Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing (MTV) (202513415)

Decision
Case ID	202513415
Decision type	Investigation
Landlord	Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing (MTV)
Landlord type	Housing Association
Occupancy	Assured Tenancy
Date	14 January 2026

Background

The resident lives in a 1-bedroom top floor flat. She complained that the roof was leaking causing water ingress into the kitchen.

What the complaint is about

The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of:
1. A roof leak.
2. The complaint.

Our decision (determination)

There was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the roof leak.
The landlord has made an offer of redress to the resident which satisfactorily resolves the errors in its complaint handling.

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

Summary of reasons

Roof leak

There was a significant delay in repairing the roof. The repair was still outstanding at the beginning of January 2026. The landlord failed to keep the resident informed throughout the process.

Complaint handling

There were long delays in the complaints handling process mainly caused by the complaint handler being unable to access information promptly. However, the landlord apologised and offered compensation that reflected the time, trouble, and inconvenience caused.

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.

Order	What the landlord must do	Due date
1	Apology order The landlord must apologise in writing to the resident for the failures identified in this report. The landlord must ensure: The apology is provided by a senior manager The apology is specific to the failures identified in this decision, meaningful and empathetic. It has due regard to our apologies guidance.	No later than 11 February 2026
2	Compensation order The landlord must pay the resident £1,000 to recognise the time, trouble, distress, and inconvenience caused by its handling of the roof leak. This must be paid directly to the resident by the due date. The landlord must provide documentary evidence of payment by the due date. The landlord may deduct from the total figure any payments it has already paid for this element of the complaint.	No later than 11 February 2026
3	Completing the works – roof repair The landlord must take all steps to ensure the repair to the roof is completed. It must post inspect and test the repair to ensure a reasonable degree of confidence that it has been successful. If the landlord cannot complete the works in this time, it must explain to us, by the due date: • Why it cannot complete the works by the due date and provide evidence to support its reasons. It must provide a revised timescale of when it will finish the works; or • Explain the steps it has taken to ensure the works were completed and provide supporting evidence. It must provide a revised timescale if it is able to or explain why it cannot.	No later than 18 February 2026
4	Completing the works – internal repair to ceiling The landlord must take all steps to ensure the work is completed promptly and in any event by the due date. If the landlord cannot complete the works in this time, it must explain to us, by the due date: • Why it cannot complete the works by the due date and provide evidence to support its reasons. It must provide a revised timescale of when it will finish the works; or • Explain the steps it has taken to ensure the works were completed and provide supporting evidence. It must provide a revised timescale if it is able to or explain why it cannot.	No later than 11 March 2026

Recommendations

Our recommendations are not binding, and a landlord may decide not to follow them.

Our recommendations
The landlord should pay the resident the £300 previously offered for complaint handling failures if it has not already done so.
The landlord should ensure that complaint handlers have had adequate training to avoid similar errors occurring in the future. It should also ensure that complaint handlers have access to staff at all levels to facilitate the prompt resolution of complaints.

Our investigation

The complaint procedure

Date	What happened
16 July 2024	The resident complained to the landlord. She said that: She had reported a roof leak 5 months previously. A contractor put up scaffolding. This remained in place for 2 months but the contractor did not complete any work on the roof. She had called the landlord twice and been promised call-backs but had not received any. There was a hole in the kitchen ceiling through which water splashed directly onto where she cooked food.
23 July 2024	The landlord acknowledged receipt of the complaint.
16 August 2024	The landlord extended the deadline for responding to the complaint because a staff member was on leave and because it did not have adequate information to respond to the complaint fully.
3 September 2024	The landlord extended the deadline for responding to the complaint again because it was waiting for further information.
9 September 2024	The landlord provided a stage 1 complaint response. It said that: It apologised for the delay in providing a formal response to the complaint and for the lack of communication during the process. She had reported the leak on 8 February 2024. An operative attended on the same day to ensure that the electrical sockets were safe. An operative attended on 20 February 2024 and cleared out the guttering but this did not resolve the issue. Contractors erected scaffolding and completed work to the roof around the vent pipe. The resident had reported that the roof was still leaking on 28 April 2024 but this job was cancelled because there was an outstanding work order. On 16 August 2024 a surveyor inspected the property. They raised a work order to temporarily fix the hole in the kitchen ceiling by 25 September 2024. The roof repair had a target completion date of 26 November 2024. It upheld her complaint due to the delay in providing a response and completing the repair. It offered £350 compensation comprising, £75 for delays in complaint handling, £25 for poor communication regarding the complaint, £150 for time and trouble, £100 due to the delay in the repair.
9 January 2025	The resident asked the landlord to escalate the complaint to stage 2 of the complaints process. She said that the roof had still not been repaired and she had received no further communication.
15 January 2025	The landlord acknowledged receipt of the stage 2 escalation request.
11 February 2025	The landlord extended the deadline for responding to the complaint again because the complaint handler was waiting for further information.
6 March 2025	The landlord extended the deadline for responding to the complaint again because the complaint handler was still waiting for further information from the relevant department.
25 March 2025	The landlord provided a stage 2 complaint response. It said that: It had completed a temporary repair to the kitchen ceiling on 3 September 2025. There had been a misunderstanding over whether the leak had been resolved. When it investigated this further it found no evidence that contractors had completed the work. It had raised another work order to repair the roof and booked an appointment to complete the work on 25 March 2025. It upheld the complaint and awarded a further £300 compensation comprising, £125 for the further distress and inconvenience, £100 for delays in complaint handling, £75 for time and trouble.
Referral to the Ombudsman	In January 2026 the resident told us that the landlord re-erected scaffolding in approximately November 2025 and booked an appointment to repair the roof on 15 December 2025. However, no-one attended on that day, and there is still water ingress into the kitchen. She would like the landlord to repair the roof and to receive compensation for the time and trouble it has cost her. Particularly as she has had to take time off work to attend the appointments. In January 2026 the landlord told us that it had discovered that the leak was caused by a problem where the boiler flue exits the roof. It said it had arranged another appointment to rectify the issue on 14 January 2026.

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.

Complaint	Roof leak
Finding	Maladministration

The landlord’s repair’s policy says that it aims to complete routine appointments within 28 working days. However, if it finds that the repair is more complex, for example if operatives will be working at heights, it will give the contractor a 90-day period to complete the repair. It says that it will keep residents informed about the status of the repair if there are delays.
The resident reported the roof leak on 8 February 2024. An electrician attended and checked that the sockets were safe on the same day and an operative cleared the downpipes and guttering on 20 February 2024, but the issue remained.
Contractors erected scaffolding and there is a note on the landlord’s system that says that “roof work was completed around the flue in June 2024”. However, we have seen no evidence regarding the exact date this work was completed and what the contractor did. This record keeping failure means that we are unable to decide whether the contractor completed any work at that time.
The landlord should have communicated with the resident and told her what date this work was being completed. Had it done so, she could have informed it whether it had successfully resolved the issue. However, there is no evidence that it did this because she told it that she thought that no work had been completed while the scaffolding was up. These errors cost the resident time and trouble chasing the landlord for updates and caused her distress and inconvenience because she was living with a hole in the kitchen ceiling through which rainwater was leaking.
There is evidence that a surveyor inspected the property on 16 August 2024 and ordered a temporary repair to the kitchen ceiling. They returned on 21 August 2024 to view the roof from the garden of the ground floor flat and then raised a works order for roof repairs on 28 August 2024. This work had a target date of 26 November 2024. However, the landlord did not achieve this. This cost the resident further time and trouble because she escalated the complaint.
The landlord needed to re-erect scaffolding to access the roof repair but evidence shows that it did not request a further quote for this for several months, in March 2025. This delay prolonged the repairs process further, causing the resident further distress and inconvenience. This is evidenced by an email in which she told it that she was hoping to move via mutual exchange but could not do so while the kitchen ceiling had a hole in it.
In July 2025 contractors discovered that the neighbour living in the ground floor flat would not allow access to the garden to put the scaffolding up due to the damage caused the last time it was erected. However, there was a further delay in the landlord taking action about this as it did not write to the neighbour until 12 August 2025. It then took a further 2 months to follow this up, in October 2025. There is evidence that the resident emailed the landlord for updates during this time, costing her further time and trouble.
In January 2026 the roof repair was still outstanding, although the landlord has arranged another appointment to complete the work. The landlord has not adhered to the timescales in its repairs policy and has not kept the resident informed of progress. Therefore, there was maladministration in its handling of the roof repair. This cost her considerable time and trouble and caused her considerable distress and inconvenience.
The landlord offered £450 compensation in total for this element of the complaint. However, we do not feel that this is proportionate to the time, trouble, distress, and inconvenience caused. We have exercised our discretion and considered events that occurred after the final complaint response. We have therefore ordered it to pay £1,000 to reflect this.

Complaint	The handling of the complaint
Finding	Reasonable redress

The landlord’s complaints policy says that it will abide by the timeframes set out in the relevant Ombudsman’s code of practice. The Housing Ombudsman’s complaint handling code (the Code) says that landlords must respond to stage 1 complaints within 10 working days and stage 2 complaints within 20 working days. Any extension must be no more than 10 working days without good reason, and the landlord must clearly explain the reasons to the resident and agree suitable intervals with them for keeping them informed about their complaint.
In this case the landlord took 35 working days to respond to the stage 1 complaint and 54 working days to respond to the stage 2 complaint. Although we acknowledge that it contacted the resident to extend the timeframes, the reason given was that it did not yet have enough information to give a full response. As the Code also says that the complaints officer must have access to staff at all levels to facilitate the prompt resolution of a complaint, this was not an adequate reason for such lengthy delays. Also, the landlord did not agree suitable intervals for updates which meant that the resident took time and trouble chasing it during this time. It also delayed her access to an investigation by this Service.
The Code also says that landlords must follow any remedies offered through to completion and that outstanding actions must be tracked and actioned promptly with appropriate updates provided to the resident. However, in this case the landlord did not do so. There is evidence that the resident contacted the complaint handler on 3 July 2025 but they responded that they had “not been involved in any works since the closure of the complaint” and therefore she should contact the property services desk. This was unacceptable and meant that the landlord did not use the complaints process to fully resolve the issue through to effective remedy.
In summary, there were unacceptable delays in the complaint handling process and the landlord did not follow all the remedies offered through to completion. However, it apologised for the delays and offered £300 compensation for its complaint handling failures. We consider this to be reasonable redress in the circumstances of the case. We have recommended that the landlord pays this amount if it has not already done so and that it ensures that complaint handlers have adequate training so that similar errors do not occur in the future.

Learning

The landlord must ensure that it complies with the Code by facilitating complaint handlers to have access to staff at all levels. This will mean that it can resolve complaints within the specified timescales.

Knowledge information management (record keeping)

Landlords should be able to provide evidence to show that contractors have completed works. In this case there was a lack of evidence provided regarding the work completed to the roof in June 2024.

Communication

The landlord’s communication with the resident regarding the status of the repair was poor.