Portsmouth City Council (202332654)

Back to Top

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202332654

Portsmouth City Council

27 March 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 arrears on the resident’s rent account.

Background

  1. The resident lives in a 2 bed, ground floor flat under an assured tenancy which began on 13 September 2021.
  2. The resident has declared to the landlord and our Service that he has various medical conditions including asthma, insulin-dependent diabetes, kidney disease, anxiety and depression.
  3. The complaint centres around arrears on the resident’s rent account. The resident was dissatisfied that he was notified of arrears around 10 months after they had accrued. The resident raised a formal complaint about this on 28 September 2023 and said:
    1. The landlord had delayed in informing him of the arrears and this was unreasonable.
    2. He was now being asked to repay the arrears at a rate of £21.66 per month and this was unaffordable for him as his only income was universal credit and personal independence payments.
    3. The landlord should also have notified him that he had incurred 2 weeks of arrears when he moved into the property in September 2021, as universal credit did not pay the first 2 weeks.
  4. The landlord issued its stage 1 complaint response on 24 October 2023 and said:
    1. It apologised for delays in informing the resident of the arrears and said the housing officer should have informed him of this earlier.
    2. The arrears had been caused by universal credit payments covering a 52 week year, and the previous financial year had been 53 weeks, leaving a shortfall. Additionally, It acknowledged that it had not told the resident about the shortfall in rent arising from the first 2 weeks of his tenancy. It said this was “clearly a failure in service to [the resident].”
    3. It had issued a letter to residents advising of the universal credit shortfall in February 2022.
    4. It had already booked a money advice appointment for 25 October 2023 to assist the resident with maximising his income and arranging an affordable repayment plan.
  5. The resident escalated his complaint to stage 2 on 31 October 2023. He acknowledged that the landlord had apologised for not informing him earlier but felt that it was unfair that he remained liable for the charges. Additionally, he said that the repayment plan was unaffordable.
  6. The landlord issued its stage 2 complaint response on 5 December 2023 and said:
    1. It admitted that there was a delay in informing the resident about the arrears on his account but said that residents are also responsible for managing their benefit claims and payments to ensure that rent is paid on time.
    2. It offered a £50 goodwill gesture for the delay in telling the resident about the arrears.
    3. It acknowledged that the resident’s financial situation had been impacted but said that these amounts of rent would always have been due. It said that it had arranged money advice support to assist the resident with making affordable repayments.
  7. The resident remained dissatisfied and escalated his complaint to the Ombudsman on 12 December 2023, seeking additional compensation as he did not feel the landlord’s £50 goodwill gesture was sufficient.

Assessment and findings

  1. On 27 September 2023, the landlord contacted the resident to advise him that by the end of the financial year he would be in £335.56 of rent arrears and that this would need to be repaid at an affordable rate. The landlord indicated that this would be a minimum of £5 per week or £21.66 per month.
  2. The landlord’s rent purposes and principles policy says:
    1. It will inform residents “immediately if [their] responsibility is not met and understand why.”
    2. “When a customer does not pay what we expect we need to make immediate personal contact to establish why”
    3. “Inform [residents] with immediacy as soon as we are aware of a change in circumstances”
  3. The landlord’s complaint responses acknowledge and apologise for a delay of around 10 months in notifying the resident of the arrears building up. On this basis, it is not disputed that there was a significant delay in the landlord notifying the resident. This evidences that it had not followed its policy principles, as set out above, to make immediate contact with residents falling into arrears. 
  4. While the complaint responses acknowledge the delay, they do not offer any explanation for it, nor any specific learning that the landlord will take to prevent a reoccurrence. This was a failing and a missed opportunity to develop its own working practice to prevent future issues with residents.
  5. In acknowledgement of the delays, within its complaint responses the landlord:
    1. Apologised for the delays.
    2. Provided an explanation for how the arrears had built up and provided the resident with a statement to evidence this.
    3. Offered a £50 goodwill gesture when this was requested by the resident, as part of its stage 2 complaint response.
    4. Referred the resident to its money advice service for assistance with income maximisation and setting an affordable repayment plan. 
  6. Within the course of the complaint, the resident declared a range of health and mental health needs, along with additional vulnerabilities such as a gambling addiction. The evidence shows that the landlord responded to this by:
    1. Offering repayments at the minimal level.
    2. Arranging multiple money advice sessions, although it is acknowledged that the resident did not attend some of these.
    3. Provided information and signposting to specialist gambling support services.
    4. Not initiating any formal action to recover the debt or pursuing any other enforcement action throughout the course of the complaint.
  7. Overall, it is not disputed that the landlord delayed in informing the resident about arrears accruing on his rent account. The Ombudsman expects landlords to communicate with residents in a clear and timely way to prevent debt accruing. In this context, 10 months is an excessive delay, which allowed the arrears to accrue and meant that any repayments required would have been higher. Given the resident’s low income, this would have made repayments more challenging and more protracted. This was a service failure.
  8. It is acknowledged that the landlord apologised for this failing, paid appropriate compensation and provided wider support to the resident to support him in clearing the arrears. This was positive to note and supported the resident’s wider welfare.
  9. Taking these factors together the landlord’s redress was not sufficient to address the length of delay that the resident experienced. On this basis, there has been a service failure in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint about the handling of his rent account.
  10. The landlord must now review this case to determine how the arrears were allowed to build up without earlier contact, take steps to prevent this occurring again and pay the resident £150 compensation for the distress and inconvenience the delays caused.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme there has been service failure in the landlord’s handling of arrears on his rent account.

Orders

  1. Within 28 days of the date of this determination, the landlord is ordered to:
    1. Pay the resident £150 compensation for the distress and inconvenience caused by the delays in notifying him about the rent arrears. If the landlord has paid the £50 goodwill gesture offered in its stage 2 complaint response (or any part of it), it is entitled to deduct this from the amount ordered.
    2. Undertake a case review to:
      1. Determine why the resident was not notified of the rent arrears accruing
      2. Outline what action it will take to prevent a reoccurrence in future.
      3. Outline how it will implement any learning in a period not exceeding a further 8 weeks.
  2. The landlord must provide evidence of compliance with the orders above within the timescales shown.