Eastbourne Borough Council (202312984)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202312984

Eastbourne Borough Council

23 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:
    1. the resident’s concerns around the fairness and cost of the service charge relating to personal gas.
    2. the resident’s request to cancel the service relating to Lifeline.
    3. the resident’s concerns about the service charge information given at the start of his tenancy.

Background

  1. The resident is a secured tenant of the property, which is a 1 bedroom flat in a retirement living block. The tenancy began on 24 March 2022. The landlord is a local authority. The landlord is aware that the resident has multiple vulnerabilities.
  2. On 28 February 2023, the landlord sent a letter to the resident providing notice of an increase in rent and service charge costs. The letter included a breakdown of each service charge with its new amount.
  3. The resident raised a formal complaint to the landlord on 29 March 2023. He said that:
    1. he was unhappy with the amount of increase to the personal gas service charge.
    2. he was given incorrect information regarding service charge costs at sign-up, and did not find out about the personal gas charge until after his tenancy started.
    3. on the day he moved into his home, he accidentally set off his Lifeline alarm which caused a recorded message to play for over 1.5 hours. Paramedics attended the next morning in response to the alarm.
    4. he found the service from Lifeline shocking and when he told the landlord he no longer wanted to pay for it, the landlord said it is compulsory that he does.
    5. he felt it was unfair to split the personal gas service charge equally between residents as their gas usage is different.
    6. he would like Lifeline to be switched off in his home or the charge for it waivered, and for the landlord to review its personal gas charging system.
  4. The landlord provided its stage 1 response on 3 April 2023. It said:
    1. it had not upheld the complaint.
    2. it was sorry to learn that the resident was dissatisfied with the cost of the personal gas service charge and understood that the cost-of-living crisis was a worrying time.
    3. the gas service charge is split between all residents at the scheme and is calculated based on what has been spent on utilities in the previous year. This will not change as it is considered fair and is the formula used by most organisations.
    4. all of the landlord’s retirement living schemes have Lifeline equipment and this is compulsory for all residents. The service charge is non-negotiable.
    5. it was sorry for any miscommunication or lack of information provided to the resident at the start of his tenancy but would not be able to investigate this part of the complaint as it occurred over 1 year ago, so was outside of the timescales outlined in the landlord’s complaints procedure.
    6. it had reviewed its systems and could see that the usual information regarding TV licenses was provided to the resident at the start of the tenancy, but had passed the resident’s feedback on to the relevant staff member for future reference.
  5. The resident requested that his complaint be escalated to the second stage of the landlord’s internal complaints process on 3 April 2024. He said he did not feel that the complaint was dealt with satisfactorily at stage 1. He felt that the landlord avoided his question around why residents at the block have personal electric meters but no personal gas meters.
  6. The landlord provided its stage 2 response on 4 May 2023. It said:
    1. it had not upheld the complaint.
    2. it had spoken with a compliance contracts surveyor, who confirmed that all the landlord’s retirement living sites with a gas supply have one communal heating and hot water plant and the cost of this communal supply is apportioned to the service charge.
    3. it had reviewed its communal heating set up with 4 other large social housing providers, all of which confirmed that where there is a communal heating system, they split the cost as a service charge.
    4. it had carried out a review of its service charge system in 2022 in response to requests by residents to make service charges more transparent.
    5. Lifeline is a compulsory service as part of all retirement housing tenancies and the charge must be paid.
    6. it monitors the performance of its care providers so any further issues with Lifeline should be reported to the landlord.
    7. it was reviewing its retirement housing local offer document at the time of the complaint and agreed with the resident that the document does not go into detail about how the personal gas charge is split. It thanked the resident for his feedback and agreed that this was an area for improvement.
    8. rent and service charges should be discussed with any prospective resident but as the staff member who completed the resident’s sign-up no longer worked for the landlord, it could not conclusively determine whether this was the case for the resident.
    9. a relevant staff member had offered to speak with the resident about housing options if he felt the retirement housing service was not suitable for him.
  7. The resident contacted this Service on 16 June 2023. He said he was not given all the information he should have been at sign-up and would not have accepted the tenancy if he was. He said he felt that the personal gas service charge increase amount was too high and that his complaint should have been upheld by the landlord. In recent correspondence with this Service, the resident said he would like the landlord to install personal gas meters for residents who want them and to disconnect the Lifeline service for those who do not want it.

Assessment and findings

Jurisdiction

  1. What we can and cannot consider is called the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. This is governed by the Housing Ombudsman Scheme. When a complaint is brought to the Ombudsman, we must consider all the circumstances of the case as there are sometimes reasons why a complaint will not be investigated.
  2. Under paragraph 42.d. of the Scheme, the Ombudsman may not consider complaints which concern the level of service charge or the amount of a service charge increase. Complaints that relate to the level, reasonableness, or liability to pay rent or service charges are within the jurisdiction of the First-Tier Tribunal (FTT).
  3. Under paragraph 42.o. of the Scheme, the Ombudsman may not consider complaints which concern matters where the complainant is seeking an outcome which is not within the Ombudsman’s authority to provide.
  4. After carefully considering all the evidence, in accordance with paragraph 42.d. of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the following aspect of the complaint is outside of the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction:
    1. the landlord’s handling of the resident’s concerns around the fairness and increase in cost of the service charge relating to personal gas.
  5. This is because the resident is unhappy with the increase in cost of his personal gas service charge and feels that the cost would be fairer if he had a personal gas meter. As this matter relates to the cost of the service charge, the matter is within the jurisdiction of the FTT.
  6. After carefully considering all the evidence, in accordance with paragraph 42.o. of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the following aspect of the complaint is outside of the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction:
    1. the landlord’s handling of the resident’s request to cancel the service relating to Lifeline.
  7. This is because the resident is contractually obligated under his tenancy agreement to have the Lifeline service active and pay the relevant service charge as part of the landlord’s retirement living offer. The resident has expressed that he would like the Lifeline service charge waived or for the service to be removed. It is not within the Ombudsman’s authority to order the landlord to amend a legally binding document.

The resident’s concerns about the service charge given to him at the start of his tenancy

  1. The landlord has a Retirement Housing Offer booklet to provide key information about the retirement housing offer to prospective and current residents. The booklet sets out the service charges that are payable in the landlord’s retirement living schemes and categorises them based on whether they are eligible for housing benefit or not. The booklet does not detail how these charges are shared or calculated.
  2. In a tenancy note dated 16 June 2022, the landlord said that it had spoken to the resident as he had cancelled his rent payment direct debit due to not knowing what the additional charges were for. The landlord said that it explained the service charges to the resident as he said he had not been briefed about them before. It said the resident now understood the service charges and reinstated his direct debit. It was reasonable for the landlord to contact the resident to address his concerns and provide an explanation of the service charges.
  3. There is no evidence that the landlord provided a service charge breakdown to the resident prior to the conversation that took place on 16 June 2022. In its stage 2 complaint response, the landlord said it could not see from the relevant documents that service charges were discussed with the resident at sign-up but could not conclusively determine this as the staff member who completed the sign-up no longer worked for the landlord. The landlord apologised for any inconvenience caused. Given that the complaint was made over 12 months after the resident accepted the tenancy, the landlord’s response was reasonable.
  4. The landlord attached a copy of its Retirement Housing Offer booklet to its stage 1 response to clarify which service charges were payable at the scheme. In an email response to the landlord’s stage 2 acknowledgement on 3 April 2023, the resident said that the booklet did not help matters as it did not clearly explain how the service charges are split.
  5. In its stage 2 complaint response, the landlord said that it was currently reviewing the Retirement Housing Offer document and agreed with the resident that it did not go into detail about the equal splitting of the service charges. The landlord acknowledged a need for improvement in this regard and thanked the resident for bringing the issue to its attention. This was appropriate as it showed the landlord attempted to “put things right” by learning from the resident’s complaint.
  6. Overall, the Ombudsman has found no maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s concerns about the service charge information given to him at the start of his tenancy. While it would have been reasonable for the landlord to ensure it provided clear information regarding service charges to the resident at the start of his tenancy, the landlord was proactive in addressing any confusion from the resident around the service charges after the tenancy started. Moreover, the landlord showed evidence of learning from the resident’s complaint regarding the Retirement Housing Offer booklet.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 42.d. of the Scheme, the complaint about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s concerns around the fairness and cost of the service charge relating to personal gas is outside of the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 42.o. of the Scheme, the complaint about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s request to cancel the service relating to Lifeline is outside of the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.
  3. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was no maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s concerns about the information he was provided relating to service charges at the start of his tenancy.