Clarion Housing Association Limited (202211388)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202211388

Clarion Housing Association Limited

30 April 2024

Our approach

What we can and cannot consider is called the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction and is governed by the Housing Ombudsman Scheme (the Scheme). The Ombudsman must determine whether a complaint comes within their jurisdiction. The Ombudsman seeks to resolve disputes wherever possible but cannot investigate complaints that fall outside of this. 

In deciding whether a complaint falls within its jurisdiction, the Ombudsman will carefully consider all the evidence provided by the parties and the circumstances of the case.

The complaint

1. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s request for a rent reduction due to disrepair at the property.

Determination (jurisdictional decision)

2. 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.
3. After carefully considering all the evidence, I have determined that the complaint, as set out above, is not within the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.

Summary of events

4. The resident was the assured tenant of the property, a 2-bedroom house, since 2015. The landlord is a housing association.
5. The resident instructed solicitors who sent a letter of claim to the landlord, under the Pre-action Protocol for Disrepair Claims, on 1 July 2020. The letter claimed that the property had suffered from damp, mould, and subsidence since the beginning of the tenancy.
6. The disrepair claim was settled by the parties’ solicitors in March 2021 on terms of payment of £2,500 in damages and completion of the repairs within a reasonable timeframe. On 8 September 2021 the landlord decided to sell the property rather than complete the repairs and to offer the resident a permanent move to a different property.
7. In 2022, the resident contacted the Ombudsman about a complaint that her rent was too high given that the property was in disrepair. Following this Service’s intervention in August 2022 the landlord issued a stage 1 response on 19 October 2022. The resident escalated her complaint the same day and the landlord issued its stage 2 response on 15 November 2022.
8. The resident moved out of the property in April 2023.

Reasons

9. Paragraph 42(d) of the Scheme states that the Ombudsman may not consider complaints which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, concern the level of rent or service charge or the amount of the rent or service charge increase.
10. Regardless of the reason the resident was challenging the rent (because she felt the amount was not warranted given the condition of the property), the fundamental issue of the complaint was the level of rent being charged. On that basis, the complaint about rent is outside of the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction and will not be considered further.
11. This Service has considered whether there was any part of the complaint it could consider, such as the condition of the property, as these matters do generally fall within our jurisdiction. However, having reviewed the evidence on file, the timeline indicates that the resident considered the matter of disrepair to have been addressed by the 2021 settlement (albeit with repairs outstanding).
12. It was more than a year later that the resident raised the separate complaint about rent levels and the complaint correspondence in 2022 was solely focused on the issue of how much rent she was paying for the property. The resident’s desired outcome to the complaint was a reduction in rent. As a result, it cannot be said that the resident’s complaint specifically raised the issue of disrepair as something she wanted the landlord to investigate and respond to at that time. Therefore, this issue has not exhausted the landlord’s complaints process.
13. Paragraph 42(a) of the Scheme states that the Ombudsman may not investigate complaints which are made prior to having exhausted a landlord’s complaints procedure. For that reason, there are no issues outside of the rent level complaint which can be investigated by the Ombudsman at this time.