Sovereign Housing Association Limited (202013126)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202013126

Sovereign Housing Association Limited

7 March 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 response to the resident’s concerns about communal grounds maintenance.

Scope of investigation

2. It is noted that the resident expressed dissatisfaction with a charge of £2,100 for gardening work which he felt was excessive. It should be clarified that it is not within the remit of this Service to decide on the level or reasonableness of service charges. Disputes relating to the level, reasonableness or liability to pay rent or service charges are within the remit of the First Tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) and the resident may wish to seek independent legal advice if he wishes to pursue this matter further. This investigation will therefore focus on the landlord’s response to the resident’s concerns
3. The resident has also mentioned that he considers that fraud may have been perpetrated by the landlord’s contractor. Given that this is a criminal matter, it is outside of the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction to investigate this. If the resident considers that a crime has been committed then this should be reported to the Police.

Background

4. The resident is the leaseholder of the property which is on an estate and he pays towards the upkeep of the communal grounds through the service charge.
5. The resident initially raised a stage one complaint with the landlord on 16 October 2020 about the infrequency of grounds maintenance and the lack of detail it provided to him about the specifications of this. He escalated the complaint on 30 March 2021 as he had yet to receive promised documentation detailing grounds maintenance visits and was unhappy with a charge of £2,100 for lawn work. The landlord’s final response on 13 April 2021 confirmed that the £2,100 had been removed as the work had not been successful and provided lists of visits by the grounds maintenance contractor. The landlord proposed to consider a new contractor after consultation with residents of the estate.
6. The resident raised a further stage one complaint with the landlord about a number of issues, including grounds maintenance. It responded to him on 13 August 2021 to advise that it had chased its grounds maintenance contractor several times for information on visits which the resident disputed had occurred. The landlord said that it had concluded that it would not get that information until it gained access to the contractor’s online portal. It explained that the current service charge for grounds maintenance was low and paid for a minimum level of work. The landlord noted that the level of service was below residents’ expectations and therefore it would move onto its next step which was to consult residents on whether they wanted to change the contractor or work specification, which would have a cost implication. The landlord said a realistic timescale for making this change would be six to eight months.
7. The resident escalated his complaint on 15 August 2021 due to his continued dissatisfaction with the infrequency of grounds maintenance and the lack of evidence of work. He asserted that the contractors were not performing the minimum level of work they were contracted for. The landlord issued its final complaint response to the resident on 8 October 2021 which upheld the complaint. It said it had challenged its contractor about the grounds maintenance and said that it was considering various options of grounds maintenance in the coming months.
8. The resident informed the Ombudsman on 3 February 2022 that he continued to be concerned that the grounds maintenance contractors were being paid for work which was not being done. He was concerned that, although grounds maintenance was under review, there would continue to be a lack of adequate oversight and the landlord would not act on residents’ concerns. The landlord wrote to residents on 16 February 2022 to provide the results of its grounds maintenance survey, which had a low response rate, and proposed to seek a quote from an alternate contractor which it would provide to them.

Assessment and findings

9. The landlord’s lease agreement with the resident confirms that it is responsible for the maintenance of the common parts of the property; this includes the communal grounds. The landlord’s grounds maintenance and communal areas webpage states that it is responsible for:
   1. Checking contractors are doing a good job.
   2. Publicising its cleaning and grounds maintenance specification of works.
   3. Working with residents to understand and respond to concerns and priorities in the community.
10. The substance of the resident’s complaint about the grounds maintenance was that he was dissatisfied with the standard of the work. A landlord should have a robust procedure in place for monitoring its contractors to ensure that the work which was charged to residents was carried out acceptably. A landlord should also be able to provide information relating to these works to a resident on request.
11. One aspect of the resident’s first complaint to the landlord on 8 October 2020 was that it had not provided the specification of works for the grounds maintenance to him. It attached the summary version of the specification in its stage one complaint response on 16 October 2020, which the resident was dissatisfied with as he wanted the full specification. The landlord explained to him that it could not provide this as it contained confidential contractual information. While this explanation was reasonable, it was unreasonable that the resident was required to raise a formal complaint in order to acquire the summary specification. Furthermore, the resident was required to escalate his complaint with the landlord before it provided details of grounds maintenance visits which he had requested in his initial complaint.
12. It was, therefore, a failure by the landlord that it was slow in providing the information about grounds maintenance requested by the resident as it did not comply with its responsibility above to publicise its grounds maintenance specification of works. The landlord evidently did not publicise this information and then delayed in providing this, requiring excess effort on the resident’s part to obtain information which it should have made easily available.
13. While it was reasonable for the landlord to note, in its complaint responses on 13 April, 13 August and 8 October 2021, that residents were dissatisfied with the current contractors and to propose seeking a new contract, it failed to address the substance of the resident’s complaint. This was that the current contractors did not appear to be doing the contracted work. When the landlord relayed, in its later stage one response that the contractors had not been forthcoming in providing evidence of their work, it should have pursued this matter further. As the landlord of the site, it had an obligation to hold its contractor accountable for their standard of work, in line with its responsibility under the terms of the lease to maintain the communal parts of the estate.
14. As confirmed above, the landlord had a responsibility to carry out adequate checks to ensure that the grounds maintenance was being carried out to a good standard. While the landlord provided details of the visits by the grounds maintenance contractors, it did not provide any evidence of its own inspections or checks to ensure that these were completed to a good standard. The Ombudsman has been provided with maintenance completion reports from the contractor and the landlord’s service level agreement with them places the onus on the contractor to carry out site inspections. A landlord would be expected to appropriately supervise its contractor to satisfy itself that contracted works were being fulfilled. In the absence of evidence of this, the Ombudsman can only assume that no checks were carried out; this represents a failure to both inspect its contractor’s work and to keep adequate records of any such inspections.
15. It is noted that the landlord provided the resident with the grounds maintenance attendance log on 15 November 2021 and asked for his input on whether these visits were kept. While it was reasonable for the landlord to engage with the resident to investigate the disputed number of visits, this further indicated that it did not have a robust system in place to satisfy itself that the contractor was performing appropriately. The onus should be on the landlord to confirm that visits were made in accordance with the contract.
16. Therefore, while the landlord did propose a reasonable solution to the resident’s dissatisfaction with the standard of grounds maintenance by suggesting consulting residents about a change of contract, it did not fully address the immediate issue. It did not address that, in the interim before any change of contract, the resident would likely continue to have concerns over the performance of the current contractor as the landlord could not evidence that the work charged for through the service charge was being performed. This would also have implications for any subsequent contract, as there was no evidence of a system for the adequate supervision of contractors.
17. As a result of the above failures, the landlord has been ordered pay compensation to the resident for those failures and his time and trouble in pursuing the matter. The Ombudsman’s remedies guidance, available to view online, provides for awards of £100 to £600 for instances of failure which had an adverse effect on the resident, which the landlord did not fully address or put right, but which did not have a permanent effect on the resident. Therefore, the landlord has been ordered to pay £300 compensation to the resident. This is made up of £150 for the failures identified with regards to its supervision of the grounds maintenance contract and £150 for the inconvenience to the resident of expending time and effort he experienced in pursuing a response to his concerns over approximately a year.

Determination

18. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in its response to the resident’s concerns about communal grounds maintenance.

Orders

19. Within four weeks of the date of this determination, the landlord is to:
    1. Pay the resident £300 compensation for the failures identified in this report and his time and trouble in pursuing the complaint.
    2. Review its procedures for carrying out estate inspections, consider sharing the reports from this with residents and publicising the specifications for communal work, to manage their expectations.
    3. Review its recordkeeping procedures to ensure that adequate records are kept of contractors’ work to enable their supervision.
    4. Confirm to the Ombudsman that it has complied with the above orders.