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Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing (MTV) (202315205)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202315205

Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing (MTV)

5 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 the resident’s:
    1. Reports of repairs to a door, window, and water leak.
    2. Associated formal complaint.

Background

  1. The resident has been an assured tenant of the landlord, a housing association, since 2015. The property is a 3-bedroom end-of-terrace house. The resident’s teenage daughter resides with her.
  2. Police contacted the landlord on 10 October 2022 to say they had forced entry to the property to perform a welfare check on the resident, leaving the back door damaged. The landlord conducted an emergency visit the same day to secure the door and logged a work order to assess if it should be repaired or replaced.
  3. The resident logged a repair for a leak from her upstairs bathroom on 12 October 2022, and another repair was logged for a window she was unable to close securely on 11 November 2022.
  4. The resident complained to the landlord on 23 December 2022, saying:
    1. Confirmed appointments for the above repairs had been missed without explanation, forcing her to chase the landlord multiple times.
    2. The unattended leak had now caused extensive damage and was getting worse.
    3. She had taken time off work for appointments and spent hours calling repairs and being on hold.
    4. The situation was exacerbating her mental health; she had just come out of hospital after an attempted overdose.
    5. She was told a replacement door was ordered but had not been updated since; she was concerned there was no exit from the rear of the property if there was a fire.
    6. She wanted the repairs to be completed, and to be compensated for her wasted annual leave days and time.
  5. In its stage 1 response of 19 January 2023 the landlord said the repairs had all been cancelled due to a lack of response from the resident. New repairs were raised but its contractors were again unable to contact her. It asked her to get in touch to schedule appointments.
  6. The resident escalated her complaint on 7 February 2023, saying it was untrue she had not responded. Appointments were booked, confirmed via text, then a further text sent to say the operative was on their way, only for no one to attend. She provided screenshots of the texts. She said she had explained that she was unable to call the landlord during its phone line operating hours because of work, but it continued to leave her messages asking her to do this. She had asked it to email her and arrange a mutually convenient time for a call so she could take time off work to deal with it. She was frustrated the landlord continually failed to adhere to her contact preferences.
  7. It its stage 2 response of 21 April 2023 the landlord repeated its stance of stage 1 about the reason for cancellations and added that it had repaired the window and fixed the leak on 9 February 2023. It said the replacement back door had been re-ordered on 5 April 2023 (anticipated completion by mid-May 2023), and its contractor would be in touch to book an appointment. It offered to pay £30 for poor complaint handling to the resident’s rent account.
  8. The resident referred her complaint to us on 26 July 2023, saying the landlord had still not replaced the door or fixed the damage caused by the leak. She wanted the repairs to be completed and to be compensated for her trouble, inconvenience, and loss of time and annual leave.
  9. The bathroom repairs were completed on 29 October 2023, and the back door was installed on 15 February 2024. On 11 November 2024, the landlord contacted the resident to say that, in preparing evidence for us, it had reviewed the case and was making a revised offer of compensation. It apologised for not contacting her about the offer sooner and set out a detailed explanation of its findings of service failures.
  10. The landlord said it had learned from the failings on her case and, as a result, moved all repairs in-house to ensure a better service. It apologised sincerely for the distress and inconvenience caused and offered her a total of £1,229:
    1. £400 for time and trouble cause by the time taken to conduct repairs, taking into consideration the detriment caused.
    2. £400 for poor complaint handling.
    3. £429 for loss of earnings.
  11. The resident accepted this and was paid the offered compensation but did not tell us that the complaint was resolved to her satisfaction.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. The resident withheld rent to force repairs and as a result was sent arrears action letters. She also made additional repair reports for a front door and a fence. As the arrears letters and additional repairs were not raised as part of this complaint, they are not assessed in this investigation. However, consideration has been given to these matters to understand the wider context of the complaint.
  2. The resident said the disrepair negatively affected her and her daughter’s health. We do not doubt her comments, but it is beyond our remit to determine whether there was a direct link between the landlord’s actions and the resident’s ill-health. She may wish to seek independent advice on making a personal injury claim if she considers that her health has been affected by any action or failure by the landlord. While we cannot consider the effect on health, consideration has been given to general distress and inconvenience which the resident experienced as a result of any service failure by the landlord.
  3. The resident said the leak caused damage to her carpet and floors which the landlord should fix. We do not ordinarily order the landlord to reimburse residents for damage to belongings as, where the damage arises from the landlord’s actions, it is more appropriately claimed via its insurance. Therefore, it is not addressed further in this report. The resident may wish to consider seeking independent advice on making an insurance claim via the landlord’s insurer.

Reports of repairs to a door, window, and water leak

  1. The landlord has accepted its own and its contractors’ poor service levels in its submission to us and separately to the resident. Therefore, the question before us is whether those failings amount to maladministration and, if so, whether appropriate redress was offered to put things right.
  2. The landlord’s repair policy sets out its commitment to carry out repairs quickly and efficiently, and to provide a quality repairs service. It lists doors, windows, and leaks as its responsibility to repair. It categorises repairs (setting out response times), as emergency (24 hours), routine (28 calendar days), and major routine (3 months). The repairs reported by the resident met the definition of emergency and routine (with some of the follow up work being major routine).
  3. Evidence shows that, while the landlord conducted an emergency repair on the back door to make it secure within policy timeframes, the follow up work to replace it was not done until 16 months later. This was far outside its stipulated timeframe, even with allowing for order and delivery times.
  4. The resident reported the leak on 12 October 2022, yet this was not attended until 3 February 2023 when she had to report it as an emergency repair after water came pouring through the ceiling, posing a risk of collapse. The follow up work to fix the damage was not completed until a further 8 months later, again outside the stipulated timeframe. By that time the resident was regularly reporting the build up of smell and mould in the property.
  5. In its submission to us, the landlord said it identified communication issues where it could have done more to facilitate appointments, instead of leaving the emphasis on the resident. It acknowledged it could have managed the situation better by not cancelling the jobs as per its standard process. The landlord accepted that, in hindsight, an earlier review of the repairs history would have identified the appointment booking issue sooner, potentially preventing it from escalating. It said due to the volume of jobs and its approach to handling the repairs history, it fell short of the service standards that it strived to uphold.
  6. The landlord was aware of the resident’s poor mental health from October 2022. It was also on notice of her concerns about her and her daughter’s asthma worsening in the conditions of the property; she had been open and candid in her communications with it. The resident contacted the landlord extensively over the course of these 16 months; her frustration, upset, distress, and inconvenience were obvious.
  7. Unfortunately, as it has noted, none of this prompted the landlord to pause and consider why repairs that should be relatively straightforward were not done. It repeatedly placed the onus and blame on the resident, instead of taking control of the situation to assess why jobs were being cancelled.
  8. The resident had clearly communicated her contact preferences as early as October 2022 and explained the constraints she had around telephone contact; she set out how she could work around this to liaise with the landlord. However, the landlord continued to contact the resident about appointments by telephone, and not email, even after the complaint completed its internal process. It should have adapted to the needs of the situation and the individual, rather than rigidly adhering to its process.
  9. During the period of outstanding repairs, the resident had no access through the back door, and the front door then also became faulty; at times not locking and others where it could not be opened. She reported an incident where her daughter was locked in and had to climb out of a window to exit. She highlighted the increased risk posed in case of an emergency.
  10. The resident explicitly communicated her concerns around fire safety, even prior to the front door issue developing. She eventually broke the wooden boards on her back door and had to screw it partially shut, leaving her with additional worry about security. The resident was left to find ways to ensure her family’s safety when this should have been ensured by the landlord.
  11. As late as September 2023, the resident herself was actively monitoring the status of repairs to make sure the correct actions were logged. It was her who brought to the landlord’s attention (multiple times) that, while it had finally raised and booked a repair for the front door, its repairs team and the contractors told her there was no open repair for the back door nor a replacement on order.
  12. This was after the resident had been informed months before that the door was on order. When the outstanding back door repair was picked up again by the landlord in September 2023 (because of the resident’s efforts), she then experienced the same issues of booked appointments being missed. When an operative did ultimately attend, it was to once again only inspect the door rather than fix it. There are multiple instances of similar errors throughout the course of these repairs.
  13. The landlord also did not use the complaint as an opportunity to properly investigate what was going wrong and fix this. Instead it was not until the matter was referred to us that it finally undertook a comprehensive and thorough review. It is disappointing to note the multiple failures and missed opportunities that caused the resident to fear for her family’s health and safety. These failures required her to expend unnecessary and unfair amounts of time and energy to try to resolve the situation. What was already a difficult time for her was exacerbated by the landlord’s failures.
  14. The resident was consistently chasing for responses and even simple acknowledgements of her contact. She often did not receive a response to her emails and had to send registered letters via post to get a reply. She obtained letters from her employer, who even emailed the landlord directly at one point to highlight that she could not continue to take unpaid leave to attend to these repairs.
  15. The landlord did not sufficiently consider the health and safety concerns the resident was expressing, not just about the faulty door but from the developing mould and smell caused by the unattended leak and resultant damage. In her desperation to resolve the issue, the resident resorted to withholding rent only to then face increased worry and stress when the landlord issued her with notices to seek repossession; meanwhile the repairs were still no further along.
  16. The resident meticulously documented and shared with the landlord a timeline of events, her contact attempts, the arranged and missed appointments, the effect on her (and her daughter’s) mental and physical health, the impact on her employment, the financial cost of all the contact she was making as well as the time, energy, and effort she was having to expend. She additionally had to seek the help of her MP to try and get responses and resolutions, all of which should not have been necessary.
  17. The landlord has sincerely apologised, paid compensation (£829), and made internal changes as a learning from its failings in this case (in line with the Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles: be fair; put things right; and learn from outcomes). However, it has not gone far enough in the compensation paid for its failings, and the resulting impact on the resident, in the handling of these repairs.
  18. The identified failures amount to maladministration and the landlord is ordered to pay the resident a further £600, in addition to the £829 previously paid, for the time, trouble, distress and inconvenience caused by its failures, in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance. The compensation ordered would ordinarily amount to a finding of severe maladministration. However, a finding of maladministration is made instead given the landlord has proactively taken steps to address its failures and offer some redress prior to our investigation.
  19. We encourage landlords to self-assess against our Spotlight reports following publication. In March 2019, we published our Spotlight on complaints about repairs. The evidence gathered during this investigation shows the landlord’s practice was not in line with the recommendations made in that report. We encourage the landlord to consider the findings and recommendations of our Spotlight report unless it can provide evidence it has self-assessed already.

Complaint handling

  1. Following intervention by us, the landlord accepted its service failure in complaint handling. It sincerely apologised for this and paid £400 compensation for its errors. This demonstrates that the landlord openly acknowledged areas for improvement and took action to rectify the identified failings, in line with our Dispute Resolution Principles. The compensation the landlord offered was proportionate to its failing and in line with our remedies guidance for findings of maladministration in complaint handling.
  2. However, given that the landlord’s remedies were not offered as part of its complaints process, and were delayed by over a year, it would not be appropriate for us to make a finding of reasonable redress. We have, therefore, found maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling, but no further redress orders are made.
  3. On 8 February 2024, we issued the statutory Complaint Handling Code (the Code) which sets out the requirements landlords must meet when handling complaints in policy and practice. The new Code applies from 1 April 2024 and we have a duty to monitor compliance with it. We will assess landlords using our Compliance Framework and take action where there is evidence that the requirements set out in the Code are not being met. As a result, no specific order is made on this case with regard to the landlord’s compliance with the Code, and the contents of its policies and procedures in that regard.
  4. However, an order is made for the landlord to review its handling of the complaint in this case, alongside the provisions of the Code in order to: understand how the failings occurred; identify areas for improvement; and note where current practices may be at odds with the requirements of the Code.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s:
    1. Reports of repairs for a door, window, and water leak.
    2. Associated formal complaint.

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks of this report, the landlord is ordered to provide evidence that it has:
    1. Paid directly to the resident (and not offset against any rent arrears) £600 compensation, in addition to the £1,229 already paid, in recognition of the distress and inconvenience caused by its poor handling of the reports of repairs for a door, window, and water leak.
    2. Reviewed the complaint handling failures highlighted in this investigation alongside the provisions of the Code.