Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing (202015271)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202015271

Metropolitan Housing Trust Limited

8 January 2022

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 response to the resident’s reports of antisocial behaviour (ASB).

Background and summary of events

2. The resident is a tenant of the landlord and occupies a flat within a block of flats. 
3. The landlord corresponded with the police on 29 and 30 December 2020 to request a meeting at the block in response to reports from residents and the landlord’s cleaning contractors about non-residents congregating in the block and causing ASB issues. It also requested information about when the police patrolled the area and requested that these patrols were increased.
4. The landlord opened an ASB case for the resident on 28 January 2021 about the ASB by non-residents congregating in the block.
5. The landlord met with the police on 5 February 2021 when the police confirmed the frequency of patrols in the area. The police advised that the previous week they had stopped several people in the stairwell of the block who were non-residents and they dealt with these people appropriately. The police noted that none of them were residents so there was nothing the landlord could do to sanction them for the ASB.
6. The landlord wrote to all residents of the block on 15 February 2021 to state that it was aware of people smoking in the communal areas of the block. It asked them not to do this and urged them to report any incidents of ASB to itself or the police.
7. After the resident contacted this Service on 4 March 2021, the Ombudsman relayed her concerns about ASB to the landlord that day. She was dissatisfied with its response to her reports of ASB, which were drug dealing and harassment from a neighbour in a flat above her property.
8. The landlord contacted the resident on 5 March 2021 to discuss her concerns and drew up an action plan to tackle the ASB. It recorded the ASB as:
   1. Non-residents loitering in the communal area, who smoked drugs which created smells that entered her property, and created noise.
   2. A banging noise coming from the property above hers which had been occurring for the past two weeks.
9. To address the ASB, the landlord agreed to arrange for a private security company to patrol the building, speak with the resident’s upstairs neighbour and write to residents generally about noise nuisance. It noted that she wished to transfer to a different property and advised her to make an application, but warned that it could not guarantee a property transfer. The landlord also requested that the resident complete ASB diary sheets of any incidents she witnessed.
10. Later, on 5 March 2021, the landlord contacted the police to request that they increased their patrols in the area in the evenings due to the ASB reports it had received.
11. The landlord issued its stage one complaint response to the resident on 18 March 2021. In this, it relayed that it was working with the police’s Safer Neighbourhood Team to address the ASB issues which affected the block and it had asked them to increase their patrols at the block. The landlord confirmed that it had appointed a private security contractor to patrol the block in the evenings to record any ASB and attempt to identify the perpetrators.
12. The landlord informed the resident that it had spoken to her upstairs neighbour on 8 March 2021 and found that the banging noise she had reported was due to an issue with their bathroom plumbing. It advised that the neighbour was also undergoing a kitchen installation which may have created noise during the day. The landlord had explained this to the resident that day and she had been reassured that the noise was not deliberate.
13. The landlord confirmed its ASB action plan with the resident and advised that she would need to complete an application should she still wish to transfer properties. It did not uphold her complaint as it considered that it had carried out reasonable actions in response to her ASB reports.
14. The landlord called the resident on 22 March 2021 when she informed it that the noise from her upstairs neighbour’s property was continuing.
15. On 14 April 2021, the landlord acknowledged the resident’s request to escalate her complaint.
16. On 21 April 2021, the landlord emailed the resident, after unsuccessfully attempting to call her twice, to advise that it was following up on the hammering noise which she had reported from her upstairs neighbour. It informed her that it had arranged an appointment for an engineer to inspect the plumbing in the neighbour’s property to assess if there were any issues within their property which were exacerbating the noise.
17. The landlord provided its final complaint response to the resident on 23 April 2021. It noted that the reason for her continued dissatisfaction was that she believed that her upstairs neighbour was deliberately creating a noise nuisance as she could hear hammering noises between 10pm and 5am.
18. The landlord did not uphold her complaint as it stated that hammering noise was due to a repairable fault and not ASB. It confirmed that it had arranged for its contractors to investigate the issue and expected that the matter could be resolved within 28 days.
19. The landlord reiterated the measures it had specified in its ASB action plan to address the other issues the resident had raised in her stage one complaint and confirmed that she was now on the transfer list for a new property. It confirmed that it had offered to contact her support provider in relation to her transfer application and that it would continue to support her with her ASB concerns.
20. The landlord spoke to the resident on 5 May 2021 to review the noise she had reported. She informed it that the noise was still present although not every day and agreed to provide a diary of the noise incidents to the landlord.
21. The landlord spoke to the resident on 29 September 2021, when she confirmed that the noise from upstairs was “a lot less than before” and had improved. She reported that groups of non-residents were no longer near her door or the stairs but they could be seen elsewhere in the area.

Assessment and findings

Policies and procedures

22. The landlord’s tenancy agreement with the resident confirms that residents, their households and their visitors are not to cause ASB, nuisance or annoyance to neighbours or visitors engaged in a lawful activity in the vicinity of the property. This also states that while a court would make the final decision, it will decide what constitutes ASB.
23. The landlord’s ASB policy defines ASB as: “Conduct that has caused, or is likely to cause, harassment, alarm or distress to any person.” As examples of this it provides “extreme noise that is persistent”, drug abuse and “harassment, intimidation or threatening behaviour”. This policy states that it will take the necessary management intervention and work with specialist partner agencies to tackle ASB and support residents to sustain their tenancies. 

The landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of ASB.

24. It should firstly be clarified that it is outside the role of the Ombudsman to determine whether or not ASB occurred. Nor is it the role of this Service to intervene in an ASB complaint or advocate for the resident. The role of the Ombudsman is to determine whether the landlord took reasonable and appropriate actions in response to the resident’s complaint, in line with its legal obligations, internal policies and procedures and industry best practice.
25. The landlord’s tenancy agreement and ASB policy above confirm that it where it identifies that ASB has occurred, it will take action to resolve the ASB. In this instance, as the ASB reported included activity which may be criminal such as trespass and drug use, it was appropriate for the landlord to liaise with the police to tackle the ASB. This is especially as the police reported that the perpetrators were not residents of the block; therefore, the police would have had the necessary powers to deal with any criminal behaviour. The landlord would not have the power to do this as it has not authority to take action against those who are not its tenants.
26. The landlord acted reasonably in contacting the resident promptly on receipt of her complaint to draw up an action plan of interventions to address her reports, which it followed through with. It is noted that the landlord made follow up contact with the resident to check on the issues she reported, which demonstrated its commitment to dealing with the issues, and that it offered support to her with her transfer application by offering to liaise with her support provider.
27. It was also reasonable for the landlord to respond to the reports of ASB by employing a private security contractor. This demonstrated that it took the reports seriously and was committed to resolving the ASB. This was also in accordance with its ASB policy above which states that it will take management intervention to deal with ASB.
28. The Ombudsman understands that the resident believes the noise from her upstairs neighbour’s property was deliberate. We have not disregarded her testimony, however the landlord could only be expected to take action against tenants for ASB if there is supporting evidence to confirm that the tenant had acted deliberately in causing a nuisance to others. In this case there was no evidence to confirm the noise was deliberate and instead, it appeared to be due to a repair issue within the neighbour’s property. There was no evidence that the resident submitted the ASB diary sheets which was agreed as part of her action plan. ASB diary sheets are an important tool in the investigation of ASB as they help to establish a pattern of any ASB. It was therefore reasonable for the landlord to conclude that noise was a repair issue rather than an ASB issue based on the available evidence. This was in accordance with the tenancy agreement above, which provides for the landlord to decide what it considered to be ASB. As it considered the noise to be a repair issue, it acted reasonably by speaking to the upstairs neighbour to assess the cause of the sound and arranging on 21 April 2021 for its engineer to inspect her property to attempt to remedy this. It is noted that the resident since reported that the noise was improved which indicated that the measures the landlord took were effective in resolving the problem.

Determination (decision)

29. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was no maladministration by the landlord in its response to the resident’s reports of ASB. 

Reasons

30. The landlord took reasonable and appropriate actions to tackle the ASB by using a private security contractor to patrol the area and liaising with the police. It also took reasonable steps to resolve the issue causing the noise reported by the resident. The resident has reported that both issues have subsided and therefore it appears that the landlord’s actions were successful in addressing these issues.