A2Dominion Housing Group Limited (202314196)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202314196

A2Dominion Housing Group Limited

4 September 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 the resident’s enquiries about rent overpayments.

Background

2. The resident has had a shared ownership lease with the landlord, a housing association, since 1989. The property is a 3-bedroom house.
3. In 2022 the resident began the process to buy the landlord’s share of the property. During this she found the landlord had recorded, and then charged rent on, an incorrect percentage of ownership. She raised this in December 2022 and asked for a breakdown of the rent she had paid in the last 18 years. She also queried why the landlord was taking service charges when it was not entitled to do so.
4. The landlord provided the requested breakdown in May 2023. The resident complained on 5 July 2023, saying was unhappy with the length of time taken to fulfil her request. She was also unhappy with the calculations, which she did not think accurately reflected the refund owed to her.
5. In its stage 1 response of 19 July 2023, the landlord said it had sent the resident a spreadsheet of overpayments and how they were calculated. This detailed the total amount of refund due, including £150 compensation for the inconvenience and £240 for the time taken. It said the information was correct based on what was available, but if she had different records, she should provide them. It apologised sincerely for any inconvenience caused and said it would learn from her feedback to improve its service.
6. The resident was unhappy with the landlord’s explanation and calculations so escalated her complaint. In its stage 2 response of 23 August 2023, the landlord apologised for the delayed response due to a period of absence and said:
   1. Its explanation could have been clearer (it set out a new explanation of how the refund was calculated before 8% statutory interest was added). It had previously calculated the interest incorrectly. It was attaching a redraft of the information which it hoped would be more helpful.
   2. The overpayment had occurred because its system had incorrectly recorded the resident’s share at 30% when she owned 80%. It apologised for the error.
   3. The liability period for a debt was 12 years but it had extended this to the point of its merger in 2007. It did not have records prior to this to establish if she had been overpaying. It offered £1,000 plus interest for any overpayments during that period and £390 compensation for time and inconvenience. Therefore, the total amount offered was £12,840.72.
7. In a follow-up of 19 September 2023, the landlord set out a breakdown of charges from 2011 to 2022 (2023 was not yet available) and said the resident had not paid service charges. Following further correspondence with her, it issued another explanation and breakdown of its calculations on 12 October 2023. It apologised and said the earlier 2 calculations and explanations were incorrect and the total amount it was offering was £9,498.83 (including the previously offered £390 compensation).
8. The resident referred her complaint to us saying she was unhappy with the time taken by the landlord to provide her with a statement. She said the landlord’s figures did not make sense.

Assessment and findings

9. The resident has made another complaint to the landlord which is currently at stage 2. We are only able to consider issues which have first been raised with the landlord and exhausted its complaints process. Therefore, our investigation broadly considers events up to the landlord’s follow-up response of October 2023. Once the new complaint has completed the landlord’s complaint process, she may refer it to us if she is dissatisfied with the response.
10. It is not within our remit to say whether the landlord was entitled to take service charges. We cannot assess the level or reasonableness of a service charge and/or whether a refund is due; this would be for the First Tier Tribunal (FTT) to consider. The landlord has confirmed to the resident that it has not taken service charges from her. If she remains concerned about this, she should contact the FTT.
11. It is also not our role to check the accuracy of the landlord’s calculations or the refund figure she is owed. Instead, we have looked at how the landlord responded to her enquiries, including the time taken. The landlord has accepted its service failures in its complaint responses, apologised, and offered compensation. Therefore, the question before us is whether those failures amount to maladministration and, if so, whether proper redress was offered to put things right.
12. The landlord has accepted there was a delay in its response to the resident. Evidence shows this was due to factors like the significant period the error covered and records that were no longer available as a result. There were multiple teams involved in working out what had gone wrong, where, and how to set things right. The landlord necessarily needed to liaise with its legal, finance, rent, and sales teams, amongst others. We accept that all of this took time.
13. However, our expectation during this period of gathering information and arranging signoff, would be for the landlord to communicate clearly and regularly with the resident to keep her updated about what it was doing, with expected timeframes. We have not seen evidence that it did this. Instead, she had to chase it to ask what it was doing in response to her request. Therefore, while we accept that the lengthy time taken had a reasonable explanation, the lack of clear communication during it was unacceptable.
14. Further, once the landlord provided the requested information, it did not get it right. It acted correctly by revisiting its calculations and method each time the resident queried this. However, its failure to get things right in the first or even second instance understandably led to a lack of confidence and confusion for the resident. Coupled with its lack of prompt updates earlier, this added to her frustration, upset, and distrust of the information it was providing.
15. Given the above, we have identified maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s enquiries about rent overpayments. It has accepted some of its failings, apologised, and offered £390 compensation (in addition to a refund of the challenged payments). It has also provided feedback to ensure it does not repeat the mistakes going forward. These actions demonstrate that the landlord took the complaint seriously, openly acknowledged areas for improvement, and took action to rectify the identified failings. This is in line with our Dispute Resolution Principles: be fair, put things right, and learn from outcomes.
16. However, the landlord did not offer redress for its poor communication and repeated mistakes with its calculations. It is, therefore, ordered to pay the resident a further £250 for this, in line with our remedies guidance.

Determination

17. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s enquiries about rent overpayments.

Orders

18. Within 4 weeks of this report the landlord is ordered to provide evidence that it has paid directly to the resident (and not offset against any arrears) £640 compensation (inclusive of the £390 previously offered), for its handling of her concerns about rent overpayments.