Cognatum Estates Ltd (202218816)

Background

1. The resident’s representative was the Executor of her will and managed the resident’s estate following her death in 2020. This included paying service charges to the landlord until the sale of the resident’s home in April 2022. In 2018 the landlord had agreed to credit the reserve fund with £9,000 as a goodwill gesture towards increased communal water costs. The representative complained the landlord did not credit the reserve fund when it said it would. She also complained that the landlord would not pay compensation.

What the complaint is about

2. The complaint is about:
   1. The time it took the landlord took to apply a £9,000 goodwill credit and its decision to credit the reserve fund.
   2. The landlord’s handling of the representative’s requests for compensation.
3. We have also assessed the landlord’s complaint handling.

Our decision (determination)

4. There was reasonable redress in the time it took the landlord took to apply the £9,000 goodwill credit and its decision to credit the reserve fund.
5. The landlord’s handling of the representative’s requests for compensation is outside the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.
6. There was service failure in the landlord’s handling of the complaint.

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

Summary of reasons

7. There was a service failure because the landlord did not apply the credit when it said it would. However, it applied the credit when the matter was brought to its attention and offered compensation for the inconvenience caused.
8. The representative’s complaint the landlord would not compensate her for her time or compensate other residents did not relate to the resident’s lease or occupation of her home.
9. The landlord did not make it clear it had not accepted the complaint made on 9 November 2022.

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.

Our investigation

The complaint procedure

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.

What we did not investigate

10. The evidence shows that underground leaks led to an increase in the cost of the communal water supply in 2017 until the landlord repaired the leaks. Residents paid the cost of the communal water supply through their service charges. In 2018, the landlord offered to contribute £9,000 to the reserve fund as a goodwill gesture towards the water costs if it could not get a refund from the water supplier.
11. Our scheme rules state we may not investigate complaints which were not referred to the landlord as a complaint within a reasonable time, which is normally 12 months. There is no evidence the representative complained about the landlord’s handling of the leaks or its offer to contribute £9,000 to the reserve fund within 12 months of the matters arising.
12. For that reason, we will not investigate the events before 20 December 2021. This was when the landlord confirmed it had credited the reserve fund with £9,000 towards the increased water costs.
13. The representative wanted us to deal with the complaint as a group complaint on behalf of all leaseholders. Under our scheme rules, the representative is authorised to represent her mother who was a leaseholder. There is no evidence the representative has the authority to represent other leaseholders.
14. As such, we have not investigated the complaint as a group complaint. We will only consider how the matters complained about affected the representative’s mother (the resident).

What we did investigate

15. On 20 December 2021, the landlord told the representative it had credited the reserve fund for 2022 with £9,000.
16. It is not disputed that the credit was not applied to the reserve fund for 2022 as the landlord had said. The evidence confirms the landlord applied the credit to the reserve fund for 2023 after the representative brought the missing adjustment to its attention.
17. We cannot tell from the evidence seen what impact, if any, this delay caused to the resident. If the landlord had made the adjustment as intended, the credit would have been available in the reserve fund from 1 January 2022. The resident’s home was sold on 14 April 2022.
18. There is no evidence the service charge was higher in 2022 because the landlord had not made the adjustment to the reserve fund. Nor is there evidence that any maintenance work paid for through the reserve fund could not be carried out, or that the resident was asked to pay for maintenance work which would otherwise have been covered by the reserve fund.
19. From 5 November 2022, the representative asked the landlord to pay the £9,000 as income into the service charge. She felt this would result in a reduction of the overall service charge. The landlord did not address this request in its emails of 9 November and 1 December 2022 but it did explain why it had not made the adjustment and how it would rectify the situation.
20. However, in its complaint responses it said its offer had always been to credit the £9,000 to the reserve fund. The evidence seen shows the landlord’s response was accurate and it was reasonable it made the credit to the reserve fund as it had said it would.
21. Through its complaint responses, the landlord again explained why it had not adjusted the reserve fund when it said it would. In our view, its explanations were reasonable and showed it had investigated what went wrong. It was reasonable it offered £100 in its stage 1 response to recognise the inconvenience caused to the representative in bringing the missed adjustment to its attention.
22. In our view, the landlord’s actions resolved the complaint satisfactorily.

23. We cannot investigate a complaint unless it was brought to us by one of the people eligible to complain. A person is eligible to complain to us if they have (or had) a lease, tenancy or license with the landlord or applied for one. Alternatively, a person who is authorised to bring a complaint on behalf of a leaseholder, tenant or licensee is eligible to bring a complaint to us.
24. In this case, the representative was eligible to bring a complaint to us relating to her mother’s lease and occupation of her home.
25. On 9 November 2022, the representative asked the landlord to pay her £500 for the time she and the resident’s committee had spent resolving the service charge issue. On 26 September 2023, the representative asked the landlord to pay extra compensation to other residents.
26. In our view, the representative’s complaint about the landlord’s handling of her compensation requests did not relate to the resident’s lease and occupation of her home. This is because the resident’s home was sold in April 2022 which was before the representative asked for compensation. As such, we will not investigate this part of the complaint.

27. The representative’s email of 9 November 2022 was an expression of dissatisfaction with the landlord’s handling of the adjustment to the reserve fund. While the landlord responded on 1 December 2022, it did not deal with the matter through its complaints process.
28. At the time, the landlord’s Complaint Policy did not require it to give an explanation if it did not accept a complaint. This was not in line with the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (applicable from April 2022) which said landlords should explain their reasons for not dealing with a complaint through their complaints process.
29. The landlord’s response of 1 December 2022 was not a formal complaint response. But it did not say the landlord was not dealing with the matter through its complaint process. This was a service failure which led to confusion when the representative brought the complaint to us on 1 December 2022. She believed the landlord’s response was a formal complaint response and that the complaint had completed the landlord’s complaint process.
30. However, the landlord was not at fault for the time it took us to establish the complaint had not completed its complaint process. It was reasonable the landlord accepted the complaint when we asked it to on 22 December 2023.
31. The landlord extended its response timescales at both stages of its process. We understand it is a small landlord with limited resources. Under the circumstances it was reasonable it gave the representative a response timescale in its acknowledgements. This meant she knew when to expect its responses.
32. The landlord gave its responses within the extended timescales it gave at both stages.

Learning

33. The landlord has revised its Complaints Policy since the events in this case. The Policy now includes a section on who can complain to it and says the landlord will give an explanation if it decides not to accept a complaint. This should avoid the confusion over the complaint status we found in this case.

Knowledge information management (record keeping)

34. The landlord sent us relevant records for our investigation. Its records were sufficient to enable it to give full responses to the matters complained about.

Communication

35. The landlord generally responded to the representative’s contacts within a reasonable timescale. But on some occasions its responses did not address all the points she had raised.