Amplius Living (202406123)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202406123

Amplius Living

3 July 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 landlord’s handling of the resident’s concerns about the loss of housing benefit increases.

Background

2. The resident has been an assured tenant of the landlord, a housing association, since 2016. The property is a 1-bedroom bungalow.
3. The resident contacted the landlord on 11 December 2023 saying he had recently discovered his housing benefit payments had not been updated since 2019. He asked the council, who said the landlord had stopped updating them of rent increases in 2019. He said, as a result, he had lost out on benefit increases from March 2019 to September 2023. He had calculated the deficit to be around £1,248 and wanted this re-imbursed, plus interest.
4. There followed a series of exchanges between the resident and the landlord. The resident said the landlord used to include him on a rent increase spreadsheet which it sent to the council. It had then stopped doing that without telling him. He said the landlord had taken on the responsibility of informing the council of rent increases and it should have told him he now needed to do this when it stopped. As the parties were not in agreement, a formal complaint was logged on 21 February 2024.
5. In the landlord’s stage 1 response of 8 March 2024, it said:
   1. It had found no evidence to show if it did or did not include the resident in a rent increase spreadsheet between 2016 and 2018. It accepted that this could be true.
   2. The housing benefit regulations state that it is the claimant’s (the resident) responsibility to notify the council of any relevant changes in circumstances that could impact housing benefit.
   3. It had a duty to inform the council of rent increases only where the funds were paid directly to it. The resident received housing benefit directly. As it was not paid to the landlord, it could not reasonably know he was in receipt of this.
   4. It had sent rent review letters to him on 15 February 2019, 23 January 2020, 17 February 2021, 14 February 2022, and 6 February 2023. These said, ‘If we receive your housing benefit directly from the council, we’ll inform the housing benefit department of the new changes, and they’ll adjust your benefit accordingly’. As it was not receiving the funds directly, this meant the resident was responsible for updating the council.
   5. It empathised, but the loss of housing benefit would not be reimbursed. If he wanted it to update the council moving forward, then he should opt for the benefits to be paid directly to it.
6. The resident escalated his complaint to stage 2 on 26 March 2024. He reiterated that the landlord should have told him it would not be informing the council of his rent increases anymore and he now needed to do this himself. He said he had received a leaflet in 2019, when the current landlord took over, which said ‘if you are claiming benefits, you do not need to do anything.’ Therefore, he wanted to be reimbursed for his loss of benefits. The landlord issued its stage 2 response on 23 April 2024, and said:
   1. The resident had now accepted that it was his responsibility to inform the council of rent increases. It would seem reasonable for him to have understood this from the commencement of the claim as the signed declaration on the form makes this clear.
   2. The council had advised that it sends annual review letters with similar wording to the declaration, along the lines of “you must tell the benefit department about any change in your circumstances as soon as you find out about the change”.
   3. He should also have received annual determinations of benefit entitlement which would have shown the rent figures the department was using. The department offered support and assistance to anyone who had difficulty or questions around entitlement.
   4. It had not found any evidence that it had told him it had assumed responsibility for telling the benefit department of rent increases. As a direct recipient of housing benefit, it was reasonable for the resident to believe it would have no idea if he was claiming.
   5. It accepted that the rent increase letters did not explicitly say that as it did not receive his housing benefit directly it was his responsibility to tell the council. However, there was an implied message that he may reasonably have been expected to clarify if unsure.
   6. The leaflet he received was about a name change, sent to all residents. The wording highlighted by him was in the context of the name change. It had informed the council at that time of the change. It did not seem reasonable for the resident to have extended the context of this leaflet to assume future rent changes would be passed on to the council.
   7. It had accepted that between 2016 to 2018 he was included in a rent review update to the council. Even though the council had not been able to provide evidence of this, and its own records did not go that far back. It was not sure why the previous landlord would have included him when its practices were similar where it was not in direct receipt of benefits.
   8. He had told it that he had not known at the time that he was included in the spreadsheet informing the council of rent increases. He had noticed the benefit increase generally in line with the rent from bank statements. This appeared to be the basis of his belief that the landlord had taken on the responsibility. It did not think it was fair to hold it responsible for assumptions he made when the responsibility for informing the council was his.
   9. There would have been opportunities between 2019 and 2023 for him to notice no increases in benefit (as he had noticed increases between 2016 and 2018) and query this with it or the benefit department.
   10. It was sorry he had lost out on benefits he was entitled to, but it was not responsible for this.
7. The resident told the landlord on 8 May 2024 that he had not noticed the benefit increases from his bank statements at the time and had only become aware recently when he was investigating other anomalies with his rent account. He referred his complaint to us the same day, saying he had incurred benefit losses because of the landlord and wanted to be reimbursed.

Assessment and findings

8. The resident said that when he signed his tenancy agreement, the landlord completed his housing benefit application. He said he was never informed he was responsible for updating the council of any changes in his circumstances. While we appreciate what he has said, we must be fair in our assessment, cannot speculate, and can only rely on the evidence available. It is, therefore, not possible for us to conclude what the resident was told during that meeting. Where evidence is unavailable, we have considered what are good industry practices, and our own expectations and experiences, in the handling of this matter.
9. While we can accept that the resident received help in completing the initial application, he has not disputed signing the claim form. We have not seen a copy of the form he signed but these commonly inform claimants they must report any change in their circumstances. The government’s website on housing benefits also says that the claimant must report any changes in their circumstances immediately.
10. The resident sent us a copy of a letter of 15 January 2024 from the council, which he said showed the landlord was updating the council on his behalf. However, that letter also said that housing associations only include properties they are directly receiving benefits for. It further said that as a direct recipient he was required to notify the council of any changes. It is, therefore, accepted that the resident is responsible for this.
11. The changes in circumstances that could potentially affect the resident’s housing benefit entitlement are not limited to rent increases. As such, it would not be reasonable, nor an expected practice, for the landlord to take on this responsibility as it would not be in possession of all the relevant information. It is, therefore, reasonable to conclude that the resident would have been made aware, or should reasonably have been aware, he needed to report changes, and this included rent increases.
12. The landlord said it sent rent review letters which informed the resident it would update the council if it received his benefit payments. We have seen a copy of the rent review letter sent in 2019 and it confirms this to be the case. While it does not explicitly say the resident should inform the council if he receives his benefit payments directly, the inference is clear. We bear in mind that the resident was able to seek clarification if he was unsure.
13. The resident also believes the name change leaflet sent by the landlord, where it said it would inform the council, extended to his rent increases. We do not find this to be a reasonable conclusion. The leaflet was specifically about the landlord’s name change and it is not reasonable to interpret it as being about anything else.
14. The landlord said that housing benefit annual statements sent to the resident by the council stated the amount he was receiving. Therefore, he should have known that his rent and benefits were not aligned. While we have not been provided with copies, the resident has not denied receiving them. Further, we know these statements are sent to housing benefit claimants as standard practice. It is difficult, therefore, to conclude that the resident did not notice the discrepancy, or to understand why he did not question it sooner.
15. There is no evidence to support that the landlord had ever assumed responsibility for informing the council of rent increases. Even if this was something it had done in the past, the resident remained responsible for informing the council throughout that period. At the very least he could reasonably be expected to have monitored his rent and benefit payments, even if he believed the landlord was reporting the increases on his behalf. Therefore, there was no maladministration by the landlord.

Determination

16. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme there was no maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s concerns about the loss of housing benefit increases.