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Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing (MTV) (202307376)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202307376

Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing (MTV)

20 May 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. This complaint is about the landlord’s handling of:
    1. The resident’s request for support when the lift in the block was out of service.
    2. The resident’s request for rehousing.
    3. The associated complaint.

Background

  1. The resident is an assured tenant of a second floor flat owned by the landlord. The landlord is aware the resident uses a wheelchair and has mental and physical ill health.
  2. The resident has a representative. For ease, this report refers to ‘the resident’ throughout.
  3. The resident made a complaint on 27 March 2023. She said the lift had been out of service for 5 weeks. The landlord informed her repairs would take at least another week while it waited for a part to arrive. The resident explained she uses a wheelchair and relies on the lift to leave the property. She said she had been stuck in the flat since the lift had broken and the landlord had not responded to her requests for support. This led to her missing several medical appointments.
  4. The landlord responded at stage 1 on 18 April 2023. It accepted it should have considered or offered the resident temporary accommodation while the lift was out of service. It considered a long-term solution would be for her to move to avoid the risk of the unreliability of the lift service and said it had identified a ground floor property. It offered the resident compensation of £100 for the service failure and £200 for her time and trouble.
  5. On 2 August 2023, the resident escalated her complaint. She said the landlord had not communicated with her regarding a move to the ground floor property referenced within its stage 1 response or allowed her son or support worker to view said property.
  6. The landlord issued its stage 2 response on 18 October 2023. It explained that after assessing the suitability and potential to conduct adaptations to the property identified, it determined it was not a viable option. It provided details of other housing options for the resident to explore. It recognised the stage 1 response was not clear and there were delays in its complaint handling. It offered an additional £100 compensation, resulting in a total compensation offer of £400.
  7. The landlord’s final complaint response dissatisfied the resident and so she referred her complaint to this Service. She has not specified what she is seeking to resolve the complaint.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. The resident described the impact the situation had on her mental and physical health. The Ombudsman empathises with her. However, the courts are the most effective place for disputes about personal injury. This is largely because parties appoint independent medical experts to give evidence. They have a duty to the court to provide unbiased insights on the diagnosis, prognosis, and cause of any illness or injury. When disputes arise, the court can examine oral testimony. Therefore, concerns about the health impact of the issue are better dealt with via the court.
  2. The resident told this Service said that an occupational therapist (OT) recommended adaptations in 2021 or to move her to a ground floor property, but the landlord had not actioned this. She explained the landlord told her that the building had combustible cladding in 2020, and it had not communicated how it planned to remedy this. Also, there were delays updating her personal emergency evacuation plan. We may not consider complaints which were not brought to the attention of the landlord as a formal complaint within a reasonable period, which would normally be within 12 months of the matters arising. We have not seen a complaint response from the landlord addressing these issues. Furthermore, the above matters did not form part of the resident’s complaint in March 2023 and so we cannot consider them within this investigation.
  3. This Service can only investigate matters which have completed the landlord’s complaints procedure, as per paragraph 42.a. of the Scheme. We recognise that after the landlord issued its final complaint response, the resident expressed other concerns such as the landlord’s refusal to adapt her bathroom. It is open for the resident to contact the landlord directly and make a separate complaint.

Lift

  1. Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 places a statutory obligation on the landlord to keep the structure and exterior of the property in repair.
  2. Once on notice of a repair, the landlord must conduct the works it is responsible for within a reasonable period, in accordance with its obligations under the tenancy agreement and in law. The law does not specify what a reasonable amount of time is – this depends on the individual circumstances of the case.
  3. The landlord’s repair policy states that where it needs to order a component, it aims to complete the repair within 90 days. Factors beyond its control may delay the repair. If this is the case, it will advise residents in advance of the reason a repair may not take place in the timescale above and the estimated resolution time.
  4. In the stage 1 response, the landlord explained that on 10 February 2023, it raised an emergency repair following reports that the lift was vandalised. It was unable to attend so it contacted the manufacturer for the parts. The manufacturer provided a quote on 23 February 2023 which the landlord approved a week later. It said that due to the lead times of the manufacturer, the parts and works were expected by the end of April 2023. The landlord confirmed it updated the resident via text message on 14 February, 23 February, 2 March, 14 March, and 24 March 2023. On balance, the Ombudsman is satisfied the landlord kept her informed with the progress of the repair and the reasons for the delay. This was appropriate in the circumstances.
  5. It is not disputed that the landlord did not act reasonably when the resident asked for support during the lift outage by saying there was little it could do. Under the Equality Act 2010, disabled people should have equal access to services and/or reasonable adjustments made. The landlord has not evidenced that it had due regard to its responsibilities under said Act. It apologised at stage 1 and recognised it ought to have offered the resident a temporary move until it had repaired the lift. It evidenced it subsequently offered her a temporary move to a hotel, which she declined due to the care she received from her children living at home. Nonetheless, it was a reasonable resolution for the landlord to offer a temporary move to ensure she had access to her medical appointments and could come and go from her accommodation.
  6. We note that in the stage 2 response, the landlord said it offered the resident 2 temporary accommodation options. The resident disputes this and said the landlord only offered her a hotel. The landlord has not provided documentary evidence of the second offer. Therefore, we do not doubt the resident’s version of events.
  7. Following the stage 1 letter, we reviewed an email from the landlord to the resident dated 24 April 2023 explaining that the parts for the lift are manufactured in Germany, and it had to wait for the parts to be built and sent to the UK. It reconfirmed the estimated completion date for the lift repair was the end of April 2023, however this could change if there were unexpected delays. It reiterated the offer of a temporary move. It also said while the option existed for alternative housing, there would need to be an OT assessment, report, and recommendations and then the sourcing of funding to make adaptations which would take time to complete. Based on the above, we are satisfied the landlord managed the resident’s expectations.
  8. The landlord has not provided repair records for the lift and so we cannot determine or comment on when it fixed this. We note the resident did not reference an outstanding lift repair within her complaint escalation request, which suggests on balance, the landlord had completed the repair.
  9. The landlord has not submitted full records of its communication with the resident to this Service. Its communication is a source of contention for the resident and a key aspect of her complaint. It is good practice for a landlord to maintain accurate communication records. This will enable it to effectively manage any issues raised by its residents and function as an audit trail. It cannot thoroughly investigate and respond to complaints without accurate and comprehensive records, and this could result in unfairness to the resident. As a member of the Scheme, the landlord also has an obligation to provide adequate information to enable us to fully investigate the matter referred to us. It failed to do so in respect of its communication.
  10. Where a landlord admits failings, the Ombudsman’s role is to assess whether the landlord’s complaint response put things right and resolved the resident’s complaint satisfactorily in the circumstances. We also consider whether the landlord acted in line with our Dispute Resolution Principles: be fair, put things right and learn from outcomes.
  11. At stage 1, the landlord apologised and offered the resident £300 compensation comprised of £100 for the service failure and £200 for the time and trouble experienced. This was in line with its own compensation policy. Our remedies guidance suggests awards of compensation between £100 and £600 where there has been a failure which adversely affected a resident. Thus, we consider the landlord’s offer to be appropriate and in line with our remedies guidance to reflect the extent of its shortcomings and the impact on the resident. The compensation offered at stage 2 relates to complaint handling which we have addressed below.

Rehousing

  1. In the resident’s escalation request, she complained the landlord had not communicated with her regarding her request for rehousing and it was severely impacting her mental health. At stage 2, the landlord said while it identified a property for the resident, after assessment of the suitability/potential to carry out any adaptations, it determined it would not be a viable option. It has not provided evidence of its assessment, decision making, or communication, nor has it fully explained its reasoning to the resident. This was a failing.
  2. In our view, it would have been more appropriate for the landlord to record a new complaint here to investigate how it had managed the resident’s contact regarding rehousing following her previous complaint. This is because her initial complaint primarily concerned the broken lift while the escalation referenced new issues which required further investigation.
  3. Alternatively, it could have addressed this fully in its stage 2 response by investigating and responding to all the resident’s complaint points, including her repeated concerns about its communication. Its stage 2 response was insufficient regarding this aspect and did not make the resident feel heard or understood. Its omission to fully investigate and address the resident’s concerns was a shortcoming. It missed an opportunity to listen to a vulnerable resident and try to rebuild the landlord/resident relationship. Taken altogether, this constitutes a finding of service failure.

Complaint handling

  1. The Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code) is applicable to all member landlords. It specifies that a stage 1 complaint should be finalised in 10 working days from the acknowledgement of the complaint, with no more than a further extension of 10 days. A stage 2 complaint should be finalised within 20 working days from the acknowledgement of the complaint, with a further extension of 20 days if required. A landlord should not exceed these timescales without good reason.
  2. The resident complained on 27 March 2023. The landlord issued its stage 1 response on 18 April 2023. The resident escalated her complaint on 2 August 2023. The landlord responded at stage 2 on 18 October 2023, 77 working days later. The Code serves to illustrate that the landlord kept this complaint open for an unreasonable duration at stage 2. Evidence shows the resident chased repeatedly for a final response and the landlord failed to keep to the extended deadlines. It recognised and apologised for the delay within its final complaint response, which was appropriate.
  3. Under our dispute resolution principles, it is good practice for a landlord to identify clear learning points and outline actions to ensure similar service failures will not occur in the future. While the landlord apologised, it could have done a lot more to reference specific learning from the resident’s experience within its complaint response to improve its service provision.
  4. At stage 2, the landlord acknowledged that its stage 1 response could have been clearer, and the complaint had been open for more than 20 days. It offered the resident £100 for the failings in its complaint handling. After considering all the circumstances of this case, we consider this to be fair and in line with our remedies guidance.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 53.b of the Scheme the landlord has made an offer of redress prior to investigation which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, resolves the complaint about the landlord’s handling of:
    1. The resident’s request for support when the lift in the block was out of service.
    2. The associated complaint.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was service failure in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s request for rehousing.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks of the date of this letter, the Ombudsman orders the landlord to:
    1. Pay the resident £100 for the distress and inconvenience caused by its handling of her request for rehousing.
    2. Contact the resident/representative and offer a meeting to discuss her request for rehousing and how it can support her in the interim.
  2. The landlord must provide evidence of compliance with the above orders to this Service within 4 weeks.

Recommendation

  1. The Ombudsman recommends the landlord compensates the resident the £300 it previously offered for its shortcomings over the lift issues and £100 for complaint handling, if not already paid. This compensation recognises genuine elements of service failure. The Ombudsman has made a reasonable redress finding on the basis the landlord pays this to the resident.