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London & Quadrant Housing Trust (202007650)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202007650

London & Quadrant Housing Trust

25 January 2022


Our approach

What we can and cannot consider is called the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction and is governed by the Housing Ombudsman 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 their 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 level and reasonableness of the resident’s service charges, and her liability to pay for some of the charges included in her account.

Determination (jurisdictional decision)

  1. 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. 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

  1. The resident is a shared ownership leaseholder of the landlord. The lease commenced on 13 August 2009. There is a head lease between the landlord and the freeholder of the development of 37 flats (‘‘the Estate’’) within which the property is located. The freeholder has appointed a third-party managing agent which is responsible, on behalf of the freeholder, for managing the services on ‘‘the Estate’’ that the freeholder is obliged to provide under the terms of the head lease.
  2. On 7 October 2020, the resident logged a formal complaint with the landlord about the length of time it was taking to resolve her concerns about her service charges, in particular that the managing agent had been overcharging her and that the landlord had not provided proof of all the works completed at the block in 2018-2019. The resident wanted the estimated charges for 2019-2020 and 2020-21 rechecked, she also believed she was being over charged by over £3,000 a year.
  3. The landlord issued its stage one response on 10 November 2020. The landlord apologised to the resident and acknowledged that some of the resident’s questions about her charges had been answered although there had been a delay in doing so. The landlord also confirmed that the resident had been charged 18 months of invoices from the managing agent and as a result a revised account would be issued with the additional six months of charges removed. The landlord said that these charges would be moved to the following year and that the resident should receive the revised account the following week. The landlord also provided the resident with a screen shot of the managing agents charges for January to December 2020 and asked that they let the landlord know if they believe any of those charges to be incorrect.
  4. On 18 January 2021, the landlord issued a reviewed final service charge balance for the period 1 April 2019 to 31 March 2020, noting that the following had been removed from the 2019/20 final service charge account:
    1. The building insurance element
    2. One managing agent invoice as this had been scheduled for the following financial year.
  5. In its final response on 5 March 2021, the landlord acknowledged, apologised and offered the resident £30 for the length of time it had taken to respond to her concerns. The landlord also noted that the resident had asked for clarification as to whether her most recent statement related to 2019/20 or 2020/21, whether she was liable to pay a grounds maintenance charge and the cost for a key fob, and the level of the managing agent’s costs. The landlord confirmed that the statement referred to was a revised final statement for 2019/20, that the cost of the fob had been refunded as this was incorrectly applied, and that the resident would have recourse to the First Tier Tribunal if she remained dissatisfied with regards to her liability to pay a grounds maintenance charge or the level of the managing agent’s costs.

Reasons

  1. Paragraph 39(i) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme (the Scheme) states the Ombudsman cannot consider complaints which concern matters where the Ombudsman considers it quicker, fairer, more reasonable or more effective to seek a remedy through the courts, a designated person, other tribunal or procedure.
  2. In correspondence with this service on 25 March 2021, the resident complained that since the landlord took over her block in 2018 the service charges had ‘‘suddenly gone up so ridiculously high’’. The resident said that they had been unreasonably overcharged, the two main disputes with the landlord being in relation to the grounds maintenance charge and whether she was liable to pay the third party management fees.
  3. Complaints that relate to the level, reasonableness, apportionment or liability to pay service charges fall within the jurisdiction of the First-Tier Tribunal (Property Chamber). In order to decide liability a tribunal also decides whether service charge costs have been reasonably incurred and if so whether the standard of any services or works for which the costs are charged is reasonable. As the resident is unhappy with the amount of the service charge increase as well as her liability to pay for some of the charges included in her account, this complaint is  a matter for the First Tier tribunal to consider and as such it is outside the jurisdiction of the Ombudsman.