GreenSquareAccord Limited (202304900)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202304900

GreenSquareAccord Limited

22 December 2023

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

The complaint is about the provision of gardening services.
The Ombudsman has also considered the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

The resident is the leaseholder of the property, which is a bungalow situated inside a retirement development. The resident resides in the property with his wife. The landlord is a housing association and is the freeholder for all the properties on the development.
Under the lease agreement, the landlord is obliged to keep the development in good repair, including maintaining the gardens. The resident is obliged to pay a service charge which includes a proportion of the landlord’s costs in maintaining the gardens.
The landlord sent a letter to all leaseholders on 23 February 2022 stating residents had asked it to obtain alternative quotations for gardening maintenance. The landlord enclosed a ballot slip including three options for the gardening service. It asked residents to return their ballots by 10 March 2022 so it could enter a 12-month contract beginning 1 April 2022. The landlord later confirmed a majority of residents had voted to remain with the incumbent gardener.
Through his representative, the resident raised a complaint to the landlord via email on 24 March 2023. His concerns were noted as follows:
1. That, at the 2022 annual general meeting of leaseholders, the leaseholders raised concerns that the gardener had not been completing all their duties correctly or working for the correct amount of time; and that they had overcharged for the services. It had been suggested that the estate manager would obtain several quotes for different gardeners and present these to the leaseholders for a vote, but she had not completed this.
2. That the estate manager had remarked that she did not have time to complete this.
3. That, consequently, the residents obtained a gardener quote themselves and presented this at the 2023 annual general meeting.
4. That they had then received a letter to say their chosen gardener was unsuitable, and that the present gardener would remain, despite a majority of the leaseholders being unhappy with their service.
5. That there should be a signed sheet for every visit from the gardener, showing what work has been completed.
6. That the estate manager had made derogatory remarks about residents, specifically that the majority of leaseholders “are old and dying and do not want change”.
The landlord responded to the resident by email on 5 April 2023, in which it said:
1. There was no agreed length of time for the gardener to be on site. The gardener was asked to quote against the jobs included in the gardening specification.
2. The gardener had charged what they quoted and the cost was comparable to other gardeners who also quoted for the works.
3. It sent a ballot to all residents on 23 February 2022, providing costed options for the current gardener and two competitors, and the majority of residents had voted to remain with the current gardener.
4. The estate manager’s remarks may have been misinterpreted, and she had meant that there was a proper process to follow before appointing new gardeners, and the landlord did not have the required amount of time to complete this.
5. The gardener that the residents had put forward for the financial year 2023 to 2024 did not hold the necessary certificates to carry out weed and feed treatments, or to apply weedkiller to pathways.
6. It would be happy to work with residents later in the year to appoint another gardener from 1 April 2024.
7. It agreed, having visited the week before, that the current gardener appeared to have not applied weed and feed treatment in April 2022 as claimed.
8. The gardening specification states a satisfaction slip should be signed on each visit, but it no longer asks the gardener to complete these.
9. The estate manager denied making any derogatory remarks about residents.
10. To let it know if he remained unsatisfied and it would arrange for a member of its customer care team to contact him.
The landlord’s notes show the resident contacted it on 6 April 2023 and asked to escalate the complaint.
The landlord issued its stage 1 response on 26 April 2023, in which it:
1. Repeated the findings detailed in its previous response dated 5 April 2023.
2. Said it was not upholding the resident’s complaint as it had found its staff had acted in line with its policies and procedures.
3. Told the resident how to escalate the complaint for a stage 2 response if he remained unhappy.
The estate manager wrote a file note on 27 April 2023, in which she responded to the resident’s claims. She said:
1. She strongly refuted the claims she had made derogatory comments about residents.
2. She had followed the correct process in obtaining alternative quotes and providing these quotes to residents for a vote on 23 February 2022.
3. Residents had not approached her to obtain alternative quotations for gardeners for the 2023 to 2024 financial year.
4. At the 2023 annual general meeting a resident had presented a quote for a new gardener and a few days later she received a petition signed by a majority of residents in support of appointing that gardener. However, after meeting this gardener, she discovered he did not have the qualifications to complete weed and feed treatment or to use chemicals. This gardener was also a sole trader, so there would have been no holiday or sickness cover, and they would only work when they deemed it suitable weather. The comparison of this gardener’s costs with the existing gardener’s costs was therefore not a like for like comparison.
5. The residents had also given her details of another gardener for a quote but this gardener had not turned up to meet her when agreed.
The landlord’s notes show it spoke to the resident on 3 May 2023, and he requested an escalation to stage 2 because:
1. He claimed the current gardening company had damaged some of the hedges and bushes, and had not completed the weed and feed service that leaseholders pay for.
2. He wanted the landlord to inspect the gardens.
3. He was also unhappy with other fees he pays, including repairs fees, and he wanted the landlord to review all service charge fees.
4. It had been agreed for the landlord to fit solar lights, but it had not completed this.
The landlord issued its stage 2 response on 5 May 2023, in which it:
1. Said it had reviewed its stage 1 response and found this to be fair and accurate.
2. Confirmed it would carry out a spot check within 8 weeks on a day when the gardener was on site so it could ensure they were completing all necessary gardening works to the agreed standard.
3. Said it could not review the resident’s additional concerns raised about other fees and solar lights because he had not raised these in the earlier stages of his complaint, but that it would raise a new complaint to address these issues.
4. Stated it had reached the end of its complaint procedure and provided details for this Service if the resident wished to pursue the matter further.
The resident approached this Service on 10 May 2023, telling us he remained unhappy with the landlord’s response. The resident is seeking a better gardening service from the landlord at a fairer price.
The landlord completed a spot check of the gardening work on 23 June 2023, remarking that “the site was left looking very neat and tidy…the only area not looking tidy was the steep bank on two sides of the site which is only cut twice a year and has just to have [sic] the first cut since the contract re-commenced on 1 April”.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

The resident’s complaint included his concerns about the level of service charges. In his view, the standard of service provision relating to gardening did not warrant the level of charges he was required to pay.
In accordance with paragraph 42(d) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the Ombudsman will not normally consider complaints about the level of a service charge, nor the level of a service charge increase. These matters can be reviewed through the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber), should the resident wish to pursue this.
As such, this review will not include this aspect of the resident’s complaint. Instead, this investigation will focus on the resident’s concerns about the quality of gardening services provided, and whether the landlord provided all services required under the gardening specification.
The resident also raised additional issues as part of his complaint on 3 May 2023, including other charges included in the service fee, and whether the landlord agreed to fit solar lights or not.
Section 42 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme states the Ombudsman may not consider complaints which are made prior to having exhausted a landlord’s complaints procedure.
As the resident only raised these issues at the final stage of the landlord’s complaint process, they will not be included as part of this investigation.

Provision of gardening services

Clause 4(4) of the lease agreement obliges the resident to pay one twentieth of the maintenance expenses for the estate, which are calculated for the annual period 1 April to 31 March. The maintenance expenses include the landlord’s costs in maintaining the gardens. Section 4 of the landlord’s service charge policy states it will “procure value for money services and, where appropriate, involve customers in this process”. The gardening specification sets out the services the landlord’s gardener must provide for the residents.
In its email of 5 April 2023, the landlord said it agreed with the resident that the gardener had not completed weed and feed in April 2022 as claimed. The landlord also said it had stopped requiring the gardeners to hand in satisfaction slips signed by the estate manager or a resident. These are both requirements under the gardening specification. In failing to ensure these two tasks were being completed, the landlord was not ensuring it was receiving value for money for the gardening services and was therefore failing in its duty as the manager.
The landlord does not appear to have any method in place for assessing which work is completed by the gardener on each visit and whether, over the annual period, the gardener has completed all tasks required under the specification.
While the landlord completed a spot check on 23 June 2023 as part of its response to the resident’s complaint, it had stopped requiring the gardener to obtain signed satisfaction slips, which was the policy required to ensure that a quality service was provided
The resident has complained that the landlord ignored his petition, which included signatures from a majority of residents asking for a new gardener of their choosing to be appointed. However, the landlord has provided evidence it completed a proper balloting process of all residents for the financial year April 2022 to March 2023, providing 3 options for gardening services.
For the financial year April 2023 to March 2024, the Ombudsman finds that the landlord’s explanation of why it could not appoint the gardener proposed by the residents in the petition was reasonable. The landlord needed to appoint a contractor that was qualified to complete all the tasks in its specification. The gardener proposed by the residents did not hold the necessary qualifications at the time.

Complaint handling

Section 4 of the landlord’s complaint handling procedure says that, prior to passing a complaint to its customer care team, it will try to resolve a complaint at the first point of contact. The procedure says that “resolving a complaint at this stage is unlikely to require any investigation or action after the first point of contact”.
Given the level of the detail included in the resident’s email of 24 March 2023, the landlord should have known it would need to investigate the complaint further before issuing its response. As such, it should have been clear to the landlord that it was appropriate to escalate the complaint straight to its customer care team for a formal stage 1 response.
Section 4.1 of the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code says that, while responding to some concerns from residents quickly and informally without use of the complaints procedure can sometimes be appropriate, “landlords must ensure that efforts to resolve a resident’s concerns do not obstruct access to the complaints procedure or result in any unreasonable delay. It is not appropriate to have extra named stages (such as ‘stage 0’ or ‘pre-complaint stage’) as this causes unnecessary confusion for residents”.
In failing to recognise that the resident’s email of 24 March 2023 warranted a formal stage 1 response, the landlord did not comply with its own policy or the Complaint Handling Code when dealing with this resident’s complaint.
Section 5.1 of the landlord’s complaint handling procedure says that, once a complaint is escalated to its customer care team, it will:
1. Acknowledge the complaint in writing within 2 working days.
2. Make contact with the customer to discuss the detail of the complaint and explain next steps.
3. Respond to the complainant; usually within 10 working days.
The Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code also requires landlords to:
1. Acknowledge the complaint within five working days.
2. Provide a stage 1 response within 10 working days of receipt of complaint. This can be extended if necessary, but the landlord must provide an explanation to the resident. Any extension should not exceed a further 10 days without good reason.
The landlord did not provide any acknowledgement of the resident’s complaint, nor did it attempt to contact the resident to discuss it, before issuing its decision. The landlord also sent its stage 1 response 13 working days after the resident asked to escalate the complaint to this stage. In failing to acknowledge the complaint, contact the resident or respond within 10 working days, the landlord did not comply with its own complaints procedure or the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code.
Had the landlord called the resident prior to issuing its response, as per its policy, it could have had a detailed discussion with him about his concerns and the reasons for its position. Telephone calls can allow for a back and forth discussion, which can be an effective tool in dispute resolution. In failing to do this, the landlord missed an opportunity to potentially address some of the resident’s concerns and prevent further escalation of the complaint.
Section 5.2 of the Complaint Handling Code says landlords should acknowledge and apologise for any failure identified, give an explanation and, where possible, inform the resident of the changes made or actions taken to prevent the issue from happening again.
The landlord acknowledged in its responses that the gardener had not completed weed and feed treatment in April 2022, and that it no longer required signed satisfaction sheets, which were both required under the gardening schedule. Despite acknowledging these issues, the landlord did not provide any explanation nor propose any action to resolve them. This is a failing under section 5.2 of the Complaint Handling Code.

Determination

In accordance with section 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there has been maladministration with the landlord’s:
1. provision of gardening services.
2. complaint handling.

Orders

It is hereby ordered that, within 4 weeks of the date of this report, the landlord provides the resident with a payment of £400. This comprises:
1. £300 for the failure to abide by the gardening specification and the time, trouble and inconvenience experienced by the resident in seeking to resolve this.
2. £100 for the complaint handling failures, and the resident’s resulting inconvenience.
It is ordered that, within 12 weeks of the date of this report, the landlord carries out a review on how it can effectively ensure the level and standard of gardening work being completed against the gardening specification. The landlord should provide this Service with a copy of this review, including details on any new process it intends to put in place, or any amendments it intends to make to its existing process(es).