Leeds Jewish Housing Association Limited (202337294)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202337294

Leeds Jewish Housing Association Limited

22 November 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 handling of the resident’s:
   1. Pursuance of monies due to him under a court order.
   2. Concerns about a standing order on the rent account.

Background

2. The resident is a leaseholder and shared owner of the property which is part-owned and maintained by the landlord. The landlord charges rent, service charges and fees for the maintenance and upkeep of the property and its surroundings.
3. The resident was concerned that the landlord was overcharging for repairs and maintenance and brought a claim in the First Tier Tribunal Property Chamber in March 2022. The court issued its decision on 15 May 2022. It found that the landlord had overcharged for some maintenance elements and ordered it to recalculate those elements and refund the difference.
4. The landlord calculated that it owed the resident £378.60 in September 2022. Also in September 2022, the landlord placed a standing order crediting the resident’s rent account with £358.80. It later removed this credit.
5. In November 2022, the resident wrote to the landlord saying that he would begin to withhold his rent unless it paid the sum it owed. He wrote again on 20 November 2022 and said, if he did not receive the payment by 22 November 2022, he would make a formal complaint. He also asked for an explanation of the credit applied to the rent account.
6. The resident made a formal complaint on 2 December 2022 stating that the landlord had yet to pay the sum ordered by the court and asking for “an explanation for the £358.80 standing order credit and a correction to my rent account statement”.
7. In the landlord’s stage 1 response of 12 December 2022 it said it had credited £7.20 to the resident’s rent account and would repay the remaining £371.40 by 23 December 2022. (the £7.20 was associated with a different charge applied by the landlord). It apologised for the delay in processing the payment. It said that it applied the standing order credit because of “an admin error, whereby the payment was allocated to the wrong tenant account.” It said, “This was then reversed as soon as it was discovered.”
8. The resident escalate his complaint on 9 January 2023, saying the landlord had ignored his emails since September 2022, failed to explain the credit applied to his rent account, and failed to pay him the money it owed. He said it was clear the landlord had not reversed the error immediately and said his December 2022 rent statement had been “manipulated retrospectively”.
9. In the landlord’s stage 2 response of 13 January 2023, it said it had already apologised for the delay in making the payment at stage 1. It had investigated the resident’s claim that it had manipulated the rent account statement but found no evidence this was the case. It had, instead, made a “human error” and reversed it promptly.
10. The landlord recalculated the charges and paid a sum to the resident in January 2023.
11. The resident was not satisfied with this response and brought his complaint to this Service. He said he wanted explanations for the unreasonable delays in the landlord repaying the amount ordered by the court and a full apology. He also wanted an explanation for the delays in addressing the credit to the rent account which, he said, the landlord had done deliberately.

Assessment and findings

Pursuance of monies due under the court order

12. What the Ombudsman can and cannot consider is called the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. This is governed by the Scheme. When someone complains to this Service, the Ombudsman must consider all the circumstances of the case, as there are sometimes reasons why we will not investigate a complaint.
13. Paragraph 41.c of the Scheme states that the Ombudsman cannot investigate complaints which “concern matters that were the subject of court proceedings where judgement on the merits was given”. This Service does not have the authority to intervene in matters which have been considered by, and ruled on, by the courts (including the First Tier Tribunal). By extension, where an order has been made by the courts in response to a claim, it is not for the Ombudsman to enforce that order or dictate the terms of compliance.
14. It is not disputed that the monies owed by the landlord to the resident were due as a result of the Tribunal considering the merits of his claim, issuing a ruling, and making an order. As a result, the resident’s complaint about delays in the landlord complying with that order is not one the Ombudsman can consider. There are separate processes prescribed by the court system for pursuing non-compliance with court orders, and the resident may wish to seek independent legal advice in that regard if he wishes to take this matter further.
15. As this complaint falls outside the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction in accordance with paragraph 41.c of the Scheme, it is not considered further in this report.  

Concerns about a standing order on the rent account

16. The landlord addressed the resident’s concerns about the credit on his rent account at the earliest opportunity, in its stage 1 response. It reasonably explained that the credit had been an administrative error and had been removed promptly when it became aware of the mistake. In response, the resident submitted that the activity on his account was deliberate and malicious and the landlord’s timeline of events was not accurate.
17. The resident says the landlord became aware of the error in September 2022, whereas the landlord says it found out in early October 2022. This Service has seen no evidence to show precisely when the landlord first identified the error, but the correspondence suggests the discrepancy was a matter of weeks. Equally, while this Service notes the resident’s strength of feeling in relation to the credit and the landlord’s motives, there is no evidence that the landlord applied the credit to his account deliberately or delayed in removing it.
18. The resident also says that the landlord did not remove the credit as quickly as it could and that it was still on his account in December 2022. However, the landlord has provided a rent account statement showing that it removed the credit in mid-October 2022 as transaction numbers on its system are numbered chronologically. The transaction with the number before the credit’s transaction number was dated 10 October 2022 and the transaction immediately after the credit was dated 17 October 2022. This evidence supports the landlord’s account of events and its response to the complaint was therefore reasonable and evidence-based.
19. The resident also says that the landlord failed to communicate adequately about the credit to his account between October 2022 and January 2023. However, the records show that he first raised the issue on 20 November 2022, after receiving a statement of account from the landlord on 15 November 2022. He then complained formally on 5 December 2022, a little over 2 weeks later. He received a response to this complaint setting out the landlord’s position on 12 December 2022. This was a prompt and appropriate response to the resident’s concerns. As a result, a finding of no maladministration is made and no further action is necessary.

Determination

20. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was no maladministration by the landlord in its handling of the resident’s concerns about a standing order on the rent account.
21. In accordance with paragraph 41.c of the Scheme, the landlord’s handling of the resident’s pursuance of monies due to him under a court order is outside the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.