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Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing (MTV) (202431395)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202431395

Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing (MTV)

19 June 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:
    1. The landlord’s handling of repairs required to resolve a water leak.
    2. The landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

  1. The resident is a shared owner. The resident has an underlease. The landlord is the superior leaseholder of the superior landlord. The property is a flat.
  2. The resident first reported a water leak in the communal access room on 3 April 2023. The landlord’s operatives attended twice between 3 April 2023 and 22 May 2023 but did not resolve the leak.
  3. The resident raised the stage 1 complaint on 23 May 2023 after noticing the landlord had closed these jobs on its online portal. The resident said if it had not been for her own actions the building would have been flooded and there would have been a serious issue with mould in the kitchen.
  4. The landlord issued the stage 1 complaint response on 30 June 2023. The landlord upheld the complaint and offered £100 compensation as redress. This comprised £60 for the resident’s time and trouble, £30 for service failure, and £10 for poor complaint handling.
  5. The resident raised the stage 2 complaint on 7 December 2023. The resident was dissatisfied because the landlord had not fixed the leak and it had not updated her on the action it was taking to address this. She explained she was still collecting a bucket of water every day which was a physical effort and expressed concern that the leak might become uncontainable. She said the situation was stressful and it should fix the leak.
  6. The landlord issued the stage 2 complaint response on 22 February 2024. The landlord said the leak was resolved 16 February 2024 but accepted there had been failings in its handling of the substantive matter. It offered £75 compensation, in addition to the compensation it already paid at stage 1. This comprised £75 for poor complaint handling and £50 for inconvenience, time, and trouble. It provided the resident with details of its insurance provider in case she wanted to progress a claim for damages.
  7. The resident reported a further leak on 15 March 2024 which the landlord fixed on 19 March 2024.
  8. The landlord told us on 23 April 2025 that it had reviewed the case in line with the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code). The landlord said it was minded to increase its offer of compensation to £450.
  9. The evidence shows that there was a subsequent leak in February 2025. The landlord addressed the resident’s recent dissatisfaction about this as a new complaint. The resident told us in June 2025 that there was no evidence of a current leak. But she wanted reassurance that the cause of the original leak had been permanently resolved.

Assessment and findings

Scope of the investigation

  1. This investigation will focus on the landlord’s actions between 3 April 2023 and 22 February 2024. This being the period the resident first reported the leak, up until the date the landlord’s internal complaint process was exhausted. However, this report may reference events that happened outside of this timescale, when taking into account any commitments made by the landlord in the final complaint response.

The landlord’s handling of repairs required to resolve a water leak

  1. The resident first reported the leak in the communal access room on 3 April 2023. According to the landlord’s repairs policy, the landlord should attend to containable leaks within 28 calendar days. While the landlord did make several attempts to resolve the leak, this was not fully resolved until 19 March 2024. This was 50 weeks after the issue was first reported.
  2. We accept that it can sometimes take several attempts to identify the cause of a leak and to complete a lasting repair. However, our investigation identified multiple failings in the landlord’s handling of the leak. For example:
    1. The landlord raised a job for its sub-contractor on 22 May 2023 to replace the communal chimney, after identifying this had a hole in it. There is no evidence that its sub-contractor attended, so we cannot conclude this repair was completed.
    2. The resident emailed the landlord on 2 June 2023 explaining that the leak was getting worse. The landlord chased its sub-contractor the same day for an update, which was positive. But there is no evidence that the landlord was proactive chasing its sub-contractor when it did not receive a timely response. This contributed to the overall delay in the leak being resolved.
    3. The landlord raised a new works order to replace the communal chimney on 30 June 2023. The landlord accepted in the stage 2 complaint response, there had been misunderstanding about which contractor needed to completed this job. The communal chimney was replaced on 3 July 2023, which was just outside of the landlord’s expected repairs timescales.
    4. The landlord’s sub-contractor attended on 3 November 2023 identifying a leak on the communal flue and the pipes connecting the cylinder of the flue. The case was referred back to the landlord’s repairs team later the same day. But it is unclear if the landlord took any action in response.
    5. The resident reported on 7 December 2023 that the leak was still not resolved. There is no evidence that the landlord took a course of action to remedy the leak until 14 February 2024, when it identified the witch’s hat needed resealing on the roof.
  3. The landlord had completed the repairs to remedy the leak by the time it issued the stage 2 complaint response. We would have expected the landlord to have committed to a period of proactive monitoring to satisfy itself that the leak was fully resolved or it might have carried out a controlled water test. The landlord put the onus on the resident in its stage 2 complaint response, to report any further leaks. This was unreasonable. The resident was put to additional inconvenience a month later, having to report the leak had returned.
  4. We saw little evidence of the landlord proactively updating the resident throughout the timeframe of the complaint, which left her uncertain of the action it was taking and its expected timescale for resolution. This resulted in significant time and trouble for the resident, reporting leaks and chasing the landlord for updates.
  5. We note that the resident mentioned several times to the landlord, that she was catching water in buckets and emptying them daily basis, to prevent damage to her property and the wider building. The resident mentioned the physical effort that was involved in her doing this on 23 May 2023, 7 December 2023, and 13 January 2023. The landlord did not consider if there was a course of action that it could take, to protect the resident’s property and the wider building, until the leak was fully resolved. This was unfair.
  6. The landlord recognised some of failings, during its own internal complaint process, and made some effort to put things right by offering compensation. But the landlord did not recognise all of the failings that we identified in our investigation identified. And the landlord’s offer of redress did not fully reflect the detriment that was caused to the resident.
  7. Therefore, the Ombudsman finds maladministration in the landlord’s handling of repairs required to resolve a leak.
  8. We acknowledge that the landlord has since reflected on its handling of the case, which was encouraging. The landlord had accepted that its handling of the case fell short of its expected service standards, the substantive issue persisted for nearly a year with long periods of inaction, and its communication regarding subcontractor attendance and repair progression was unclear. The landlord told us it was minded to increase its offer of compensation to £450, as follows:
    1. £250 compensation in recognition of the resident’s time and trouble, to acknowledge the resident’s need to escalate the matter through various channels, and the effort required to obtain clear responses.
    2. £200 compensation in recognition of the failure of service, recognising the significant delay in completing the necessary repairs, poor communication, lack of clear record-keeping, and missed opportunities to resolve the issue earlier.
  9. The landlord’s revised offer of compensation is proportionate to the failings referenced, which we also identified during our investigation. Our remedies guidance (published on our website) suggests awards in this range where there have been errors by the landlord which have caused distress and inconvenience to the resident over a prolonged period of time, but there has been no permanent impact to the resident. Therefore, comparable orders for compensation are made later.
  10. But the landlord is ordered to pay an additional £160 compensation, to reflect the inconvenience, time, and effort expended by the resident between 3 April 2023 and 16 February 2023, capturing and emptying buckets of water from the communal access room, to prevent damage to the property and the wider building. This compensation has been calculated at £0.50 a day over this timeframe.
  11. The landlord should write to the resident explaining how it has satisfied itself the cause of the leak has been remedied and whether it intends to carry out any proactive monitoring.

The landlord’s complaint handling

  1. According to the landlord’s complaint policy, the landlord will acknowledge stage 1 complaints in 5 working days and will issue the full stage 1 complaint response in 10 working days of the acknowledgement. The landlord will acknowledge stage 2 complaints in 5 working days and will issue the full stage 2 complaint response within 20 working days of the acknowledgement. It will agree a new timescale for providing the full complaint response if more time is needed.
  2. The resident raised the stage 1 complaint on 23 May 2023. The landlord acknowledged the complaint on 31 May 2023, which was in line with the expected response timescale. The landlord issued the stage 1 complaint response on 30 June 2023. This was just outside the landlord’s expected response timescale. The landlord recognised there had been delay in its complaint handling at stage 1, for which it offered £10 compensation. This compensation was proportionate to this failing.
  3. The resident raised the stage 2 complaint on 7 December 2023. The landlord acknowledged the complaint the same day, which was within the expected response timescale. The landlord said it would issue an initial stage 2 complaint response by 4 January 2024.
  4. The landlord did not issue an initial stage 2 response by 4 January 2024 as it had committed. The landlord contacted the resident the next day to explain it needed more time, which was permitted under its policy. It explained that she could not escalate the complaint just yet, as the complaint was still within its 20-working day response timeframe, which it was. The landlord told the resident that it would issue the full stage 2 complaint response within 10 working days of 9 January 2024, which would have been 23 January 2024.
  5. The landlord was unable to provide the resident with the full stage 2 complaint response by 23 January 2024 as it had committed. The landlord failed to manage the resident’s expectations about when the response would be issued. The landlord did not issue the stage 2 complaint response until 22 February 2024, which was a month after the revised deadline. The landlord offered the resident an additional £75 compensation at stage 2 in recognition of this, which was proportionate to this failing.
  6. We were encouraged that the landlord has itself since recognised, its complaints responses were not always easy to follow and it did not consistently adopt a customer-friendly tone.
  7. On balance, the Ombudsman finds reasonable redress in the landlord’s complaint handling.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of repairs to resolve a water leak.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 53.b of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was reasonable redress in the landlord’s complaint handling.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

  1. The landlord must write to the resident to apologise for the failings identified by this investigation. Its apology must be in line with the Ombudsman’s guidance on apologies, published on our website.
  2. The landlord is ordered to pay £695 compensation directly to the resident. This compensation is reduced to £570, if the landlord has already paid the £125 compensation it previously awarded. This compensation is broken down as follows:
    1. £250 compensation the landlord has proposed, in recognition of the resident’s time and trouble, to acknowledge the resident’s need to escalate the matter through various channels, and the effort required to obtain clear responses.
    2. £200 compensation the landlord has proposed, in recognition of the failure of service, recognising the significant delay in completing the necessary repairs, poor communication, lack of clear record-keeping, and missed opportunities to resolve the issue earlier.
    3. £160 compensation, to reflect the inconvenience, time, and effort expended by the resident between 3 April 2023 and 16 February 2023, capturing and emptying buckets of water from the communal access room.
    4. £85 compensation, previously offered by the landlord at stage 1 and stage 2, in recognition of poor complaint handling.
  3. The landlord must provide evidence to the Ombudsman that it has complied with the above orders, within 4 weeks of the date of this decision.

Recommendations

  1. The landlord should write to the resident explaining how it has satisfied itself that the cause of the leak has been remedied and whether it intends to carry out any proactive monitoring.