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Jigsaw Homes Group Limited (202206853)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202206853

Jigsaw Homes Group Limited

14 August 2024


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 service charge queries. 
  2. The Ombudsman has also considered the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

  1. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord, which is a housing association. The property is a 1-bedroom flat in a two-story block with no internal communal areas. Externally, there are communal flagged and grass areas.
  2. The resident moved to the property in 2015. Two housing associations (including his previous landlord) subsequently merged in 2018 to form the current landlord.
  3. The resident’s weekly rent payment consists of a rent charge and a service charge. The service charge is made up of charges for caretaking of communal areas, grounds maintenance, and an administration fee. The landlord writes to residents annually to notify of any changes to their charges. It wrote to the resident on 12 August 2021 to outline the charges for the following year and advised that the service charge would reduce from £3.43 to £2.76 per week.
  4. The resident said he called the landlord on 17 and 20 August 2021 for further information about the service charge. He wanted to enquire what the charge for caretaking of communal areas was for, as he suspected this was for residents in blocks of flats with a landing and stairs. The resident was told the charge was for “things like litter picking” but he would be contacted with further information.
  5. In the absence of any further contact, the resident wrote to the landlord on 24 September 2021. He asked for a description of the service that was provided under caretaking, and what the grounds maintenance charge was for. He said communal grass had not been cut for a month and he wanted to know how often it should be done, and he said flagged areas had never been weeded or cleared of moss.
  6. The resident sent an email to the landlord on 7 October 2021 and said he had called and written, but had not received a response. He felt he was paying for a service he did not get. The landlord said its service charge team would contact him in 3 working days. After no contact the resident emailed again on 20 October 2021 and advised that he would escalate his query to his MP and the Ombudsman.
  7. The landlord contacted the resident on 6 December 2021 and said it would reduce the caretaking of communal areas charge from £2.29 to £0.21 per week.
  8. The resident complained to the landlord on 9 March 2022 about the caretaking in communal areas element of the service charge, and the lack of communication from the landlord. The landlord acknowledged the complaint by email on 17 March 2022, before sending a formal acknowledgement letter on 24 March 2022.
  9. On 8 April 2022, the landlord emailed the resident and said it would not be able to respond to the complaint that day, as stated in the acknowledgement letter, and would instead issue its response by 26 April 2022.
  10. The landlord sent its stage 1 response on 22 April 2022, in which it said:
    1. The services provided as part of the service charge were listed in the tenancy agreement, and the charge was reviewed annually.
    2. It accepted there were issues with service delivery, and had reduced the service charge accordingly. 
    3. There was no reasonable way to evidence how service charges were calculated historically (due to the merger).
    4. Had the resident not highlighted the issue, he may have been overcharged for the 2022/2023 financial year.
    5. It offered £100 as a gesture of goodwill in recognition of service delivery issues and for the possibility he would have been overcharged. It extended this offer to other affected residents.
    6. It said it had improved its review process for how service charges were calculated.
  11. The resident rejected the compensation offer on 25 April 2022 and escalated the complaint. It is not clear exactly when but the resident requested that those with longer tenancies should be offered more compensation than residents who had recently moved to the area.
  12. In the landlord’s stage 2 response of 19 May 2022 it noted that the service charge had been substantially reduced, and again acknowledged that there had been service delivery issues. It re-iterated its £100 goodwill gesture, but said the payment was not a refund of any perceived historic service charge overpayment, so it would not consider paying more for residents that had lived in the affected properties longer.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. While the resident submits that he has been overpaying service charges since 2015, there is no evidence of a formal complaint being made about the issue until March 2022. The Ombudsman encourages residents to raise complaints in a timely manner, normally within 12 months of the issues arising, so that the landlord can consider them whilst they are still ‘live’ and whilst the evidence is available to properly investigate (reflected at paragraph 42(c) of the Scheme). Therefore, in this case, we would only reasonably consider events from March 2021 onwards. As a result, the starting point for this investigation is August 2021, when the resident began actively pursuing further information in relation to the service charge.
  2. Paragraph 42(d) of the Scheme says that the Ombudsman may not investigate a complaint which concerns the level of rent or service charge or the amount of the rent or service charge increase. This Service has not, therefore, assessed the landlord’s position on the level of service charge, but has considered whether its explanation and communication with the resident following his queries was appropriate and reasonable. Complaints concerning the level of rent or service charge are best considered by the First Tier Tribunal (Property Chamber), which can establish whether service charges are reasonable or payable.
  3. The resident has also said he wished to complain on behalf of himself and other affected residents. This Service can consider complaints on behalf of a group of residents (reflected at paragraph 48 of the Scheme) but specific requirements must be met before we can do so. In this case, the resident has not taken his complaint through the landlord’s complaints process as a ‘group complaint’ (as a lead complainant on behalf of a number of named individuals) in the first instance. Further, it does not seem that all such individuals would have been affected by the issues equally. As a result, it would not be appropriate for the Ombudsman to consider this as a group complaint. Instead, this investigation has considered the landlord’s response to the resident’s concerns, and the impact on him personally.

Response to the resident’s service charge queries

  1. The resident’s occupancy agreement says the landlord will provide the services for the property outlined in section 3.1 (caretaking/cleaning and grounds maintenance), and service charges are split equally between all properties receiving the service. It says it will consult residents on any changes it wishes to make in relation to the service charge. Section 4.3 says it will state the charges for services it provides and how much rent goes towards caretaking (of communal areas), cleaning and security. The service charge is reviewed once a year and it will give one month’s notice of any increase.
  2. The landlord wrote to the resident to outline its charges for the following year, in line with its policy. The resident said he initially phoned the landlord on 17 August 2021. However, he then had to chase for a response by phone a few days later before sending a letter and 2 further emails, which is unacceptable.
  3. Having referred the enquiry to a specific team to deal with on 7 October 2021, the landlord should have monitored the situation to ensure a response was sent promptly. It should not have taken the resident to chase for a response in order to get a reply. The landlord did ultimately respond on 6 December 2021, but this was nearly 4 months after the enquiry was first raised. The resident having to wait 4 months for a response amounts to unacceptable delay.
  4. Repeatedly having to chase the issue caused the resident inconvenience. He also had his expectations raised that answers would be provided, only to then have to chase again. The resident should not have had to say he would escalate to his MP/this Service in order to get a response. The evidence shows the landlord’s communication with the resident and between departments was poor.
  5. From the initial contact until 6 December 2022, the landlord provided very limited information to the resident in relation to the service charge (and it is not clear exactly what he was told on 6 December 2022). The evidence suggests the landlord was not able to provide comprehensive responses or justify the charges, so instead did not respond, which was not reasonable. There is also no evidence that it explained how or why it decided to significantly reduce the caretaking of communal areas element of the service charge, which represents a further failing.
  6. The landlord’s compensation policy says in addition to monetary payments it can consider practical action such as addressing the level of rent or service charge. This investigation cannot look at the how the landlord calculated the service charge, or whether the amount was fair, but it was reasonable for it to reduce the service charge following the resident’s enquiry. It was also appropriate for it to offer £100 compensation to address his concerns about service delivery, given that it was unable to demonstrate that the services had been provided.
  7. However, the £100 did not acknowledge the 4 months of delays and inconvenience the resident suffered having to chase, as well as the frustration caused. The landlord should therefore pay the resident £200 compensation (less the £100 already offered if this has been paid) to recognise the impact on the resident. This is in line with this Service’s remedies guidance where there has been maladministration, but it had no permanent or long-term effect.

Complaint Handling

  1. The landlord has a 2 stage policy to resolve formal complaints. It says it will acknowledge a stage 1 complaint within 5 working days and will normally send a stage 1 response within 10 days of formally acknowledging the complaint. If a resident remains unhappy, the complaint can be escalated to stage 2. It will aim to review the complaint within 20 working days of accepting the review, and issue a stage 2 response within a further 10 working days.
  2. The landlord acknowledged the resident’s complaint by email in 6 working days. However, it then took a further 5 working days to send a formal acknowledgement, and a further 21 working days to issue a stage 1 response. Although this Service acknowledges the landlord emailed the resident to let him know it required more time to investigate, 32 working days from complaint receipt to response was an unreasonable length of time and outside of the timescale set out in its policy. Further, the delayed formal acknowledgment letter appeared to be an unnecessary step which protracted the complaint investigation and caused delays.
  3. Further, the landlord’s complaint responses did not acknowledge or apologise for the communication failures and delays the resident faced in trying to get answers to his enquiry. Its compensation policy does not set out amounts, but it says it can offer discretionary compensation, for example when it has taken an unreasonable length of time to resolve a situation. The landlord did not consider offering the resident compensation for the length of time it took to respond to him, or inconvenience caused by him having to chase a response. It would have been reasonable for it to do so.
  4. The landlord acknowledged some failings and made some attempt to put things right, but the offer was not proportionate to the failings identified by our investigation. There was, therefore, maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling. An order has been made that the landlord pay £150 compensation to address the impact its complaint handling failures had on the resident.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was maladministration in relation to the landlord’s:
    1. Response to the resident’s service charge queries.
    2. Complaint Handling.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks of the date of this report, the landlord is ordered to:
    1. Provide a written apology to the resident for the failings identified in this report.
    2. Pay directly to the resident, and not offset against any monies owed, £350 compensation (less £100 if this has already been paid) as follows:
      1. £200 for the inconvenience, time and trouble caused by its failings in handling service charge queries.
      2. £150 for its complaint handling failures.

Recommendation

  1. The landlord is recommended to consider the learning from this case, and comply with existing statutory obligations to ensure that its complaint handling practices fully align with the principles of the updated Ombudsman Complaint Handling Code published 1 April 2024.