London & Quadrant Housing Trust (L&Q) (202209142)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202209142

London & Quadrant Housing Trust

06 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 response to the resident’s complaint about ownership of her allocated parking bay.

Background

2. The resident initially owned the property, which is a two-bedroom flat, under a shared-ownership agreement with the landlord. The resident purchased a 40% share in the property 31 May 2011, and this was subsequently staircased to 100% on 17 August 2021.
3. On 23 July 2021, prior to purchasing the remaining share of the property, the resident raised an online complaint asking the landlord to investigate her concerns over her allocated parking bay. She explained that she paid an additional sum for a garage when she purchased the property in 2011 but it was missing from the deeds. The landlord initially responded confirming that the resident had an allocated parking bay for use and that there were no garages on the development. It appears that there was some confusion as to the resident’s use of the term “garage” to refer to the allocated bay.
4. The parties continued to correspond about the resident’s ownership of the parking bay between August 2021 and March 2022. The landlord maintained that although the resident had an exclusive right to park in an allocated bay, she did not own the parking space outright. The landlord referred to the relevant parts of the resident’s lease and advised the resident to seek legal advice.
5. In June 2022, the resident asked the landlord to provide a formal complaint response to the complaint first raised on 23 July 2021. The landlord sent a complaint response by email on 27 July 2022. It stated that the parking bay was bought as a leasehold, meaning the resident had sole access but did not own the freehold. Following contact from this Service, the landlord issued a further complaint response on 16 August 2022. It upheld its response of 27 July 2022, stating that while the resident remained the leaseholder of the property, she had the right to park and use the allocated bay, but she did not own either the leasehold or the freehold of that area of land.
6. The resident has stated that she wants the landlord to confirm her ownership of the parking bay, or to return the sum she paid for it, together with interest.

Assessment and findings

Scope of Investigation

7. The resident in her correspondence with this Service, expressed that the outcome she is seeking is for the landlord to either grant her ownership of the parking bay or return the relevant fee paid towards the parking bay, inclusive of interest.
8. The Ombudsman cannot make findings about the resident’s legal ownership of the parking bay, including whether she should be granted the freehold of the land, or issued with a refund. This investigation is therefore limited to consideration of how the landlord responded to the resident’s complaint about ownership of the parking bay. The resident may, in the circumstances, wish to consider seeking independent legal advice.

The landlord’s response to the resident’s complaint about ownership of her allocated parking bay

9. There is no evidence that the resident contacted the landlord to enquire about the ownership of her allocated parking bay prior to the formal complaint of 23 July 2021. For that reason, it may have been appropriate for the landlord to initially seek to deal with the resident’s concerns as an enquiry, outside of its formal complaints process. However, as it did not confirm to the resident that it was taking that approach, and its records indicate that the complaint was passed to the relevant team to respond, the landlord should have responded in line with the requirements of its Complaints Policy.
10. The landlord’s complaints policy confirms at paragraph 3 that a complaint can be made online. This was the resident’s chosen method to lodge her complaint on 23 July 2021. The landlord’s complaints policy goes on to state that they aim to resolve the complaint, “there and then”. They confirm they will write within 10 working days after receipt of the complaint to explain the outcome of their investigation. The policy also states that if the landlord is unable to resolve the complaint it will explain why and write again within a further 10 working days.
11. If the complaint is escalated to stage 2, the policy states that the landlord will contact the resident for information and a response should follow within 20 working days of the request to escalate. Again, where this is not possible an explanation will be provided, followed by a written response within a further 10 working days.
12. The landlord’s records indicate that the matter was allocated as a complaint on 16 August 2021, however, the landlord failed to provide a response in the first 10 working days from 23 July 2021, nor was there any correspondence providing an explanation for the delay. The resident sent a chaser email some three weeks later on 14 August 2021, followed by two additional chaser emails on 19 August 2021 and 8 January 2022. The resident’s email of 19 August 2021 implies that there had been some form of contact between the parties around that time, however, there is no record of this in the information provided to this service.
13. The landlord did not provide a written response to the resident until 14 January 2022, nearly six months after the complaint was lodged. When the landlord finally responded, there was no apology and no reference to its complaints handling policy. It simply answered the resident’s question and did not review or comment on the service provided. This level of service was unacceptable and fell far short of the landlord’s published standards.
14. There was a considerable amount of correspondence between the resident and the landlord between January 2022 until the date of the stage 1 complaint response, in which the landlord maintained, with reference to the resident’s lease, that she did not own the parking space. The landlord did consult with the relevant team to discuss the terms of the resident’s lease, and it did encourage the resident to seek legal advice, which was appropriate in the circumstances.
15. The Ombudsman finds that, following the initial delay, the landlord did take reasonable steps to answer the resident’s concerns and to provide the resident with the required information and support. It is noted, however, that there was some inconsistency in the information provided to the resident in the stage 1 and final complaint responses. The stage 1 response indicated that the resident owned the leasehold of the parking bay, whereas the final response suggested that although she had a right to use the space, she owned neither a freehold nor the leasehold interest in the land. The landlord must take care to ensure that it is communicating consistently and providing accurate information.
16. Although the landlord did respond to the resident’s query, she had requested a complaint investigation, which the landlord failed to provide for over a year. In the language of the Housing Ombudsman Service’s Complaint Handling code, the resident had expressed “dissatisfaction” with the landlord’s handling of the purchase of the property and whilst a response to her question came on 14 January 2022 it did not explain the escalation process; it did not explain whether this was outside the scope of its complaints policy for perhaps being over six months old seeing as it applied to the interpretation of a lease signed in 2011. It did not reach a conclusion by way of a stage 1 complaint. The landlord did not consider whether this fell within the exceptional circumstances exception despite that it raised issues over six months old. In failing to respond in a timely way and in sending a stage 1 response one calendar year later, the landlord failed to meet its service standards.
17. The landlord’s compensation policy offers £10 for failures to respond to queries within 10 working days. Whilst the Ombudsman considers that it cannot at this time assess any detriment caused by this delayed response, it believes that £10 falls far short of a reasonable redress for a resident who had to wait one year to escalate her complaint. To that end and in keeping with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance, the landlord should pay the sum of £100.

Determination

18. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was service failure in the landlord’s response to the resident’s complaint about the ownership of her allocated parking bay.

Orders

19. Within four weeks of the date of this determination the landlord should:
    1. Apologise to the resident for the delay in handling her complaint.
    2. Confirm to the resident in writing what the landlord considers is the nature of the resident’s interest in the allocated parking bay.
    3. Pay the resident compensation of £100 in recognition of the delay in responding to her formal complaint and the inconsistent information provided.

Recommendations

20. The landlord should consider retraining its staff to ensure that complaints sent via the online form do not receive sub-standard service and are considered in line with its policies and procedures.