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Metropolitan Housing Trust Limited (202102028)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202102028

Metropolitan Housing Trust Limited

27 July 2021


 

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: 
    1. The landlord’s response to the resident’s request to carry out alterations to her garden.
    2. The landlord’s handling of the associated complaint.

Background and summary of events

  1. The resident is a tenant of the landlord and occupies a two-bedroomed house, with a rear garden.
  2. The resident enquired with the landlord on 14 May 2019 about making the garden more “child friendly” as there was limited space for her children to play. On 30 August 2019 she submitted a home alterations request form to it to request that it remove timber blocks and garden boxes from the garden, repair two sections of damaged fencing, address “overgrown and unmanageable weeds/bramble bushes”, “flatten concrete ground” and provide a grassed area.
  3. On 22 May 2020, the resident contacted the landlord to chase a reply to her alteration request which she had not received a response after submitting it the previous year. She repeated her request to have the garden made more suitable for her children. The resident said that she had carried out some clearance of the overgrowth which was “hard to maintain” but felt that the area needed to paved or concreted over as it was uneven. She also reported a plumbing repair and a repair to an area of fencing that was damaged which she understood to be her neighbour’s responsibility.
  4. The landlord responded to the resident on 24 May 2020 when it confirmed that it had raised repair request for her two repairs. It apologised for its “lack of response” regarding her garden alteration and informed her that this was not something it would carry out and asked her to submit an alteration request again. The following day, the resident questioned why she needed to resubmit her alteration request form, to which the landlord replied that it had no record of the original submission but would investigate.
  5. On 1 June 2020, the landlord informed the resident that it had since located her alteration request form from 30 August 2019. It explained that this had been reviewed at the time and the works were considered “routine maintenance gardening work” and permission would not be required. The landlord apologised for not feeding this information back to her sooner.
  6. On 5 June 2020 the resident emailed the landlord to advise that she had sought a quote for the works she wished to carry out in the garden which had come to £1000. She said that she needed assistance to make the garden suitable for her children as she could not carry out the work herself or afford to pay for the work. The resident requested help with altering the garden or help with being rehoused into a property more suitable for her family.
  7. The landlord arranged with the resident to visit the property on 18 June 2020. It is evident that it discussed with her the possibility of accessing a tenant welfare fund to pay for the garden alterations she wanted. The resident emailed the landlord on 15 July 2020 for an update on this. On 9 September 2020 she emailed it to relay that she had received a visit from its contractor when the proposed garden alteration work was discussed and certain garden surfacing options were offered to her; she confirmed that she would prefer that gravel be applied to the garden surface once it was levelled.
  8. The landlord provided the resident with a blank tenant welfare fund application form on 10 September 2020 and asked her to sign it. She responded to it later that day to advise that she would rather not sign until the scope of the works was agreed.
  9. The landlord wrote to the resident on 11 September 2020 to inform her that it had yet to identify which contractor she had spoken to previously about the garden works but asserted that it had not been appropriate for them to discuss carrying out the works she had requested. It confirmed that it was not about to “landscape [her] private garden” and apologised if it had given her this impression. The landlord stated that the resident had assumed responsibility for maintaining the garden by entering into the tenancy agreement with it and that it was not carrying out any works other than to address the damaged fence.
  10. The resident responded to the landlord later that day to say that some of the gardening works she had discussed with its contractor were related to the fence repair which it had agreed to carry out. She expressed dissatisfaction with the tone of the email she had received that day and asked it to clarify its plans for carrying out the garden works she had specified in her original alteration request. 
  11. On 16 September 2020, the resident raised a stage one complaint with the landlord about its handling of her request for works to make her garden more suitable for her children. She said that she had received no response to her original alteration request. The resident asserted that she had been visited by the landlord’s contractor on 6 September 2020 and it had agreed to carry out works subject to budgetary approval. She then received a blank welfare fund application form which she had not completed as it had not been specific as to what work would be carried out; she received no response to her query about this.
  12. The resident said that she found the landlord’s email of 11 September 2020 “extremely inappropriate” and was “the main reason for [her] making this complaint”. She said that the email was unprofessional, felt like an “attack” which “insinuated that [she] was not being honest” and “displayed sarcasm”.
  13. The landlord issued a stage one complaint response on 23 October 2020 in which it partially upheld her complaint. It confirmed that the decision it provided her on 11 September 2020 to not carry out works to her garden was correct as the garden was “adequate” for the property and did not pose a safety risk. The landlord acknowledged however that the delayed response was excessive and noted that there had been “repeated chases” from the resident.
  14. The landlord acknowledged that the email it sent to her on 11 September 2020 was “blunt” and apologised if the resident found it offensive; it said that this was not its intention. However, it held that the statements within the email were “factual” and “correct”. In recognition of its delay in addressing the matter and providing a complaint response, it offered compensation of £100 for her inconvenience.
  15. The resident escalated her complaint to the final stage on 26 October 2020, which it acknowledged the following day.
  16. The landlord and resident entered into correspondence between 11 November 2020 and 21 January 2021 to discuss her dissatisfaction with the stage one response. She stated, on 10 December 2020 that her main reasons for the complaint were the “inefficiency and appalling manners” of the landlord’s staff.
  17. The landlord issued a final stage complaint to her on 10 February 2021. In this, it clarified that her application for use of the tenant welfare fund to finance her proposed garden works had been rejected. The landlord asserted that it had acted in “good faith” by applying for use of the tenant welfare fund but apologised for how the rejection of the resident’s application had been handled. It also noted that her alteration request sent in 2019 was not completed, which necessitated its resubmission.
  18. The landlord repeated that its email on 11 September 2020 was “factually correct” but it was “sorry that [the resident] perceived the response to be unreasonable”. It maintained that the correct outcome had been reached but apologised for the experience she had undergone. In recognition of its poor handling of her complaint, the landlord offered compensation of £60. 
  19. The resident informed this Service on 29 April 2021 that she remained dissatisfied because of the tone of the email she received on 11 September 2020 and that the final response from the landlord contained inaccuracies in the sequence of events, as it stated that she contacted the sender of that email prior to receiving contact from her. She maintained that the garden was not suitable for her children and that she had not received any apology from the landlord.

Assessment and findings

Policies and procedures

  1. The tenancy agreement states that she is to keep the garden tidy and free from rubbish, and she may have to pay it for any work it carries out to maintain the garden, such as allowing any trees or bushes to become a nuisance or hazard. The tenancy agreement also confirms that the landlord is to maintain the structure and outside of the property which includes “boundary walls and fences”.
  2. The landlord’s repairs guide confirms that garden maintenance is the responsibility of the resident unless it is a communal garden, or a service charge is paid.
  3. The landlord’s complaints policy provides for a two-stage complaints procedure with responses due within 28 calendar days at both stages. At the final stage, complaints are to be submitted to its complaints panel for approval if an extension is required.

The landlord’s response to the resident’s request to carry out alterations to her garden

  1. The landlord confirmed, in its email to the resident on 11 September 2020, that it would not be carry out improvement works to her garden. It is not disputed that the garden was for her private use, so therefore this was an appropriate response, as the tenancy agreement, above at point 21, and its repairs guide, above at point 22, confirmed that maintenance of the garden was the responsibility of the resident.
  2. It is noted that the resident held that the garden was not suitable for her children, however, other than the report of damage to the boundary fence which she reported on 22 May 2020, there was no evidence of any other reports of disrepair to the garden. The landlord has a repairing obligation to remedy any defects, in accordance with its tenancy agreement, and it duly arranged for repairs to the fence. As the work requested by the resident to make the garden ‘child friendly’ did not constitute a repair, this would therefore be considered improvement work, which the landlord has no obligation to carry out. It was therefore an appropriate response from the landlord on 11 September 2020 to advise that the proposed works were not its responsibility.
  3. There was, however, a significant delay in the landlord addressing the resident’s application for alterations to her garden. She submitted this on 30 August 2019, yet this was not responded to until 1 June 2020, when it confirmed that her proposed works were not considered to be alterations and therefore no permission was necessary. This was an excessive delay which necessitated further involvement from the resident before being addressed.
  4. It is also evident that the landlord failed to manage the resident’s expectations, with its contractor, on 6 September 2020, giving rise to her expectation that it would carry out certain works. Furthermore, while it acted in “good faith” to attempt to secure funding for her proposed garden works, which it advised her of on 10 September 2020, there was no evidence of it informing her of the outcome of this until it responded to her complaint at the final stage on 10 February 2021. This failure to communicate clearly with the resident and manage her expectation was likely to have led to distress and inconvenience for her.
  5. The resident has maintained that her main cause for complaint was the tone of the email sent to her by the landlord on 11 September 2020. While the tone of this email was “blunt”, as it acknowledged on 23 October 2020, the content of the email contained information which was in accordance with the tenancy agreement, above at point 21, and its repairs guide, above at point 22. Therefore, it was reasonable for the landlord to advise the resident of this, although, had it managed her expectations better from the outset, and responded more promptly to her initial enquiry, this response may have been less distressing for her. The landlord did offer apologies in its stage one and final stage responses on 23 October 2020 and 10 February 2021 for any distress caused. This was an acknowledgement on its behalf that it could have communicated with her better and was a reasonable response.
  6. In the landlord’s stage one response, on 23 October 2020, it offered £100 compensation for its delays in addressing her request for garden alterations and responding to her complaint. This offer was broadly in accordance with our remedies guidance where there has been a “failure to meet service standards for actions and responses but where the failure had no significant impact”. Therefore, the compensation offered at stage one was a reasonable offer of redress which proportionately recognised the likely distress and inconvenience caused by its communication failures.

The landlord’s handling of the associated complaint

  1. The landlord’s stage one complaint response was issued to the resident nine calendar days in excess of the timeframe specified in its complaints policy, above at point 23. This was not a significant delay and there is no evidence that this led to any significant detriment to the resident, therefore, the compensation offered in its stage one response on 23 October 2020 to address this delay, alongside its communication failures in handling her request for garden works, was a reasonable offer of redress for this failing.
  2. The landlord’s final stage complaint response was issued on 10 February 2021, 107 calendar days after the resident escalated her complaint on 26 October 2020. It is noted that the landlord and resident did engage in correspondence during this period to discuss her complaint, however this length of time was excessive, being 79 calendar days in excess of the timeframe specified in the landlord’s complaints policy, above at point 23.
  3. The landlord also did not act in accordance with its complaints policy at point 23, in that there was no evidence that it sought an extension to the complaint by consulting its complaints panel. There is no evidence, however, that this failure in act in accordance with its complaints policy resulted in any significant detriment to the resident. Therefore, the offer of £60 compensation, in its final stage complaint response on 10 February 2021, constituted reasonable redress. This was also broadly in accordance with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance where there was a “failure to meet service standards for actions and responses but where the failure had no significant impact”.

Determination (decision)

  1. In accordance with paragraph 55(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord has offered redress to the resident prior to investigation which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, resolves the complaint satisfactorily concerning its response to the resident’s request to carry out alterations to her garden.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 55(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord has offered redress to the resident prior to investigation which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, resolves the complaint satisfactorily concerning its handling of the associated complaint.

 

 

Reasons

  1. The landlord acknowledged its failings in addressing the resident’s request to carry out works to her garden and made a reasonable offer of compensation in recognition of this.
  2. The landlord acknowledged its delay in responding to the resident’s complaint within the timescales set out in its policy and made a reasonable offer of compensation in recognition of this.  

Orders and recommendations

Recommendations

  1. If it has not already done so, the landlord should pay the total of £160 compensation to the resident, comprised of the £100 offered in its stage one complaint response and the £60 offered in its final response.
  2. The landlord should review its handling of alteration and improvement requests to ensure that residents are responded to in a timely manner and their expectations are managed.