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Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing (MTV) (202321380)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202321380

Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing (MTV)

23 October 2024

 

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;
    1. repairs to the resident’s back door, the garden fence and back gate at the property.
    2. the resident’s complaint.

Background

  1. The resident is an assured shorthold tenant of the landlord. She has lived at the property since 2017 with her 2 children. The property is a 2 bedroom house.
  2. The resident complained to the landlord on 12 July 2023. She said she was unhappy with the delays to repairs to her back door, garden gate and fence. The resident said on a visit by the landlord, it did not have enough time to complete the repair to her back door. On 2 other occasions the landlord failed to attend. She said she had taken 3 days off work to give it access for the arranged appointments and complained that she would not be paid for those days.
  3. The landlord replied to the resident at stage 1 of its internal complaints process on 1 August 2023. It upheld the resident’s complaint regarding its handling of the repairs and it awarded £372.60 compensation to her. £312.60 was for the resident’s loss of earnings over 4 days, £30 for a service failure and £30 for her time and trouble. The landlord said it had arranged 2 new appointments, one for her back door at the property and one for the fence and gate repairs.
  4. On 12 August 2023, the resident escalated her complaint. She said the new appointment for the repair to her fence and gate had been cancelled. The resident also said the repair to her back door was still outstanding. She also said she was unhappy with how her complaint had been handled and the compensation offered.
  5. The landlord replied to the resident at stage 2 of its internal complaints process on 19 September 2023. It said it did not uphold the resident’s concerns regarding its complaint handling. It did, however, uphold her concerns of the communication with repairs. It increased the offer of compensation, adding an extra £30 to both the service failure and time and trouble findings, to a new total of £432.60.
  6. The resident contacted this Service on 20 September 2023. She said she was unhappy with the level of compensation offered by the landlord. The resident said she would like an increased offer of compensation to take into account her full ‘loss of earnings’.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. In general, the Ombudsman would not propose a remedy of compensation to reimburse a resident for their time off work, loss of wages or loss of employment whilst repairs are carried out. Whilst such works will inevitably cause some inconvenience to the resident, the resident’s tenancy agreement requires her to give access for repairs to be carried out as needed. It would not be fair or reasonable for the Ombudsman to order a landlord to pay a resident reimbursement for loss of earnings for routine appointments.
  2. However, there may be circumstances when the Ombudsman decides that it is appropriate to make an order that a landlord pays compensation in recognition of the inconvenience caused. For example where repairs appointments are repeatedly missed or fail to resolve the repair issue.

The landlord’s handling of repairs to the resident’s back door, the garden fence and back gate at the property

  1. It is clear from the evidence provided that both parties agree that;
    1. repairs were needed to the resident’s fence, gate, back door and front window of her property between March to September 2023.
    2. the repair to the resident’s garden gate took around 42 working days to complete.
    3. the repair to the resident’s garden fence took around 64 working days to complete.
    4. the repair to the property’s back door took around 75 working days to complete.
    5. on one occasion on a visit by the landlord, it did not have enough time to complete the back door repair.
    6. the landlord failed to attend 4 arranged appointments where the resident had taken time off work in order to give it access.
    7. all repairs have subsequently been completed.
  2. The landlord’s repairs policy says if a repair is not an emergency ‘every effort will be made to complete the repair’ within 20 working days. The resident’s tenancy agreement says the landlord will ‘maintain the structure and outside of the property in line with our repairing obligations under section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985’.
  3. The landlord has admitted its repair failings in this case. It has also acknowledged it caused the resident inconvenience. The Ombudsman’s role is to consider whether the redress offered put things right and resolved the resident’s complaint satisfactorily in the circumstances. To do this we considered the Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles, be fair, put things right and learn from outcomes.
  4. In this case the landlord’s first offer of compensation was £372.60, broken down as:
    1. £312.60 for the resident’s loss of earnings over 4 days, 7.5 hours at £10.42 per hour (national minimum wage),
    2. £30 for service failure,
    3. £30 for her time and trouble.
  5. It’s final offer of compensation was £432.60, broken down as:
    1. £312.60 for the resident’s loss of earnings over 4 days, 7.5 hours at £10.42 per hour (national minimum wage),
    2. £60 for service failure,
    3. £60 for time and trouble.
  6. The landlord’s compensation policy says that it will reimburse loss of earnings to residents ‘in exceptional circumstances’. It says the national living wage will be paid up to ‘a maximum of 37.5 hours (5 working days)’. The landlord offered compensation to the resident for loss of earnings in line with its policy and this was appropriate. In this instance, as part of its compensation the landlord offered an equivalent amount to the number of days the resident was inconvenienced, using the national minimum wage at 7.5 hours per day, as was prescribed by its compensation policy.
  7. However, the resident said during the time she waited for her repairs to the back door and garden fence and gate, her property was not secure. She said as a single mother with 2 children this was very distressing. The resident said whilst the property was insecure it could be accessed by anyone and she felt unsafe. This distress will have been compounded by the missed appointments by the landlord and the subsequent delays.
  8. The landlord’s compensation policy says for time and trouble and service failure, payments can be made from £50 for low, £50-150 for medium or up to £350 for high failure. The policy says a medium failure is where ‘several errors have been made’ for a failure of service. For time and trouble a medium failure is a ‘longer period of delay where the customer has had to chase several times’. The evidence provided shows the landlord made multiple errors when arranging the repairs and the resident had to chase the repairs numerous times.
  9. The impact on the resident was compounded by the landlord’s failure to complete the repairs within the policy timeframes and failure to attend appointments. The offer made by the landlord to account for its missed appointments was fair and calculated in accordance with its compensation policy. However, given the distress and inconvenience caused to the resident, the total final amount of compensation does not fully put right the landlord’s failings.
  10. Therefore, it is reasonable in these circumstances that the landlord should have offered a compensation amount within the medium failure scope. This is defined by its compensation policy, for both time and trouble and service failure. The failure to put things right and provide appropriate compensation amounts to a determination of service failure. An order for appropriate compensation is made below.

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint

  1. The resident contacted the landlord on 12 July 2023. She said she had ‘twice now asked to raise a complaint on the phone, yet nothing has happened’. No evidence of these phone calls has been provided to this Service. The landlord’s complaint handling policy says ‘a complaint is an expression of dissatisfaction, however made’. Therefore the failure to record a complaint based on the resident’s phone calls was unreasonable when considering the landlord’s complaint handling policy.
  2. On 1 August 2023, the landlord responded to the resident at stage 1 of its internal complaints process, around 15 working days later. It apologised for not attending appointments arranged with the resident when she had taken time off work and for the inconvenience caused to her. It upheld the resident’s complaint and offered £372.60 in compensation.
  3. The landlord’s complaints policy says it will investigate complaints within 10 working days at stage 1. It says if it cannot respond within 10 working days it will keep the resident informed. There was a delay by the landlord of around 5 working days to respond to the resident’s complaint. The landlord did not recognise the delay. No evidence has been provided to show this extension was agreed with the resident.
  4. In its stage 1 response, the landlord did not address the concerns from the resident that it had failed to raise her complaint when she first requested it to do so. The Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code) March 2022 5.6 says that landlords must address all points raised as part of its complaint process. There has been no evidence provided to show the landlord investigated this as part of the complaint. The delay, failure to recognise it and to address all parts of the complaint by the landlord, was inappropriate.
  5. The evidence provided to this Service shows on 12 August 2023 the resident escalated her complaint. The landlord replied on 19 September 2023, at stage 2 of its internal complaints process, around 27 working days later. The landlord’s complaints policy says it will respond to complaints at stage 2 within 20 working days. This meant there was a delay of around 7 working days in responding to the resident’s escalated complaint. The landlord did not address the delay in dealing with its complaint when it responded at stage 2.
  6. In its stage 2 response the landlord said it had reviewed the complaint handling at stage 1. It said it ‘did not feel there was any poor complaint handling’. The landlord did not acknowledge the delays at stage 1 or 2. It failed to recognise the resident’s concerns about the difficulties in raising her complaint. This would have caused distress to the resident and was inappropriate of the landlord.
  7. In summary, the Ombudsman’s role is to consider whether the landlord resolved the resident’s complaint satisfactorily in the circumstances. To do this we considered the Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles, be fair, put things right and learn from outcomes. The landlord failed to acknowledge the difficulties the resident experienced trying to raise her complaint. It also did not recognise the delays in both its stage 1 and 2 responses. This was inappropriate of the landlord. This amounts to a determination of service failure and an order of compensation to reflect the inconvenience is made below.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was a service failure in the landlord’s handling of repairs to the resident’s back door, the garden fence and back gate at the property.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was a service failure in relation to the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint.

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks of the date of the report the landlord should apologise in writing to the resident for the failings outlined above.
  2. Within 4 weeks of the date of this report the landlord should pay the resident £562.60 compensation. It is free to deduct the £432.60 compensation previously offered, if this has been paid to the resident. This comprises of:
    1. £312.60 previously offered by the landlord in relation to its missed appointments,
    2. £200 for the distress and inconvenience, time and trouble associated with its handling of repairs to the resident’s back door, the garden fence and back gate at the property
    3. £50 for the distress and inconvenience associated with the landlord’s complaint handling failure.
  3. The landlord should reply to this Service with evidence of compliance on the above orders within 4 weeks.