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Great Places Housing Association (202232324)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202232324

Great Places Housing Association

28 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 handling of the resident’s concerns that service charges were incorrectly applied to her account.
  2. The Ombudsman has also considered the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

  1. The resident has been an assured tenant of the property, a 2-bedroom bungalow, since 2020. The landlord is a housing association.
  2. The resident had concerns regarding the incorrect payment of service charges since the start of her tenancy, and she submitted a formal complaint to the landlord on 23 March 2023. It responded on 14 April 2023, when it addressed her concerns and advised that no incorrect payments had been made.
  3. The resident asked to escalate her complaint on 19 April 2023 (no copy provided) and the landlord responded the same day. It apologised for the concern caused by the error on the tenancy agreement but confirmed that this had now been corrected. It also reiterated that no incorrect payments had been made. It declined to escalate the complaint on that basis and directed the resident to the Ombudsman.
  4. The resident referred her complaint to this Service in June 2023, saying that the landlord had refused to acknowledge the evidence she had showing that she had been paying service charge.

 

 

Service Charge

  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.d of the Scheme says the Ombudsman may not consider complaints which concern the level of rent or service charge, or the amount of the rent or service charge increases. Under the circumstances, it is important to highlight that any concern relating to the reasonableness of the service charge amount or potential refund cannot be considered by this Service. If any issues remain outstanding regarding this element of the complaint, the resident will need to seek advice from the First Tier Tribunal regarding the appropriate next steps.
  3. The resident has confirmed that the complaint concerns the landlord’s handling of the service charge issues; namely that the landlord provided confusing and misleading information to her. In addition to this, the resident also mentioned the landlord’s poor record keeping because it did not have a copy of her tenancy agreement.
  4. In light of the information provided; it is this Service’s view that the complaint is within the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. This is because the Ombudsman can investigate complaints about the communication, transparency, and fairness of service charges. In this case, the resident’s issue concerns the landlord’s communication to her.
  5. The resident submits that she was paying service charges from the start of her tenancy in 2020 until 2023. In February 2023, she received a rent proposal letter from the landlord which said she was not paying a service charge. When she questioned this, the landlord advised that she had never paid a service charge. The resident disputed this based on the terms of her tenancy agreement, previous rent proposal letters, and advice from a government department that the landlord had informed it she was paying a service charge in previous years.
  6. The resident raised a complaint about the service charge discrepancy in March 2023 and the landlord issued its final response in April 2023. It advised that an error had been made on her tenancy agreement, but she was not (and had not been in previous years) obliged to pay service charges. It confirmed that she had not been incorrectly charged for any service charges since the start of her tenancy and so no refund was due. In her complaint to the Ombudsman the resident said she wants the landlord to repay monies (to both her and the government) that have been taken incorrectly.
  7. Having reviewed the evidence, it is clear that there were several mistakes made by the landlord in its handling of this issue. Some of the failings included administrative errors since the landlord misinformed the resident that she was paying a service charge in her tenancy agreement, the subsequent misinformation to the resident following the identification of the issue, the misinformation provided to other organisations as a result of the error, the landlord’s failure to keep a copy of the tenancy agreement from 2020.
  8. Under the circumstances, it is this Service’s view there was maladministration by the landlord when considering its handling of the issue and the impact caused to the resident. It is our understanding the landlord did not offer compensation as a redress in its stage one and stage two response; however, it is noted that it did so following this.
  9. The evidence shows that in an email dated 5 December 2023, the landlord offered £100 goodwill gesture payment due to the inconvenience caused to the resident for mistakenly sending out the rent with an incorrectly applied service charge breakdown. Furthermore, this Service has also seen evidence of another offer of £500. This offer was made in a stage two complaint response dated 2 February 2024 which dealt with new and separate complaint issues; as well as the ongoing service charge issues, the landlord explained that it was offering the payment due to service charge fees it incorrectly reported to the resident.
  10. Having considered everything. It is this Service’s view that it was reasonable the landlord awarded compensation to the resident for its mistake and its mishandling of the issue. Under the circumstances, this Service considers that there was reasonable redress due to the landlord’s total offer of £600. This is line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance which states that compensation in range of £100 to £600 can be awarded for maladministration where there was no permanent impact caused to the resident.
  11. Please note, the Ombudsman is entitled to make its own determination on the level of compensation based on its assessment of the impact of the landlord’s failures when dealing with issues a resident has raised. When considering this impact, the Ombudsman is not limited to a landlord’s compensation policy. Instead, it focuses on what it deems fair and reasonable in the circumstances of the case.
  12. Due to the reasonable redress provided by the landlord, a recommendation has been included below requesting that the landlord pay the £600 offered if it has not done so already. Moreover, an additional recommendation has also been included requesting that ‘The landlord complete a case review to assess why the resident was issued with a tenancy agreement which incorrectly applied a service charge breakdown, and to put a plan in place to ensure this mistake is not repeated with other residents’.

Complaint Handling

  1. The landlord’s complaints policy says that it will issue its stage 1 response within 10 working days of acknowledgment of the resident’s complaint. In this instance, the landlord acknowledged the complaint on 20 April 2023 and issued its response on 2 May 2023. This was within the timescale set out in the landlord’s complaints policy.
  2. The landlord’s complaints policy in force at the time said that it could exercise discretion in how to respond to a complaint. This included not escalating complaints where a customer provided no clear reason for disagreeing with its stage 1 response.
  3. Under paragraph 4.14 of the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code) in force at the time, a landlord must not unreasonably refuse to escalate a complaint through all stages of the complaints procedure and must have clear and valid reasons for taking that course of action. The reasons for declining to escalate a complaint must be clearly set out in a landlord’s complaints policy and must be the same as the reasons for not accepting a complaint. Paragraph 5.9 of the Code in force at the time also said the landlord had to communicate the reasons for declining the escalation request to the resident and provide referral rights to this Service.
  4. The Ombudsman has not seen the resident’s complaint escalation request of 19 April 2023, but it is understood that she disagreed with the landlord’s stage 1 response because she had evidence to show that she had previously paid service charges, contrary to its position.
  5. In the landlord’s response it reiterated its previous statements (that the tenancy agreement had been incorrect but no linked charges had been levied) and, on that basis, declined to escalate the complaint. Therefore, it correctly wrote to the resident to explain why it would not escalate her complaint and provided her referral rights (in accordance with the Code).
  6. However, it failed to follow the Code in full because the reason it gave could not have been used as a reason not to accept a complaint. Further the resident did provide clear reasons why she disagreed with the stage 1 response. Therefore, while the landlord may have disagreed with her reasons, it did not follow its complaints policy by declining to escalate the complaint. As a result, there was service failure by the landlord in its handling of the complaint.
  7. In considering an appropriate remedy for this service failure, the Ombudsman has taken into account that the landlord responded promptly to the resident’s complaint and rightly referred her to this Service. This meant that she did not have to expend time and trouble chasing the complaint and she was not delayed in bringing her complaint to the Ombudsman. It is also accepted that, in this case, a full stage 2 complaint response may not have resulted in a different outcome to the complaint. Therefore, an apology is considered to offer proportionate redress in the circumstances, and an order is made in that regard. It is also noted that the landlord has since updated its complaints policy so no order is made for a policy review.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 53.b. of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord has offered redress to the resident which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, resolves the complaint regarding its handling of the service charge issues satisfactorily.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in relation to its handling of the associated complaint.

Order

  1. Within 4 weeks the landlord is ordered to apologise to the resident for its failures. This written apology must be from a member of the landlord’s senior management team and should follow the Ombudsman’s apologies guidance on our website.
  2. The landlord must provide the Ombudsman with evidence of compliance with this order within 4 weeks of the date of this determination.

Recommendations

  1. It is recommended that the landlord pay the resident the £600 it offered in recognition of its failings regarding its handling of the service charge issues.
  2. It is recommended that the landlord complete a case review to assess why the resident was issued with a tenancy agreement which incorrectly applied a service charge breakdown, and to put a plan in place to ensure this mistake is not repeated with other residents.