Rochdale Boroughwide Housing Limited (202300028)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202300028

Rochdale Boroughwide Housing Limited

5 July 2024

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 is about the landlord’s response to the resident’s service charge query.

Background and summary of events

Background

The resident has a shared ownership lease of the property with the landlord. She had lived at the property which is a 3 bedroom house since 2020. The landlord has no vulnerabilities recorded for the resident.
The resident’s lease states as follows:
1. The resident will pay a service charge to the landlord each month.
2. The service charge includes the following services:
  1. Maintaining, repairing and renewing the estate.
  2. Gardening and cleaning of the estate.
  3. Maintenance, management and repair of land adjoining or in the vicinity of the estate.
  4. Any administrative and management charges incurred by the landlord.
The landlord does not have a ground maintenance policy however it advised this Service (May 2024) that it was in the process of writing one.
The landlord has information available on its public facing website in respect of ground maintenance. This sets out the services undertaken, such as tree maintenance and rubbish clearance, however it does not state how often such service will be carried out.

Summary of events

On 3 October 2022 the resident contacted the landlord in respect of a service charges letter she had received for 20212022. She advised that the back of the letter should have outlined a breakdown of the estimated costs, however it had been blank. She stated that she had not ever received a breakdown of the service charges and asked to see this. She chased up a response to her query on 23 October 2022.
On 18 January 2023 the resident submitted a complaint and stated as follows:
1. The landlord had not responded to her service charge query and had “ignored” her.
2. Some of the charges were for things she did not need or use.
3. She requested a full breakdown of the charges.
The landlord responded at stage 1 on 31 January 2023 and stated as follows:
1. The resident’s query had been forwarded to its Income Accounts Team on 2 January 2023 and then its Homeownership Team on 12 January 2023. It had provided the resident with a breakdown of the charges on 16 January 2023 (this has not been seen by this Service). It confirmed the breakdown of charges as follows:
  1. Rent £149.91.
  2. Buildings Insurance £6.00.
  3. Neighbourhood Estate Team £7.62.
  4. Management Fee £2.72.
2. It advised that the Neighbourhood Estate Team charge covered the following:
  1. Grass cutting.
  2. Stairwell cleaning.
  3. Clearing pathways/garage sites and litter picking every 10 working days.
  4. Clearing fly tipping.
  5. Weed spraying of footpaths.
  6. Maintaining/repairing the play area.
  7. Tree works.
  8. Graffiti removal.
  9. Treatment of any reports of Japanese Knotweed.
3. The management fee covered administration costs associated with managing and monitoring the services provided.
4. It apologised that the resident’s original enquiry had not been responded to. It advised this was likely due to it having been forwarded to a staff member who left its employment in December 2022. It apologised for the delay caused by this.
On 1 February 2023 the resident escalated her complaint and stated as follows:
1. She did not feel the fees she was paying were applicable to her and she was not willing to pay for the services for other tenants.
2. She cut the grass at the side of the property herself. The grass in front of the property had only been cut once in the time she had lived there (over 2 years) and the shrubs were not properly maintained.
3. A stairwell team was not applicable as the property was a house and not a flat.
4. The area team was not applicable as she did not require litter picking or clearing of paths. She had never seen this being carried out.
5. She would not fly tip and was not willing to pay for clearance of this.
6. She had never seen weed spraying take place.
7. Tree works were nothing to do with her.
8. She was not receiving the services described.
9. She disputed the service charge and requested a full refund of the amount she had paid since living at the property and a reduction going forward.
10. She disputed the management fee as she did not need the services.
The landlord discussed the grass cutting internally and noted that, moving forward, it would record this separately. It had discussed the stairwell charge with its finance charge and was awaiting advice on this.
The landlord responded at stage 2 on 2 March 2023 and stated as follows:
1. The charges provided in the stage 1 response had been a “generic” breakdown of the wider estate charges. It apologised for this.
2. Whilst the description of the services (in the stage 1 response) had been inaccurate, the monthly charge of £7.62 was correct and, along with the management fee, were in accordance with the terms of the lease, which detailed that the resident was responsible to pay the service charges. It therefore would not reduce this.
3. The management service charge of £2.72 per month would remain as per the lease agreement, as would the £6 per month building insurance charge.
4. It had investigated the grass cutting and found that this had not been recorded separately from the estate rota on its system. In view of the complaint, it had put in place a new recording system for the maintenance of the grassed area, shrubs, pathways and litter picking to accurately identify any issues and record actions moving forward. It would be visiting on a rolling monthly rota and would be recording all works and actions undertaken. This would enable it to demonstrate that it was undertaking the work as detailed in the service charges.
5. Due to the lack of a timely response to the initial enquiry and the inaccurate information provided at stage 1, it offered £70 as a gesture of goodwill.
On 6 March 2023 the resident referred her complaint to this Service and stated as follows:
1. The landlord could not evidence that it had provided her with the services paid for. This was a breach of contract.
2. The landlord did very little shrub maintenance.
3. She requested a full refund of the service charge and for this Service to provide a map of the areas the landlord should maintain.

Correspondence following the referral to this Service

On 14 July 2023 the resident contacted the landlord and stated that the ground maintenance had not been carried out, the grass was “shocking” and shrubs had not been maintained. She requested the charge be removed and that her or her partner would carry out the work.
On 20 July 2023 the landlord noted internally as follows:
1. It had visited the resident at her property.
2. It had advised that it could not completely cut the hedges in front of her property without the agreement of other tenants. As a compromise it had agreed to remove the hedges from in front of her property.
3. It had explained to her that the services charges were not just for the areas visible to her.
It noted internally on 31 July 2023 that the agreed works had been completed. The resident had confirmed to the landlord that she was happy with the works.
On 2 May 2024 the landlord advised this Service that it was developing a Grounds Maintenance policy. It also provided records of maintenance appointments to this Service as follows:
1. Pathway maintenance from 21 March 2023 to 17 October 2023, having taken place once or twice a month during this period.
2. Play area/park. These were recorded on Fridays, however the dates were not included on the screenshot provided to this Service.
3. Appointments for “Smallbridge”. One in November 2022 and then at least a monthly basis from May 2023 to November 2023.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

Within her complaint the resident has stated that she should not be liable to pay the service charge as some services were not relevant to her. Paragraph 42(e) of the Housing Ombudsman’s Scheme states that “the Ombudsman may not consider complaints which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion concern the level of rent or service charge or the amount of the rent or service charge increase”. This Service is not able to consider whether the resident should be liable for such costs. The resident may wish to refer this aspect of her complaint to the First Tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) who consider service charge disputes between leaseholders and landlords. This Service can however consider how the landlord responded to the resident’s concerns that she had been charged for services not received.

The landlord’s response to the resident’s service charge query

The landlord’s stage 1 response provided a breakdown of services as requested by the resident as part of her enquiry and complaint. It outlined a number of services which it advised were included in the resident’s service charge and made up the neighbourhood estate team charge of £7.62 per month. Following the resident’s escalation to stage 2, where she noted that the charges had included stairwell maintenance when she lived in a house, the landlord took her concerns seriously and liaised with its finance team in respect of this. It is noted that during this internal investigation, the landlord also noted that other tenants may be impacted by this if an error had been made. This was appropriate and demonstrated that the landlord had taken the possible error seriously and was considering the impacts of this on a wider level.
The landlord confirmed within its stage 2 response, that the services outlined in the stage 1 response had not been tailored to the resident’s property. It noted that although some of these generic services had been included in error, the monthly charge of £7.62 was correct. It signposted the resident to the lease which outlined that the service charge was payable by her for such maintenance.
The landlord identified and acknowledged that its record keeping did not differentiate between grass cutting services and other maintenance which had been carried out. It acknowledged that this made it difficult to demonstrate whether such works had been carried out according to the rota.
This Service has seen records of regular maintenance of the pathways and the park area however it is noted that all but one of these was from 2023 and after the completion of the internal complaints procedure. In addition, the landlord’s record keeping was not sufficiently clear to determine what service had been delivered on each occasion and whether these were inspections or if works had been carried out. If the landlord’s record keeping had been more thorough it would have been able to provide this information to the resident to provide reassurance that the appropriate activity had been carried out.
As learning from the resident’s complaint, the landlord advised her that it had put a new system in place to record garden maintenance separately should such queries arise again in the future. This was reasonable and demonstrated that the landlord had taken the resident’s concerns on board and had put in place learning from its identified record keeping issue. In respect of the time it had taken to reply to her query (prior to her complaint) and for the incorrect information given at stage 1 it offered £70 compensation.
When a failure is identified, as in this case, the Ombudsman’s role is to consider whether any redress offered by the landlord put things right and resolved the resident’s complaint satisfactorily in the circumstances. In considering this, the Ombudsman takes into account whether the landlord’s offer of redress was in line with the Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles: Be Fair, Put Things Right and Learn from Outcomes as well as our own guidance on remedies.
Although compensation was appropriate to acknowledge the frustration caused to the resident by the landlord’s failures, its offer of £70 was not sufficient. The resident’s initial query from 3 October 2022 should have been straightforward for the landlord to respond to, as this information should have been readily available. It is noted that the member of staff this query had been received by subsequently left its employment. The landlord should have systems in place to ensure that when a staff member moves on, such queries are stored centrally and responded to. This failure led to the resident not receiving a response and feeling that the only way to ensure a response was to submit a complaint. This is something which could have been avoided had the landlord responded to this query.
It is concerning that although the correct cost was provided to the resident at stage 1, she had asked to know what services she was being charged for. The landlord provided her with incorrect information, which included services only relevant to flats when she was in a house. Although the landlord apologised for this error, it should have taken the time to ensure that the information contained within its stage 1 response was accurate. The landlord was not able to demonstrate what services and maintenance it had carried out prior to the resident’s complaint or whether they were provided to an acceptable standard. This, along with the inaccurate information caused further frustration to the resident and led to her doubting the accuracy of what the landlord was charging her for. As such, there was service failure.
This Service considers compensation of £150 to be reasonable (this includes the landlord’s prior offer of £70). This is in line with the Housing Ombudsman remedies guidance where a landlord has acknowledged failures and taken steps to put things right but did not go far enough to acknowledge the impact to the resident.

Determination (decision)

In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was service failure in respect of the landlord’s response to the resident’s service charge query.

Reasons

The landlord provided inaccurate information at stage 1 in respect of services included in the service charge. It could not provide records of the maintenance carried out prior to the resident’s complaint and it failed to address this aspect of the resident’s complaint. The landlord acknowledged failures and amended its record keeping as a result. Its offer of compensation was however not enough to fully acknowledge the frustration and lack of confidence caused to the resident by the landlord’s failures.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

The landlord is ordered to take the following action within 4 weeks of this report and provide evidence of compliance to this Service:
1. Pay £150 compensation direct to the resident to acknowledge the impact on her of the failures identified. (This includes the landlord’s prior offer of £70).
2. Review its systems to record and respond to enquiries to ensure matters are handed over appropriately when staff members leave their role.
3. Investigate whether it had performed the services the resident is paying for and consider a refund if these were not provided.

Recommendations

It is recommended that the landlord provide information to resident’s, whether via its website or a grounds maintenance policy, setting out how often services will be carried out.
It is recommended that the landlord provide the resident with a map, showing the areas it is responsible for maintaining as part of her service charge.