A2Dominion Housing Group Limited (202427721)

Decision
Case ID	202427721
Decision type	Investigation
Landlord	A2Dominion Housing Group Limited
Landlord type	Housing Association
Occupancy	Leaseholder
Date	22 October 2025

Background

The resident lives in a flat in a block comprised of private, social rented and leasehold flats. The resident’s heating system is part of a block-wide heat network.

What the complaint is about

The complaint is about:
1. The increased cost of heating and hot water.
2. The landlord’s handing of the resident’s queries about heating and hot water charges.
3. How the landlord responded to the complaint.

Our decision (determination)

We have found that:
1. The resident’s complaint about the increased cost of heating and hot water is not within our jurisdiction.
2. There was maladministration in the how the landlord handled the resident’s queries about heating and hot water charges.
3. There was reasonable redress in how the landlord responded to the resident’s complaint.

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

Summary of reasons

The increased cost of heating and hot water

The resident has complained about the rise in the cost of the heating and hot water element of her service charge. Our Scheme states we will not investigate complaints which concern the amount of a service charge increase. Therefore, this complaint is not within our jurisdiction to investigate. The resident may want to consider contacting the First Tier Tribunal (property) about their service charges.

How the landlord handled the resident’s queries about heating and hot water charges.

The landlord delayed unreasonably in addressing the resident’s queries about these charges.

The complaint handling

The landlord delayed in responding to the resident’s complaint.

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 19 November 2025
2	Compensation order The landlord must pay the resident £150 for distress and inconvenience caused by its poor communication. This must be paid directly to the resident by the due date. The landlord must provide documentary evidence of payment by the due date.	No later than 19 November 2025.

Order

What the landlord must do

Due date

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

19 November 2025

Compensation order

The landlord must pay the resident £150 for distress and inconvenience caused by its poor communication.

This must be paid directly to the resident by the due date. The landlord must provide documentary evidence of payment by the due date.

No later than 19 November 2025.

Our investigation

The complaint procedure

Date	What happened
Between 3 October and 29 December 2023	The resident emailed the landlord on 5 occasions and asked it to explain the current heating and hot water rates.
2 February 2024	The landlord sent the resident a letter explaining the new heating charges and outlined a table showing how it calculated these.
5 March 2024	The resident complained about the increased cost of heating and hot water. She said the landlord had failed to suitably justify the increase to this aspect of her service charge.
2 July 2024	The landlord issued a stage 1 complaint response. It explained that it had outlined the new charges in its 2 February 2024 letter. It acknowledged “poor communication” and offered the resident £50 compensation for this. It also acknowledged a complaint handling delay and offered £80 compensation for this.
29 July 2024	The resident asked to escalate her complaint to stage 2. She said she considered the landlord had ignored her queries “for years.” She also complained that the landlord had failed to justify the increase in heating and hot water costs.
30 July 2024	The landlord paid the resident £130 compensation.
14 August 2024	The landlord issued a stage 2 complaint response. It explained that the heating charges set out in its 2 February 2024 were correct, but that it intended to install smart meters in the properties due to the large variations in cost. It explained that it had serviced the heating network to ensure it was operating correctly. It also explained that it did not add its own costs onto the heating charge, and that this was billed by the heat network operator.
17 March 2025	The resident referred her complaint to the Ombudsman. She complained that the landlord had unfairly increased her heating and hot water charges.
8 October 2025	The resident advised the Ombudsman that, to resolve her complaint, she would like the landlord to reduce the heating and hot water element of her service charge.

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	How the landlord responded to the resident’s queries about heating and hot water charges.
Finding	Maladministration

The records show the landlord failed to respond to 5 emails the resident sent querying these charges from 3 October 2023 until 2 February 2024. While we can see the landlord clearly set out how the charges were calculated on 2 February 2024, it is unclear why it took 4 months to do so. There is no evidence to explain this delay in its records, and therefore, we consider it was unreasonable. We also consider the resident incurred inconvenienced by having to chase a response 5 times during this period.
The landlord has offered the resident £50 in compensation for this. Having considered our guidance on compensation, we do not consider this is sufficient to put things right. Our guidance sets out that payments between £100 and £600 are appropriate to put right failings which have adversely, but not permanently, impacted residents.
The landlord failed to acknowledge any of the resident’s emails for 4 months. We can also see she incurred repeated inconvenience in seeking a response. We consider the lack of response likely caused her some distress, which is evidenced by the nature and content of her emails. The distress in large part was likely related to the actual increase in heating cost, however this was compounded by the landlord’s failure to explain the calculations. With this in mind, we consider appropriate compensation to be at the low-mid range of our scale. Therefore, we will order the landlord to pay the resident a further £150 compensation.

Complaint	The handling of the complaint
Finding	Reasonable redress

The landlord exceeded the 10 working day timescale for addressing stage 1 complaints in its policy by 72 working days. We consider this likely caused the resident some frustration.
The landlord has already offered the resident £80 compensation for this. Its compensation policy sets out that it will pay compensation from £50 to £100 for complaint handling failures with low level impacts. While we recognise this delay was likely frustrating, we consider this impact was likely minor as the landlord had already responded to her service charge queries. We cannot see any further evidence that the resident incurred inconvenience in chasing the stage 1 response. Therefore, we consider the landlord has already done enough to put this delay right.