Applications are open to join the next Housing Ombudsman Resident Panel – find out more Housing Ombudsman Resident Panel.

Notting Hill Genesis (NHG) (202128629)

Back to Top

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202128629

Notting Hill Genesis (NHG)

18 October 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 resident’s complaint is about the landlord’s response to the resident’s request for information on the introduction of a service charge.
  2. The Ombudsman has also considered the associated complaint handling.

Background

  1. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord of a ground floor flat. Her tenancy began in March 2017.
  2. The landlord wrote to the resident on 22 February 2022 notifying her of a change in rent and the introduction of a service charge for the year 2022-2023. The landlord stated that the resident would be charged £10.50 per week. The resident contacted the landlord to question the introduction of the service charge.
  3. The resident raised a complaint on 14 April 2022 about the landlord’s response to her request for information about the service charge. The resident stated that the landlord had not provided a reason as to why she should pay the charge.
  4. The landlord issued its stage 1 complaint response on 28 April 2022. It stated that the resident had not previously been required to pay service charges because these costs were being paid directly by the landlord. It said that it had conducted a review of all service charges and a decision was made to recover the costs in the form of a weekly service charge. The landlord said that the charges were for emergency lighting maintenance, fire servicing and maintenance and electricity. The landlord concluded that it had acted in a legal manner and the action was written into the resident’s tenancy agreement.
  5. Following contact from the Ombudsman in April 2023, the landlord escalated the complaint to stage 2. The landlord issued its stage 2 complaint response on 3 May 2023. The landlord stated that the service charge sub-sections of the resident’s tenancy agreement were crossed out, indicating that no service charge should apply. It said that in order to implement charges, the landlord should have gone through a consultation process with the resident which it did not do and the charge was therefore applied unfairly.
  6. The landlord apologised, offered the resident £250 compensation and said that the service charge would be removed and previous charges credited back to her rent account. The landlord also said that a staff member would be provided with training on the service charge process.
  7. The resident contacted the Ombudsman on 13 March 2024 and said that the landlord had started charging her the weekly service charge again for the year 2024-2025. On 15 April 2024 the landlord confirmed to the Ombudsman that the charge had been removed and the resident’s property would be exempt from future charges.
  8. On 14 October 2024 the resident told the Ombudsman that she did not know whether the landlord had cancelled the service charge.

Assessment and findings

  1. The resident’s tenancy agreement states that before adding to or removing services provided or before seeking to provide a new service, for which the tenant will pay, the landlord will consult with the tenants affected. The resident’s tenancy agreement does not detail any service charges and the service charge sub-section has been crossed out.

The landlord’s response to the resident’s request for information on the introduction of a service charge

  1. The evidence reflects that the landlord failed to provide accurate information to the resident about the service charge in its stage 1 complaint response. At stage 2 of the complaints process, the landlord obtained an independent review of its handling of the charges, which was an appropriate step. The review identified that the landlord failed to accurately follow the procedure for introducing a service charge as it did not engage in a consultation process with the resident prior to introducing the charges. The review found that the tenancy agreement did not show any charges and that the landlord cannot add charges later. As such, there was a clear failing by the landlord to provide accurate information to the resident about this issue.
  2. Where there are failings by a landlord, the Ombudsman’s role is to consider whether suitable remedies have been offered in line with the Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles: be fair, put things right, and learn from outcomes.
  3. The resident experienced distress and inconvenience due to being provided incorrect information by the landlord, as well as incurring time and trouble in pursuing the landlord about the issue. She has previously referred to being elderly and vulnerable, and the evidence available to us indicates that she was very distressed by the service charge being added. The landlord did not identify the failing for approximately 12 months, which would have caused further distress.  
  4. The landlord made efforts to ‘put things right’ by offering the resident £250 compensation in recognition of the distress and inconvenience caused. The amount offered is in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance for when there has been a failing which adversely affected the resident. The Ombudsman therefore considers the landlord’s compensation offer was sufficient redress for the failings identified. The landlord also acted appropriately by refunding the charges paid to the resident’s rent account and by identifying learning for the staff member involved.
  5. However, the evidence indicates that, following the stage 2 response, the landlord again wrongly applied a service charge to the resident’s account for the period 2024–2025, with the resident contacting us in March 2024 with concerns about this. This is likely to have caused the resident further distress and worry. The landlord has provided evidence to the Ombudsman that the service charge was removed from the resident’s account in April 2024. The landlord said that the resident received a credit refund of all service charges incurred in the same week that she was charged at the start of April. While this was reasonable, it is a concern that a further error was made with the service charges. It is unclear how this error occurred, or whether the landlord has taken any steps to prevent a recurrence. As stated above, the resident reported to the Ombudsman that she was unsure whether she was still paying the service charge which suggests that communication has not been clear. In light of this a finding of service failure is made, along with orders for remedy.

The landlord’s complaint handling

  1. Following the 28 April 2022 stage 1 response, the landlord noted that the resident sent a letter dated 18 May 2022 in which she raised the same points that had been addressed at stage 1. This letter has not been provided to the Ombudsman. The landlord responded to the resident on 25 May 2022 with a follow-on letter to the stage 1 complaint response. This contained the original stage 1 outcome, with the addition of details about communicating with a support agency. The landlord’s notes indicate that the resident attended the landlord’s office on 2 August 2022 about the new service charges and the landlord confirmed to her that these were correct.
  2. It is evident that the resident was dissatisfied with the outcome of the stage 1 complaint response and raised this with the landlord on at least 2 occasions in May and August 2022. The Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code defines a complaint as an expression of dissatisfaction. While it is noted that the resident may not have specifically expressed that she wished to escalate the complaint, the landlord ought to have escalated it given that she had expressed her dissatisfaction.
  3. Landlords should take proactive steps to resolve issues at the earliest opportunity. The delay in escalating meant that the stage 2 complaint response was issued more than a year after the stage 1 and resulted in further distress and inconvenience to the resident as the substantive issue remained ongoing. As such, a finding of service failure has been made regarding complaint handling and an order has been made below for the landlord to pay the resident an additional £175 compensation in recognition of the impact of this failing.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure regarding its response to the resident’s request for information about the introduction of a service charge.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord regarding the associated complaint handling.

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks, the landlord must:
    1. pay the resident an additional £175 compensation in recognition of the complaint handling failing (if the £250 previously offered has not already been paid, this should be paid also).
    2. write to the resident, copying in the Ombudsman, apologising for mistakenly applying the service charges in 2024, confirming that there is no longer a service charge applied to her rent account, and providing reassurance that her property has been marked as exempt from future charges.