Clarion Housing Association Limited (202308983)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202308983

Clarion Housing Association Limited

28 July 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 response to:
    1.        the resident’s query about his service charge.
    2.        the associated complaint.

Background

  1. At the time of the complaint, the resident was the shared ownership leaseholder of the property which is a flat within a block. The landlord is the freeholder of the property.
  2. On 8 February 2021 the landlord notified the resident about his new service charges for the upcoming financial year starting April 2021. This said his service charge was now £82.17 per month.
  3. On 23 February 2023 the landlord issued its certificate of actual service charge expenditure for the period between 1 April 2021 and 31 March 2022. This said the cost to the resident’s property was £1,222.41. The landlord said there was a difference of £236.37 between the estimated cost of £986.04 and the actual cost.
  4. The resident made a complaint to the landlord on 8 May 2023. He then chased the landlord for a response on 4 occasions up to 5 July 2023. The resident approached the Ombudsman, and on 19 July 2023, we asked the landlord to respond to the resident’s complaint.
  5. The landlord issued its stage 1 complaint response to the resident on 28 July 2023. It said it could not find his complaint from 8 May 2023 and acknowledged that this was about his service charge enquiry. The landlord provided a breakdown of costs for his property and copies of invoices relating to some of the charges. It confirmed that a further review of the actual costs had reduced the service charge to £1,145.59, leaving £159.55 to be paid. The landlord acknowledged that the resident wanted “alleged arrears” to be waived. It said it could not do this as he had been underpaying his rent and service charge account each month. The landlord recognised that it had delayed in responding to the resident’s service charge query and offered him £100 compensation for this. It also offered £150 compensation for failings in its handling of the complaint.
  6. The resident escalated his complaint with the landlord on 20 August 2023. He said it had not acknowledged all its complaint handling failures and wanted further compensation for these. The resident said the landlord had incorrectly charged him each month for his rent and service charges and he wanted compensation of 10% of what he had paid. He highlighted that some costs in the service charge breakdown had no supporting invoices. The resident also disputed some of the costs and wanted these to be refunded. He said he would accept a refund of £250 to settle the matter. The resident disagreed with the amount the landlord said it had charged him for service charges and wanted refunds for the difference between this figure and the actual service charge expenditure.
  7. The landlord gave its final complaint response to the resident on 12 December 2023. It said it had awarded £50 in its stage 1 complaint response for incorrectly charging his account. The landlord said that no refunds were due to the resident. It explained why there was no documentation to support some charges in the breakdown of costs. The landlord provided an explanation for some of the costs and services the resident was unhappy with. It offered the resident £250 compensation for its complaint handling failures, in addition to the £250 compensation it offered at stage 1.
  8. The resident told us on 4 January 2024 that he remained unhappy with the landlord’s response as he felt the compensation it offered was not proportionate to its failings. He wanted it to be held accountable for its failure to provide accurate information about the service charge.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. Paragraph 42.d. of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme states that we may not investigate complaints which concern the level of rent or service charge or the amount of the rent or service charge increase.
  2. In line with the Scheme, this investigation will not consider the reasonableness, amount of, or liability to pay service charges. These matters are better suited for consideration by the First Tier Tribunal (Property Chamber)(FTT). If the resident wishes to pursue these concerns, he may wish to seek advice from the Leasehold Advisory Service (LEASE). We will, however, consider if the landlord answered the resident’s queries appropriately and whether it acted in line with its statutory obligations, policies and procedures.
  3. The resident told us on 4 January 2024 that the landlord had given him misleading information about his service charge account, which it had mismanaged for 6 years. In line with paragraph 42.c. of the Scheme, we are unable to consider the historical events.
  4. Paragraph 42.c. of the Scheme says that the Ombudsman may not consider complaints which were not brought to the attention of the member (landlord) as a formal complaint within a reasonable period which would normally be within 12 months of the matters arising. This is because we encourage residents to raise complaints promptly with landlord while the issues are still live. With the passage of time, records may not be retained or may be incomplete, and the staff involved may have left. It is then not possible to make a reliable determination on historical events. Therefore, this investigation has focused on events from May 2022 onwards, which is 12 months prior to the resident’s initial complaint.

The landlord’s response to the resident’s query about his service charge

  1. The resident’s lease agreement with the landlord confirms that he is required to pay a service charge towards the landlord’s costs in maintaining the property.
  2. Section 22 of the Landlord and Tenant Act (1985) (the Act) provides for the following:
    1. When a landlord issues a summary of costs to a resident, such as an invoice, within 6 months it may request supporting information for those costs.
    2. The landlord must provide “reasonable facilities” for “inspecting the accounts, receipts and other documents supporting the summary”.
    3. The landlord must make this information available to the resident within a month from their request, and the information should remain available for 2 months after that.
  3. The landlord failed to provide information about the service charge to the resident promptly. It acknowledged that it had not acted on his initial request on 8 May 2023. When prompted by the Ombudsman, it then attached the information to its stage 1 complaint response on 28 July 2023. This was approximately 2 and half months after the resident’s initial request, and a month and a half longer than the timeframe set out in the Act above.
  4. The landlord has not provided evidence to the Ombudsman to confirm whether it wrongly charged the resident’s account. However, it did not dispute this in its final stage complaint response. It said that it had offered the resident £50 compensation at stage 1 for incorrectly charging his account. However, the landlord’s stage 1 complaint response did not acknowledge or offer compensation for this issue. While it was positive that it recognised its error, it was unreasonable that its complaint responses were inconsistent with each other. This may have led to confusion for the resident.
  5. In his complaint escalation request, the resident requested refunds of his service charge. It was unclear what the resident’s basis for requesting a refund of these amounts was, as there was no evidence he had been overcharged by the landlord. Its final complaint response acknowledged it incorrectly charged his account. However, it is unclear whether it incorrectly charged his account by too much or too little, or by how much. It was unreasonable that the landlord did not make this explicitly clear to the resident. This may have led to uncertainty and distress for the resident.
  6. The wording of the landlord’s stage 1 complaint response said that the balance between the actual service charge cost of £1,222.41 and the £986.04 the resident had paid was £236.37, which was “payable to you”. This wording appears to be an error by the landlord as the shortfall between the actual cost and the resident’s contribution would be payable by him. This failure in communication may have led to confusion and raised the resident’s expectations that he would receive a partial refund.
  7. In its final stage complaint response, the landlordsaid that it was unable to provide specific evidence for the aspects of the service charge the resident said were missing evidence. It said these related to employees’ salaries and contracts covering several sites which included the resident’s block. It is common practice in the housing industry for landlords to hold multi-site contracts as these may provide better value. Although the landlord may not have been able to provide a breakdown of some of the charge for the resident’s individual property, it should have explained the total charges and how many properties they covered to explain the charges. However, the landlord failed to make it clear which services the resident challenged were multi-site contracts.
  8. The landlord provided a reasonable explanation to the resident’s concerns about the lift services he paid for through his service charge. It provided evidence of repairs which had been carried out to the lift and explained that the initial estimated charge was low because the previous year’s cost for the lift maintenance had low. The service charge was then adjusted once the actual cost of the maintenance for that year was known. However, it failed to respond to his concerns about charges for grounds maintenance, window cleaning, the management fee, refuse collection, caretaker charges, solar panels and air conditioning. It would have been reasonable for the landlord to provide details of the work and clarify the charges. It was unreasonable that it did not do so.
  9. Overall, the landlord’s response to the resident’s query about his service amounts to service failure. It partially fulfilled his request for supporting information for his service charges and provided a reasonable explanation for why some of this was not available. However, its communication was inconsistent, and its explanations were incomplete. This may have led to distress and inconvenience for the resident in needing to seek further clarification.
  10. As part of his complaint, the resident has asked for a refund of part of the service charge. We understand the resident’s reasons for requesting this. However, he is legally obliged to pay the service charge in line with the lease and whilst we have looked at communication about it we would not be able to confirm that all or part of the service charge is not payable without evidence to show that the resident has been charged for a service which the landlord did not provide. As above, it is outside our remit to assess whether the charges represent good value for money.
  11. It was appropriate for the landlord, in its stage 1 complaint response, to acknowledge its avoidable delay in responding to the resident’s service charge query. It was positive that it offered the resident £100 in its stage 1 complaint response to recognise the inconvenience caused by its delay. However, the landlord did not actually offer the resident £50 for incorrectly charging his account. Nor did it recognise that its wording in its stage 1 complaint response may have confused the resident. To recognise the likely distress and inconvenience the resident experienced from the landlord’s failures in answering his service charge queries, we order it to pay him £250 compensation. This award replaces its original offer of £100, which can be deducted from the total compensation if it has already been paid.
  12. Our award of £250 is in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance, which is available to view on our website. This suggests awards of between £100 and £600 where there has been a failure by the landlord which affected the resident, but which was not permanent. In this case the landlord’s failures in communication regarding the service charge caused the resident distress and inconvenience but did not significantly affect his occupation of the property.

The landlord’s handling of the associated a complaint

  1. The landlord’s interim complaints policy at the time of the complaint set out a 2-stage complaints procedure. At both stages, the policy says the landlord will log and acknowledge complaints and complaint escalations within 10 working days of receipt. At stage 1, the policy says it will issue its response within 20 working days of logging the complaint. At the final stage, the policy says the landlord will issue its final response within 40 working days of logging the escalation.
  2. These above timeframes are double those set out in the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code). All landlords who are members of the Scheme must abide by the Code. However, the Ombudsman is aware that the landlord experienced significant disruption between Summer and Winter 2022 from a cyberattack. Therefore, it was reasonable for the landlord to temporarily extend its timeframes in the circumstances. The landlord has since adjusted its timescales, so they are now in line with the Code.
  3. The landlord acknowledged, in its final stage complaint response, that it received the resident’s initial complaint on 8 May 2023, but it had not acted on it. After intervention from the Ombudsman, the landlord eventually issued its stage 1 complaint response to the resident on 23 July 2023, after 58 working days. This was a failure to adhere to its published timeframes, which would have inconvenienced the resident as he was waiting longer than he should have been for a response.
  4. The resident then escalated his complaint on 20 August 2023, and the landlord responded on 12 December 2023. This was after 81 working days and was again a significant failure to respond in line with its published timeframes. While there was evidence that the landlord updated the resident regularly while the final complaint response was outstanding, the delay was still excessive and caused the resident to spend additional time and trouble chasing the response.
  5. It was positive that the landlord acknowledged, in its final complaint response that it failed to adhere to its complaints policy in acknowledging and responding to the complaint. It also acknowledged that it failed to provide an action plan to the resident when it was unable to resolve the complaint in time. It was positive that the landlord offered a further £250 compensation to the resident to recognise the distress and inconvenience he experienced as a result. This was a total of £400 compensation for its complaint handling failures.
  6. The landlord’s offer of £400 for distress and inconvenience caused by its complaint handling failures was broadly in line with our remedies guidance, mentioned above. Its offer of compensation reasonably recognised the likely distress and inconvenience the resident experienced from its failures. Therefore, we consider that the landlord made a reasonable offer of redress to the resident to resolve this aspect of his complaint and it does not need to do anything further regarding this.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was service failure by the landlord in its response to the resident’s query about his service charge.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 53.b. of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord offered redress to the resident which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, satisfactorily resolves the complaint about its handling of the associated complaint.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks, the landlord must provide evidence to the Ombudsman that it has complied with the following orders:
    1. Pay the resident compensation of £250 for its failures in providing information about his service charge. It may deduct the £100 it previously offered him for this if it can evidence it has already paid this.
    2. Contact the resident to confirm which aspects of the services or service charge need clarifying and write to him to provide a detailed response to these including a breakdown of the charges and an explanation for what each charge is for. If the landlord is unable to provide a breakdown for particular charges, for example because of a multi-site contract, then it should explain the reasons why it cannot provide a breakdown.

Recommendation

  1. The landlord should pay the resident the amount of £400 compensation it offered him for its complaint handling failures, unless it has done so already. Our finding of reasonable redress is dependent on it paying this to him.