP, the landlord apologised and revised its offer of compensation, offering an additional £150 for this aspect of the complaint. We accept that this was more appropriate in recognition of its failings and represented an attempt to put things right. However, this was offered a significant time after the complaints process was exhausted. Additionally, it was prompted by this Service’s intention to investigate the complaint. This should have been an outcome and offer of redress identified at the time of the complaints process and it did not take into account the time and trouble the resident took to escalate the complaint to us.
  9. Therefore, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s service charge queries and we have ordered it to pay a further £50 compensation to reflect the time and trouble taken to escalate the complaint to us.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme there was maladministration in the landlord’s:
    1. Handling of the resident’s service charge queries.
    2. Complaint handling.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks of the date of this report the landlord must pay the resident directly £1,230 compensation comprising:
    1. £930 for the time, trouble, distress, and inconvenience caused by its failings in dealing with the resident’s service charge queries.
    2. £300 for the time, trouble, distress, and inconvenience caused by its complaint handling failures.
    3. This replaces the landlord’s previous offers which totalled £1,080. Therefore £1,080 should be deducted from £1,230 if it has already been paid.
  2. Within 4 weeks of the date of this report the landlord must contact the resident to find out if she has any outstanding service charge queries. If queries are outstanding it must commit to providing an answer to these queries or signposting the resident to alternative services, if relevant, within a further 3 weeks.
  3. The landlord must provide the Ombudsman with evidence of compliance with these orders by the above deadlines.

Recommendations

  1. The landlord should review the changes it made to its housing management systems following its review of the case to make sure these were effective. This is to ensure that the that its current processes and record keeping will avoid the situation highlighted in this case re-occurring in the future.
  2. The landlord should monitor and assess the operational effectiveness of the training provided to its complaint co-ordinators following the review.