Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing (MTV) (202222214)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202222214

Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing (MTV)

28 January 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

The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of:
1. The resident’s reports of a sewage flood into the property, the associated remedial work and the payments offered to the resident.
2. The arrangements for the temporary rehousing of the family.
3. The associated complaints.

Background

The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord which is a housing association. The tenancy began on 28 May 2005.
The landlord advised this Service that it was not advised of any vulnerabilities at the time of the tenancy sign-up. However, it was subsequently made aware of vulnerabilities within the household during the decant process, including the resident’s youngest son being Autistic.
The property is a 2-bedroom, ground floor flat in a block.
The resident contacted the landlord on 31 October 2022 to report that her property was flooded by sewage coming up through the toilet and bath. The landlord’s contractor attended on the same day in the evening and used machinery to deal with the blockage. The contractor reported that it ran water to test the toilet, wash hand basin and bath and found that water was correctly flowing.
The landlord arranged for a cleaning company to attend on 1 November 2022 to clean the foul water from the property. While on site, the resident and the cleaning company advised the landlord that sewage water was again starting to fill the toilet and bath. The resident contacted the landlord various times on 1 November 2022 and requested the landlord to move her family to a safe environment as soon as possible, particularly as her youngest son was Autistic. The landlord arranged temporary accommodation on the evening of 1 November 2022.
A drainage contractor attended on 3 November 2022 and cleared the blockage in the toilet. It also carried out additional work to the soil stack and drainage in the underground car park. A CCTV drainage survey was carried out on 7 November 2022.
The resident was initially placed in hotel accommodation from 1 November 2022 but was then moved to a serviced apartment on 21 November 2022. During November, the resident’s belongings were cleaned and placed into storage. Some of the resident’s belongings were also disposed of at the resident’s request due to damage.
During December 2022, the landlord arranged for the property to be cleaned and for repairs to be carried out in the property. The work included the replacement of the carpets and the vinyl floor coverings. The landlord inspected the property on 28 December 2022 with the resident and decided that the property was now in a fit state for the resident to return to. The landlord identified a small number of repairs, which it said could be done with the resident in occupation.
The landlord advised the resident that although it would not replace the damaged belongings, it agreed as a goodwill gesture to replace the children’s bunk bed and cooker, which was found to be defective. Following the post-inspection on 28 December 2022, the landlord advised the resident that it was terminating the temporary accommodation booking as the property was deemed to be fit for her to re-occupy. The booking was therefore terminated on 5 January 2023. However, the resident refused to move back to the property.
In terms of formal complaints, the resident submitted a stage one complaint on 2 November 2022 and said she was unhappy with the landlord’s response in relation to the flooding and with its communication. The landlord replied on 24 November 2022 and did not uphold the complaint. This Service wrote to the landlord on 20 and 22 December 2022 to advise that the resident was dissatisfied with the landlord’s stage one reply and with its handling of:
1. The reported flooding from sewage.
2. The decanting arrangements.
3. The level of reimbursement while she was decanted.
The Ombudsman’s email of 22 December 2022 was treated by the landlord as a stage 2 complaint and the landlord sent its stage 2 reply on 24 January 2023. The landlord again did not uphold the resident’s complaint.
In the ensuing months, the resident and her MP acting on her behalf continued to advise the landlord that she did not feel able to return to the property as she did not believe the property had been cleaned sufficiently. The resident and her MP also stated that she could not return due to the trauma of the events and the psychological impact.
The landlord advised this Service on 16 January 2025 that she returned to the property in October 2023 after the landlord had ordered the new beds and cooker and had replaced the toilet and the bath. She said she had been staying with family and friends after the temporary accommodation was terminated.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

The Ombudsman has received information showing events that took place in relation to the property after the landlord sent its final complaint response on 24 January 2023. This includes a further complaint which the resident made in June 2023 and a report from the resident to this Service on 10 January 2024 that other properties in the block had been flooded during the weekend of 5 January 2024.
A key part of the Ombudsman’s role is to assess the landlord’s response to a complaint and therefore it is important that the landlord has had an opportunity to consider all the information being investigated by the Ombudsman as part of its complaint response. It is therefore considered fair and reasonable to only investigate matters up to the date of the final response on 24 January 2023. Information following the landlord’s final complaint response has, however, been included in this report for context.

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of a sewage flood into the property, the associated remedial work and the payments offered to the resident

The landlord’s repairs policy states:
1. Emergencies are repairs that address an immediate health and safety risk and the landlord “will either complete a repair or carry out a temporary repair to make the situation safe within 24 hours of the repair being reported”.
2. Routine repairs are non-urgent work and will be completed within 28 calendar days.
The landlord’s guide to responsibilities booklet for tenants states:
1. “Certain contractors may be able to attend (emergencies) within four hours. This depends on our agreement with them” (However, the landlord confirmed to this Service on 16 January 2025 that its advertised timescale for attending emergencies is 24 hours).
2. Tenants and leaseholders are responsible for insuring their own possessions. The booklet adds: “we recommend you take out home contents insurance in case goods become damaged”.
The evidence shows that the flooding on 31 October 2022 was distressing for the resident and her family. However, the flooding itself does not necessarily demonstrate a failing by the landlord. As with any building components, defects will arise from time to time. Therefore, the focus of this investigation is on how the landlord responded after it became aware of the flooding and whether its actions were fair and reasonable in the circumstances.
The resident contacted the landlord at 4pm on 31 October 2022 to report that sewage was flooding into her property from the toilet and bath. The landlord’s contractor attended on the same day at 10.22pm and used machinery to deal with the blockage. The contractor reported that it ran water to test the toilet, wash hand basin and bath and found that water was flowing correctly. The contractor therefore attended within the landlord’s advertised timescale of 24 hours for emergencies. Therefore, the time taken by the landlord to respond on 31 October 2022 was reasonable.
The landlord arranged for a contractor to attend on 1 November 2022 to clean the foul water from the property. This was reasonable as the landlord had therefore arranged for a cleaning company to attend within 24 hours of the drainage contractor attending. However, while on site, the resident and the cleaning company advised the landlord that there was still a blockage present as the water was not flowing away correctly through the bath and toilet.
The resident contacted the landlord various times on 1 November 2022 and requested the landlord to move her family to a safe environment as soon as possible. The landlord arranged for the resident to move to temporary accommodation on the evening of 1 November 2022. The suitability and timing of the temporary accommodation arrangements are assessed below.
The resident submitted a stage one complaint on 2 November 2022 in which she described the events that had occurred on 31 October and 1 November 2022.
A further drainage contractor attended on 3 November 2022 and cleared the blockage in the toilet. It also carried out additional work to the soil stack and drainage in the underground car park. The contractor carried out a temporary repair to a defective access cap on the soil stack and recommended that a CCTV drainage survey should be carried out.
It was a shortcoming that the contractor had not completely cleared the blockage and identified the defective access cap when it had initially attended on 31 October 2022. However, the landlord had arranged the further visit by the drainage company within a reasonable timescale when it became aware on 1 November 2022 that the blockage had not been completely cleared. It was appropriate that the contractor carried out temporary repairs on 3 November 2022 until the permanent repairs could be carried out.
A specialist contractor carried out a CCTV drainage survey on 7 November 2022. The survey was therefore carried out within a reasonable timescale after the drainage contractor had recommended this on 3 November 2022. The CCTV survey would enable the landlord to identify any further blockages or defects in the soil stack and drainage system.
The resident wrote to the landlord on 9, 10 and 11 November 2022 to request updates regarding the planned work to clean the surfaces and replace damaged items. She also stated that she was unhappy with the hotel accommodation she was staying in. The landlord replied on 11 November 2022 and explained that it would not be replacing the damaged furniture. However, as a goodwill gesture it would replace the carpets. The landlord said it had encouraged its residents to have contents insurance and it provided the resident with details of its public liability insurer.
It was reasonable for the landlord to point out that it encouraged residents to have contents insurance. Its guide showing tenants’ responsibilities stated that residents were responsible for insuring their own possessions and were encouraged to do so. It was also reasonable for the landlord to provide the resident with details of its public liability insurer. This gave the resident the option of submitting an insurance claim if she believed the landlord had been at fault.
The landlord’s records show that it had completed the permanent repairs to the communal soil stack on 13 November 2022. The landlord had therefore completed the repairs within its advertised timescale for routine work, which was 28 calendar days. The time taken to complete the repair was reasonable given that it had previously carried out a temporary repair on 3 November 2022.
The landlord apologised in its stage one reply dated 24 November 2022 that it had not attended the flooding within 4 hours. However, as previously stated in this assessment, the landlord’s service standard for emergency repairs is 24 hours. Therefore, the landlord attended within its advertised timescale.
The landlord stated in its stage one reply that it had investigated the resident’s report that the operative who attended on 31 October 2022 had blamed her for the blockage and had been rude to her. It said it did not believe the comments were malicious but said it had raised the matter with the operative’s manager so that support and training could be provided in relation to customer service and communication skills. The landlord had therefore taken reasonable steps to investigate the resident’s complaint about the operative and had taken steps to ensure there was learning by the contractor. It was a shortcoming, however, that the landlord did not explicitly apologise in its stage one letter for the operative’s comments.
As the resident had expressed dissatisfaction with the handling of her calls by the landlord’s call-centre, the landlord also stated in its stage one letter that it had provided feedback to the manager of the agent who had handled the calls. The landlord confirmed that the agent had raised the emergency repair and had noted the importance on the order. It was reasonable that the landlord had investigated the resident’s dissatisfaction with the call handler and had provided feedback to the call handler’s manager so that any further action could be taken.
The landlord confirmed in its stage one reply that the resident’s home and belongings would be professionally cleaned before she returned to the property. The landlord had also arranged for her possessions to be placed in storage so that the new carpets could be fitted. As the landlord was not responsible for the resident’s carpets or her possessions, it was helpful of the landlord to replace the carpets and arrange for the possessions to be cleaned and stored at no cost to the resident. The landlord also replaced the vinyl floor coverings in the kitchen and bathroom.
Following contact from the resident to the Ombudsman on 20 December 2022, the landlord escalated her complaint to stage 2 on 22 December 2022 as she was unhappy with the landlord’s stage one response.
On 28 December 2022, the landlord’s surveyor post-inspected the property with the resident and concluded that the property was in a fit state for the resident to return to. The landlord said there were a few repairs that could be done when she had moved back to the property. The landlord therefore terminated the temporary accommodation booking on 5 January 2023.
It was reasonable that the landlord had post-inspected the property on 28 December 2022 with the resident to ensure it was in a fit state for the resident to return to. Having inspected the property, it was reasonable for the landlord to rely on the opinions of its surveyor in deciding that the resident could return to the property.
The landlord sent its stage 2 reply on 24 January 2023 and confirmed that the property had been post-inspected on 28 December 2022 and had been found to be clean and in a fit state for the resident to return to. The inspector had noted that further work was needed to the connections for the washing machine and the cooker but these issues were subsequently resolved. The landlord confirmed that it had replaced the carpets and had offered to supply bunk beds and a replacement cooker as a goodwill gesture as the resident did not have contents insurance. It was helpful that the landlord had offered to replace the bunk beds and the cooker as these were the resident’s responsibility.
The resident, her GP and her MP wrote to the landlord on various occasions during February to September 2023 to advise that the resident was unhappy with the quality of repairs that had been carried out and she did not believe the property was in a fit state for her to move back in. The resident also submitted a further complaint in June 2023 stating that she had been treated without empathy and had experienced discrimination in the way she had been treated. However, the landlord continued to advise the resident that the property was in a fit state for her to occupy.
On 15 February 2023, it met the resident, her husband and social worker at the property to listen to their concerns about the family returning to the property. However, the resident did not wish to enter the property. The landlord again reiterated that in its view the property was fit for the resident to occupy.
Overall, the Ombudsman has found that during the period assessed in this investigation (31 October 2022 to 24 January 2023), the landlord had acted reasonably in its handling of the sewage flood and the associated remedial work. Once the flood had occurred, the landlord took the following action, which the Ombudsman considers was reasonable:
1. It attended the flood within its advertised 24-hour timescale to unblock the bath and toilet.
2. The landlord arranged for a cleaning contractor to attend on 1 November 2022 within 24 hours of the drainage contractor attending.
3. A further drainage contractor attended shortly afterwards on 3 November 2022 to carry out further work to remove the blockage in the soil pipe in the car park area and carry out a temporary repair.
4. The landlord arranged for a CCTV drainage survey to be carried out on 7 November 2022 to ensure there were no further blockages and the permanent repairs were also completed in a timely manner on 13 November 2022.
5. The landlord replaced the carpets and vinyl flooring, even though under the terms of the tenancy these were the resident’s responsibility.
6. The landlord placed some of the resident’s belongings in storage and disinfected them at no cost to the resident.
7. The landlord provided the resident with its public liability insurance details so that she could make a claim if she considered the landlord to have been at fault.
8. The landlord took reasonable steps to investigate the resident’s complaint about the operative she said had blamed her for the flood. It had arranged with the contractor for the operative to receive appropriate training and support.
9. The landlord’s surveyor post-inspected the property with the resident on 28 December 2022 and advised her that the property was fit for her to occupy.
10. The landlord had offered to replace the bunk beds and cooker as a further goodwill gesture.
The Ombudsman sympathises with the resident because the sewage flood was clearly very distressing. However, this Service has not found any maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the sewage flood and the associated remedial work. Furthermore, this Service has not seen any evidence that the landlord could reasonably have known that the sewage flood would occur. Therefore, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, it was reasonable that the landlord did not offer compensation or redress in relation to its handling of the flood and the remedial work. It was, however, helpful that the landlord replaced the carpets and vinyl flooring and offered to replace the bunk beds and the cooker as goodwill gestures.

The landlord’s handling of the arrangements for the temporary rehousing of the family

The landlord’s decant policy states:
1. “Where a property is not habitable because of repair works that we are responsible for, the customer must be decanted at our expense”.
2. Where a decant is expected to be for under 4 weeks, residents would be decanted to family/friends, guest room, hotel or bed and breakfast.
3. In the case of emergency decants that occur out of hours, the resident should be encouraged to stay with neighbours, family or friends until the next working day. If this is not an option, a hotel/bed and breakfast booking may be made.
4. “Where a property is not habitable for a reason outside of our control – for example, because of a fire – the local authority has the duty to provide temporary accommodation. The default position should be to direct the customer to the local authority; however, we may continue to support the customer in emergency situations”.
The landlord’s ‘reimbursement of additional costs guidance’ states that residents who are decanted into a hotel where breakfast only is provided will be entitled to a daily meal allowance of £20 per adult and £10 per child. Payments are not due, however, if a resident is placed in a serviced apartment.
Following the sewage flood on 31 October 2022, the resident contacted the landlord various times on 1 November 2022 and requested the landlord to move her family to a safe environment as soon as possible, particularly as her youngest son was Autistic. The landlord’s records show that it had been trying to arrange temporary accommodation while the resident had been ringing. The landlord arranged temporary accommodation in the form of a bed and breakfast hotel on the evening of 1 November 2022. The resident has advised this Service that the landlord phoned her at about 4pm on 1 November 2022 to advise her that it was arranging temporary accommodation. It then arranged the accommodation at about 7.30pm.
The landlord had therefore arranged the emergency accommodation within 24 hours of the contractor arriving on site to assess the severity of the flood. The Ombudsman’s view is that the landlord acted within a reasonable timescale as it needed the contractor to attend initially to assess the situation. The resident had been staying with a neighbour just prior to being placed in temporary accommodation.
The landlord’s decant policy states that where emergency decants occur out of hours, residents should be encouraged to stay with neighbours, family or friends until the next working day. It goes on to say that where a property becomes uninhabitable for a reason outside of the landlord’s control, the local authority has a duty to provide temporary accommodation. In this case, the property became uninhabitable because of a sewage flood that was outside of the landlord’s control. Therefore, as the landlord did not have a statutory duty under Part 7 of the Housing Act 1996 and the resident had been staying with a neighbour, the landlord acted reasonably by providing temporary accommodation the day after the sewage flood.
The resident was initially placed in a bed and breakfast hotel from 1 November 2022. The nature of this accommodation created difficulties for the resident’s family, for example, because there were no cooking facilities and because the resident’s son is Autistic. However, as the landlord had arranged an emergency decant, it was reasonable for the landlord to initially place the resident in a bed and breakfast hotel. This was in line with the landlord’s decant policy for emergency decants.
The resident contacted the landlord on 9 and 10 November 2022 to say she was dissatisfied with the hotel accommodation as it was providing breakfast only and there were no cooking facilities. The landlord advised the resident on 11 November 2022 that it was actively looking for a serviced apartment, which would be fully furnished and have cooking facilities. However, in the meantime, it would have to extend the resident’s hotel booking. It was reasonable for the landlord to extend the resident’s hotel booking while it searched for a suitable serviced apartment as an alternative.
The resident was moved to a 2-bedroom fully serviced apartment on 21 November 2022. Therefore, the resident had spent 21 nights in hotel accommodation and the evidence shows that the resident found this uncomfortable, particularly because of her son’s Autism. However, the landlord’s records show that it had been searching for an apartment that was more suitable for her needs during this period. The Ombudsman’s view is therefore that the landlord acted reasonably by locating and moving the resident into a more suitable property on 21 November 2022.
The landlord subsequently moved the resident to an alternative service apartment on 28 November 2022. It explained in its letter to the resident’s MP on 30 November 2022 that its practice was to book temporary accommodation in weekly increments as it could not be certain of the length of time a resident would need temporary accommodation. It explained that the apartment the resident had been staying in since 21 November 2022 had been booked for a different family and therefore was unavailable from 28 November 2022. The resident’s MP stated on 6 December 2022 that the landlord had given the resident very short notice that she had to move to different temporary accommodation. The landlord replied on 13 December 2022 and stated that it had given the resident at least 2 days’ notice that she would have to move.
The evidence shows that the resident was distressed at having to move again, particularly because of her son’s Autism. The Ombudsman understands the difficulties faced by landlords in terms of securing suitable temporary accommodation due to the acute shortage of homes, particularly in the South-East. However, given the level of distress already experienced by the resident, it was unreasonable that she had to move to alternative temporary accommodation at short notice. This created additional inconvenience, time and trouble for the resident. The landlord accepted this in its stage 2 reply dated 24 January 2023 and offered the resident compensation of £50.
The amount of compensation offered by the landlord was in line with its compensation policy for service failures resulting in some impact on the resident. Therefore, in the Ombudsman’s view, taking into account the challenges faced by landlords in securing temporary accommodation, the landlord made a reasonable offer to put things right.
The resident made a stage 2 complaint via the Ombudsman on 22 December 2022 and stated that the daily allowance offered by the landlord was inadequate to cover the family’s costs while in temporary accommodation. The landlord’s reimbursement of additional costs guide states that it will pay a meal allowance of £20 per adult and £10 per child for each night a family is in a hotel offering breakfast only. As the resident’s household consisted of 4 adults and one child and the family stayed for 21 nights in hotel accommodation, the landlord should have paid £1,890, which is 21 x £90. However, the landlord’s records show that it paid £1,800. Therefore, there was a shortfall of £90.
The landlord wrote to this Service on 16 January 2025 and confirmed it had made an error in its calculation and there had been a shortfall of £90. The Ombudsman has therefore recommended that this sum is paid to the resident.
The figure of £90 for the meal allowance was in line with the landlord’s guidance document and was therefore appropriate.
It was a shortcoming on the landlord’s part that it had previously advised the resident on 11 and 24 November 2022 that she would receive a meal allowance of £70 for the family rather than £90. This caused the resident to contact this Service on 20 December 2022 to question the adequacy of the £70 payment. As the landlord had actually used the correct allowance of £90 in its calculations, the Ombudsman considers there was no significant impact caused to the resident by this error.
As previously stated, the landlord’s surveyor post-inspected the resident’s property on 28 December 2022 and decided it was in a fit state for her to re-occupy. The landlord advised this Service on 22 April 2024 that it had extended the temporary accommodation booking to 5 January 2023 to enable it to finish some snagging work.
Having made the decision (with the resident in attendance) that the property was fit to re-occupy, it was reasonable for the landlord to terminate the temporary accommodation booking on 5 January 2023 and expect the resident to return to the property. The evidence shows that there was a lack of bedroom furniture in the property and the resident’s cooker had not been re-connected. However, the landlord’s repairs guide makes it clear that residents are responsible for the connection of gas cookers. Similarly, residents are responsible for providing their own furniture. The landlord subsequently offered to provide new bunk beds and a new cooker as a goodwill gesture and therefore this was helpful.

The landlord’s handling of the associated complaints

The landlord operates a 2-stage complaints process. It will acknowledge stage one complaints within 5 working days of receipt and send its reply within 10 working days of the acknowledgement. Stage 2 complaints will also be acknowledged within 5 working days and a full reply will be sent within 20 working days of the acknowledgement. The policy states that if the landlord cannot respond within these timescales, it will keep the resident informed and agree new response times.
The resident sent a stage one complaint to the landlord on 2 November 2022, which the landlord acknowledged on 3 November 2022. The landlord therefore acknowledged the complaint appropriately within the advertised timescale.
The landlord replied to the stage one complaint on 24 November 2022, which was 15 working days after it had acknowledged the complaint. The landlord therefore took longer than its advertised 10-working day timescale to reply, which was inappropriate.
The resident contacted this Service on 20 December 2022 to say she was dissatisfied with the landlord’s stage one response. The Ombudsman sent the details to the landlord on 20 and 22 December 2022 and the landlord logged the stage 2 complaint on 22 December 2022.
The landlord sent an acknowledgement of the stage 2 complaint to the resident on 23 December 2022 and therefore the landlord had acknowledged the complaint appropriately within its advertised timescale.
The landlord sent its stage 2 reply on 24 January 2023, which was 19 working days after the landlord had acknowledged the stage 2 complaint. The landlord therefore replied within its advertised 20-working day target for stage 2 complaints.
The landlord accepted in its stage 2 reply that it had responded to the stage one complaint outside of its advertised timescale and it offered the resident compensation of £50 for its complaint handling.
The landlord’s offer of £50 was in line with its compensation policy, which stated that up to £50 could be offered for a failure to meet its service standards. The Ombudsman’s view is that the offer was proportionate and reasonable given the relatively short duration of the delay.
Overall, there was a delay in the landlord responding to the resident’s stage one complaint. However, the Ombudsman is satisfied that the landlord has made redress to the resident which is reasonable in the circumstances.

Determination

In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was no maladministration by the landlord in its handling of the resident’s reports of a sewage flood into the property, the associated remedial work and the payments offered to the resident.
In accordance with paragraph 53.b. of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, and in the Ombudsman’s opinion, there was reasonable redress offered by the landlord in relation to its handling of the arrangements for the temporary rehousing of the family.
In accordance with paragraph 53.b. of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, and in the Ombudsman’s opinion, there was reasonable redress offered by the landlord in relation to its handling of the associated complaints.

Recommendations

It is recommended that the landlord:
1. Re–offers the resident the £100 offered in its stage 2 reply if this has not already been paid.
2. Offers the resident the £90 shortfall in the meal allowance if this has not already been paid.