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Citizen Housing (202300932)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202300932

Citizen Housing

28 August 2024


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 handling of the resident’s rent account, including arrears.

Background

  1. At the time of the complaint, the resident was the assured tenant of the property, a flat owned by the landlord. His tenancy started in 2018 and ended in 2023.
  2. On 6 January 2022, the landlord wrote to the resident with a final warning ahead of seeking court action in relation to rent arrears. It then served a Notice of Seeking Possession (NOSP) on him on 14 April 2022 for unpaid rent. Further discussions between the resident and landlord continued throughout the year until November 2022 in relation to rent payment and arrears.
  3. The resident made a formal complaint to the landlord on 12 January 2023, in which he said that it had been fraudulently adding additional rent arrears onto his account. He requested documentation showing every rent payment he had missed.
  4. In its stage 1 response, on 25 January 2023, the landlord included a full statement of the resident’s rent account from 6 April 2020 to 29 January 2023. It explained that this showed he may not have missed rent payments but was not paying regularly enough to clear the debt on his account.
  5. The resident escalated his complaint to stage 2 of the landlord’s complaints process on 3 February 2023. In its response of 28 February 2023, the landlord explained that although he had been making payments towards his rent arrears, the payments were not on a regular basis and therefore were not reducing the balance. It offered him an appointment with a money advice service which could signpost him to support he could be eligible for.
  6. The resident remained unhappy with the landlord’s response and brought his complaint to this Service for investigation.

Assessment and findings

  1. On 24 January 2022, the landlord wrote to the resident advising him that an administrative error had led to it charging him a higher amount of rent than it should have between 6 April 2020 and 23 January 2022. It said it would automatically lower his rent and apply the overpayment amount as credit to his rent account. The rent statement shows that it did this, lowering his rent amount from 24 January 2022 and crediting a total of £77.41 to his rent account. This demonstrated its honest approach to rent account management by acknowledging the error and ensuring reimbursement of overpayments.
  2. The landlord sent the resident a final warning letter before court action on 6 January 2022 due to rent arrears. On 14 April 2022, it served him a NOSP under ground 10 of schedule 2 of the Housing Act 1988. It sent a further warning letter on 4 May 2022. He emailed it on 16 May 2022 asking for more information about the letters. It responded on the same day, explaining that it wanted to speak to him about his circumstances and come to an agreement to reduce the arrears on his account to prevent it taking further action. It explained how much he should have been paying each month and that as he had not been doing so, the account balance had continued to increase. Its response to this was fair and informative.
  3. On 21 June 2022, the landlord sent the resident a further warning letter ahead of court action for arrears. He made payments to the account on 14 and 15 July 2022. There was no further contact until 1 September 2022, when he said that his tenancy agreement advised he would pay rent on 11 of every month, but it was trying to change the date so there would be 13 payments a year. It responded by email on 2 September 2022, explaining 3 options for making rent payments, either weekly, 4-weekly, or monthly. It provided a full breakdown of the exact payment each of these options would require and asked him to contact it to set up a direct debit once he decided which would work best for him. Following this, a monthly direct debit was set up on 5 September 2022. This Service finds that the landlord’s communication provided clear information to the resident and it remained professional in its approach to the ongoing matters.
  4. On 4 October 2022, the resident emailed the landlord about the arrears on his rent account. He said that had been unable to live at the property between July and October 2022 due to ongoing antisocial behaviour (ASB) and wished for it to clear the arrears from his rent account for this period. The Ombudsman has investigated the landlord’s response to his ASB complaints in a previous case (202214667). Therefore, the matter of ASB has not been considered again in this case which has focused on the matter of the arrears.
  5. In its response, the landlord explained that it could consider the request to remove arrears for the period of July to October 2022 if the resident provided evidence documenting what had been happening during this period causing him to move out. This was a fair response as the evidence of communication does not indicate that it had been aware that he had vacated the property prior to his email.
  6. Having asserted that the landlord had been fraudulently adding additional arrears onto his account, the resident requested documentation showing every payment he had missed. In its 25 January 2023 response, the landlord attached a copy of the rent statement from April 2020 to the date of its response and explained that this shows that while he may not have missed payments, he was not paying regularly enough to clear the debt on his account. Its response was clear and concise. By attaching the rent account statement, it was able to evidence all payments in and out of the account to him in an appropriate and factual way.
  7. The landlord has also provided evidence to this Service as part of this investigation which includes the resident’s rent statement covering 6 April 2020 to 29 January 2023. On 6 April 2020, the outstanding balance was £175.80. The transactions and rent charges on the statement show that in this period, the shortfall between rent due and the payments he or the DWP (Department for Work and Pensions) made was £2081.37. There is no evidence that it included any additional charges to the account. It added weekly rent charges as standard and the payments made by, or on behalf of, the resident were not sufficient to cover these.
  8. In its stage 2 response of 28 February 2023, the landlord further explained that although the resident had been making payments towards rent arrears, these were not on a regular basis. This meant that his balance had not been reducing. It stated that it added rent charges to his account on a weekly basis which would automatically increase his arrears if he did not make regular payments. It acknowledged the rising cost of living and offered to refer him to its money advice service if he wished to speak with them. Its complaint response was again fair, clear, and concise, and it offered him additional support considering his ongoing financial issues.
  9. In conclusion, the evidence provided shows that the landlord managed the resident’s rent account fairly and that it did not apply any additional arrears charges. The charges added to the account were only for the weekly rent amount and payments made to the account were not sufficient to cover these. It communicated with him to discuss and reduce arrears charges and despite issuing 2 final warnings during the complaint period, it did not seek further action in court as it could have done at this time. It demonstrated a customer-focused approach to explaining rent payments, charges and arrears and was fair in its complaint responses.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was no maladministration in respect of the landlord’s handling of the resident’s rent account, including arrears.