Wealden District Council (202108316)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202108316

Wealden District Council

18 August 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:
   1. response to the resident’s enquiry regarding service charge invoices;
   2. complaints handling.

Background and summary of events

Background

2. The resident has been a leaseholder at the property of the landlord since 18 February 2008. The landlord is a local authority. The property is a first-floor, one-bedroom flat within a ‘retirement housing’ development.
3. The landlord uses a contractor to provide warden services at the development. The costs of the warden service are recoverable from tenants as part of the service charge, as per the lease.
4. The landlord operates a two stage complaints procedure. The policy notes that a stage one response will be provided within 15 working days of a complaint, and a stage two response within 20 working days of an escalation.
5. The landlord operates an ‘Unreasonably Persistent or Vexatious Complainants Policy’. Under this policy, the landlord may limit contact with a resident by requiring a single method of contact and limit the duration of contact.
6. At the time of the complaint, the landlord had placed contact restrictions on the resident pursuant to its Unreasonably Persistent or Vexatious Complainants Policy. These restrictions included:
   1. that the landlord would not acknowledge receipt of correspondence from the resident;
   2. that the landlord would only spend 30 minutes per month responding to the resident’s correspondence;
   3. that the resident’s correspondence would be responded to in order of receipt.
7. Throughout the period of the complaint, the resident also raised concerns regarding errors in the service charge for the financial years between 2017 and 2020, and also regarding the difference in the amount of service charge charged to leaseholders and other tenants. These concerns have previously been investigated by the Ombudsman (determination reports 202016257 and 202108318), and so will not be the focus of this investigation.

Summary of events

8. On 30 November 2020, the resident advised that following his inspection of the service charge invoices for the financial year 2019-2020, he noted that invoices had been included for two warden service contractors, Contractor A and Contractor B. The resident advised that it was his understanding that Contractor B had taken over from Contractor A the year prior to the 2019-2020 financial year, and so requested an explanation why an invoice for Contractor A had been included.
9. On 8 and 14 December 2020, the resident noted that he had not received a response and advised he would make a formal complaint if the landlord continued not to respond.
10. The resident made a formal complaint on 11 January 2021. The landlord acknowledged this complaint on 20 January 2021 and advised it would endeavour to provide its stage one response by 1 February 2021.
11. The landlord provided a stage one response on 2 February 2021, in which it included the following:
    1. It advised that it considered the resident’s initial request for information about the invoices as an ‘enquiry’, and noted there were contact restrictions in place for the resident regarding correspondence.
    2. It acknowledged, however, that the resident’s communication on 8 December 2020 in which he expressed concern about a lack of a response should have been considered a formal complaint.
    3. It noted that it had agreed to provide its position about how it would treat formal complaints at the time they were made. It acknowledged it had failed to do this in relation to the complaint made on 8 December 2020, for which it apologised.
    4. Regarding the invoices, the landlord advised that Contractor A had continued to provide warden services in the financial year 2019-2020 for another development, separate to the resident’s development.
    5. The landlord also referred the resident to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) (FTT) should he wish to formally dispute any element of the service charge.
12. The resident subsequently escalated his complaint on 23 February 2021. The landlord acknowledged this request on 24 February 2021 and advised it would endeavour to provide its stage two response by 23 March 2021.
13. The landlord provided a stage two response on 24 March 2021, in which it noted it had not received any additional information pursuant to the resident’s complaint for it to consider. It reiterated its apology for initially failing to provide its position on the complaint, and also reiterated that the resident could dispute the service charge at the FTT.
14. In its communications with this service, the landlord confirmed that the resident had not been charged any amount in connection with the invoices from Contractor A for the financial year 2019-2020, nor had any other resident at the resident’s development.

Assessment and findings

Service charge invoice enquiry

15. The Ombudsman would expect a landlord to respond to reasonable enquiries about a service charge and do so within a reasonable timeframe.
16. It is not disputed that the landlord had put in place contact restrictions and that the resident was aware of these restrictions. The landlord did not decline to respond to the resident’s enquiry altogether but would respond once it had the opportunity to view the resident’s enquiry in line with its contact restriction conditions.
17. Given the restrictions in place, the landlord’s delay in providing a response to the resident’s enquiry was reasonable in the circumstances. The landlord also appropriately set out in its stage one response its position that the communication was an enquiry and therefore subject to its contact restrictions. It may, however, have been clearer for the resident had the landlord given a specific timescale for responses to enquiries rather than state how much time it would allocate each month. It is the Ombudsman’s understanding that the landlord has since adopted this approach.
18. While the resident’s initial enquiry remained subject to the landlord’s contact restriction conditions, the landlord appropriately used its stage one response as an opportunity to respond to this enquiry. It appropriately explained that the invoices related to another development, separate to the resident’s development. While it could have been more explicit in explaining that neither the resident, nor any other resident in his development had been charged for this invoice, this was nevertheless evident from the landlord’s explanation.
19. The landlord also used the stage one response to appropriately signpost the resident to the FTT should he wish to challenge any element of the service charge.
20. Given that the resident did not provide any further evidence as part of his complaint escalation, it was reasonable that the landlord reiterated its position in its stage two response, and that it once again signposted the resident to the FTT.

Complaints handling

21. In his communications in December 2020, the resident made it clear he intended to raise a formal complaint should his enquiry not be responded to. It is not evident, however, that he made a formal complaint until 11 January 2021. In its stage one response the landlord advised its position was that the initial expression of dissatisfaction in December 2020 should have been taken to be a formal complaint. While the Ombudsman would not consider this to be synonymous with a complaint, given its position, it was nevertheless appropriate that the landlord apologised for not having responded at this time.
22. In its stage one response the landlord noted that following the Ombudsman’s determination for complaint 201906855 dated 8 January 2021, it had agreed to provide its position on how it would treat a formal complaint. It would do this at the time of the complaint, rather than in accordance with its contact restriction conditions. It was appropriate, therefore, that following the resident’s formal complaint on 11 January 2021, the landlord acknowledged this complaint and provided a timeframe for its stage one response.
23. Following the resident’s escalation request, the landlord also appropriately acknowledged the request and provided a timeframe for its stage two response. It also appropriately measured the resident’s expectations that a large volume of contact across its departments may cause delays to its response.
24. While the landlord’s stage one and stage two responses were both issued one day after the indicative timeframes given, the Ombudsman notes that the landlord was in continuous contact with the resident throughout this period, and this delay would not have had a significant impact on the resident.
25. As noted above, the landlord’s failure to respond to previous complaints was addressed in the Ombudsman’s report reference 201906855 dated 8 January 2021. The Ombudsman therefore considers that the impact of the landlord’s service failure in that respect was addressed by the compensation awarded in that case. The Ombudsman also considers that the landlord rectified the matter as far as it was able to, by changing its practices in response to that report.

Determination (decision)

26. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was no maladministration by the landlord in respect of the complaints regarding its:
    1. response to the resident’s enquiry regarding service charge invoices;
    2. complaints handling.

Reasons

27. Based on the contact restriction conditions in place at the time, it was reasonable for the landlord to have delayed in responding to the resident’s enquiry regarding the service charge invoices.
28. While the landlord accepted its failures in relation to acknowledging the resident’s complaint, these failures were not substantive, and the Ombudsman does not consider the impact on the resident to have been significant.
29. The landlord also appropriately apologised and demonstrated that it had now rectified its approach.
30. The landlord appropriately acknowledged the resident’s complaints and provided its responses within a reasonable timeframe.