Applications are open to join the next Housing Ombudsman Resident Panel – find out more Housing Ombudsman Resident Panel.

Gloucester City Homes Limited (202316835)

Back to Top

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202316835

Gloucester City Homes Limited

26 February 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 actions in recovering rent arrears from the resident.

Background

  1. The resident is an assured tenant of the property, a flat owned by the landlord. It has recorded mental health vulnerabilities for him.
  2. The landlord applied to Universal Credit (UC) on 10 and 14 January 2022 for direct payment of rent and extra deductions for rent arrears. It explained its reasons for doing this to the resident on several occasions in 2022.
  3. The resident complained on 16 February 2023 that the landlord should have told him about this prior to contacting UC. It responded at stage 1 of its complaints process on 20 February 2023. It said it understood his frustration with its decision as he felt it was taking responsibility from him. However, it explained that it had followed procedure and had asked UC to stop taking direct payments for arrears.
  4. The resident requested escalation of his complaint on 31 May 2023 after seeing that the landlord was still taking money for rent from his UC account.
  5. The landlord sent its stage 2 complaint response to the resident on 26 June 2023. It said it now told all residents when it was applying for direct payments from UC. It apologised for not telling him this at the time.
  6. The resident brought his complaint to this Service for investigation. He felt unhappy with the landlord’s response and felt it should reimburse the direct payments taken from his UC.

Assessment and findings

  1. The tenancy agreement between the resident and landlord states that rent payments are due in advance on each Monday.
  2. The landlord’s rent collection and arrears recovery policy became live on 13 January 2022. It will tell tenants promptly when they are in arrears and the recovery action it will take. The aim of the policy is to help residents sustain their tenancies. It will use legal action as a last resort.
  3. Universal Credit (UC) has a process for landlords which allows them to apply for direct payment of rent and arrears. This is to help safeguard tenants’ tenancy agreements and homes.
  4. The evidence provided by the landlord in this case shows that it spoke to the resident regularly about rent arrears in 2021. It agreed payment amounts with him in June and December 2021, but he did not pay these amounts despite receiving several letters chasing him. It tried to work with him and allow him the responsibility of paying rent and clearing arrears.
  5. The landlord applied to UC for direct payment on 10 January 2022. At this time, the resident had rent arrears of £413.82. Its choice to apply for direct payment was fair as its earlier attempts at working with him had been unsuccessful.
  6. On 14 January 2022, UC told the landlord that they were unable to tell it how much they would pay for rent arrears each month as its system would calculate this. However, UC would continue to pay rent on the fifth of each month. The landlord wrote to the resident explaining its decision to apply to UC as a measure to avoid legal action. It apologised for not telling him this ahead of time but said it did not have to. This was fair and showed its continued efforts to clearly explain the situation to him.
  7. There were no more conversations about the direct payments from UC until September 2022, after a meeting between the landlord, the resident, and his support worker in which he raised concerns. It wrote to him on 23 September 2022 explaining that UC was paying £66.98 monthly towards his arrears but that £18.46 of this was going towards his monthly heating charge as he had not been paying it. It signposted him to debt management support. This was a clear and well explained letter.
  8. In his complaint to the landlord on 16 February 2023, the resident said his rent account was in credit on 5 February, but it told him it was taking money for rent or arrears directly from his benefits again the day after. His rent statement shows he was in £38.09 credit on 30 January 2023, but account fell back into arrears with the next weekly rent charge on 6 February.
  9. The landlord’s income team wrote to the resident on 17 February 2023. This letter was factual and clear. It said it requested direct payment from UC on 10 January 2022. On 1 February 2023, it did not receive this direct payment from UC. It emailed UC to ask them to keep making these payments. It explained his heating charges but that he was due to have a new meter fitted on 28 February 2023. Once he had the new meter fitted, it would be happy to ask UC to stop the direct payment for arrears.
  10. In its stage 1 complaint response of 20 February 2023, the landlord clearly explained its reason for reapplying to UC for direct payment of rent arrears. This was because the resident had not put his account in enough credit to be paying rent in advance, as per his tenancy agreement. It told him that it asked UC to stop the direct payments to give him the responsibility of paying his own rent and reducing his arrears. This showed that it had listened to his concerns and was willing to continue supporting him.
  11. Following the residents request for escalation of his complaint of 31 May 2023, the landlord responded on 26 June 2023. It said it had made sure its process for direct payment requests now included telling residents at the point it would apply to UC. It apologised for not telling him it had applied at the time.
  12. The landlord wrote a further letter to the resident on 7 August 2023. He was concerned that it was receiving unauthorised payment from UC. The letter explained that it was only receiving rent payments from UC, and it was not receiving extra direct payment for arrears.
  13. In a conversation with us on 17 February 2025, the resident said he felt the landlord had unfairly taken money from his benefits which had left him in financial hardship, needing to rely on food banks. We appreciate that this would have been a stressful period for him. However, the evidence in this case justifies its decision to apply for direct payment of arrears from UC. It also signposted him to debt management support, which was good practice.
  14. All decisions made by the landlord in this case were to try and help the resident to sustain his tenancy. It tried to clearly explain the amounts he needed to pay before applying to UC for direct payment. There is little more that it could have done in this situation. It could have pursued legal action in relation to the arrears, but instead chose to work with UC and the resident to try and manage this in a more customer-friendly way. It apologised for not telling him it had applied for direct payment but its decision to do so was fair.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was no maladministration in respect of the landlord’s approach to recovering rent arrears from the resident.