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Raven Housing Trust Limited (202200090)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202200090

Raven Housing Trust Limited

27 April 2023

 

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:
    1. The landlord’s administration of the service charge account.
    2. The level and reasonableness of service charges.
    3. The landlord’s response to parking space issues.

Background

  1. The resident has a lease with the landlord and lives in a block of flats.
  2. In 2020 the landlord’s contractors carried out repairs to the roof of the flats. Whilst the repairs were ongoing, they placed a skip in the resident’s parking space which meant he could not use it. The resident issued the landlord with invoices for a penalty parking charge, but the landlord refused to pay this. It said the invoices had no contractual or legal basis. However, it offered the resident £100 compensation for any inconvenience he was caused.
  3. Throughout 2020 and 2021, the resident and the landlord corresponded about service charges. The resident said he had disputed various repair jobs that had been included in the service charges for the previous few years. The landlord said that it had tried to resolve the resident’s queries, but he had not provided a list of the items he wished to dispute. It issued the resident with a pre-action protocol for debt, due to the amount he owed in service charge arrears. In 2021, the resident continued to complain about not being able to access his parking space the previous year due to the skip being placed there. He said he believed the Deed of Variation to his lease did not allow the landlord to suspend the use of his parking space.
  4. The landlord said that the resident had no recourse through its complaints process about the parking issue, as the matter was more than six months old. Though the landlord also clarified that the Deed of Variation gave the resident the right to park in the space, but it could suspend the use of the space in certain circumstances. The resident wanted the landlord to acknowledge that he owned the parking space. The landlord did not accept this and said the resident only had the right of use of the space.
  5. In November 2021 the resident complained to the landlord about the service charges. When the landlord responded, it said the resident had still not provided detail about the service charges he disputed. The landlord explained that it was willing to engage in a discussion around this and the resident should provide a full list of the items he disputed. It also addressed other concerns the resident had raised about a member of its staff.
  6. The resident then provided the landlord with a list of the service charge items that he disagreed with. The landlord agreed that four items should be removed or capped. However, it said items from 2009 to 2015 which the resident had included were historic, so it had not considered these. It said this was because there was a six-year limitation period on service charge disputes at the First Tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) (the Tribunal).
  7. The landlord subsequently responded to the resident about his parking space complaint. It explained that the Deed of Variation included a new clause relating to the parking space and which gave it the ability to change the designation of the space. The landlord said the resident could not issue it with a parking charge for land that it owned. However, it again confirmed it was willing to pay him £100 compensation as a gesture of goodwill.

Jurisdiction

  1. What we can and cannot consider is called the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. This is governed by the Housing Ombudsman Scheme. When a complaint is brought to the Ombudsman, we must consider all the circumstances of the case as there are sometimes reasons why a complaint will not be investigated.
  2. Paragraph 42(e) of the Scheme states that the Ombudsman will not investigate complaints concerning the level of rent or service charge or the amount of a rent or service charge increase.
  3. Therefore, this Service will not consider the resident’s concerns about the level or reasonableness of service charges. Should the resident wish to pursue this aspect of his complaint, he would need to consider making a claim via the Tribunal. Further details about the work of the Tribunal can be found on its website here: https://www.gov.uk/courts-tribunals/first-tier-tribunal-property-chamber
  4. Accordingly, this report has focussed on the landlord’s administration of the service charge account and its response to parking space issues.

Assessment and findings

Administration of service charges

  1. The resident had repeatedly advised the landlord in 2020 and 2021 that he disputed a large number of items for which he had been charged. The landlord acted reasonably in trying to engage with the resident about this by asking him to confirm which items were in dispute. He provided a list of the disputed items in January 2022.
  2. Once the landlord received this list of disputed charges, it investigated his concerns. The landlord did not consider items in dispute that were historic (more than six years old) taking into account the six-year limitation period on service charge disputes at the Tribunal.
  3. It is not for this Service to make a finding on whether historical service charge items are ‘out of time’, as this would be a matter for the Tribunal. Though as set out in the jurisdiction section above, this Service has considered the landlord’s response to charges in dispute from 2016 onwards.
  4. In respect of the disputed items from 2016 onwards, the landlord took appropriate steps to address the resident’s concerns. It reviewed the items that were in dispute and identified items that needed to be removed or capped. It also provided an explanation for the items where it thought the charge was justified. Finally, the landlord also provided an explanation to the resident for a large charge that was a Section 20 invoice. In reviewing the service charges and giving explanations to the resident, the landlord’s response here was reasonable.

Parking space

  1. The lease sets out what is owned by the resident under ‘demised premises’ and does not include a parking space. A Deed of Variation to the lease was then agreed between the landlord and the resident in 2009. The Deed of Variation added new clauses, some of which related to the car parking space.
  2. The resident said a particular parking space was designated to him by the landlord during the process of handover during which a lockable bollard was provided to him. The resident explained he had the keys to the lockable bollard on the parking space he had been allocated.
  3. The landlord had initially thought the resident had the right to use any parking space on a ‘first come first served’ basis. It advised the resident that a specific space with a lockable bollard was not an option, because it said there was no resident ownership of the space itself. However, after the resident made the landlord aware that he did in fact have the keys to the lockable bollard on the parking space in question, it accepted that its previous comments about this were incorrect. However, the evidence suggests that the landlord was correct to say that the parking space was designated to the resident, and that he does not own it.
  4. The reason the landlord’s contractors were able to place a skip in that space was because the bollard was broken, and the resident had not arranged for the landlord to have it repaired (as he did not want this added to his service charge). Although the Deed of Variation appears to allow the landlord to designate a different parking space to the resident, it did not do so.
  5. It is not known for certain how long the skip remained in the parking space. The landlord has told this Service that the resident had advised it he would invoice it £100 a day and it received three invoices from him. Based on this, it would seem reasonable to presume that the resident was unable to use the parking space for three days.
  6. It is acknowledged that the resident would have been caused inconvenience as a result of not being able to use the designated parking space for this period. As part of its complaints process, the landlord offered the resident £100 compensation for the inconvenience he had been caused.
  7. Taking into account the length of time the resident was without use of the parking space, the compensation offered by the landlord was reasonable and reflected the level of inconvenience caused to the resident. However, much of the resident’s frustration with the landlord was its refusal to acknowledge that he had a designated parking space. The landlord should therefore apologise to the resident for the confusion and upset it caused him and also for the time and trouble he spent pursuing matters. To reflect this impact on the resident and order has been made, below, to increase the compensation payable to the resident to £250.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was service failure in respect of the landlord’s response to parking space issues.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was no maladministration in respect of the landlord’s administration of the service charge account.
  3. In accordance with paragraph 42(e) of the Scheme, the resident’s complaint about the level and reasonableness of service charges are outside this Service’s jurisdiction.

Orders

  1. The landlord should take the following action:
    1. Apologise to the resident for the confusion and upset caused by its response to the parking space issue.
    2. Pay the resident total compensation of £250 (less any amount already paid) in respect of the parking space issue.
  2. The landlord should confirm its compliance with the above orders to this Service within four weeks.

 Recommendations

  1. The landlord to arrange for its contractors to liaise with it if a skip needs to be placed into a designated parking space. The landlord can then make the affected resident/s aware of this in advance and try to arrange alternative parking arrangements.