Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing (MTV) (202312177)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202312177

Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing (MTV)

13 September 2024

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 concerns about replacement of doors and windows.
   2. The associated formal complaint.

Background

2. The resident is the assured tenant of the property which is owned by the landlord. It was built in 2001.
3. The landlord wrote to the resident in March 2021 and again in April 2022 saying that its contractor would replace a door or doors at her home within the next 12 months. It said it would contact her to arrange any necessary inspections but, on each occasion, it failed to do so. In November 2022, she emailed the landlord to ask when it would replace the doors. The landlord said it would replace them in the summer of 2023. It replaced the front door in May 2023.
4. The landlord did not, however, replace the back door or windows as the resident had expected. She queried this and then complained formally in May 2023. It responded on 31 May 2023, stating that it had sent letters to the resident in 2021 and 2022 in error. The doors were not due for replacement until 2031. It offered her £40 in recognition of the time and trouble caused to her.
5. The landlord inspected the windows at the property on 12 June 2023 and found that they needed repair but did not require replacement. The resident asked to escalate her complaint to stage 2 of the landlord’s internal complaints process on 20 June 2023. She said some of her windows were beyond repair. Her neighbours, who lived in houses built at the same time as the property, had similar problems and some had had their windows replaced already. Her heating bill had doubled, in part because the windows were drafty. She also raised concerns about communications, in particular, the landlord’s failure to tell her about a change of contractor, and record keeping.
6. In its stage 2 response, on 4 July 2023 the landlord stood by the stage 1 response. The resident replied saying that, while the landlord had apologised for sending letters in 2021 and 2022, it had not apologised for all its failures.
7. In July 2023, the landlord’s contractor attended and carried out repairs to the doors and windows. The resident asked this Service to investigate her concerns saying she wanted her windows replaced.

Assessment and findings

Scope of the investigation

8. When investigating complaints about repairs, it is not the Ombudsman’s role to determine the state of the property or whether the repairs were necessary. We assess how a landlord dealt with reports of required repairs and whether it acted in line with its policies and good practice.

The resident’s concerns about replacement of doors and windows

9. The landlord has a programme of planned works and says it will repair windows and doors after 30 years.
10. The tenancy agreement says that the landlord is responsible for ensuring doors and windows at the property are fit for purpose. Its repairs policy (the policy) says that it will ensure that all properties conform to the Decent Homes Standard. It has a planned investment programme to replace items such as doors and windows on a regular basis. It aims to replace windows every 30 years. It also says that the landlord will do it best to carry out non-urgent repairs within 28 days of receiving a report of a problem.
11. The resident first raised the issue of required repairs in her email to the landlord of 23 November 2022. She wrote, “the windows are rotting and I can’t open my front door properly, you literally have to kick the door open.” This was clearly a report of a required repair, and the landlord should have treated it as such. There is no record that it did so. It did not replace the front door until May 2023 and repaired the other windows and doors in June 2023, more than 7 months after the resident reported that they required repair.
12. This fell well short of the landlord’s commitment to complete non-urgent, routine repairs where possible within 28 working days and was, therefore, an inappropriate response to her concerns.
13. The resident was unhappy that her windows were not replaced. She says some of her neighbours’ windows have been replaced and hers should be replaced too because they are rotten. This Service has seen no evidence to explain why the resident’s neighbours’ windows were replaced. However, a landlord should respond to the individual circumstances of a case. A decision to replace windows for one resident does not create an obligation for it to do so for all residents, as every case is different. This Service would not investigate the reason for the replacement of her neighbours’ windows as this concerns other people who are not party to this case.
14. The landlord has suitably apologised for writing to the resident in 2021 and 2022 saying that it would replace the windows and doors. It says this was a mistake and, on the evidence, it appears to have been so. It explained in its complaint response that it was looking into the cause of this error and hoped to prevent it from happening again. 
15. In the stage 1 response, the landlord explained that it replaced windows after 30 years unless it was necessary to replace them earlier. This was good communication by the landlord. It looked at photographs of rotten wood sent by the resident and sent an operative to assess the woodwork. This was appropriate response in the circumstances. The landlord’s operative decided the windows and doors were reparable. It was entitled to rely on its operative’s expert knowledge in reaching this decision.
16. In its complaint response, the landlord offered the resident £40 in recognition of the time and trouble caused to her by this error. Its compensation policy says it will pay up to £50 for a mistake which causes minimal effort to a resident. It pays between £51 and £150 for cases where the resident is caused medium levels of time and trouble, such as where there is a longer period of delay and the resident has to chase the landlord several times. It pays between £150 and £350 in cases where the resident has been severely inconvenienced. The policy also provides for payments for failures of service with up to £50 for minor failures, £51-£150 for medium failures and £151-£350 for high level failures.
17. On the evidence, in this case, the landlord’s failure went on for over a year. The resident received 2 letters saying that the landlord would replace her doors and windows within 12 months. These were pro forma letters which had not been correctly completed. For this reason, she could not see what works the landlord had committed to. She therefore believed it would replace front and back door and windows. In the end, the landlord replaced only the front door in May 2023. In addition, the landlord failed to carry out repairs in line with its policy.
18. These failures caused the resident considerable inconvenience. In the view of this Service, it was a medium-level service failure. The landlord’s offer of £40 was, therefore, not in line with its own policy as it failed to fully recognise the level of impact its failures had had.

The associated formal complaint.

19. The Ombudsman has published the Complaint Handling Code (the Code) which sets out principles of good complaint handling. We issued the version of the Code which was in use at the time of these events in March 2022. It said, at paragraph 5 that landlords must acknowledge complaints and escalation requests in writing setting out the complaint definition.
20. While the landlord acknowledged the complaint and the escalation request, it did not set out the complaint definition in the acknowledgment of the escalation request. This was not in compliance with the Code and may have led the landlord to miss several of the resident’s concerns in its stage 2 response.
21. For example, the resident expressed concern that the landlord had failed to notify her that it was employing a new contractor. She also stated that, because of the drafty windows, her heating bill had soared. The landlord did not acknowledge or respond to either point. This was a complaint handling failure. there was no recognition of this in the stage 2 response.

Determination

22. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in its handling of:
    1. The resident’s concerns about replacement of doors and windows.
    2. The associated formal complaint.

Orders and recommendations

23. Within 4 weeks of the date of this complaint, the landlord must:
    1. write to the resident and apologise for the failures set out in this decision.
    2. Pay the resident a total of £200, inclusive of the £40 already paid comprising:
       1. £100 in recognition of its service failure and the resident’s time and trouble caused by its handling of the resident’s concerns about replacement of doors and windows.
       2. £100 for its handling of the associated formal complaint.