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London & Quadrant Housing Trust (L&Q) (202225049)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202225049

London & Quadrant Housing Trust

21 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 landlord’s handling of the resident’s concerns regarding service charges applied to her account.
  2. The Ombudsman has also considered the associated complaint handling as part of this investigation.

Background

  1. The resident holds an assured tenancy.
  2. The property is a 2-bedroom maisonette within a terraced house.
  3. The resident called the landlord on 6 February 2020 after receiving her rent increase letter. This had ‘electrical testing’ listed under ‘Block Services’ as part of her service charge. The resident called to dispute this charge as there were no communal electrics, and she had her own entrance to the property. The resident chased this with the landlord on 12 February 2020. The landlord responded the following day stating that the resident had been liable to pay this in previous years however it had not charged her for this. The resident called the landlord on 2 March 2020 as she remained unsure where electrical charges were coming from. The landlord e-mailed her on 13 March 2020 to further explain the reasons behind this charge. The resident then received another bill with the same electrical testing charge and called the landlord to again query this on 5 October 2021.
  4. The resident raised a complaint on 2 February 2022 as she did not consider there had been a sufficient response to her query. She stated that she lived in a house, not a block of flats which meant she felt she should not be charged for communal block testing. She also queried why her neighbours were not being charged for this. The landlord responded to her complaint on 11 February 2022. It did not uphold her complaint. It told her that the charge was ‘a fixed rate to cover the cost of statutory testing of all electrical intake points of the building’ and described its statutory obligations to complete this testing.
  5. The resident called the landlord to escalate her complaint on 14 February 2022 as she was unhappy with the stage 1 response which she described as ‘confusing’. She still felt that she was being charged for something which did not exist, and that no one had visited her property to perform electrical testing. The resident chased this on 16 June 2022, submitted a new complaint about the same issue on 17 June 2022 seeking a response to her query, and chased this again on 20 October 2022. The resident received acknowledgement that this had been passed to the complaints team on 21 October 2022. The resident contacted the landlord on 1 December 2022 seeking an update. The landlord provided its stage 2 response on 3 January 2023. The landlord confirmed that it understood its previous response could have been more accessible. It provided £20 compensation for its delay in providing a response but did not uphold her complaint points about the electrical testing.
  6. The resident contacted this service on 18 January 2023. She was unhappy with the service charge as she felt she should not be charged for this. She felt that her property was self-contained with no communal areas. To resolve her complaint, she would like the charges removing, the previous charges reimbursing, and compensation for the unnecessary stress this has caused her. In February 2023 the landlord refunded all the charges towards the block electrical testing service charge as no electrical testing had been carried out or needed to be carried out.

Assessment and findings

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s concerns regarding service charges applied to her account.

  1. The landlord has now refunded all the charges for the electrical testing. The landlord had previously applied these in error. The resident believed this was an error and contacted the landlord 5 times to dispute the charges, prior to making a complaint.
  2. Each time the landlord failed to properly investigate the resident’s concerns. Had the landlord performed a thorough investigation, it would have discovered that this charge was applied in error.
  3. The landlord also failed to communicate fairly with the resident. The resident’s query made on 5 October 2021 did not receive any form of response until 4 months later, when the stage 1 complaint response was sent.
  4. Since the complaint, the landlord undertook a review of its stock and following a survey identified that the property did not have any supply to test. As no electrical testing had taken place, it refunded all the charges paid towards this by the resident on 31 January 2023. The landlord acted appropriately in refunding the charges.
  5. The resident has said that she has not received the refund detailed on the statement of account. The landlord should contact the resident to provide her with confirmation of this refund and provide the details on how and when it provided this. If the refund has not been received by the resident it should reoffer this.
  6. However, given the length of time that the resident had to pursue the landlord to resolve the situation the landlord should also compensate the resident for the distress and inconvenience its error has caused her.
  7. In line with the landlord’s discretionary compensation policy, the landlord should pay the resident £100 for the distress and inconvenience the incorrect charge, and its failure to properly investigate has caused her. Its policy states that it can offer a discretionary compensation payment when its “mistake or failure causes a customer distress and inconvenience and/or the need to spend unnecessary time and effort in getting us to put things right”.

The landlord’s handling of the associated complaint.

  1. The landlord’s complaint policy states that it will provide its stage 1 response within 10 working days. At stage 2, it aims to provide its response within 20 working days.
  2. At stage 1 the landlord provided its response within 9 days. This was in line with the timeline set out by the landlord’s complaint policy.
  3. The landlord’s response at stage 1 however used overly technical language. This was a failing to treat the resident fairly. This meant that the resident struggled to understand the reasons underpinning the landlord’s decision.
  4. At stage 2 the landlord failed to provide a response within the timescales set out within its policy. It took the landlord 11 months to provide this response. The resident chased this on at least 4 occasions and submitted a new complaint to get an answer to her queries. The landlord did not provide any updates to the resident explaining the delay throughout the stage 2 process. The landlord paid the resident £20 for the delay at stage 2. However, given the length of its delay and the time and effort the resident put into chasing this, the landlord should increase its compensation offer.
  5. The landlord’s handling of the associated complaint represents maladministration. It failed to provide an appropriate response at stage 1, whilst its stage 2 response was significantly outside of its timescale. For the distress and inconvenience these errors have caused, the landlord should pay the resident £100 compensation. This is in line with this service’s remedies guidance which recommends a similar figure to this where there was a failure which adversely affected the resident but had no permanent impact.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s concerns regarding service charges applied to her account.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the associated complaint.

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks of the date of this report the landlord should provide evidence to the resident of the service charge refund it has provided. If this has not been received the landlord should repay this amount. It should also pay the resident £200 compensation consisting of:

a.     £100 for its failure to treat the resident fairly when dealing with her concerns about the service charge.

b.     £100 for its failure to act within its own policies when handling her complaint.

  1. The landlord is to provide evidence to this service that it has complied with the above order.