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Home Group Limited (202126025)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202126025

Home Group Limited

2 August 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 representative’s concerns regarding the sales process of his late mother’s property.

Background

  1. The resident resided in a two-bedroom, first floor flat within a leasehold retirement scheme. The lease was signed on 12 September 2014.
  2. Following the resident passing away in 2020, the resident’s son dealt with the sale of his mother’s property. For the purposes of this report, he will be referred to as ‘the representative’. The representative holds grant of probate for the resident.
  3. On 23 November 2021, the representative raised a complaint to the landlord explaining he was dissatisfied with the 2.74% sinking fund charge applied during the sale of the property. The representative felt that after his mother’s initial 4 years in the property, the service provided by the landlord had fallen. In addition, he was dissatisfied with the landlord’s handling of the sales process and felt there were delays in receiving guidance.
  4. The landlord responded to the complaint at stage 1 on 17 March 2022 and advised it was unable to offer compensation to the due to the sinking fund being contractually agreed to. It explained that although there were delays with the sales information pack being issued, the representative was able to continue the process to completion with no additional charges incurred.
  5. The representative requested escalation of his complaint to stage 2 on 3 February 2022 as he felt the charges against the sale of the property were excessive. He also expressed dissatisfaction with his mother’s treatment in recent years by landlord staff wardens.
  6. The landlord’s final response corroborated its stage 1 findings about the sinking fund charges and explained the assignment fee was in line with the resident’s lease. In addition, it stated that the sales process ran smoothy despite delays in issuing the sales information pack. The landlord advised it had no records of complaints from the resident or representative at the time regarding poor staff conduct and as per its complaints policy, said it could not consider these matters. It acknowledged that there had been delays in issuing its final response. In light of this, it offered the representative £75 as a discretionary compensation offer.
  7. The representative remains dissatisfied with the landlord’s final response. He does not feel that he was supported or provided with appropriate information throughout the sale of the property and was dissatisfied with the charges upon the sale of the estate. In addition, he feels that the landlord should have retained records of his complaint submitted in 2017 about his mother’s treatment by landlord staff. As a resolution to the complaint, the representative is seeking financial compensation and for the landlord to take accountability for the poor standard of service provided to his mother.

Assessment and findings

  1. The resident’s lease agreement outlines that, “upon assignment of the lease, the resident agrees to pay the landlord by way of contribution towards a sinking fund a percentage of the open market value of the premises”. For the fifth year of the lease onwards, the percentage contribution is 2.74%. The resident’s lease commenced on 12 September 2014. By signing the lease, the resident agreed to the sinking fund contribution being paid. Therefore, when the representative sold the property, he was liable for the sinking fund contribution at a rate of 2.74% based on the resident/resident’s estate holding the lease for a total of 7 years. The landlord’s response that the sinking fund contribution was contractually required was an appropriate response and the percentage was correctly applied as per the terms of the lease.
  2. The representative felt that the incremental increases of the sinking fund contributions could cause issues for other sellers, and he questioned whether the percentage application was fair. It is not the role of this Service to assess whether the level of the landlord’s sinking fund charge is fair, but instead to consider the landlord’s handling of the matter based on the representative’s circumstances. The landlord responded to the representative’s concerns by explaining that sinking fund charges were put towards planned works. It also referred the representative to the signed lease to evidence where the charge had been agreed to. This was a reasonable response.
  3. The landlord applied a 1.2% sales/assignment fee of the purchase price (£150,000) which equated to £1,800 payable by the representative at the time of the sale. The resident’s lease outlines that upon assignment, the resident should pay any reasonable and proper expenses or costs incurred by the association in dealing with and registering an assignment not exceeding 2.5%. The landlord explained to the representative within its stage 2 response that the fee covered the administrative tasks from inception through to completion for the transaction. It also explained that it charged lower than the maximum percentage charge. The landlord’s application of the fee was in line with the resident’s lease and was a reasonable charge for the sales process.
  4. The representative felt that the service his mother had experienced from the landlord had declined in recent years. He advised that wardens had bullied his mother and there had been noise nuisance allegations against her in 2017. The landlord said it had checked its records and had not received any reports of these matters from either the resident or the representative. Further, it explained that due to the lapse in time, it was unable to consider these issues.
  5. The representative provided this Service with a copy of a complaint which he advised had been sent to the landlord on 20 December 2017. This related to reports of noise nuisance from the resident’s property. The landlord should have acknowledged receipt of this and responded at the time. However, its reasonings for not being able to consider the matter4 years later due to the lapse in time and changes in staffing since the reported incident was appropriate. In addition, there was no evidence that reports of bullying were brought to the landlord’s attention at the time of the occurrence. Therefore, the landlord would not have been able to investigate this matter for the same reasons.
  6. The representative was dissatisfied at the time taken for the landlord to issue a sales information pack and felt he was not supported by the landlord through the process. The information pack was provided to the resident in October 2021, 9 months after he had informed the landlord of his intention to sell the resident’s property. The delay was caused by a lack of communication between the scheme manager and leaseholders’ team and the landlord apologised for this within its stage 2 complaint response. The landlord said it understood that the representative would have felt that the sales process lacked information. This service acknowledges that the guidance would have benefitted the resident whilst he was going through the sales process, and it is not disputed that this should have been issued to the resident at an earlier stage.
  7. The landlord communicated the sales process to the representativeand outlined what steps needed to be taken in a timely manner. After the representative expressed his intention to sell the property in January 2021, the landlord issued him an intention to sell form which he completed and returned to the landlord in February 2021.Following this, the landlord promptly requested the representative’s ID and grant of probate documents. It informed the resident on 3 March 2021 that once he had found a buyer, he should inform the landlord.From 3 March 2021, the onus was on the resident to inform the landlord when he had sourced a buyer.
  8. The landlord’s failure to issue the sales information pack to the representative in January 2021 did not cause delays to the overall sale of the property. Once the resident secured a buyer for the property, the representative’s solicitor notified the landlord on 5 October 2021. Following this, the landlord provided the buyer’s application to the sales team on 14 October 2021, and requested a doctor’s report from the buyer’s surgery on 18 October 2021. Conveyancing commenced on 9 November 2021 and the sale was completed on 16 December 2021. In total the process from when a buyer was sourced up until completion took 30 working days. The landlord took appropriate steps to ensure the sale was completed efficiently. Although the sales pack would have clarified the sales process for the representative, not having this until October 2021 did not delay or cause any problems during the sales process.
  9. The landlord took into consideration suggestions provided by the representative to improve the sales process and advised that any warranted changes would be implemented. The landlord evidenced a customer focused approach by considering the feedback provided by the representative to see if and how it could improve its sales process.
  10. In light of the above, there was no maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the representative’s concerns regarding the sales process of his late mother’s property. The landlord apologised to the resident for the delays in the paperwork being issued, applied the terms of the lease when determining the charges, provided explanations as to why it could not investigate previous reports, and processed the sale of the property in a timely manner.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was no maladministration in respect of the handling of the representative’s concerns regarding the sales process of his late mother’s property.