London Borough of Tower Hamlets (202202779)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202202779

Tower Hamlets Homes

5 June 2025

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 information provided in the landlord’s end of year service charge summaries.

Background

2. The resident is the leaseholder of the property, a 2 bedroom third floor flat in a large residential block. Tower Hamlets Council is the freeholder of the block. At the time of the complaint, the landlord, an ‘arms length management organisation’, managed the Council’s housing stock. The Council has since brought this function back ‘in-house’.
3. The resident pays a service charge to the landlord. This allows the landlord to recoup the cost of services provided to the block, including communal repairs and maintenance. The landlord charges the resident an estimate for the coming financial year’s service charges each April. It then provides details of the actual costs incurred in September of the following year. The resident’s account is then credited for any underspend or debited for any overspend from the estimates.
4. The resident made a complaint to the landlord on 28 April 2023. She:
   1. Expressed dissatisfaction that the landlord had told her it no longer included the door numbers of properties which had reported the repairs listed in its end of year service charge summaries.
   2. Said that without this information she could not be confident the landlord not incorrectly charging her for repairs to its block on the other side of the road.
   3. Said she had evidence from previous years of the landlord’s contractors incorrectly charging works to the wrong block.
   4. Provided a copy of a letter from the landlord’s contractor regarding works. This had been hand delivered to her property but was addressed to residents of the block over the road.
   5. Said she had requested the summary for her block last year, but the landlord had still not provided this.
5. The landlord provided its stage 1 complaint response on 19 May 2023. It said that:
   1. It had stopped including details of who had reported repairs in its end of year service charge summaries in 2017.
   2. This was in line with data protection principles, to reduce the risk of revealing personal information. There were no plans for it to reverse this decision.
   3. The letter she had provided was meant to be delivered to her block but had been incorrectly addressed. It apologised for this.
   4. It had attached a detailed breakdown of the repairs carried out to her block in the previous 3 financial years. It asked her to contact it if she had any queries regarding these.
6. The resident asked to escalate her complaint to stage 2 of the landlord’s process on 9 August 2023. She said she remained dissatisfied that it would not include the information in its summaries.
7. The landlord provided its stage 2 complaint response on 24 October 2023. It confirmed that it had no intention of returning to identifying who had reported repairs in its service charge summaries. It said it had reviewed all repairs raised against the resident’s block for the previous 3 years and confirmed that none of these had been incorrectly charged. It apologised for the delay in its stage 2 complaint response and offered the resident £30 compensation.
8. The resident asked us to investigate her complaint on 26 October 2023. She remained dissatisfied that the landlord would not change its approach.

Assessment and findings

9. The landlord has provided us with a copy of the resident’s ‘service charge actual’ documentation from September 2023. This details the total expenditure for various categories of repairs and maintenance during the financial year 2022-23 but does not provide a breakdown of individual works or their costs.
10. Section 21 of the Landlord and Tenant Act (LTA) gives residents the right to request a written summary of the costs that make up their service charges for the preceding accounting period (in this instance the financial year). Where a resident requests a summary, the landlord must provide it within 1 month of their request or 6 months of the end of the last accounting period – whichever is later.
11. Section 22 of the LTA says that, where a resident has obtained a written summary of service charges, they can require in writing for the landlord to afford them ‘reasonable facilities’ for “inspecting the accounts, receipts and other documents supporting the summary”. Both rights are set out in the landlord’s service charge actual documentation, as required under section 21B of the LTA.
12. In her original complaint, the resident said that she had asked the landlord for a service charge summary “since last year” but had still not received this. We have not seen any evidence of the resident making such a request in 2022. However, she has provided a copy of a letter to the landlord dated 23 March 2023. In this the resident said, “I would also like to know when you intend to send me copies of the…Service Charges for the years I have requested 2019-2020 on wards Calculation & Backing Information.”
13. It is our view that this represented a request under Section 21 of the LTA – although the landlord would only be required to provide a summary for the previous financial year. This meant the landlord should have provided the information within a month. At the point the resident made her complaint, over a month had already passed since this request. The landlord failed to acknowledge or apologise for this in its complaint responses.
14. Alongside its stage 1 complaint response, the landlord provided the resident with “the detailed breakdown of repairs we carried out to your building which we have recharged” for the previous 3 financial years. This was above and beyond what it was required to do under Section 21 of the LTA. It invited the resident to raise any queries she had regarding these. We have not seen any evidence that she did so.
15. It would also have been good practice for the landlord to remind the resident of her right to inspect the supporting documents under section 22 of the LTA, should she wish to do so. However, we do not consider it a failing that it did not, as it had appropriately detailed this right in her service charge actual documentation.
16. At stage 1, the landlord also appropriately responded to the resident’s concerns about receiving a letter regarding works addressed to the block over the road. It explained that its contractor had misaddressed the letter but had intended to deliver it to the resident’s block. This letter was only to advise the resident that the contractor would cut off the water to her property for a period to enable it to carry out works to the other block. It confirmed that these works had not been charged to her block.
17. After the resident escalated her complaint to stage 2, the landlord recorded that she “claims that some repairs have been incorrectly recharged to her building, while she has not provided the evidence she advised she possess on our request, we are now going through the list of repair works orders we have raised to the building in the last 3 years – 2019/20 to 2022/23.”
18. In its stage 2 complaint response, the landlord told the resident that it had reviewed those repairs and confirmed that none of these had been incorrectly charged. This was a reasonable response to her concerns and the resident has not provided any evidence to dispute the landlord’s findings.
19. The main element of the resident’s complaint was the landlord’s decision not to include the addresses of those reporting repairs in its service charge summaries.
20. The landlord advised that this was a decision it had taken in 2017. It confirmed that it did still record this information internally but did not make it available to other residents “to reduce the risk of revealing residents’ name, door number, etc.” It said that this was “in line with data protection principles”. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force in the UK in May 2018, and it is likely the landlord made this decision with regard for this.
21. Whilst Section 21 of the LTA sets out the information which a landlord must include in the written summary, this does not include details of who reported repairs. There is therefore no obligation on the landlord to provide this information.
22. The Information Commissioner’s Office’s website says that “It’s important to be aware that you may hold information, which when combined with other information held outside of your organisation, could lead to an individual being indirectly identified or identifiable.” A door number by itself would not be deemed ‘personal information’ identifying an individual. However, it is likely residents of the block would have knowledge of who lives at that address thus making them identifiable.
23. Whilst we appreciate the reasons the resident desired access to this information, the landlord’s refusal to do so on the grounds of data protection was a reasonable use of its discretion. It cannot be considered a service failure.
24. In summary, the landlord’s position not to provide details of residents reporting repairs in its service charge summaries was reasonable. It appropriately investigated the resident’s concerns about repairs being incorrectly charged and found no evidence of this in the 3 financial years preceding her complaint. However, the landlord failed to provide the resident with a written summary of her service charge costs in the timeframe required by the LTA. Due to this we make a finding of service failure.

Determination

25. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure in the information provided in the landlord’s end of year service charge summaries.

Orders

26. Within 4 weeks of the date of this investigation, we order the landlord to:
    1. Pay the resident compensation of £50 for the distress and inconvenience caused by its delay in providing her with her service charge summary.
    2. Apologise for its delay in providing her with the written service charge summary.

The landlord should provide us with evidence of its compliance with these orders.