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One Housing Group Limited (202231890)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202231890

One Housing Group Limited

21 May 2025

 

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 compensation for the resident’s loss of heating and hot water.

Background

  1. The resident is a leaseholder of the landlord. The property is a 2-bedroom apartment. The resident purchased the property from the landlord in October 2019.
  2. In October 2022 the resident’s hot water and heating was affected by an outage. On 1 November the landlord wrote to all residents explaining that the water company had accidentally drilled through a gas pipe. It said it would be arranging a compensation payment of £6 per day that they were without heating and hot water.
  3. The resident contacted the landlord to raise a complaint on 9 January 2023. He said he had 70 days without heating and hot water but had not received compensation as offered in the landlord’s letter.
  4. The landlord sent its stage 1 response on 23 February 2023. It said there had been several outages over the last few months due to issues with the district heating energy centre which were resolved on 6 January. It said that the energy company would be writing to all residents about compensation in the near future.
  5. The resident asked the landlord to escalate the complaint on 27 February 2023, as he said the landlord had failed to address his complaint about the compensation offer made in November 2022. The landlord sent its stage 2 response on 27 March, in which it said:
    1. the district heating network services over 800 residents and is owned by the local authority – the landlord was not initially made aware of the outages
    2. at the time the compensation was offered in November 2022 it was unaware the issues were the responsibility of the energy company
    3. it failed to follow up and explain why the offer of compensation was not valid, however it said the energy company would be offering compensation
    4. it offered £75 compensation to recognise its failure to update the resident after the letter in November
  6. In an email of 4 August 2023 the landlord offered to increase the compensation to £100. The resident contacted us on 18 October and asked us to investigate the complaint. The landlord subsequently wrote to the resident on 30 November, increasing its compensation offer to £250.

Assessment and findings

  1. The landlord’s repair policy shows a loss of heating and hot water between the months of 1 October to 30 April will be treated as an emergency repair. Emergency repairs will be responded to within 4 hours. The landlord’s compensation policy shows it offers compensation at £3 per full day where a resident is without heating or hot water. The landlord’s compensation policy will only pay compensation payments for the temporary loss of heating or hot water which is within its control.
  2. In October 2022 the resident’s hot water and heating was affected by an outage. On 1 November the landlord wrote to all residents explaining that the water company had accidentally drilled through a gas pipe. In this letter it said it would be arranging a payment of £6 per day that they were without heating and hot water.
  3. The resident contacted the landlord to raise a complaint on 9 January 2023. He said that he had not received the compensation as promised in the letter of 1 November 2022. In its stage 1 response of 23 February the landlord did not mention the previous promise of compensation, or explain why this had not been paid, which was not appropriate. However, it did say that the energy company which managed the district heating system would be writing to all residents about compensation in the near future.
  4. The resident asked the landlord to escalate the complaint on 27 February 2023, as he was unhappy that it had not addressed its compensation promise. The landlord sent its stage 2 response on 27 March, in which it said it had met with the energy company on 24 March and raised that it needed to manage compensation due. It said that the person who wrote the letter sent on 1 November 2022 had since left the organisation. At the time the letter was sent the landlord was unaware the issue was the responsibility of the energy company.
  5. The landlord acknowledged that it failed to follow up when that person left. However, it said that a letter sent on 19 January 2023, which this Service has not seen a copy of, confirmed that the energy company would be offering compensation. As the issue was not the landlord’s responsibility, it acted in line with its repairs policy in withdrawing the original offer of compensation. It offered the resident £75 compensation for its failure to update the resident after the letter from 1 November 2022. This offer was reasonable to recognise its failures at this time.
  6. On 4 August 2023 the landlord emailed the resident, increasing its offer of compensation to £100. It is not clear what prompted this increased offer, and the landlord has not provided evidence it had taken any action to follow up with the energy company since its stage 2 response, which was not appropriate.
  7. The landlord’s internal communications of 23 October 2023 said that it had received credit notes from the energy company for October, November and December 2022 and a compensation credit note in January 2023. It was not clear whether this related to the previously discussed compensation, however it said these credits would form part of the 2022/23 year-end accounts.
  8. The landlord sent a follow up complaint response to the resident on 30 November 2023. It said that, as he had pointed out in his communications, his connection to the energy company was indirect and energy usage was invoiced through the variable service charges. It said that it would process any compensation or adjustments related to service disruption on behalf of the energy company and this would be reflected in individual accounts.
  9. The landlord should have acknowledged earlier in its complaints process that the resident did not have direct contact with the energy company, and taken proactive steps to chase this up. We have seen no evidence it was proactive in chasing this up with the energy company, or that it updated the resident regularly.
  10. In its letter of 30 November 2023 the landlord said that the financial accounts were scheduled for completion by the end of January 2024. However, it did not make it clear whether there would be any adjustment to reflect compensation from the energy company. This was not appropriate, as it should have set clear expectations for the resident.
  11. The landlord offered to increase the total compensation to £250 to recognise that it had not followed up on matters and its communication had been poor. We have seen no evidence that the resident did not subsequently receive compensation via a service charge adjustment when the accounts were published.
  12. The Ombudsman considers there to have been maladministration by the landlord in its handling of compensation for the resident’s loss of heating and hot water.
  13. The landlord explained why it was not responsible for the issues with the heating system, and said it would be up to the energy company to award compensation. However, the resident does not have a direct relationship with the energy company. It was, therefore, the landlord’s responsibility to engage with the energy company about compensation on the resident’s behalf.
  14. The landlord’s records do not show that it was proactive in engaging with the energy company and providing updates to the resident. The landlord did eventually acknowledge its failings, and made a reasonable offer of redress to recognise the distress and inconvenience it had caused to the resident. However, this offer was not made until 8 months after it had concluded its internal complaints process, which was not appropriate.
  15. The Ombudsman considers the £250 compensation offer made by the landlord on 30 November 2023 to have been proportionate to the distress and inconvenience experienced by the resident. Therefore, no further compensation award has been made.
  16. An order has been made for the landlord to contact the energy company about the compensation request, if this has not already been paid. If compensation has been paid by the energy company to the resident, the landlord should provide evidence of this.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme there was maladministration by the landlord in its handling of compensation for the resident’s loss of heating and hot water.

Orders

  1. The landlord to pay the resident the compensation of £250 offered in its letter of 30 November 2023, if it has not already done so.
  2. If the energy company has not provided compensation to the resident, the landlord to contact it to request that it considers this. If the energy company has already provided compensation, the landlord should provide this Service with evidence of this.
  3. The landlord to provide us with evidence of compliance with the above orders within 28 days of this report.