London & Quadrant Housing Trust (202200575)

202200575

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202200575

London & Quadrant Housing Trust

10 October 2022

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:
   1. The landlord’s decision not to waive the resident’s rent arrears.
   2. The landlord’s handling of the resident’s rehousing request.
   3. The landlord’s handling of the associated complaint.

Background

2. The resident is the tenant of the landlord and was represented by a relative in her complaint; both will be referred to as ‘the resident’.
3. On 24 April 2020, the resident reported to the landlord that she had experienced a burglary at her property, which she believed to have been committed by an ex-partner. Five days later the resident informed it that she would not be returning to the property and wished to be re-housed. The landlord contacted the resident on 28 August 2020 about her outstanding rent; she said that she was not liable for the rent as she was no longer living in the property. It went on to contact her on several occasions over the following 15 months to request payment of the rent. The resident responded to these requests by maintaining that she was not liable for paying the rent and that she had confirmed this previously with two staff members who no longer worked for the landlord.
4. The resident raised a stage one complaint with the landlord on 11 November 2021 about it continuing to hold her liable for the rent on the property and her dissatisfaction with an offer of rehousing it had made to her. She asserted that she had been informed by a senior staff member that she would not be liable for any rent at her property, but despite this it had persisted in asking her to pay this. The resident noted that, in previous contact, the landlord had said that there was no evidence of its agreement to waive the rent at her property and was unhappy that there was no record of the decision.
5. The landlord’s stage one complaint response, on 7 December 2021, found no evidence to support the resident’s assertion that it had agreed to waive rent charges. It asked her to provide evidence of this for further consideration; noting that she had mentioned that she possessed this evidence. It advised that it would revisit her rehousing case to make another offer of housing to her. The resident escalated her complaint to the final stage on 13 December 2021 enclosing an email as evidence of the landlord’s agreement to waive her rent.
6. The landlord issued its final response to the resident on 31 March 2022 in which it said that the evidence she had submitted was inconclusive and therefore had been unable to determine that there had been any agreement to waive her rent charges. It acknowledged that it had issued its final response late and offered £100 compensation for this. The landlord noted that the resident had accepted its additional offer of rehousing, but this had been delayed while it awaited information from the resident.
7. The resident informed the Ombudsman on 3 May 2022 that she continued to be dissatisfied because the landlord had not disproved the suggestion that the rent was to be waived, and questioned why it had not approached its former employees to clarify on the matter as part of its investigation. She maintained that it had agreed to waive the rent for her property.

Assessment and findings

The landlord’s decision not to waive the resident’s rent arrears.

8. The tenancy agreement forms the legal contract between a landlord and resident and sets out the legal obligations of each party with which they need to comply. The landlord’s tenancy agreement with the resident confirms that she must pay rent regularly in line with the agreement. This agreement also states that the tenancy terms could only be altered with the agreement of the landlord in writing.
9. Therefore, for there to be any change to the resident’s payment obligation, a legally binding process would need to be completed. There was no evidence that this occurred. Neither was there any evidence that the resident had sought to end her tenancy. Therefore, it remained that she was obliged to continue to pay her rent.
10. In the event that exceptional circumstances arise, it may be reasonable for a landlord to temporarily forgo the collection of rent. Any such agreement would likely set out the terms of the arrangement, to manage the tenant’s expectations, and provide clarity on the arrangement. In the email submitted by the resident, the landlord said “I am now in a position to provide you with an update on our decision to waive your rent arrears”. This email did not indicate what the decision was. Therefore, the Ombudsman is unable to agree that this was permission to stop paying the rent. The Ombudsman notes that in the case manager’s internal email in late November 2020, she stated “I would like to make it explicitly clear that I have not made any promises or agreements with [the resident] for the rent to be waived or not paid as this would be inappropriate and outside of my authority”.
11. The landlord’s final stage complaint response relayed that it did not consider the above email to be conclusive and indicated that the line of discussion was unfinished prior to the departure of the staff member. In light of this lack of clarity, it was reasonable for the landlord to conclude that there was insufficient evidence that a decision or agreement had been made.
12. Part of the resident’s dissatisfaction with the landlord’s response to her complaint was that she felt that it should have contacted the two departed staff members who she had spoken to about her rent. This was not specifically addressed in either of the landlord’s complaint responses at the first and final stages. It may have been beneficial for it to have explained to her why it did not seek to contact these ex-employees. However, a landlord would not normally be expected to contact ex-employees about ongoing matters, given that the individuals would no longer have any contractual obligation to the landlord once their employment had ended.
13. Ultimately, a landlord can only act on the evidence available to it. In this case, it was reasonable for it to find that there was insufficient evidence for it to confirm that a firm decision had been made to waive the resident’s rent and it was therefore reasonable for it not to do so.

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s rehousing request

The landlord’s allocations and lettings policy confirms that it will offer rehousing to existing residents only under certain circumstances. This policy lists if “the resident is at risk by remaining in their home due to domestic abuse” as one such circumstance. The landlord clarifies that it uses the definition of ‘suitable’ accommodation contained in the Housing Act 1988, which states “accommodation should be reasonably suitable to the needs of the resident and their family and have regards to proximity to work as well as to the rental and extent of the accommodation”. This policy also states that if a resident refuses an offer of permanent accommodation, their rehousing case will be closed.

14. It was evident that the resident refused an offer of rehousing from the landlord prior to her raising her stage one complaint on 11 November 2021. Given this, it would not have been unreasonable for the landlord to have declined to make a further offer of rehousing, in accordance with its policy above. However, the landlord’s stage one complaint response confirmed that it would consider making a further offer of accommodation to the resident. This was outside of its obligation and demonstrated its commitment to assist the resident, noting her concerns with her permanent residence.
15. The landlord’s final stage complaint response on 31 March 2022 noted that the resident had accepted a subsequent offer of rehousing and it was awaiting information from her to finalise this. As such, this Service has been unable to find that there was any evidence of a service failure at the time of the landlord’s final response.
16. It is noted that after this time, the resident complained about the landlord’s offers of accommodation which this Service encouraged it to respond to. The landlord subsequently dealt with this as a separate, new complaint. In doing so, should the resident remain dissatisfied with its response, following the completion of the landlord’s complaints process, she retains the right to bring this complaint to the Ombudsman Service.

The landlord’s handling of the associated complaint.

17. The landlord’s complaints policy provides for a two-stage complaints procedure. At the first stage of this, it is to provide a response with ten working days; at the final stage, it is to respond within 20 working days. If it is unable to do so, it should explain the reason why to the resident and write to them within a further ten working days.
18. The landlord took 18 working days to provide its stage one complaint response to the resident. At the final stage it took 75 working days to provide its final response to her. The resident was required to contact the landlord on five occasions to chase the final response, with it only making contact twice on 2 and 21 March 2022. It therefore delayed excessively in responding to the complaint and did not adhere to its policy requirement to keep the resident updated about any delays.
19. The landlord offered the resident £100 compensation in its final complaint response on 31 March 2022 for its delays in the handling of the complaint. This amount was broadly in accordance with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance, available to view online.
20. While there was a lengthy delay in providing the final complaint response, there was no evidence to suggest that this led to any increased or significant detriment to the resident. The landlord had already made efforts to manage her expectations regarding the possibility of waiving the rent by informing her on 17 December 2021 that it did not routinely freeze rent for tenant displacement. Therefore, the landlord’s compensation offer of £100 was reasonable and proportionate to address the increased effort and inconvenience on the resident’s behalf to chase the response.

Determination

21. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was no maladministration by the landlord in:
    1. Its decision not to waive the resident’s rent arrears.
    2. Its handling of the resident’s rehousing request.
22. In accordance with paragraph 53(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, with regards to the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint, it made an offer of redress to the resident prior to investigation which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, resolves the complaint satisfactorily.

Recommendations

23. The landlord should:
    1. Pay the compensation offer of £100 to the resident, if it has not done so already.
    2. Review its complaint management procedures to ensure that complaints are handled in accordance with the timeframes specified in its policy.