Hyde Housing Association Limited (202411990)

Background

1. The resident complained that her block had been charged a high electricity cost in the 2022/2023 service charge. She requested information and learned that the landlord’s contractor had connected to her block’s electricity supply. She queried who had authorised this and what steps the landlord had taken to keep the resident’s electricity use separate from the contractor’s. She raised a formal complaint after receiving limited information. As she remained dissatisfied with the landlord’s responses, she escalated the matter to our service.

What the complaint is about

2. The complaint is about how the landlord handled the resident’s queries about the electricity element of her service charge.

Our decision (determination)

3. The landlord has made an offer of redress following our intervention, which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, resolves the complaint satisfactorily.

We have recommended that the landlord honour the intervention agreed to put things right.

Summary of reasons

4. Throughout its complaints process, the landlord accepted that it should have amended the resident’s communal electricity charges sooner and communicated this to her earlier. It also accepted that it had not provided the information she requested and offered £200 compensation.
5. The resident remained dissatisfied and raised the complaint with our service as she did not receive the information she was seeking and the landlord had not satisfactorily resolved the complaint.
6. We contacted the landlord and provided it with a summary of our understanding of the complaint. Following our intervention, the landlord agreed to:
   1. Apologise to the resident and take accountability for the distress and inconvenience its errors caused.
   2. Increase the total offer of compensation to £400 (including the £200 previously offered).
   3. Confirm the steps it has taken to ensure that errors (relating to the communal electricity bills) will not happen in the future, specifically any checks it has put in place and how it has learnt from the situation.

Putting things right

Recommendations

The complaint has been resolved with intervention on the basis that the landlord follows our recommendations within 4 weeks of the date of this decision.