Home Group Limited (202128010)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202128010

Home Group Limited

4 July 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 the landlord’s handling of the resident’s:
    1. reports that it has charged for services it has not provided;
    2. requests for a refund of service charges, and;
    3. associated complaint.

Background

  1. The resident lives in a two bedroom house situated within a larger estate with communal areas.
  2. In 2006 the resident signed an assured tenancy agreement for the property. This agreement stipulates her responsibility to keep her gardens tidy and to pay the service charges. The service charges include payments towards management fees, communal landscaping/grounds maintenance, and estate cleaning.
  3. When the previous grounds maintenance contractor visited to cut the communal grassed areas, it would also cut the resident’s front lawn. There were concerns about a lack of service provision in the communal areas and in November 2021 the landlord appointed a new contractor to address this. With the change of provider, the resident’s front lawn was not included.
  4. The resident contacted the landlord to enquire about a possible refund for the services not received. Over the course of a year she chased for a response on at least five occasions: two of these were where the resident tried to raise an official complaint, which was accepted in February 2022.
  5. During the complaints process the landlord opened two stage 1 complaints as the time allowed to escalate had expired. It carried out a grounds maintenance review and found the new contractor had improved the service. It advised the contract did not include cutting the resident’s front lawn. The landlord initially offered a service charge refund of £74.25 for the lack of service in the communal areas. This was later increased to £115.62 plus an additional £75 compensation for the complaint handling service failure, totalling £190.62. The resident was not satisfied and escalated to stage 2.
  6. The landlord upheld the complaint in its final response. It reiterated the offer of £190.62 and apologised for the time it took to communicate with the resident, it acknowledged this needed to improve. The resident remained dissatisfied and continued her complaint to this Service. As a resolution, the resident would like increased compensation and to be treated with improved customer care in the future.

Assessment and findings

Charges for services the resident has not received.

  1. Through its service charge policy, the landlord has responsibility for ensuring it receives value for money and monitors the applicable services. This includes grounds maintenance.
  2. In accordance with its service charge policy and with the intention to improve grounds maintenance service provision, the landlord terminated the previous contractor’s agreement and negotiated new contracts.
  3. The landlord did not recognise the previous contractors had included the resident’s front lawn in their provision. Therefore, this had not been accounted for in the service charge meaning the resident had not been charged for but benefitted from this service.
  4. It is reasonable the resident believed she was paying for the cutting of her front lawn through her service charge, understandably she complained when this service ceased, and the wider estate grounds maintenance service was unsatisfactory. Through the complaints process the landlord confirmed the contractor’s areas of responsibility to the resident, and there has been no detriment suffered by the front lawn being cut.
  5. This Service finds the landlord has dealt with reports it charged for a service the resident had not received in a fair and reasonable manner. The landlord changed contractor to improve the service and offered a refund for the months the communal areas were not maintained. Through the complaints process the landlord identified the resident was benefitting from a service she had not been charged for.
  6. In accordance with paragraph 53(b) of the Scheme this Service finds the landlord has provided reasonable redress to the resident by offering the refund of £115.62 for the services not received.

Request for a refund of service charges.

  1. The resident pays a fixed service charge. Fixed service charges are calculated annually and are an estimate of the cost to provide those services for the forthcoming year. The landlord is not obliged to provide refunds nor is it able to recover additional costs if extra charges are incurred.
  2. The landlord’s discretionary compensation policy allows the provision of a payment when the landlord chooses, rather than being obliged to. This policy states if the offer is not accepted within eight weeks it will be withdrawn unless there are exceptional circumstances.
  3. Once the landlord accepted the stage 1 complaint, it calculated and offered a refund for the period the communal grounds maintenance service was not received. The resident did not respond to this offer within the landlord’s eight-week timeframe; however, the landlord was happy to extend this and again offered the refund to the resident.
  4. As the landlord was not required to make this payment, and that it reoffered the payment once the case had closed, this Service finds it has acted in a fair and reasonable manner. This Service finds there was no maladministration by the landlord.

Complaint handling

  1. The Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code) lists the expectations of a landlord when handling complaints. It states that a complaint must be acknowledged within five working days, responses provided to stage 1 within ten working days, and stage 2 within 20 working days. The landlord’s online complaint information complies with this.
  2. The Code also states that if the resident requests it, the issue must be logged as a complaint and landlords must address all points raised in the complaint.
  3. The landlord first became aware of the resident’s dissatisfaction in February 2021. The resident tried to raise an official complaint on at least five occasions, specifically in December 2021 when the resident stated she wished to raise an official complaint. This was not accepted until February 2022.
  4. The landlord acknowledged it responded to both the first and second stage 1 complaints outside the timeframes at 95 and 19 working days respectively. The stage 2 response was within its policy.
  5. The landlord’s responses did not fully address all elements of the complaint. The clarification that the resident’s front lawn did not form part of the contract was only provided on 16 November 2022 when it was initially raised in April 2021. In addition, the landlord’s lack of response to the resident’s contacts was not addressed in the first stage 1 complaint.
  6. This Service finds the landlord was slow to accept the complaint, provided late responses, and did not address all elements of the complaint. In its stage 2 response, the landlord acknowledged the service failure and offered £75 compensation which this service determines to be reasonable redress. If the landlord had not made this finding, this Service would have found maladministration in its complaint handling.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 53(b) of the Scheme, this Service finds the landlord has provided reasonable redress to the resident in response to the reports that it charged for services not provided.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, this Service finds there was no maladministration by the landlord in respect of the service charge refund request.
  3. In accordance with paragraph 53(b) of the Scheme, this Service finds the landlord has provided reasonable redress to the resident for the complaint handling.

Recommendations

  1. The landlord is to reoffer the resident the £190.62 payment if this has not already been accepted.
  2. The landlord is to offer a meeting with the resident. The purpose of this is to provide an opportunity to discuss the concerns regarding the service charges. The resident is not obliged to attend if she does not wish to.
  3. This Service has found it has been hampered in its decision making because of several references made by both the landlord and resident to interactions which have not been documented by the landlord. It is recommended the landlord reviews this Service’s Knowledge and Information Management spotlight report.