Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing (MTV) (202439920)

Background

1. The resident, who lived with his family at the landlord’s property, raised concerns about damp and mould for some years. He made fresh reports in November 2024. The landlord moved the family to alternative accommodation in May 2024 and carried out repairs over the remainder of 2024 and early 2025. It offered him £675 compensation in its complaint responses. He moved back to the property in early 2025. He has asked us to investigate because he believes the repairs have been completed poorly and the compensation offered was inadequate.

What the complaint is about

2. The complaint is about the landlord’s response to the resident’s:
   1. Reports of damp and mould at the property.
   2. Associated complaint.

Our decision (determination)

3. We found the landlord responsible for service failure in its response to reports of damp and mould.
4. The landlord made reasonable redress for its complaint handling failures.

We have made orders for the landlord to put things right.

Summary of reasons

Response to reports of damp and mould at the property

5.  The landlord communicated poorly with the resident about delays in repairs at the property.

Complaint handling

6. The landlord delayed in complaint handling but made sufficient payments to provide redress for this delay.

Putting things right

Where we find service failure, maladministration or severe maladministration we can make orders for the landlord to put things right. We have the discretion to make recommendations in all other cases within our jurisdiction.

Orders

Landlords must comply with our orders in the manner and timescales we specify. The landlord must provide documentary evidence of compliance with our orders by the due date set.

The complaint procedure

What we found and why

The circumstances of this complaint are well known by the parties involved, so it is not necessary to detail everything that’s happened or comment on all the information we’ve reviewed. We’ve only included the key information that forms the basis of our decision of whether the landlord is responsible for maladministration.

What we have not investigated

7. The resident says that he has raised concerns about damp and mould at the property over many years. The landlord said in its stage 2 complaint response that it accepted that the resident had raised concerns about the roof several years earlier. It paid him £2,500 in compensation at some earlier point after a previous complaint. However, the landlord said that he had not raised any concerns for some time prior to November 2023 and that it would, therefore, only investigate his recent concerns.
8. This is in line with our approach that we may not investigate events occurring over a year before the formal complaint. Also, we may not investigate when a resident has made a previous complaint which their landlord has already addressed if it is not referred to our service within a year.
9. The resident has said that the damp and mould at the property affected his family’s health. We cannot decide whether this is the case. He may want to seek legal advice and to consider a personal injury claim against the landlord. This would be a better way of dealing with this issue. Nonetheless, we have considered any distress and inconvenience these events may have caused.
10. The resident has also said that he believes the landlord should refund him the value of his belongings which had been damaged by damp and mould at the property. It is not our role to determine if a landlord is liable for damage to a resident’s items. These matters are better dealt with via an insurance claim or in court. We will however consider if the landlord followed its policies and procedures in relation to the issue raised.
11. The resident has also raised, in his complaint to us, various concerns about the landlord’s handling of his request for alternative accommodation and about the accommodation itself. He did not raise these matters in his complaints to the landlord. For that reason, we have not considered these concerns. If he wants us to do so, he should complain formally to the landlord about them. If he is not happy with the complaint response, he can then complain to us, and we may investigate.
12. The resident has also told us that, in his view, the landlord has not completed works at the property to an acceptable standard. He believes there is an ongoing issue with damp which it has not yet resolved. We are not in a position to investigate whether the landlord has resolved the damp problem or whether problems remain. The landlord has not had a chance to respond formally to these points. For that reason, we will not investigate events after the resident returned from the temporary accommodation. If the resident wants us to investigate, he can complain formally to the landlord and then, if not satisfied with its answer, complain to us. We will consider a fresh request to investigate.

What we have investigated

13. It is not completely clear when the resident first began to raise his concerns about a damp and mould at the property. He has advised it was in June 2023. In the stage 1 response, the landlord said the first report came in November 2023. In the stage 2 response, it said it was on 26 March 2024 and in a chronology prepared by the relevant department, it said it was in January 2024.
14. On balance, we believe that the date given at stage 1, being November 2023, is correct. This is because we have seen no evidence to support the resident’s date of June 2023. It seems that 26 March 2024 is the date of the formal complaint and the January 2024 date comes from an internal chronology which may well have missed the earlier contact. It is difficult to see why the landlord would have said at stage 1 that the issue had been ongoing since November 2023 if it had not. Based on the available evidence, we will proceed on that basis.
15. The landlord first inspected the roof of the block in which the property is situated on 11 January 2024. This was more than a month after the resident’s initial contact. This was not in line with its policy which says that the landlord would assess repairs within 20 working days of a report but that, in the case of damp and mould, this should happen sooner.
16. The landlord arranged for a survey on 2 February 2024, a further month later. Again, this was not appropriate given the previous delay. It then arranged for a contractor to mould wash the property on 22 February 2024. This did not solve the issue as the leak was still coming in through the roof. The resident reported this on 26 March 2024. By this time, although we do not have the exact date in November 2023 when the landlord first learned of the issue, at least 4 months had passed since the initial report.
17. It is clear that further investigation then took place and the landlord discovered that the problems with the roof were complex and that it considered they were the responsibility of the developer who had built the block several years earlier. It told the resident in April 2024 that he would need to move to alternative accommodation while the works took place. He and the family moved out on 9 May 2025.
18. This means that the period between the initial report of damp and mould and the resident’s move to alternative accommodation was, on the evidence, approximately 6 months. We appreciate that sourcing alternative accommodation takes time so not all of this time was caused by the landlord’s failings. However, on the evidence, the problem was a severe one, and it should have acted faster. The fact that the resident had been reporting that his children were affected by the damp and mould should have led the landlord to consider greater urgency.
19. Further, if it found it difficult to source a suitable property, the landlord should have communicated about the reasons for the delay. We have seen no evidence that it did so.
20. The landlord handed the rebuilding of the property over to the developer. The works were beyond the landlord’s control. In cases where a landlord does not have control over works at a property, we do not hold them responsible for the way in which the works took place. However, we would expect to see evidence that it communicated appropriately both with those responsible for the works and the resident. Best practice is for landlords to take appropriate steps to prevent undue delay and to explain the situation to residents.
21. In this case, we have seen no evidence that the landlord informed the resident of the progress of the works. He was living in temporary accommodation which it rented on a short-term basis. He asked when he could return to the property and did not receive any firm answer. This increased the anxiety that he felt during this period.
22. The landlord recognised some of the anxiety and inconvenience these events caused the resident in its complaint responses of July and October 2024. It offered him £250 for the time and trouble caused to him in chasing the repairs in July 2024. It also offered him £150 for the fact that the repairs had taken longer than the 28-day policy timeframe to complete.
23. This was sufficient to remedy the impact caused by the disruption and time and trouble up until the date of the stage 1 complaint response. However, it was not sufficient overall given that the disruption continued into 2025. Further, the landlord failed to improve its communications after the stage 1 response. In its stage 2 response, the landlord provided no further compensation for poor communication or disruption.
24. The landlord’s stage 1 offer did not adequately compensate the resident for its poor communication over the course of a year. We have therefore made a finding of service failure and ordered it to pay a further £200. This is in line with our guidance on remedies given the lengthy period over which the failures took place and the impact on the resident.
25. While we have ordered the landlord to pay the resident a further £200 in recognition of its failures, we have made a finding of service failure rather than maladministration. This is because the landlord’s apologies and offer of compensation at stage 1 went some way towards remedying its failures over the course of these events.
26. The resident requested a payment of 15% of his rent over the period covered by this investigation. However, this would not have been appropriate as, for much of the time, he and his family lived in alternative accommodation. It was therefore reasonable that the landlord did not consider this.
27. The landlord adequately dealt with the resident’s request for compensation for belongings damaged by damp and mould. In its stage 1 complaint response, it invited him to claim for any damage on its insurance. This was an appropriate response and, so far as we are aware, the resident can still pursue this option.
28. We would also note that the landlord has committed itself to providing further payments to the landlord when the repairs are completed to its satisfaction. Nothing in this decision should prevent it from continuing down that path as it sees fit.

29. Our Complaint Handling Code (the Code) sets out when and how a landlord should respond to complaints. The landlord’s complaints policy complies with the requirements of the Code. This requires landlords to respond to complaints at stage 1 within 10 working days. It says landlords must respond to complaints at stage 2 within 20 days. It may ask for an extension if necessary.
30. The resident complained on 26 March 2024. The landlord provided its stage 1 response on 17 July 2024, 78 working days later. This was a lengthy delay which had, as stated above, an effect on the resident who received little information while awaiting the complaint response.
31. The landlord recognised this delay in its stage 1 complaint response. It paid him £175 in compensation for the delay. It said this comprised £25 per extension of the deadline for providing a response. This sum is sufficient to recompense the resident for the delay at stage 1 and is in line with the levels set out in our remedies guidance. It also offered him a further £50 for a lack of updates during the complaint process.
32. The resident asked to escalate his complaint to stage 2 of the landlord’s internal complaint process on 8 September. The landlord issued a stage 2 complaint response on 22 October 2024, 31 working days later. In that response, it apologised for the delay and offered him a further £50.
33. In total, the landlord paid the resident £275 for complaint handling errors. This was a generous recognition of the landlord’s failures which satisfactorily remedied its complaint handling failures.

Learning

Knowledge information management (record keeping)

34. The landlord provided no evidence to us of the scope or progress of the works at the block over the relevant period. We would expect to see such information in future.

Communication

35. The landlord has accepted that it communicated poorly with the resident during the course of these events.