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Stonewater Limited (202310119)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202310119

Stonewater Limited

24 February 2025


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 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. She moved into the property on 12 July 2022. The property is a 3-bedroom new-build house built as part of a scheme. The property has a number of horticultural features such as shrubs, bushes and a small tree near to it. The rent includes a service charge for “services provided under the tenancy” which includes general maintenance.
  2. The resident complained on 11 May 2023 that she had paid a service charge, but no services had been carried out. She said bushes to the side of the property were overgrown and made the area look untidy.
  3. The landlord upheld the complaint and sent its stage 1 response on 8 June 2023. It said:
    1. It was sorry the service had not been provided.
    2. The grounds maintenance should be covered by a management company. However, it was responsible for part of the grounds maintenance including trees and hedges.
    3. Its surveyor was working to make sure all areas of concern were addressed.
    4. As a service had not been provided since the resident moved in, it would arrange a refund to her rent account and a member of staff would contact her. This would be from the start of the tenancy to the date it expected grounds maintenance to start. It did not clarify whether it would be a full service charge refund, or solely the grounds maintenance.
  4. The resident requested the complaint be escalated on 8 June 2023.
  5. The landlord contacted the resident on 16 June 2023 and said:
    1. 50p of the £4.28 weekly service charge was for grounds maintenance.
    2. The rest was for the management company and the landlord’s admin fee.
    3. It would refund £24.50 (50p x 49 weeks) which was refunded 22 June 2023. The refund included a small period of time before the resident moved in.
  6. The resident requested to escalate the complaint again on 7 August 2023 as no one had attended for grounds maintenance. The landlord upheld the complaint and sent its response on 25 August 2023, as follows:
    1. It said the property is part of a wider new-build scheme and her area had been missed off the contract schedule during the procurement process.
    2. It had temporarily arranged for a substitute contractor to attend and grounds maintenance should have been completed the previous week.
    3. It would refund £241.31 to her rent account made up of:
      1. £151.43 (£4 per week from 12 July 2022 to 2 April 2023).
      2. £89.88 (£4.28 per week from 3 April 2023 to 27 August 2023).
    4. It provided a detailed breakdown of the service charge.
    5. It apologised for the delayed stage 2 response and offered an additional £400 compensation made up of:
      1. £200 for complaint handling.
      2. £100 for inconvenience caused.
      3. £100 for grounds maintenance and complaint delays.

Events after the end of the landlord’s complaints process.

  1. The resident contacted the Ombudsman and said she was happy with the response. The landlord’s service charge team then wrote to the resident on 31 August 2023 and said it failed to provide a grounds maintenance service from 1 July 2023 to 20 August 2023 and it would issue a further refund of £22.14. The resident emailed the landlord the next day and said she had still not been told when grounds maintenance would begin.
  2. In a phone call to this service on 7 February 2025, the resident said she was unsure:
    1. Whether grounds maintenance was taking place.
    2. Which areas the landlord was responsible to maintain.

She provided pictures of 2 shrub/tree area’s near her home which she thinks are untidy.

Assessment and findings

Landlord’s handling of the service charge queries.

  1. The tenancy agreement says:
    1. The resident’s “home” includes the garden, paths, hedges, trees and fences owned by the landlord.
    2. There was a £4 weekly service charge for general maintenance (which could be increased, added to, removed, or reduced.)
    3. The resident is responsible to maintain and keep any garden let as part of the “home” tidy and free from rubbish.
    4. The landlord is responsible to take reasonable care to keep common passageways… and any other common parts… in reasonable repair.
  2. The resident is aware she is responsible to maintain the horticultural features either side of her front door. However, she said it was not clear exactly which other shrubs/plants/bushes she was responsible for. She was not sure what service she could expect to receive for grounds maintenance. The tenancy agreement does not clarify this.
  3. Landlords are entitled to contract third parties to provide services which it is responsible for. However, the landlord is ultimately obliged to ensure the services are provided properly and to a good standard. It is therefore expected that landlords will closely monitor and manage those contracts. There was no record the landlord was carrying out proactive checks to monitor whether grounds maintenance was taking place from when the resident moved in. This was a failing and meant no grounds maintenance was carried out for over a year after the resident moved in.
  4. When dealing with service charges, it is also important that landlords are as proactive as possible in their approach to monitoring and checking that services are being provided to the required standard. It is not reasonable for residents to pay for services they are not receiving, or to be the primary means of monitoring the effectiveness of a landlord’s contractors or service providers, as in this case. The resident complained that no grounds maintenance had taken place on 11 May 2023. However, it was not clear if the landlord took any action to follow this up until 31 May 2023, 20 days later. Whilst contacting its estate management team and contractor was an appropriate response, the landlord should have been monitoring the site itself, and acting with more urgency to follow up the resident’s concerns, which was a failing.
  5. The landlord provided pictures to this service of grounds maintenance works completed in September 2023. It also provided attendance logs which showed grounds maintenance was completed at least twice a month between October 2023 and May 2024. However, it was unclear exactly what work was completed, or if grounds maintenance was completed outside or near to the resident’s property. An internal landlord email from 29 May 2024 subsequently said “there may be a further gap covering 20 August 2023 to 30 September 2023 as the contractors did not appear to have provided a service during this time.”
  6. Whilst there were failings, the landlord identified and acknowledged them. This investigation cannot look at the how the landlord calculated the service charge, or whether the amount was fair. However, overall the landlord was generous in its offer of compensation. This was because it refunded the full service charge for the period of 12 July 2022 to 20 August 2023, rather than just the portion of service charge which related to grounds maintenance. The evidence suggests the landlord also appeared to make a separate refund solely for the grounds maintenance charge. This meant the resident received a grounds maintenance refund twice, at least for a number of weeks. The landlord also offered a further £100 for the inconvenience caused to the resident, which was appropriate.
  7. The Ombudsman also acknowledges the significant improvements and steps the landlord has taken since this complaint in relation to grounds maintenance and estate services. It has:
    1. Changed contractor after it re-tendered the contracts in April 2023.
    2. Drafted a new specification and resident guide on estate services which highlights what residents can expect to be carried out as part of grounds maintenance.

The landlord therefore also demonstrated it has learned from the complaint. Again, this is in line with our dispute resolution principles.

  1. The Ombudsman would have found reasonable redress had the issue been fully resolved at stage 2. However, grounds maintenance continued to be missed. The resident also incurred further inconvenience chasing. Therefore a finding of service failure is made. Given the compensation already paid, in line with our remedies guidance, there is nothing to warrant an order for the landlord to pay any further compensation.

Complaint handling

  1. There were delays escalating the complaint, however the landlord paid £200 in recognition its poor complaint handling. It also offered a further (portion of) £100 in recognition for the overall delays. It used its complaints process to provide the resident with details about the grounds maintenance and a breakdown of the service charge. The compensation offered demonstrated that the landlord took the complaint seriously and sought to ‘put things right’ in line with the Ombudsman’s dispute resolution principles. There was therefore reasonable redress.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was service failure in the landlord’s handling service charge queries.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 53.b. of the Scheme, there was reasonable redress in the landlord’s complaint handling.

Order

  1. Within 4 weeks of the date of this report, the landlord is ordered to:
    1. Confirm in writing to this service and the resident:
      1. Which areas near her property will be maintained by the landlord.
      2. How often grounds maintenance will happen and the work she can expect to see.