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Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing (MTV) (202213920)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202213920

Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing

16 June 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 handling of:
    1. Faults with the resident’s toilets and her concerns about increased water usage and expense.
    2. The associated complaint.

Background

  1. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord. The property is a two-bedroom, new-build house. The resident moved into the property in November 2019.
  2. The developer has stated that the defect liability period for the resident’s property ended in November 2020, and that the resident was unavailable for any end-of-defect inspection. Therefore, the property was marked as “no defects reported”.
  3. The landlord has explained that on 26 April 2022 the resident reported that the toilets in the property were flushing hot water. An operative attended on the date to complete an inspection of the property, and raised works for an engineer to attend. The engineer attended on 12 May 2022, and reported that, during the construction of the property, both toilets had been connected to the hot water supply.
  4. The resident raised a complaint with the landlord on 7 July 2022. She said the toilets had been flushing with hot water for two years, and the matter had not yet been resolved. She said the issue had increased her water bill significantly.
  5. On 12 July 2022, the landlord completed an inspection of the property, which identified that only the cloakroom toilet was producing hot water when flushing. New works were raised to resolve the issue.
  6. The landlord issued its stage one complaint response on 28 July 2022. It stated that the hot water issue was not raised until 26 April 2022, and then inspected on 12 May 2022. It acknowledged there had been a delay following this appointment caused by it misplacing information, and addressed the resident’s concerns about her water bill. It asked her to provide an itemised bill so that it could review it. It offered the resident £50 compensation for the repair delay.
  7. On 29 September 2022 the resident escalated her complaint. She was dissatisfied that the issue had not yet been resolved, and was concerned about the impact on her water bill. A report from the contractor on the same day stated that the problem had now reversed, there was hot water into the main toilet and cold water into the cloakroom toilet.
  8. Between 30 September 2022 and 27 October 2022, the landlord and the developer of the property disputed who would be responsible for the repairs. On 27 October 2022, the developer agreed to inspect the property. Following the inspection, the developer and landlord agreed that the landlord would provide a plumber, and the developer would gain access to the piping, and complete any works to make good the property. The works to correct the piping and make good the property were then completed by 22 December 2022.
  9. The landlord issued its stage two response on 14 December 2022. It explained that there had been difficulties arranging the repair with the developer, but that work had been completed on 12 December 2022. It apologised for the delay and the distress and inconvenience it had caused. It stated that the water bill provided by the resident was high due to the resident not making regular payments, and that the toilet flushing hot water would not have contributed to the costs. It recommended that the resident contacts her utility provider to arrange a payment plan. It offered the resident £285 compensation (£50 offered at stage one, £35 for poor complaint handling, £50 for service failure and £150 for time and trouble).
  10. The resident subsequently escalated her complaint to this Service. She was unhappy with the length of time it had taken the landlord to resolve the issue, and the lack of communication she had experienced. She sought compensation for loss of earnings after taking time off for appointments, and for the landlord to contribute to her water bill.
  11. The landlord contacted this Service on 25 April 2023 to state that it had reviewed the resident’s complaint, and was looking to offer an additional £150 compensation (£100 for complaint handling and £50 for lack of progress following the stage one response being issued).

Assessment and findings

Policies and Procedures

  1. The ‘understanding priorities’ section of the landlord’s repairs responsibilities policy provides the following information:
    1. Where a repair is more complicated, inspections may be needed prior to works taking place so that issue can be diagnosed.
    2. Routine repairs are non-emergency repairs that will be completed within 28 calendar days or 20 working days.
    3. Non-routine repairs are repairs that may take longer to complete due to complexity, materials that are needed, or due to safety considerations for the landlord’s staff. It states that if this is the case, the repair will be completed within 90 days.
  2. The landlord’s compensation policy states that the landlord will consider loss of earnings in exceptional cases, where the resident can demonstrate a loss of wages. It also states that it will consider reimbursement of costs when a resident has been financially disadvantage, but that evidence would be needed.

Faults with the resident’s toilets and her concerns about increased water usage and expense

  1. The time taken to complete a repair starts from when a landlord is notified of the issue. In this case, that was when the resident reported it in April 2022. In her original complaint to the landlord the resident said that as the problem had been occurring for two years she had incurred a significant water utility debt. However, as the landlord was only made aware of the problem in 2022, it was not obliged to consider providing compensation for the time before that.
  2. Having been made aware of the issue, the landlord was obliged to resolve it. Basic good practice would be for the landlord to also consider potentially reimbursing the resident if she provided meaningful evidence showing her water usage was higher than average after April 2022 (such as supporting information from her water company). It was appropriate for the landlord to ask for supporting information from the resident, as that was the only way it could properly assess whether the toilets issue had affected her household water consumption. The resident provided the requested information, and the landlord considered it. It explained in its final complaint response that the information she provided did not support providing compensation, as the apparent reason for the high account balance was because regular payments had not been made to it, and so the balance had increased. The landlord also explained that the nature of the toilets problem would not have lead to increased water usage. The landlord’s conclusion and decision on this point was reasonable, because the key measure here was water usage, not water costs, and nothing in the evidence indicates why hot water would create notably greater usage than cold water. Rather, overuse of the hot water would theoretically have led to increased gas or electricity costs, but that was not raised by the resident in her complaints to the landlord. She has raised it with this Service, however, and recommendations are made below in that regard.
  3. There is no dispute that it took a long time to resolve the problems with the pipes and toilets. It is also clear that this was a substantial challenge, involving major work to the piping and internal wall areas. That was compounded by the circumstances with the original developers. The landlord’s repairs policy states that complex repairs can take up to 90 days to resolve. These repairs took significantly longer than that, and a large part of it was due to the landlord misplacing the relevant information. In the face of such delays basic good practice is for any tenant to be updated on a regular basis and their expectations managed effectively. There is no clear evidence of that happening in this case. If it had, the resident’s frustrations may have been lessened, even if the time taken to complete the repairs was not any shorter. Accordingly, that aspect of the repairs was not handled well, both in the landlord’s contribution to the delay, and its communication with the resident.
  4. The landlord acknowledged its poor handling of the matter in its complaint responses. It apologised, explained how the delays had occurred, and considered the resident’s water bills with a view to reimbursing her for any unexplained increase. It also offered compensation of £250, which it has subsequently increased to £300. In the context of this particular case – where the major impacts from the landlord’s failings were frustration and inconvenience, and potentially increased utility bills – these remedies were appropriate and reasonable. The compensation was in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance for an issue in which there was a delayed resolution, but no apparent long term or permanent impact.
  5. The resident informed this Service that the number of repair appointments needed to resolve the issue impacted on her income. This Service does not consider lost income or similar expenses. Providing access for repairs is part of the tenancy agreement and something a tenant is obliged to provide. Also, such claims require an assessment of liability and examination of income evidence. This would be something for the courts to consider, and not in the Ombudsman’s remit to investigate.
  6. Nonetheless, the landlord’s compensation policy states that in certain circumstances it can consider reimbursing for loss of earnings if a resident can provide evidence. In light of this a recommendation is made below.

Complaint handling

  1. The landlord’s complaints policy states that a stage one complaint response will be issued within 10 working days and a stage two complaint response will be issued within 20 working days.
  2. The resident escalated her complaint on 29 September 2022, and the landlord issued its stage two response on 14 December 2022. This was a total of 55 working days. Where a delay is likely, the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code) sets out that a landlord would be expected to contact the resident, explain the delay, and tell the resident when they can expect the complaint response. There is no evidence that the landlord did that in this case.
  3. It appears that the landlord waited for the works to be completed before issuing its final complaint response. The Code explains that landlords should respond to complaints in a timely manner and it is not necessary to wait for repairs to be completed before doing so. A complaint response can be issued whilst repairs are outstanding and compensation can be awarded for any delays which have taken place and which are expected, based on the proposed completion date for any outstanding repairs. If there are further delays after the landlord has issued its final complaint response, the landlord can issue a further response and consider whether to offer additional compensation for the further delays.
  4. The landlord apologised for its complaint delays, and offered £35 compensation to the resident, which it has subsequently increased to a total of £135.
  5.  It was appropriate for the landlord to recognise that there had been further failings in its complaint handling which it had not initially identified, and it tried to put this right in line with the Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principle’s by offering additional compensation. Any such additional complaint remedies should be offered to the resident, not to the Ombudsman, and it is not apparent if the landlord has done that. Nonetheless, taken together, the landlord’s remedies for its poor complaint handling were reasonable.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 53(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord has offered redress to the resident prior to investigation which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, satisfactorily resolves the complaints about its handling of:
    1. Faults with the resident’s toilets and her concerns about increased water usage and expense.
    2. The associated complaint.

Recommendations

  1. As explained in this report, given the circumstances of this repair and complaint, the landlord is recommended to contact the resident and offer to consider her gas utility bills for the period following her reports in April 2022, with a view to assessing any apparent increase in consumption (as opposed to an increase in costs). In line with its compensation policy, it should also offer to consider her request for loss of earnings, and explain what type of information it would require her to provide in support.  These are recommendations, as opposed to orders, and ultimately are at the landlord’s discretion to consider.
  2. The findings in this report are partly based on the landlord paying to the resident the total of £435 compensation it offered during and after its complaints process. If the compensation has not yet been paid, it should be paid within four weeks of receiving this report.