Clarion Housing Association Limited (202331555)

Background

1. The resident became the tenant of her property through a mutual exchange on 13 March 2006. She complained on 22 September 2023 that the landlord had added service charges she believed she should not have to pay. The issue went through the full complaints process before she brought it to us. She said the landlord’s stage 2 response referred to an application to the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) and stated new charges would be added from 2024 once approved. However, the resident said the VOA did not approve the service charges, but the landlord added them anyway.

What the complaint is about

2. The complaint is about the landlord’s response to the resident’s concerns that it was charging her service charges which she did not believe she should pay.

Our decision (determination)

3. We have found there was maladministration by the landlord in response to the resident’s concerns that it was charging her service charges which she did not believe she should pay.

We have made orders for the landlord to put things right.

Reasons

The circumstances of this complaint are well known by the parties involved, so it is not necessary to detail everything that’s happened or comment on all the information we’ve reviewed. We’ve only included the key information that forms the basis of our decision of whether the landlord is responsible for maladministration.

4. There is no provision in the tenancy agreement for the landlord to charge the resident a service charge. The landlord cannot introduce service charges without them being included in the tenancy agreement or introduced at some later point following a fair and proper process to introduce them.
5. The tenancy agreement states that rents are set by the ‘rent officer.’ The ‘rent officer’ operates within the VOA as one of its functions.
6. On 10 November 2023, the VOA wrote to the landlord. The VOA’s letter noted the landlord’s application of 31 October 2023 indicated that services were provided to the resident’s property. The VOA said its records showed that services were not being provided in the landlord’s previous application. The VOA asked the landlord to advise if there had been a change to the terms of the resident’s tenancy since last registration. The landlord was asked to provide a tenancy agreement, with the contractual obligations, if that was the case.
7. We have seen no evidence that the landlord responded to this contact from the VOA. However, we have had sight of a rent registration form, dated 29 November 2023, which confirmed the new rent registered by the VOA. This rent registration form clearly states that no services were provided by the landlord.
8. Given the tenancy agreement makes no provision for a service charge and as the VOA had not agreed to these being added, the landlord had no right to apply service charges to the resident’s account. That the landlord sought to charge the resident a service charge, when it had no right to do so, represents a significant failure on its part.
9. The complaints process provided the landlord with an opportunity to put right this failure. However, we are not satisfied that it did so.
10. In its complaint responses the landlord confirmed the charges it had applied would be removed. It apologised for the delay in its response to the resident’s concerns and for the inconvenience to her for having to ‘repeatedly’ chase. The landlord offered a total of £250 for these failures. However, it did not apologise for adding charges to the resident’s account when it had no right to do so. Neither did it explain how this had happened and what it was going to do to ensure that it did not happen again.
11. Instead, it said that if its application to the VOA was accepted, it would charge the resident for fire safety, at £1.79 per week, and an admin fee of 27p per week from April 2024. The landlord said this would total £107.12 per year. This would have been reasonable had the application been accepted by the VOA. However, by the time the landlord issued it stage 2 response on 5 January 2024, its application to include a service charge had already been refused by the VOA. A new having been registered by the VOA on 29 November 2023, which confirmed that no services were provided by the landlord.
12. Despite stating in its stage 2 response that it would only add charges if its application to the VOA was accepted, which it was not, the landlord proceeded to charge the resident for communal electricity, fire protection, and an admin fee in 2024 to 2025. The resident’s rent and service charge notification letter, dated 14 February 2024, confirmed the resident would be expected to pay £4.19 a week for these services.
13. For the landlord to repeatedly seek to charge the resident a service charge, without the authority to do so, was a further failure that understandably caused the resident significant and unnecessary distress. This also resulted in significant inconvenience to the resident as she had to constantly chase the landlord for these to be removed.
14. The resident recently told us the landlord removed the 2024 to 2025 charges and that her 2026 to 2027 rent notification letter included no charges. The resident also said prior to these charges being applied, ‘for years’ she had been charged ‘pence’ but had not queried the charge as it was ‘so small’.
15. The resident told us that ‘sometime last year’ she found her rent account was in credit. The resident said she spoke to the landlord’s customer services team who said this was due to a ‘true up.’ The resident said she had no idea what they were talking about. The resident said it was not clear whether the landlord had refunded her all the charges she had paid or how it had calculated any refunds it had made.
16. The resident also said that without the landlord explaining why it kept repeatedly adding charges to her account, and what it was doing to ensure this did not reoccur in the future, she remained concerned that this would happen again.

Putting things right

Where we find service failure, maladministration, or severe maladministration we can make orders for the landlord to put things right. We have the discretion to make recommendations in all other cases within our jurisdiction.

Orders

Landlords must comply with our orders in the manner and timescales we specify. The landlord must provide documentary evidence of compliance with our orders by the due date set.

Recommendations

Our recommendations are not binding, and a landlord may decide not to follow them.