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Citizen Housing Group Limited (202005003)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202005003

Citizen Housing

30 April 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 response to the resident’s:
    1. Rent account queries
    2. Reports of damp and mould

Background

  1. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord since 21 June 2018. The landlord is a housing association. The property is a ground floor bedsit flat.
  2. On 27 August 2020, the resident contacted the Ombudsman about harassment from the landlord about rent. He said he was overpaying rent by £300 each month. The Ombudsman explained that we cannot investigate complaints which had not exhausted the landlord’s complaints process and provided advice on escalating his complaint.
  3. On 23 December 2022 and 3 January 2023, the resident contacted the Ombudsman about the landlord’s handling of his rent account. He said that the landlord harassed him and demanded payment for rent that he had already paid.
  4. On 23 January 2023, the resident contacted the Ombudsman and complained that the landlord sent texts and called him about unpaid rent. He provided us with his bank statement confirming that it had been paid. The Ombudsman sent the resident a link to the landlord’s complaints process and advised him to raise a complaint with his landlord.
  5. On 20 June 2023, we raised a complaint with the landlord on the resident’s behalf because the resident continued to raise issues directly to us about the landlord. The complaint was about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s rent account, including its record keeping and handling of reports of harassment for rent. As a resolution, the resident wanted the landlord to check the rent against the payments made and confirm the true balance.
  6. On 7 July 2023, the landlord provided its stage 1 complaint response. It did not uphold the complaint. It said that it did not intend to make the resident feel harassed for rent payments. The landlord:
    1. Said that it aimed to provide support and early intervention to help prevent arrears.
    2. Advised that it may contact the resident when accounts are not paid on time to understand the reason and offer support.
    3. Said that the resident was aware of its income collection policy to help prevent arrears.
    4. Asked the resident to make contact if he believes payments are missing from his rent account.
    5. Provided a summary of its contacts with the resident between 2019 and 2022 explaining the position with the rent account.
  7. On 27 July 2023, the resident escalated his complaint. He remained unhappy because he said that he had been harassed about rent arrears despite overpaying his rent. He requested a refund of the overpayment. He also included for the first time a complaint about damp and mould in the property had caused damage to his health. He was unhappy that the landlord had asked him to remove his belongings from the property as part of a disrepair claim but had not provided alternative accommodation. 
  8. On 21 August 2023, the landlord provided its stage 2 complaint response. It did not uphold the complaint. The landlord:
    1. confirmed that it had reviewed his rent account and found no discrepancies between the rent charges and the payments received.
    2. asked the resident to provide evidence of the payments made to support him with locating payments.
    3. provided a statement of his rent account between 21 June 2018 and 23 August 2023 and said that it would support him with any enquiries about his rent payments.
    4. said that its records show no reports of damp and mould since 2019. It had received a disrepair claim and would carry out necessary investigations.
  9. When the resident brought his complaint to the Ombudsman, he remained unhappy with the landlord’s handling of the rent account and its response to reports of damp and mould. He said that he had provided evidence to show that he had paid rent twice because of the ongoing harassment from the landlord.

Assessment and findings

Jurisdiction

  1. What the Ombudsman can and cannot consider is called the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. This is governed by the Scheme. When a complaint is brought to this service, the Ombudsman must consider all the circumstances of the case, as there are sometimes reasons why a complaint will not be investigated.
  2. Paragraph 42.a of the Scheme states that the Ombudsman may not consider complaints which are made prior to having exhausted a member’s complaints procedure. The evidence shows that the resident first complained to the landlord about damp and mould when he escalated his complaint to stage 2. As such, the landlord has not had an opportunity to respond to this element of the complaint.
  3. If the resident remains unhappy with the landlord’s response to reports of damp and mould, he will need to contact the landlord and, if appropriate, raise a separate complaint to get this matter resolved. He may then approach the Ombudsman.

Scope of investigation

  1. The Ombudsman encourages residents to raise complaints with their landlords at the time the events happened. This is because with the passage of time, evidence may be unavailable and personnel involved may have left an organisation, which makes it difficult for a thorough investigation to be carried out and for informed decisions to be made.
  2. Taking this into account and the availability and reliability of evidence, this assessment has focussed on the period from 19 November 2022 onwards. This is because the resident brought his complaint to the Ombudsman about the landlord’s contact about rent arrears after a rent payment on this date. This incident gave rise to the complaint. Any reference to events that occurred prior to 19 November 2022 in this report is to provide context.

The landlord’s response to the resident’s rent account queries

  1. The resident’s tenancy agreement sets out that his rent must be paid weekly and must be paid before the day, or on the day it is due.
  2. The landlord has an income collection policy which sets out its position on arrears prevention and arrears recovery, as follows:
    1. For arrears prevention it will “provide clear information to customers, ensure early intervention and, appropriate support services and advice are in place when payments are not made.” 
    2. For arrears recovery it “will provide a prompt notification of the level of arrears and make every attempt to contact the customer to discuss arrears and it may consider a payment plan with realistic repayment agreements.”
  3. On 21 December 2022, the landlord called the resident to ask why he had not made a rent payment since 19 November 2022. It did not get through to the resident and left a voicemail requesting contact. Based on the resident’s rent account, payment was subsequently received by the landlord on 27 December 2022. It was reasonable for the landlord to make this call because the account was in arrears, and it was applying its income collection policy to intervene early and prevent arrears.  
  4. On 1 February 2023, the resident called the landlord because he received a letter advising that his account had fallen into arrears. Based on the resident’s rent account, his account was in arrears at the time. It was appropriate for the landlord to contact the resident at that point in line with its income collection policy.
  5. Based on the evidence, the landlord first became aware that the resident was unhappy with its income collection practices when the Ombudsman raised a complaint on 23 June 2023 on behalf of the resident. The resident said that the landlord harassed him for rent arrears, and it was not keeping a true record of the rent payments.
  6. Through its stage 1 complaint response, the landlord advised the resident that it was not its intention to harass him. It provided the resident with details of each contact in respect of rent arrears since the beginning of the tenancy. It said that each contact was to explain the position of his rent account and to provide support to ensure his account did not fall into arrears. This was a reasonable investigation into the allegations of harassment and demonstrated that the landlord had appropriately applied its policy with each contact.  
  7. In his stage 2 escalation, the resident said that he had overpaid rent and requested a refund. In response, the landlord reviewed his account since the beginning of the tenancy and confirmed that it found no discrepancies between the rent charged and the payment received. This was an appropriate initial investigation for the landlord to undertake to confirm the accuracy of charges and payments received.
  8. The landlord advised the resident to contact the vendor through which he made payments to clarify which payments he believed had been overpaid. It asked the resident to provide the date, time, and amount of payment, and that it would help with locating any missing payments. This was appropriate advice to the resident to provide assurance that it would investigate any overpayment of rent. 
  9. The landlord provided the resident with a copy of the rent account since the beginning of his tenancy. It provided information on accessing and monitoring his rent account online and a contact number of its income team to support him with any enquiries. 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. There is no evidence that the resident challenged the landlord’s position after he received this information. These were reasonable steps for the landlord to take to help the resident review his rent account.
  10. The Ombudsman finds that there was no maladministration with the landlord’s response to the resident’s rent enquiries. This is because it acted reasonably in line with its income collection policy with each contact with the resident. When it received a complaint, it appropriately investigated the allegations of harassment and explained why it had contacted him. It also investigated the resident’s complaint that he had overpaid rent and provided appropriate information and assistance with understanding his rent account.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was no maladministration with the landlord’s handling of the resident’s rent enquiries.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 42 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the resident’s complaint about the landlord’s handling of reports of damp and mould is outside our jurisdiction to investigate.