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The Guinness Partnership Limited (202321703)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202321703

The Guinness Partnership Limited

2 April 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. This complaint is about the landlord sending a rent arrears letter to the resident.

Background

  1. The resident is a secure tenant of the landlord. The tenancy began on 23 February 2015.
  2. The landlord sent the resident a rent arrears letter on 17 July 2023. The letter said there were rent arrears, and asked the resident to either pay the arrears or contact the landlord. It also said that if there had been a housing benefit payment in the last few days, the payment would show on the rent account soon.
  3. The resident made a complaint on 26 July 2023. He said the letter was a fraudulent payment demand and there were no arrears.
  4. The landlord sent its stage 1 response on 4 August 2023. It said the letter had been auto-generated by its systems because of a 5-week gap in housing benefit payments. It said it should not have sent the letter, so offered £25 compensation. It said it had put a manual stop on arrears letters for the account to stop it happening again.
  5. The resident was unhappy with the landlord’s response, so escalated his complaint on 16 August 2023. He said he believed the landlord was ‘fraudulent’, and he did not accept that the letter was auto-generated.
  6. The landlord sent its stage 2 response on 11 September 2023. It repeated its explanation from its stage 1 response, and added that its system was designed to auto-generate arrears letters to prompt residents with arrears to contact it. It said it had given feedback to its accounts teams, and increased the compensation offer to £50.
  7. The resident was unhappy with the response, so referred his complaint to us.

Scope of the investigation

  1. Since he referred his complaint to us, the resident has raised a number of further concerns. These include repair issues, antisocial behaviour, the safety of the building, and a later rent arrears letter in July 2024. Under the rules which govern our Service, we can only look into complaints which have completed the landlord’s internal complaints process. These concerns were not part of the complaint the resident initially referred to us, and we have not seen any evidence that they have gone through the landlord’s complaints process. This means we can only look into the complaint the resident originally referred to us, which is his complaint that the landlord incorrectly sent him a rent arrears letter in July 2023.

Assessment and findings

  1. The resident is responsible for paying rent under the tenancy agreement. The rent is due weekly in advance. The resident receives full housing benefit for the property, which is usually paid 4-weekly.
  2. The landlord sent the resident a rent arrears letter on 17 July 2023. The resident says there were no arrears, and he believes the landlord was trying to fraudulently claim extra rent under the threat of eviction. The landlord said the letter was auto-generated due to a gap in housing benefit payments. It accepted that it should not have sent the letter, and offered the resident compensation.
  3. When a landlord accepts it has done something wrong, we consider whether it has done enough to put things right.
  4. The resident believes the landlord was acting maliciously when sending the letter, and that it was trying to harass and intimidate him. While we do not doubt the strength of the resident’s belief that this is the case, we have seen no evidence which supports that belief.
  5. It is standard industry practice for a landlord to contact a resident if their account is in arrears. This is a necessary step social landlords take to determine the cause of any arrears, and to try to avoid the need for legal action. When the resident contacted the landlord and disputed there were arrears, the landlord appropriately investigated his concerns. Its internal notes show it identified that the letter had been auto-generated by its systems because of a gap in housing benefit payments, which made it look like there were arrears on the rent account. It acknowledged that it should not have sent the letter, and made changes to its systems to try and stop any more auto-generated letters. It also appropriately explained this to the resident.
  6. We understand the resident disputes that this was an auto-generated letter. However, there is no evidence to show this was anything other than an auto-generated letter which the landlord sent in error.
  7. Based on the evidence provided, any detriment this error caused the resident was limited to the inconvenience of having to contact the landlord in response. The landlord has offered £50 compensation. This is in line with both its compensation policy and our published remedies guidance for service failures of a short duration. As such, this is a reasonable offer of redress, and it does not need to do anything further to put things right.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 53(b) of the Scheme, the landlord has made an offer of redress prior to our involvement which is enough to put things right.

Recommendations

  1. It is recommended that the landlord pay the resident the £50 compensation offered in its stage 2 response within 4 weeks of the date of this report, if it has not already done so. Our finding of reasonable redress is dependent on the landlord making that payment.
  2. The landlord should contact us within 4 weeks of the date of this determination to set out its intentions regarding the above recommendation.