Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing (202213422)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202213422

Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing

5 May 2023

 

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
    1. handling of the resident’s reports of antisocial behaviour;
    2. complaint handling.

Background

  1. The resident is an assured tenant and resides in a one-bedroom, first floor flat.
  2. The resident has reported anti-social behaviour (ASB) intermittently for a number of years from the neighbour living in the flat below him. We will refer to the neighbour as ‘tenant x’ in this report. The resident described the condition of the block as recently worsening.
  3. The reported ASB extends to:
    1. Fly tipping (of food, general waste, and clothes in communal areas).
    2. Human waste in the communal areas.
    3. An ‘unbearable’ odour.
    4. Tenant x living and smoking in their doorway and shouting out of the flat asking for money when people walk past.
  4. The resident raised a stage one complaint on 17 November 2020 regarding the lack of cleaning and human faeces in the communal areas. This complaint was not logged or responded to by the landlord.
  5. There was a period of no communication between the landlord and resident from December 2020 until May 2021. The resident continued reporting ASB issues again from May 2021.
  6. The resident subsequently raised a further complaint on 16 December 2021 expanding on the ASB issues. He complained about:
    1. A constant mess outside of tenant x’s door.
    2. Fly tipping, including rubbish being left by the bin area and outside of tenant x’s property.
    3. The landlord not safeguarding the residents in the building against health and safety risks.
  7. The landlord responded at stage one on 19 December 2021 advising that the concerns would be investigated, and an update provided within 28 days.
  8. The landlord issued a warning letter to tenant x in 2022 in response to the resident’s reports of ASB.
  9. At stage two of the landlord’s complaint procedure, it concluded that it had followed the correct procedure in handling ASB. It acknowledged that at times the communal area posed a health and safety risk to those using it. Overall, it did not uphold the resident’s complaint.
  10. After the landlord’s final response, it offered the resident £200 for its complaint handling to acknowledge the following:
    1. That the stage one complaint response did not fully address all aspects of the resident’s complaint.
    2. That the landlord did not call or email the resident to discuss the complaint, causing delay for it to be progressed to this Service.
  11. The resident remains dissatisfied that he is still experiencing ASB and does not feel that he has been provided with an appropriate outcome. As a resolution, the resident wants the landlord to take action over the ASB and address the associated health and safety hazards.

Assessment and findings

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of ASB

  1. The Ombudsman’s role is not to establish whether the reported ASB occurred or to assess the credibility of the reports made by the resident, but to establish whether the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports were in line with its legal and policy obligations, and whether its actions were fair in all the circumstances of the case.
  2. The landlord’s ASB policy states that it will conduct an initial assessment of ASB reports to determine whether it meets the definition of ASB. If the reports meet the threshold, it will then decide on the case priority, response times, and the frequency of contact/updates with the resident. The landlord is required to regularly assess the risk to residents throughout the investigation using its risk assessment matrix. Where the initial reports do not meet the threshold, the landlord may ask for more information.
  3. There is no evidence that the landlord carried out an initial assessment of the reported ASB as per its ASB policy or carried out a risk assessment. This Ombudsman would expect the resident’s reports to have met the landlord’s threshold for the assessment, as a number of ASB reports had been made over a prolonged period of time. The assessment would have established the frequency of contact, ensuring the resident was updated. There was a lack of communication from the landlord in response to the resident’s reports, particularly between October 2020 until December 2020.
  4. The resident reported faecal matter in the communal area to the landlord throughout the complaints process. A couple of reports were passed to the relevant department for a clean to be arranged. For example, cleaners reportedly attended on 19 October 2020 in response to the resident’s report of human waste on 16 October 2020. However, following this, the resident phoned the landlord on a further two occasions to advise that the clean had not sufficiently removed all the waste. The resident subsequently asked to raise a complaint over the lack of action on 17 November 2020. In December 2020, the resident reported two more incidents of the human faeces remaining in communal areas. There is no evidence that during this time any action was taken by the landlord in response to reports of remaining human faeces in the communal corridor.
  5. The landlord advised this Service that it deals with human waste in line with guidance set out with cleaning contractors. It explained that where high levels of human waste are present, the issue will be attended to within four hours; and low levels of human waste within 24 hours.
  6. The landlord did not comply with its process whereby low level human waste should be removed within 24 hours of the initial report. There are no records confirming when the faeces was eventually cleaned.
  7. The landlord advised that the ASB issues had been discussed with the ground maintenance contractor who agreed to attend the block weekly or daily, if possible, to monitor the areas and clean where necessary. However, there is no evidence this took place.
  8. The landlord took a fair approach when deciding to send cleaning contractors to remove the reported human faeces on a couple of occasions. However, this was not consistently applied to all reports. Given that the effect of human waste could be prejudicial to residents’ health, the landlord should have ensured that each report was responded to. There is no evidence to back up the landlord’s comments that regular weekly or daily cleans were organised with the cleaning contractor. This Service would expect the landlord to create and maintain adequate records with the cleaning contractor to show that they complied with their obligations.
  9. The landlord was under an obligation in accordance with its fly tipping process to ensure fly tipping was removed within four to 24 hours for hazardous waste, or three to five working days for non-hazardous waste. In instances where items are abandoned in communal areas or corridors, the matter should be referred to a housing officer or manager. Upon completion of the waste being removed, the contractor should update the landlord.
  10. The resident raised a number of reports of fly tipping to the landlord and advised that this was an ongoing issue. He expressed dissatisfaction that residents were not being safeguarded from the condition of the communal area outside tenant x’s property. In its stage two response, the landlord acknowledged that the communal area at times posed a health and safety risk and noted the importance of sanitising the area where necessary.
  11. However, there is no evidence that the landlord met its deadline to respond to the fly tipping reports, or that it updated the resident to say why this deadline had been missed. This was not appropriate and is likely to have caused distress and inconvenience. The landlord took no action in response to four separate fly tipping reports between 19 May 2021 and 16 December 2021. The landlord did not follow its fly tipping process by alerting the relevant department or monitoring completion of the removal of the waste within its target timeframe of three to five working days. It failed to communicate with the resident its intended course of action to address the fly tipping and did not act in line with its commitments under the ASB policy.
  12. The landlord evidenced that two deep cleans took place in the communal areas on 23 May 2022 and 13 December 2022. It is unclear whether the deep cleans were in response to any particular reports of fly tipping or human waste. If further actions were taken in response to the resident’s reports of fly tipping in communal areas, these were not recorded by the landlord. In the absence of clear evidence, this Service can only conclude that the landlord cannot demonstrate it took appropriate action following the resident’s fly tipping reports.
  13. The resident advised the landlord that the way that tenant x lived was ‘scary’ and he was embarrassed having friends and family visit him due to the condition of the communal areas. The landlord did not address reports of tenant x’s behaviour, or the impact that the ASB was having on him within its complaint responses. Its stage two response advised that the landlord was taking a collaborative approach to support tenant x, and that the landlord was following its correct processes when managing the ASB.
  14. The landlord’s ASB policy outlines that the landlord will communicate with the resident about the range of interventions and solutions available. As this was not adhered to, the resident was unclear on what course of action was being taken to address his concerns. This is likely to have been frustrating for the resident.
  15. The landlord explained in its stage two response that it had issued a warning letter to tenant x in 2022 as it considered the behaviours to be a breach of tenant x’s Tenancy Agreement. Issuing a tenancy warning letter was appropriate and reasonable as it can be successful in resolving ASB in some cases. However, given that the resident’s initial complaint was made 14 months prior in November 2020, the landlord should have taken action at an earlier stage to address the reports. This Service does not view the landlord’s responses as proportionate given the frequency of the reports and the likely impact on the resident.
  16. The landlord arranged a meeting on 15 March 2022 to discuss the resident’s concerns about tenant x. A follow up email was sent by the landlord afterwards where it acknowledged the resident was unhappy with the lack of responses to his ASB reports. It advised that he would have a point of contact moving forward. Following this, a report of human faeces on 29 April 2022 was dealt with in a timely manner and in line with the landlord’s processes. Although on this occasion the report was handled in an appropriate manner, this does not detract from the landlord’s overall inconsistent approach to the ASB, and lack of responses to the resident. It does show that the landlord had learned from its initial errors.
  17. There was maladministration overall in the landlord’s handling of the reports of ASB. This Service’s remedies guidance available to read at:  https://www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Remedies-Guidance-September-2022.pdf provides compensation awards of £100 to £600 for cases where the Ombudsman has found maladministration, but there may be no permanent impact on the complainant. It includes incidents where there are failures over a considerable period of time to act in accordance with policy, for example to respond to antisocial behaviour. In accordance with the remedies guidance and taking into account the significant impact on the resident, the landlord is ordered to compensate the resident £550 for its handling of the resident’s reports of ASB.

Complaint handling

  1. The landlord’s complaints policy sets out a formal two stage process where it is required to acknowledge a complaint within five working days, respond within ten working days at stage one, and 20 working days at stage two.
  2. When a complaint is logged, in accordance with the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code, the landlord must respond to it within ten working days. The landlord failed to log or respond to the resident’s initial complaint raised in November 2020 despite him following this up with the landlord. This meant the resident had to raise a complaint again in December 2021, which was over a year later.
  3. When the landlord did respond, it accepted it failed to deal with all grounds of the complaint. The landlord acknowledged the time and trouble of the resident chasing his stage one response (as he advised that it was not received by post). The landlord acknowledged that it should have either phoned or emailed the resident to discuss the complaint, and not doing so delayed the resident’s escalation rights to this Service. The landlord’s offer of £200 for these failures is reasonable.
  4. In its findings, the landlord did not acknowledge its failure to respond to the resident’s initial complaint in 2020 which would have caused a significant inconvenience and delay for the resident.

Determination (decision)

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of The Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration with the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of antisocial behaviour.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of The Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure with the landlord’s handling of the complaint.

Orders

  1. The landlord is ordered to pay the resident total compensation of £800, comprising:
    1. £550 to recognise the distress and inconvenience caused to the resident by the landlord’s failures to clear the fly-tipping and human waste within a reasonable time. This includes failing to regularly update the resident under its ASB policy as it was required to.
    2. £50 as previously offered by the landlord for the time and trouble experienced chasing responses from the landlord.
    3. £200 for complaint handling that includes £150 previously offered by the landlord with an additional £50 to reflect the landlord’s failure to log and respond to the resident’s complaint in November 2020.
  2. The landlord should confirm compliance of these orders to this Service within four weeks of the date of this report.

Recommendations

  1. The landlord to train its staff to be consistent in applying its ASB policies.
  2. The landlord to carry out a review of its record keeping, particularly with external contractors to ensure that it creates and maintains adequate records.