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London & Quadrant Housing Trust (202200817)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202200817

London & Quadrant Housing Trust

11 October 2022


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 water bill rebate.

Background

  1. The resident is a tenant of the landlord. Up until the time of the events in this complaint charges for water usage had been part of her rent charges.
  2. The landlord wrote to the resident on 2 February 2022, notifying her of an incoming rebate from her water company for overpayments made towards her water bill. The landlord explained that the resident’s rent and service charge account were in arrears, so any credit would be offset against those arrears, with any remaining balances refunded. After taking out the arrears, the refund was calculated to be £11.94 out of the £562.62 rebate she received. However, this was revisited after the resident complained and an additional £165.90 was refunded, totalling £177.84.
  3. The resident complained about the landlord’s calculations, and argued that, as she had overpaid her water bill, she should be entitled to all of the money back.
  4. The landlord explained in response that its policy was for rent to be paid in advance to stop resident’s accounts going into arrears. Its final stance regarding the refund was that its processes were correct, and the correct refund (minus the arrears) was £177.84.
  5. The resident brought her complaint to the Ombudsman as she disagreed with the landlord’s decision.


Assessment and findings

  1. The resident’s tenancy agreement states that the landlord may offset any money it owes the resident, from any debt or arrears that the resident has. It also states that rent and all other charges must be paid every week in advance.
  2. The evidence in this case suggests the money owed to the resident arose as a result of an agreement between the landlord and the water company to charge a standard (non–metered) fee to the landlord which would cover the water and sewage supply for all of its residents. As such, the landlord was acting as a third-party seller of water and sewage which it purchased from the water company and ‘sold’ to its residents.
  3. The charge for water was included in the rent paid by the resident. Recent case law established that landlords may only charge residents the same amount for water and sewage services as the water company charges the landlord. Because the landlord had charged residents more than the water company charged it, this meant that the landlord owed residents what the water company had charged it minus what it had charged them. The evidence shows the landlord sought to do so following the most recent ruling. Therefore, it was the landlord rather than water company who owed a rebate to the affected residents.
  4. At the time the refund was issued, the resident’s rent account was in arrears. Because in this situation the refund is owed by the landlord and not the water company, as per the terms of the tenancy agreement, the landlord was permitted to use some or all of this money to offset money owed by the resident and to prevent the resident’s account from being shown as in arrears.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was no maladministration by the landlord in respect of the complaint.