The Guinness Partnership Limited (202441557)

Decision
Case ID	202441557
Decision type	Investigation
Landlord	The Guinness Partnership Limited
Landlord type	Housing Association
Occupancy	Assured Tenancy
Date	28 April 2026

Background

1. Due to the resident’s personal circumstances, which the landlord is aware of, a representative complained to the landlord on her behalf. He will be referred to in this report as the ‘representative’. He explained that the resident was unhappy with how the landlord had administered the resident’s rent account, and its direct communication with the resident, as she had asked it not to contact her directly.

What the complaint is about

2. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of:
   1. The resident’s rent account.
   2. A contact preference request.
   3. The associated complaint.

Our decision (determination)

3. There was service failure in the landlord’s handling of:
   1. The resident’s rent account.
   2. The associated complaint.
4. There was reasonable redress in the landlord’s handling of:
   1. The contact preference request.
5.  We have made orders for the landlord to put things right.

Summary of reasons

6. The landlord told the resident it would not contact her about her rent account while it was recalculating her rent liability. It contacted her twice by phone and sent a legal notice by post. It acknowledged communication failures and offered the resident compensation, but the compensation was not proportionate to the failings identified.
7. The landlord accepted that it did not act in line with contact preferences it had agreed for the resident. It apologised for its failings and offered proportionate compensation.
8. The landlord failed to fully consider one element of the resident’s complaint at stage 1 of the complaints process.

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.

Order	What the landlord must do	Due date
1	Apology order The landlord must apologise in writing to the resident for the failures identified in this report. The landlord must ensure: The apology is specific to the failures identified in this decision, meaningful and empathetic. It has due regard to our apologies guidance.	No later than 26 May 2026
	Compensation order The landlord must pay the resident £350 made up as follows: £200 compensation offered by the landlord through the complaints process. £100 in recognition of the impact of failures in the landlord’s management of the resident’s rent account. £50 in recognition of the impact of the landlord’s complaint handling failures. This must be paid directly to the resident by the due date. The landlord must provide documentary evidence of payment by the due date. The landlord may deduct from the total figure any payments it has already paid.	No later than 26 May 2026

 

Recommendations

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

Our recommendations
We recommend that the landlord explains to the resident any circumstances where it would have to contact her directly, despite her request to be contacted through a representative.  It should ask her how it can minimise the impact of any necessary direct contact, for example by agreeing to contact her representative first.

Our investigation

The complaint procedure

Date	What happened
12 December 2024	The representative complained to the landlord. He said: The landlord had agreed to reclassify the resident’s property from a 3-bed to a 2-bed property on its records. It said her rent would be recalculated based on this. It would credit her rent account if she had overpaid. During a meeting with the resident and the representative, it said she should pay what she could afford towards her rent arrears.  She had made 2 payments. The resident had received a letter from the landlord about rent arrears. The letter was threatening and disturbing. It caused the resident stress and anguish. It should cancel the letter and wait for the rent to be recalculated. The landlord communicated with the resident directly. It should have contacted the representative, as she had asked for all contact to go through him.
06 January 2025	The landlord responded at stage 1 of its complaints process. It upheld the complaint and said: It wrote to the resident on 9 December 2024 to say it would reclassify the property as a 2-bed. It would make a rent adjustment to reflect the change. It called the resident on 11 October 2024 and 6 December 2024 to discuss her rent account. She asked it to speak to the representative. The resident’s representative explained to the rent team that the property was being reclassified. However, the rent arrears letter had already been sent, and the resident received it on 11 December 2024. The landlord accepted that there were communication failures around the issue. It acknowledged that they would have caused the resident stress and inconvenience. It offered the resident £25 in compensation. It was getting legal advice so it could calculate the correct rent charge. It expected to have the information within 28 days. It had updated its system and would not send any further communication about the rent account until the recalculation was done.
10 January 2025	The landlord revised its offer of compensation, increasing it to £50.
13 January 2025	The representative asked the landlord to escalate the complaint, saying: The landlord’s compensation offer was not proportionate to the impact the landlord’s failings had on the resident. Receiving the letter led her to have thoughts of suicide. The letter was received just before Christmas. The resident had requested that all contact go through the representative 2 months before the events in the complaint. There was a lack of communication between departments. The representative had asked for the rent account to be put on hold prior to receiving contact from the landlord about the arrears. The landlord said it had done this, but it had not.  It had sent the representative letters in an inappropriate format, as they were editable, and contained incorrect information.
11 February 2025	The landlord responded at stage 2 of its complaints process. It upheld the complaint, saying: It apologised for failing to use the resident’s communication preferences. Its customer liaison officer asked for communication about the rent account to be paused until the landlord had recalculated the rent charges. The request was not actioned by the rent team. It apologised for this failing. It sent the resident a letter with an incorrect postcode and a missing date. When the resident notified it of this, it reissued the letter the same day. It acknowledged the distress caused by the inaccuracy. The letter was in its standard format. Although this was editable, a copy was saved on resident’s account which could be reviewed later. It agreed that the compensation offered at stage 1 of its complaints process was not proportionate to the impact of its failings. It increased its offer of compensation to £200, made up of: £50 for failing to use the resident’s contact preferences. £100 for time and trouble spent pursuing the issues, and the impact the failures had on the resident. £50 for poor communication and its failure to pause rent arrears action.
Referral to the Ombudsman	The representative asked us to investigate the complaint. He said the landlord’s handling of the issues had a significant impact on the wellbeing of the resident.

 

What we found and why

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.

Complaint	The resident’s rent account
Finding	Service failure

9. Under the landlord’s criteria, rooms that are smaller than 50 square feet cannot be considered a habitable bedroom. The landlord measured a room in the resident’s home, which it had previously considered a bedroom. It concluded that it was smaller than the minimum bedroom size. It agreed to reclassify the property as having 2 bedrooms.
10. This had an impact on the rental charge for the property. This is because social landlords’ rent calculations are based on several factors, including bedroom size and property value. As such, it was appropriate for the landlord to recalculate the rent charges from the start of the resident’s tenancy. The process took some time as the landlord needed to seek legal advice on the value of the property.
11. The landlord accepted that it told the resident and her representative it would pause any action to recover rent arrears until it had completed the rent recalculation. It accepted that it inappropriately contacted the resident about the arrears, twice by phone, and once when it sent the resident a legal notice called a notice of seeking possession (NOSP).
12. After the landlord called the resident on 6 December 2024, the representative called it and again asked it to pause action on the rent account. The landlord explained that by this time it had already requested the letter be sent. As such the resident received the letter about her rent account on 11 December 2024. 
13. The letter said that court proceedings may begin ‘after 25 December 2024’. Landlords are entitled to serve legal notices on any date, but serving legal notices over the Christmas period is not always reasonable. This is because:
    1. It may cause residents undue worry, particularly if they are vulnerable, like the resident.
    2. There are often reduced services over the Christmas period and residents may find it difficult to access support.
14. In this case, the representative explained that the contact and letters caused the resident distress, and this was increased as the notice was received in the run-up to Christmas.
15. When the representative called the landlord on 6 December 2024 and explained that the rental charge was being recalculated, it was a second opportunity for the landlord to freeze the action on the resident’s rent account. We did not see evidence it did this, and the landlord said in its complaints response that it had requested the account be placed on hold. This indicated that it did not do so earlier, which was a failing.
16. The representative complained that the landlord sent a further letter about the rent recalculation with missing and inaccurate information. When the representative made it aware of the errors, the landlord re-issued the correspondence the same day. In the reissued letter it made another error, omitting a letter from the resident’s name. It reissued the letter correctly when it was made aware of the issue.
17. Human errors happen, and it was positive that the landlord rectified its mistakes promptly when it became aware of them. However, we have seen evidence of a further instance of the landlord sending incorrect information to the representative after it sent its complaint response. It may wish to review its systems or processes to see if there are steps it can take to reduce human error in correspondence.
18. The landlord offered the resident £50 in compensation for its communication failures, and the resulting failure to freeze its arrears recovery process. It also offered her an additional £100 for the time and trouble taken to pursue the complaint, and the impact of the failings on the resident. It did not give a clear breakdown of how it allocated this award between the resident’s 2 key concerns. It should consider doing so in future, to make its offers of compensation clearer.
19. It is positive that the landlord accepted errors in its handling of the case, apologised for the impact this had on the resident, and offered her compensation. If it had not done so, we would have found that there was maladministration in its handling of the issue.
20. In the circumstances of the case, we do not consider that the landlord’s compensation award fully reflected the impact of its failings. As such, we have awarded additional compensation. The additional award is in line with our approach to compensation (available on our website).

Complaint	Contact preferences
Finding	Reasonable redress

21. The landlord has a reasonable adjustments policy. In the policy, it says it will communicate with residents in the way that is most appropriate and accessible for them.
22. The resident has complicated personal circumstances which the landlord is aware of. She has disclosed to it that she experiences anxiety and has a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder.
23. In October 2024, she asked it not to contact her directly. She gave it contact details for her representative. It agreed to her contact preference request and updated its records accordingly. It accepts that it failed to adhere to her contact preferences. This was inappropriate and caused the resident distress.
24. The letter sent to the resident included a Notice of Seeking Possession (NOSP). In this case the landlord has accepted that it should not have served her with a NOSP, as discussed above. However, in some cases, a landlord may still need to contact a resident directly, even where a ‘no contact’ preference has been agreed. This may include service of legal paperwork, which is only valid if it is ‘served’ in prescribed ways.
25. The landlord should have explained this to the resident when it agreed to her contact preferences. There is no evidence it did so. We recommend it does so now. It should also discuss any adjustments it could make to minimise the impact of necessary direct contact, such as letting her representative know in advance if a notice will be served.  
26. The landlord apologised for its failure to follow the contact arrangements it had agreed. It offered the resident compensation for the impact the contacts had on her. This award aligned with our approach to compensation. It was, in our opinion, proportionate to the failings identified. No further compensation has been awarded.
27. The landlord has told us that is making system changes. The changes will make customer alerts, like contact preferences, more visible on the landlord’s system. This should improve the landlord’s services, preventing similar mistakes from recurring.
28. In our opinion, the steps taken are sufficient to put things right for the resident and amount to reasonable redress for this element of the complaint.

Complaint	The handling of the complaint
Finding	Service failure

29. The Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code) sets out our expectations for landlord’s complaint handling. The timescales in the landlord’s complaints policy align with the timescales in the Code. The landlord met its complaint policy timescales at both stages of the complaints process.
30. The landlord’s explanations of its findings were clear. Where it identified failings in its handling of the case, it took learning from them, passing feedback to relevant teams and members of staff. This demonstrated that it was taking steps to improve its services.
31. At stage 1 of the complaints process, the landlord outlined the resident’s concerns about the landlord contacting her directly although she had asked for all correspondence to be sent to her representative. It also said that when it called the resident to discuss the rent account, she asked it to contact her representative.
32. Despite this, the landlord did not say if it had investigated this concern and did not clearly state is position on the issue. This will have been frustrating for the resident and may have led to her feeling that her concerns were not heard. Her representative raised the issue again in the stage 2 complaint escalation request.
33. The landlord did address the issue at stage 2 of the complaints process. However, it should have acknowledged that it did not do so in its stage 1 response. It did not, which was a shortcoming. To put things right, we have awarded the resident additional compensation. The amount awarded aligns with our approach to compensation in cases where a landlord has failed to acknowledge a complaint handling failure, but this did not have a permeant impact on the outcome of the case.

Learning

34. The landlord increased its offer of compensation between stage 1 and 2 of the complaints process. This is not good practice, as it could be interpreted as an attempt to dissuade a resident from escalating their complaint. It did not affect the outcome of the case, as the representative was still able to escalate the complaint. However, the landlord may wish to consider refresher training for relevant staff.

Knowledge information management (record keeping)

35. It is vital that landlords keep clear, accurate and easily accessible records to provide an audit trail. The landlord had clear records of the actions it had taken in this case. This was a strength.

Communication

36. The landlord may wish to consider how it can share information effectively between teams, to prevent silo-working.