London & Quadrant Housing Trust (202012424)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202012424

London & Quadrant Housing Trust

3 December 2021

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

The complaint concerns how the landlord handled the resident’s charges for energy usage.

Background and summary of events

Background

The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord, which is a housing association. The property is a flat in a communal building.
The property’s heating and hot water is provided by a communal heating system. Until December 2019, the heating costs were paid as part of the service charge for all residents in the building. From 1 December 2019 onwards, the usage on the system was tracked by a meter and the landlord sent residents a monthly bill.
The landlord operates a two-stage complaints policy. When a complaint is raised, the landlord will provide a complaint response within ten working days. If the complainant remains dissatisfied with the response, they can request an escalation to the next stage. The landlord will then send a stage two response to the complainant within 20 working days. This will be the landlord’s final response to the complaint.

Summary of events

On 22 January 2021 the resident called this Service and stated that she wanted to raise a complaint with her landlord as she believed it had been billing her incorrectly for heating. This Service passed on the resident’s request to the landlord and described the elements of the complaint as:
1. Since the landlord had changed its system from charging for communal heating as part of the service charge to providing a separate bill, the resident had experienced problems.
2. The resident’s bills had been consistently higher than other properties in the building and that she suspected that the issue was that her meter was not properly reset when the payment system changed.
3. She had previously attempted to raise a formal complaint into these issues but had received no response from the landlord.
4. As a resolution to the complaint, the resident requested:
  1. The landlord investigated why her bills were higher than other properties in the building.
  2. Review how it conducted the changes to the payment system and why her meter was not reset.
  3. Remove the extra charges from her billing that she believed that been unfairly applied.
On 25 January 2021 the landlord raised a work order to investigate the heating system in the resident’s property. An appointment was arranged for 2 February 2021.
The landlord wrote to the resident on 26 January 2021. It confirmed that a formal complaint had been opened and that it aimed to provide a response by 29 January 2021.
The landlord’s contractor wrote to the landlord on 2 February 2020 following the appointment. The contractor informed the landlord that they found that the heating was working. The contractor inspected the valves for the hot water and heating, which were found to continue to have power even when the heating programme was switched off. The contractor noted that it was unclear if the parts required replacing and recommended a second opinion before ordering parts.
The stage one complaint response was sent to the resident on 8 February 2021. The landlord informed her that:
1. During the change to the payment system, all accounts were reset to £0.00 and no debt was carried over from the old system. Its records stated that the resident’s account was reset to £0.00 along with the other residents in the building. It was therefore satisfied that it had completed the change over to the new system correctly.
2. The readings taken to calculate the bills were actual readings from the meter, not estimated readings. The landlord noted that the resident’s monthly bills were in the range of £60-£80 per month and explained that this was not deemed as excessive for the size of the property. As a comparison the landlord noted that for a one-bedroom property the expected usage would be around £25-30 per month.
3. It had checked its records and confirmed that the resident had first raised this issue in December 2020, that the landlord responded to this query but did not hear back from the resident. The landlord apologised to the resident and accepted that it should have done more to follow-up the resident’s query and treated it as a formal complaint at the time.
4. The landlord said the resident had not paid towards her energy usage since January 2020, resulting in arrears of £1,190.50. The landlord informed the resident that if she was struggling to make payments that it could provide a payment plan, but that if she continued to make no payments at all that it may take legal advice regarding the next steps.
The landlord concluded the response by apologising to the resident for the delay in providing the stage one complaint response and for not treating her initial contact in December 2020 as a formal complaint. It offered the resident a compensation payment of £50 in view of this.
The resident called this Service on 15 February 2021 and requested help in escalating the complaint. This Service then wrote to the landlord and requested it escalate the complaint as the resident said:
1. She had evidence that her account was not reset in December 2019.
2. Tests were undertaken at the property on 2 February 2021 which found problems with some of the electrical sockets.
3. The landlord had not properly investigated the issues she had raised.
The landlord wrote to the resident on 17 February 2021 and confirmed that it had escalated the complaint. The landlord informed the resident that it would be in touch with her to discuss the complaint further and it aimed to provide a response by 17 March 2021.
Following a telephone call between the resident and landlord, the resident sent the landlord a copy of her energy bill on 22 March 2021. The landlord requested further bills from the resident on 26 March 2021. These were provided on 31 March 2021. The landlord acknowledged receipt of the bills on 22 April 2021. It apologised for the delay in providing a response and explained that this was the result of ongoing investigations in the matter. It informed the resident that it would provide the stage two complaint response by 29 April 2021.
On 23 April 2021 a note was added on the landlord’s system stating that the contractor had cancelled the work order relating to the resident’s heating system. The notes left by the contractor explained that after the 2 February 2021 visit, they had attempted to arrange follow-on work. They had called and sent text messages to the resident on 4 February 2021 and on 3, 15 and 18 March 2021 without receiving any reply.
The stage two complaint response was sent to the resident on 26 April 2021. The landlord informed the resident that:
1. The new payment system was set up on 1 December 2019. The residents first bill for December 2019 showed that no balance had been brought forward and her account had been reset to £0.00. The January 2020 bill then invoiced the resident for the first month of energy usage under the new system.
2. It was satisfied by its position as stated in the stage one response that the monthly charges for energy usage were in line for the property size and the number of people living in the property.
3. It recognised the difficulties people were currently facing due to the Covid-19 pandemic and was willing to work with the resident to agree to an affordable payment plan to clear the arrears. It noted that once a plan was set up, she would no longer receive warning letters.
4. During the inspection held on 2 February 2021, its contactor had inspected the sockets and wiring for the heating and hot water controls. The operative informed the landlord that there was continuous power running to the valves that control the hot water, but it was not clear if this would result in any increase in the resident’s heating charges. The landlord provided the resident with the contact details for its heating contractor in order for them to arrange follow-on work to conclude their investigation into the matter.
5. In recognition of the further delays and inconvenience caused to the resident due to the delay in providing the stage two response, the landlord had increased its compensation offer to £80.

Assessment and findings

In line with the tenancy agreement, the landlord is responsible for maintaining the structure of the building, including the communal heating system. As explained above, the landlord is entitled to charge residents for their energy use by means of a meter in each property.
The resident has argued that her energy bills are unreasonable because they are higher that those of other residents in the building whose properties are similar to hers. There are various factors which mean that energy bills may vary between households as people use different amounts of energy depending on their lifestyle and therefore the fact that the resident’s energy bills may be higher does not in itself mean that the charge is inaccurate.
The landlord’s records confirm that the resident’s heating account was reset to zero when the payment system changed. The resident disputes this but the Ombudsman has not seen any evidence to show that the account was not set to zero in December 2019 and without such evidence, we cannot conclude that this happened.
This Service has been provided with copies of the bills that the resident sent to the landlord. The bill sent to the resident on 9 January 2020 invoiced the resident for energy usage from 1 December 2019 to 31 December 2019. These charges were for the first month of energy usage under the new payment system. The invoice also stated “your balance brought forward from your previous statement: £0.00”. The landlord was therefore correct when it explained to the resident that her account at been reset to zero and no charges were brought over from the old payment system.
When the resident raised her complaint with the landlord, it raised a work order to inspect the heating system in the property. This was an appropriate response from the landlord as in order for it to be satisfied that the resident had been correctly invoiced for her usage, it would need to ensure that the heating system was functioning correctly.
The inspection on 2 February 2021 found the heating system was in working order. However, the operative noted that valves to the heating controls were always powered even when not in use, although it was unclear if this would have an effect on the resident’s heating costs. The operative recommended follow-on work to determine if the valves should be replaced and for an appropriately qualified engineer to examine the meter. However, appointments for this work were not arranged during the time period considered in the complaint because the contractor said they could not contact the resident to arrange the appointments. Whilst there may be legitimate reasons why the resident could not respond to the contractors’ attempts to contact her, this would have inevitably caused delays in carrying out the further repairs. The landlord cannot be held responsible for these delays as they were outside its control.
It was reasonable for the landlord to wait until the investigations by its heating contractor had been completed before making any conclusions as to whether the condition of the heating system had caused higher energy charges. It was also reasonable for the landlord to other use methods of determining whether the resident had been overcharged while the work remained outstanding
As the heating contactor’s investigations had not been completed when the final response to the complaint was provided, it would be appropriate for the landlord to write to the resident once the work had been completed to inform her of the findings and whether or not this had made any changes to its conclusions as to whether the resident had been correctly charged for her energy usage.
As the resident’s energy account was in arrears at the time of this complaint, it was reasonable for the landlord to offer to arrange a repayment plan to clear the arrears and to advise her that if she did not set up a repayment plan, it would consider legal action. Although there is a dispute about the charges, the resident would still be expected to pay the energy bills in the meantime. If the charges were later found to be incorrect, the resident may be able to claim a refund of any overpayment.
The landlord acted fairly in acknowledging its mistakes in the complaint process. It looked to put things by apologising to the resident and awarding compensation. It looked to learn from its errors by raising the matter internally with a senior manager to ensure that staff members handling queries from residents pass these on to the complaints team.
The compensation payment offered by the landlord was made in line with the Ombudsman’s own remedies guidance (which is available on our website). This suggests a payment of £50 to £250 in cases of service failure which had an impact on the complainant but was of short duration and may not have significantly affected the overall outcome. As examples for when this level of payment should be considered, the guidance suggests:
1. Repeated failures to reply to letters or return phone calls.
2. Failure to meet service standards for actions and responses but where the failure had no significant impact.
In this case, the resident first contacted the landlord to express her dissatisfaction in December 2020 but it wasn’t until this Service wrote to the landlord on her behalf on 22 January 2021 that a formal complaint was opened. There were also delays in providing responses at both stages of the landlord’s internal complaint process. Therefore, for the reasons set out above, the landlord has made an offer of redress to the resident which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, resolves this element of the complaint satisfactorily. The measures taken by the landlord to address what went wrong were proportionate to the impact that its failures had on the resident.

Determination (decision)

In accordance with paragraph 55(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord made an offer of redress to the resident in respect of how it handled the resident’s energy account which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, satisfactorily resolves the complaint.

Reasons

The energy bills provided by the resident to the landlord showed that her account started at £0.00 when the payment system changed in December 2019 and no charges were brought over from the old payment system.
The landlord arranged for the heating system to be inspected by its heating contractor to ensure it was working correctly. Follow-on work was recommended by the contractor. However, during the time considered in the complaint it had not been possible to arrange appointment dates with the resident to complete this work. This delay was beyond the landlord’s control and therefore it was not at fault for this.
The landlord recognised the inconvenience caused to the resident by the delays in progressing the formal complaint. The landlord apologised and awarded compensation proportionate to the effect of these failures on the resident.

Recommendations

It is recommended that the landlord writes to the resident once the investigations by its heating contractor have concluded, inform her of its findings and explain if this had made any changes to its conclusions as to whether she had been correctly charged for her energy usage.