One Housing Group Limited (202304913)
REPORT
COMPLAINT 202304913
One Housing Group Limited
31 May 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:
- Administration of the resident’s rent and service charge accounts.
- Handling of the associated complaint.
Scope of investigation
2. The resident has a second complaint with this Service, case 202307155, which has been accepted for investigation in relation to the landlord’s emergency repairs reporting procedure. For clarity, the resident’s complaint in relation to the emergency repairs procedure has not been included in the investigation of this case.
3. This investigation will consider the landlord’s administration of the rent and service charge accounts and its handling of the associated complaint.
Background and summary of events
Background
4. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord, which is a housing association. The property is a self-contained flat and the tenancy commenced on 27 January 2020.
5. The resident has a hearing impairment and has a support dog. As a result, email, text messaging & lip-reading are his only means of communication.
Landlord obligations
6. The landlord operates a 2-stage complaints procedure. It would acknowledge complaints within 5 working days. It would provide a stage 1 response within 10 working days and a stage 2 response within 20 working days.
7. The landlord’s rent and service charge policy states that queries about the level of service charge or its reasonableness in the first instance should be directed to its customer service centre. A response would be provided within 10 working days by the service charge team.
Summary of events
8. On 5 March 2023 the resident wrote to the landlord to query his annual rent increase and the service charge breakdown received by letter on 22 February 2023.
9. On 8 March 2023 the resident complained to the landlord. He raised concerns about:
- The rent increase letter dated 22 February 2023 which increased his rent by 30%.
- There was an error in the service charge calculation which should have been £46.00 not £48.89, and the landlord added the inclusive communal service charges twice.
- The landlord did not reply to his email dated 5 March 2023.
10. On 10 March 2023 the landlord acknowledged the resident’s complaint.
11. On 20 March 2023 the landlord provided its stage 1 response:
- It apologised for sending a rent increase notice which was incorrect. It sent a corrected rent increase notice on 10 March 2023.
- It apologised for an error in its service charge calculation. It acknowledged it sent the inclusive service charge within the inclusive rent. It clarified the notice sent on 10 March 2023, set out the rent was inclusive of the service charges. This confirmed his service charge was £46.00 per week and would be collected with his rent payments which would total £222.23 per week.
- It explained the breakdown of the administration charge and service charge management fees.
- It explained its response time to customer enquiries was 10 working days. It aimed to respond earlier than this where possible however, this was why it was unable to respond to the resident’s query by 8 March 2023 when he chased a response.
- It offered £100 as a gesture of goodwill for the inconvenience and apologised.
12. On 24 March 2023 the resident wrote to the landlord asking for his stage 1 response. He said he did not receive the landlord’s email on 20 March 2023. The landlord provided a copy to the resident and forwarded its email showing the date it had initially sent the response to the resident. The resident stated he did not believe the landlord sent its response on this date.
13. On 27 and 29 March 2023 the landlord provided a further copy of its stage 1 response letter to the resident.
14. On 29 March 2023 the resident escalated his complaint to stage 2. He explained the landlord should have logged his email of 5 March 2023 as a formal complaint. He also wanted the landlord to take accountability for its errors as it had previously occurred 2 years prior.
15. On 26 April 2023 the landlord provided its stage 2 response. It explained:
- On 8 March 2023, the resident chased a response to his email of 5 March 2023. It responded to explain it was a service charge enquiry, it was therefore not logged as a complaint and would be responded to within 10 working days as per its policy.
- It was in the process of obtaining information to respond to the resident’s query, it had logged the resident’s request and provided a reference number. It explained this was why he had not received a response. However, as the resident was dissatisfied and wanted a complaint logged, it did so on 9 March 2023 (and formally acknowledged the complaint on 10 March 2023).
- It recognised the error in its rent and service charge letters once the resident made contact. It explained the mistake and amended the letter accordingly. It put in place additional system checks ahead of its 2024 letter to avoid a repeat of the incident.
- It again explained the stage 1 response was sent on 20 March 2023, and further copies were sent to the resident when he stated he did not receive it.
Assessment and findings
16. When investigating a complaint, the Ombudsman considers its dispute resolution principles. This is good practice guidance developed from the Ombudsman’s experience of resolving disputes for use by everyone involved in the complaints process. There are three principles driving effective dispute resolution:
- be fair – treat people fairly and follow fair processes;
- put things right and;
- learn from outcomes.
Administration of the resident’s rent and service charge accounts
17. The landlord acknowledged there was a service failing with its administration of the resident’s rent and service charge accounts within its stage 1 response. It apologised and offered £100 compensation. It also explained further notes were made to its system to avoid a repeated incident. The landlord’s action to quickly rectify the issue and offer remedy for the distress and inconvenience was good complaint handling.
18. This Service is aware the resident previously complained about a similar issue in 2021 which was investigated by the Ombudsman. This Service recognises human error can occur; however, it is important the landlord learns from its mistakes. As this was a repeat incident, it suggests the landlord does not have the appropriate procedure in place to ensure miscalculations were avoided. A recommendation has been made for the landlord to review its rent and service charge procedure to ensure miscalculations do not occur in the future.
19. The landlord’s offer of £100 compensation was in line with the Ombudsman’s financial remedy scale. In the Ombudsman’s opinion, the landlord’s administration of the resident’s rent and service charge accounts was reasonable redress.
Handling of the associated complaint
20. The resident raised an enquiry about his rent and service charge calculations on 5 March 2023. The resident believed his email should have been logged as a formal complaint. This Service has not seen evidence the resident asked for this to be raised as a formal complaint within his email. The email raised his concerns over the landlord’s calculations and was a service request. It was not therefore appropriate for the landlord to log this email as a formal complaint. It was entitled to make its own investigations and respond to the resident’s request for information appropriately.
21. On 8 March 2023, the resident chased the landlord for a response to his email. The landlord’s policy states it would respond to service charge enquiries within 10 working days. In its response email, the landlord advised him of its customer contact response times as per its policy and that it had been making further internal queries. It had logged his request and would respond to him as soon as possible. This was a reasonable response from the landlord and was in line with its policy position.
22. The resident was dissatisfied with the landlord’s response. He asked it to log his request as a formal complaint on 8 March 2023. The landlord’s complaints policy and the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code) requires a landlord to acknowledge a formal complaint within 5 working days. The landlord acknowledged the resident’s complaint on 10 March 2023. This was in line with the Code and landlord’s complaint policy timescales.
23. The resident states the landlord did not provide its stage 1 response to him on 20 March 2023. This Service recognises the resident questioned the landlord’s view however, the evidence seen by this service confirmed its email enclosing the stage 1 response was sent to the resident on 20 March 2023. While the resident may not have received the email, this Service has no possible way of truly understanding how the error occurred. We acknowledge the resident was frustrated he had not received the stage 1 response however, the landlord sought to provide a further copy to the resident promptly once it was made aware the resident had not received its email. This was good practice and did not suggest the landlord had failed to provide its stage 1 response outside of the complaint handling timescales.
24. The resident escalated his complaint to stage 2 on 29 March 2023. The landlord responded on 26 April 2023 which was in line with the Code and the landlord’s complaint policy timescale of 20 working days. This was good practice by the landlord.
25. Overall, the landlord’s handling of the resident’s rent and service charge enquiry and formal complaint, was in line with its policy and the Code. In the Ombudsman’s opinion, the landlord’s handling of the associated complaint was no maladministration.
Determination (decision)
27. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was no maladministration by the landlord in its handling of the associated complaint.
Reasons
28. The landlord acknowledged its failings and promptly amended the accounts. It explained how the incident occurred, apologised, offered compensation in line with the Ombudsman’s financial remedy scale and took learning.
29. The landlord’s complaint handling was in line with the Code and its policy.
Recommendations