London & Quadrant Housing Trust (202017452)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202017452

London & Quadrant Housing Trust

29 September 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:
1. The landlord charging the resident for a service charge he was not liable for.
2. The landlord’s handling of the resident’s enquiries and complaint.

Background and summary of events

Background and policies

The resident has been an assured tenant of the landlord at the property from 10 May 2010. His tenancy agreement shows no service charges in his rent charge.
The landlord has a two-stage complaint procedure whereby it aims to investigate and respond at stage one within 10 working days.
Where a complainant is dissatisfied with the response and requests escalation to stage two of the complaints process, the landlord aims to review the complaint and provide a response within 20 working days. Where this is not possible, the landlord will advise the complainant that this is the case and write again in a further 10 working days.
The landlord’s compensation policy allows for discretionary compensation to be offered as a gesture of goodwill, although does not specify amounts.
The landlord’s service charge policy is silent on circumstances where there is an error in the administration of the service charge account and where mistakes are made.

Summary of events

In September 2020, the resident received a final service charge statement from the landlord, which he believed to be incorrect, as it included a charge for fire safety which was not applicable to his property.
Around 15 October 2020, the resident submitted a complaint to the landlord about having been charged for a service he was not liable for.
Having not heard back from the landlord, the resident reiterated his complaint to the landlord on 9 November 2020.
On 10 and 11 November 2020, the landlord wrote to the resident advising that it had received his complaint of 15 October 2020 and 9 November 2020 and would provide a response within 10 working days.
On 13 November 2020, the resident expressed his dissatisfaction with the landlord’s delay in responding to him and the fact that he was being asked to wait some more.
On 17 November 2020, the landlord wrote to the resident with a holding letter. The letter advised that the landlord currently had a high volume of enquiries and it would take time to respond to his complaint. Meanwhile, it explained, the resident may have received automatic correspondence about his rent account due to changes in its administration of service charges. It said that it would be contacting residents individually about this.
On 24 November 2020, the resident chased his enquiry with the landlord again.
On 14 January 2021, the landlord contacted the resident advising that he should not have received a final service charge statement in September 2020 due to his type of tenancy and that the balance on the statement was therefore incorrect. The landlord apologised for the error and advised that it would be crediting the resident’s rent account by £19.80, which is the amount he was advised he would be charged.
On 1 February 2021, the landlord wrote to the resident regarding changes to his rent for the 2021-2022 period. It set out that his rent would be £93.59 per week and that there would be a £1.38 weekly service charge.
On 16 February 2021, the resident chased the landlord and the following day, it wrote to the resident advising that it would be in touch as soon as it could. It advised that some complaints are complex and may take a little longer to respond but reassured the resident that it would investigate.
Having not heard any more, the resident chased the matter on 29 March 2021 and complained again on 30 March 2021.
Having received rent notification for the next financial year, the resident noticed that the incorrect charge for the year before had been re-added to his account. He contacted the landlord to express his dissatisfaction with this.
On 7 May 2021, the landlord responded to the complaint at stage one of its complaints procedure. In its response, the landlord explained that although the statement of September 2020 advised that it would be adding a deficit charge of £19.80 to the resident’s account, it had not ultimately taken this and had removed the charge from the account.
It explained that as a gesture of goodwill, it credited the resident’s rent account for £19.80 anyway, due to the number of enquiries he had had to make in order to get the matter resolved.
In an email of the same date, the landlord reiterated that the charge had been removed from the account as it predominantly related to fire protection works for which he was not liable. It said that it would arrange a refund of £6.90 (five weeks of the charge that had been paid). The landlord also apologised for the delay in responding to the resident’s enquiries which it said was due to the volume of enquiries it was currently dealing with.
Shortly thereafter, the resident approached this Service, who contacted the landlord to request escalation of the complaint, as the resident was dissatisfied with its stage one response. Although the resident recognised that his account had been credited, it had not amended the charge for future billing, leaving him having to chase the matter again. Additionally, the resident reiterated that he was not liable for the fire safety charge.
On 26 May 2021, the landlord acknowledged the resident’s escalation request and advised that it would review the complaint and provide a response by 23 June 2021.
On 10 June 2021, the landlord responded to the complaint at stage two of its complaints procedure. In its response, the landlord confirmed that the weekly service charge of £1.38 for the 2021-2022 period (the majority of which was for fire safety) had been removed from the resident’s account and that a credit had now been made of £6.90. This was done on 7 May 2021.
The landlord further advised that the resident’s weekly charges had been corrected and were now £93.59 which was for the rent only and that a further service charge would not be collected.

Assessment and findings

Service charge

The landlord has accepted that it made an error in its administration of the account, by erroneously adding a fire safety charge to the resident’s account both in September 2020 and for the new financial year thereafter. The landlord’s actions were appropriate in that it apologised for the errors and corrected it by removing the charge from the account, on both occasions.
In response to the charge of September 2020 the landlord credited the resident’s account for the amount invoiced, even though it had not been taken, which was reasonable on its part because the landlord was not obliged to refund monies which were not taken. It recognised that the situation had caused the resident inconvenience in that he had had to chase the matter on a number of occasions in order for it to be resolved.
In respect of the later error, the landlord refunded the monies five weeks into the resident paying for the service charge he was not liable for, quickly resolving the situation.
While frustrating for the resident to find that there had been errors with his rent account, the landlord put this right on both occasions, by removing the charge and refunding the monies, with the first money refunded having not actually been taken from him. The landlord’s actions were therefore reasonable remedies to the errors it had made.

Handling of the resident’s enquiries and complaint

Having raised a complaint in October 2020, the resident did not receive a response until May 2021, seven months later, despite chasing the landlord on a number of occasions throughout that time. The situation was clearly a worry for the resident, and the delay by the landlord was unreasonable and not in accordance with its complaints policy or in accordance with the Ombudsman’s published ‘Dispute Resolution Principles’.
Documentation provided to this Service indicates that the landlord may have sent a complaint response in March 2021 which the resident has said he did not receive. Notwithstanding this, the delay, whether five months or seven months was poor service.
Whilst it may have been the case that the landlord had a high volume of enquiries, it did not update the resident, letting him know of the ongoing delay and reasons for it. Nor did the landlord manage the resident’s expectations by providing him with a timescale in which he could expect to receive a response.
Although the resident was effectively given £19.80 compensation, with the landlord crediting his account to this amount for the charge it said he owed (but did not take), and apologised for the error, this did not go far enough to satisfactorily resolve the complaint given the significance of the delay and the lack of updates.
The Ombudsman’s ‘Dispute Resolution Principles’ specify the importance of ‘learning from outcomes’ and the landlord did not do this, making the same error again at the start of the financial year. In making the same mistake, the landlord did not demonstrate that it had taken the complaint sufficiently seriously by taking steps to prevent a future occurrence. There is no evidence of learning on the part of the landlord in this regard.
Finally, the landlord, whilst not being obliged to offer compensation, did not consider this in respect of the significant delays and inconvenience caused to the resident, as its compensation policy allows it to do. Nor did it express empathy with the resident for the distress the mistakes and delays had caused him.

Determination (decision)

In accordance with paragraph 55(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord offered redress to the resident prior to investigation which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, satisfactorily resolves the complaint about its administration of the resident’s rent account.
In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in respect of its handling of the resident’s enquiries and complaint.

Reasons

There was reasonable redress in respect of the landlord’s administration of the resident’s rent account insofar as it acknowledged that it made an error, apologised for this and refunded the monies.
The money it refunded in respect of the first error had not actually been taken from the resident’s account, thereby constituting a goodwill gesture on the part of the landlord, which was reasonable, as it was not obliged to do this.
There was service failure by the landlord in respect of its complaints handling, insofar as it took too long to respond to the complaint, taking between five-seven months to issue a response at stage one and did not keep the resident sufficiently updated as to the delay and reasons for this throughout.

Orders

The landlord is ordered to:
1. Pay the resident £100 compensation in recognition of the service failures found in its complaints handling. This payment must be made within four weeks of the date of this report. The landlord should update this Service when the payment has been made.
2. Conduct a case review to identify how it will (or has) reduce the likelihood of similar rent account errors occurring again; and, how it will improve the quality of its complaint handling, in line with the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code and good practice, in light of the failings found in this investigation. This review should be completed and shared with the resident and this Service within six weeks of the date of this report.