Metropolitan Housing Trust Limited (202012807)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202011602

The Guinness Partnership Limited

7 July 2021

Our approach

What we can and cannot consider is called the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction and is governed by the Housing Ombudsman Scheme. The Ombudsman must determine whether a complaint comes within their jurisdiction. The Ombudsman seeks to resolve disputes wherever possible but cannot investigate complaints that fall outside of this. 

In deciding whether a complaint falls within their jurisdiction, the Ombudsman will carefully consider all the evidence provided by the parties and the circumstances of the case.

The complaint

1. The complaint is about the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of repairs following major gas works in 2019.

Determination (jurisdictional decision)

2. When a complaint is brought to the Ombudsman, we must consider all the circumstances of the case as there are sometimes reasons why a complaint will not be investigated.
3. After carefully considering all the evidence, I have determined that the complaint, as set out above, is not within the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.

Summary of events

4. On 3 May 2019, the resident’s representative contacted the landlord to complain that, following its major gas works in 2019, her freehold property’s front garden pavement had been left needing repairs, in addition to personal possessions having been broken by its contractor. This led to her stage one complaint about this being escalated to the final stage of its complaints procedure by it on 28 June 2019, as it acknowledged that it had delayed responding to this.
5. On 17 April 2020, the landlord wrote to the resident’s representative to advise that it had made no progress on restoring the resident’s garden back to how this was prior to the major gas works. Due to the corona virus pandemic restrictions, it confirmed that there would be a further delay in the resolution of his complaint.
6. On 8 September 2020, the landlord confirmed with the contractor that they had reviewed the remedial work that they had subsequently completed to the resident’s garden, and that they were satisfied that this was completed “to a good standard.”
7. On 12 November 2020, the landlord issued its final stage complaint response to the resident, which is summarised below:
   1. It acknowledged that she was unhappy with the quality of the remedial work that it had carried out to her front garden pavement. The landlord confirmed that it had reviewed the case, however, and that it had concluded that the work was carried out to the appropriate standard, so that it would not be carrying out any further work.
   2. It acknowledged that she had reported that there had been damage to her personal possessions, in the form of her flowerpots that had to be replaced, by its major gas works.
   3. It recognised that its service to her had been poor, and it apologised for any inconvenience caused by its delays in handling her complaint and in addressing the pavement, for which it agreed to feedback lessons learnt to improve its service moving forward.
   4. It offered her £730 total compensation, this was made up of £150 for its poor complaint handling, £380 for its service failures contributing to the delay in restoring her pavement, and a £200 reimbursement for the damage to her personal possessions.
8. The resident’s representative subsequently complained to this Service, however, about the level of compensation awarded to her by the landlord for the pavement repairs and her damaged personal possessions, and that repairs to the pavement remained outstanding.

Reasons

9. Paragraph 25(a) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme states that the following people can make complaints to the Ombudsman about members: “a person who is or has been in a landlord/tenant relationship with a member landlord…at the time that the matter complained of arose”.
10. The resident’s complaint is regarding repairs that were required to her freehold property following major gas works by the landlord in 2019. This included the delay in the repair work, the communication with her, the level of compensation offered for this, and the quality of the workmanship.
11. However, as the resident has owned the freehold of her property since 3 February 2014, she had no landlord/tenant relationship with the landlord at the time that the matter complained of arose in 2019. For these reasons, the complaint is outside of the jurisdiction of the Ombudsman.