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Home Group Limited (202323496)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202323496

Home Group Limited

4 March 2025


Our approach

What we can and cannot consider is called the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction and is governed by the Housing Ombudsman Scheme. The Ombudsman must determine whether a complaint comes within their jurisdiction. The Ombudsman seeks to resolve disputes wherever possible but cannot investigate complaints that fall outside of this. 

In deciding whether a complaint falls within their jurisdiction, the Ombudsman will carefully consider all the evidence provided by the parties and the circumstances of the case.

The complaint

  1. The resident’s complaint is about the level of her service charge and quality of services provided.

Determination (jurisdictional decision)

  1. When a complaint is brought to the Ombudsman, we must consider all the circumstances of the case as there are sometimes reasons why a complaint will not be investigated. 
  2. After carefully considering all the evidence, we have determined that the complaint, as set out above, is not within the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction, in accordance with paragraph 41.a. of the Scheme.

Summary of events

  1. The resident is the freeholder of the property, which she purchased in 2012. The property is on an estate which is managed by the landlord. Under a deed of covenant, the resident is required to pay a service charge to the landlord for the repair and maintenance of “communal facilities”.
  2. The resident made a complaint to the landlord on 9 March 2023. She complained that:
    1. The coming year’s service charge was £460, which was nearly double the previous year’s. This had increased from around £120 when she first moved in.
    2. The services provided were poor. The landlord’s grounds maintenance contractor left “more mess than there was to start with” and had damaged her lawn with weed killer. Some of the streetlights had not worked for years and others were on during the daytime.
    3. The landlord’s communication about how the service charges were divided between properties had been contradictory and “very confusing”.
  3. The landlord provided its stage 1 complaint response on 29 March 2023. It said that:
    1. Service charges had increased significantly due to the rising costs of staffing, vehicles and fuel, energy, and materials.
    2. All properties on the estate paid a fair proportion of the service charges, regardless of tenure type.
    3. It had appointed a new grounds maintenance contactor from April 2023.
    4. The lighting system on the estate was due for renewal in the new financial year. It would check the timer on the lights, although it had only recently adjusted this.
  4. The resident asked to escalate her complaint on 5 April 2023. She expressed dissatisfaction that the landlord had not made “any credible changes that deal with the complaints”. She asked why it had not consulted with residents before appointing a new grounds maintenance contractor. She also accused it of not calculating her service charge in keeping with the terms of her deed of covenant. She said this only required her to pay towards the upkeep of her street – rather than the wider estate. The resident asked the landlord to provide her with copies of all service charge invoices since 2012 and to implement “a reasonable cap on service charges”.
  5. The resident brought her complaint to the Ombudsman on 9 October 2023. She said she wanted the landlord to reassess the service charge as she felt it was too high, not in keeping with the deed of covenant and the grounds maintenance service was “still poor”.
  6. The landlord provided its stage 2 complaint response on 12 October 2023. It said that:
    1. It was unable to provide the resident with service charge information dating back to 2012 as this was “no longer available due to the passage of time.”
    2. It reviewed its service charges annually to ensure that they continued to “represent the best interests of all customers” and provide “value for money”.
    3. It conducted consultations with residents where there was an intention to change a service or change the contractor providing that service.
    4. The cost of services continued to increase every year, and it had no option but to pass these increases on to residents. Therefore, it was unable to implement a cap on service charges.

 

 

Reasons

  1. Paragraph 41.a. of the Scheme states that the Ombudsman can only consider complaints which were referred to us by one of the people who can use the Scheme under paragraph 25.
  2. Paragraph 25.a. of the Scheme states that complaints can be made to the Ombudsman by “a person who is or has been in a landlord/tenant relationship with a member landlord. This includes people who have a lease, tenancy, licence to occupy, service agreement or other arrangement to occupy premises owned or managed by a member.”
  3. The resident is the freeholder of her property. She has a contractual relationship with the landlord, which requires her to contribute towards the costs of repairs and maintenance for the communal facilities on the estate. However, this does not constitute a landlord/tenant relationship as defined by the Scheme. Due to this the complaint is outside of the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.
  4. Although the landlord progressed the complaint through its complaints procedure to exhaustion, this is not sufficient to bring the complaint within the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. This Service understands that this is likely to be a disappointing outcome for the resident, but she still has the option of obtaining legal advice should she wish to pursue her concerns about her service charge further.