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Platform Housing Group Limited (202015316)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202015316

Platform Housing Group Limited

30 January 2023

 

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 response to the resident’s request for information about the 2019/20 service charges.
  2. The level of service charges for communal electricity and grounds maintenance and whether the charges were correct.
  3. The landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint regarding the service charges.

Jurisdiction

  1. What we can and cannot consider is called the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. This is governed by the Housing Ombudsman Scheme. When a complaint is brought to the Ombudsman, we must consider all the circumstances of the case as there are sometimes reasons why a complaint will not be investigated.
  2. Part (b) of the complaint is primarily about the increase in the 2019/20 service charges for communal electricity and grounds maintenance, as indicated in the resident’s letter dated 29 December 2020. After carefully considering the evidence, the view of this service is that this part of the complaint falls outside the jurisdiction of the Ombudsman. Paragraph 42(e) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme states that the Ombudsman may not consider complaints which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion… “concern the level of rent or service charge or the amount of the rent or service charge increase”.
  3. The resident has the opportunity to apply to the First Tier Tribunal, which has the expertise and authority to consider the reasonableness of service charges.

Background and summary of events

  1. The resident is a leaseholder of the landlord and the lease began on 10 November 1997. The property is a one-bedroom flat and the resident is required to pay annual service charges as set out in the lease.
  2. On 26 September 2020, the landlord sent out a letter notifying leaseholders of the actual service charges for the year 2019/20. The resident wrote to the landlord on 6 October 2020 requesting clarification on the service charges for communal electricity and grounds maintenance. The resident then wrote to the landlord on 16 November 2020 and asked for his enquiry to be escalated to the complaints team.
  3. The landlord wrote to the resident on 18 November 2020 to request clarification about the information he was seeking.
  4. The resident contacted the landlord on 8 December 2020 and on 10 December 2020 to inform the landlord that he would not pay the service charges until he received a response to his complaint of 16 November 2020.
  5. The landlord wrote to the resident on 11 December 2020 to confirm that his complaint would be investigated and a response would be sent on 22 December 2020. The landlord also wrote to the resident on 16 December 2020 to provide information on how the grounds maintenance and communal electricity charges had been calculated. The landlord confirmed that there had been an error in its calculation of the communal electricity charge, and therefore the charge had been recalculated and would now be recharged to the resident in the following year.
  6. On 21 December 2020 the landlord sent its response to the resident’s complaint. The letter explained that the resident’s initial enquiry dated 6 October 2020 had been “sent to the incorrect person” and this had resulted in a delay in responding. The landlord apologised for this and upheld the resident’s complaint.
  7. The resident emailed the landlord on 29 December 2020 to say he was dissatisfied with the information he had been sent regarding the communal electricity and grounds maintenance service charges. The landlord acknowledged receipt of the email on 4 January 2021, and responded to the resident’s email on 27 January 2021.
  8. The resident and landlord exchanged further emails between 28 January and 17 February 2021, in which the landlord requested clarification from the resident on the outstanding queries. On 16 March 2021, the landlord wrote to the resident to provide further information regarding the communal electricity and grounds maintenance service charges.
  9. On 14 April 2021, the resident wrote to the landlord to say that the landlord’s response on 16 March 2021 did not address his complaints. The landlord acknowledged the resident’s email on 15 April 2021 and confirmed that it would consider the email under its final review stage of the complaints process. On 14 May 2021, the landlord notified the resident that it would need more time to carry out the review and stated that its response would now be sent by 21 May 2021. The landlord wrote to the resident again on 21 May 2021 to say there would be a further delay in replying due to “unforeseen circumstances”.
  10. The landlord wrote to the resident on 7 June 2021 with its final review response, in which it said: “From my review of your complaint I acknowledge the delay in fully addressing your complaint regarding grounds maintenance and communal electricity charges and the error that was made in the calculation of the service charge.” The landlord confirmed that the communal electricity service charge had been reduced from £24.44 to £2.09. The landlord offered the resident a total of £450 compensation, made up as follows:
  1. £100 for the delay in logging the resident’s initial concerns as a formal complaint;
  2. £100 in recognition of an error made in the calculation of the service charge;
  3. £250 in recognition of the time and trouble the resident had taken in progressing the complaint.

Post completion of the internal complaints process

  1. On 18 June 2021, the resident wrote to the landlord rejecting the landlord’s offer of £450 compensation. The resident reiterated his view that the charges for communal electricity and grounds maintenance were incorrect.
  2. On 21 June 2021, the landlord wrote to the resident acknowledging his email and asking him to specify the level of compensation he would be willing to accept.
  3. On 15 July 2021, the resident wrote to the landlord asking for it to provide an improved offer of compensation. The landlord responded on 30 July 2021, in which it repeated its offer of £450, which it said was in line with its compensation policy.

Assessment and findings

  1. It is not for this service to decide on the level of the service charges or whether they are reasonable. This assessment has therefore considered parts (a) and (c) of the complaint.

The landlord’s response to the resident’s request for information about the 2019/20 service charges

  1. Section 21(2) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 states: “The regulations must, subject to any exceptions provided for in the regulations, require the landlord to provide information about:
  1. the service charges of the tenant,
  2. any associated service charges, and
  3. relevant costs relating to service charges falling within paragraph (a) or (b).”
  1. The landlord’s customer commitments, available on its website, state: “When you write to us, email us or contact us through our website or portal, we will…provide a full response to your query within 10 working days, and let you know if we can’t and when you can expect a full reply”.
  2. The resident wrote to the landlord on 6 October 2020 requesting it to quantify the additional costs for grounds maintenance and communal electricity compared to the original estimates. The landlord took 31 working days to respond when it wrote to the resident on 18 November 2020 to request clarification about the information that the resident was seeking. The time taken by the landlord to respond was therefore outside its published timescale. Furthermore, this service has seen no evidence that the landlord contacted the resident during this period to explain the delay and advise the resident when he could expect a reply. The landlord’s handling of the resident’s initial enquiry was therefore inappropriate because it did not comply with its customer commitments.
  3. The landlord’s failure to reply led to the resident making a complaint on 16 November 2020, which meant he had to spend additional time and trouble seeking the required information. While this service accepts that delays will occasionally be caused by human error, it was inappropriate for the landlord not to contact the resident sooner.
  4. In terms of redress, the landlord acknowledged its error in misdirecting the resident’s initial enquiry, apologised for this and explained that the relevant team had been made aware of their error in order to avoid similar errors. Therefore, given the relatively short duration of the delay, the landlord’s response in relation to its failing was reasonable.

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint regarding the service charges

  1. The landlord operates a two-stage complaints process. The first stage is called the ‘formal complaint investigation’ and the second stage is a ‘final review’. The landlord’s customer feedback leaflet states that:
  1. Complaints should be acknowledged within three working days following receipt of the complaint;
  2. Stage one of the complaints process (the complaint investigation stage) should be completed within ten working days;
  3. Stage two of the process should be completed within 20 working days;
  4. A complaint will not automatically be escalated to the final review stage following a request to do so by a resident. The landlord will assess all requests for escalation to final review.
  1. There was an unreasonable delay in the landlord’s stage one complaint response from 16 November 2020 to 21 December 2020. Furthermore, there was no evidence that the landlord updated the resident in the meantime. This was inappropriate because the landlord’s customer feedback leaflet states that if more time is needed to investigate a complaint “we will make sure that we keep in regular contact with you and keep you updated on the progress”.
  2. The resident wrote to the landlord on 29 December 2020 to say there was still a lack of clarity regarding the service charges. However, this was not treated by the landlord as a request to escalate the complaint. As it was clear that the resident was dissatisfied with the information he had received, it was inappropriate for the landlord not to assess whether to escalate the complaint. The landlord’s customer feedback leaflet states that the landlord “will assess all requests for escalation to Final Review”. Had this occurred, it would have given the landlord the opportunity to reduce the overall time taken to deal with the resident’s complaint. This would in turn have reduced the time and trouble experienced by the resident in pursuing the complaint.
  3. This service has noted, that the landlord wrote to the resident on 27 January 2021 and 16 March 2021 to provide further information about the service charges in question. It also wrote to the resident on 10 February 2021 and 17 February 2021 seeking clarification from the resident on the outstanding issues. Therefore, the landlord did take reasonable steps to maintain contact with the resident.
  4. The landlord confirmed to the resident on 15 April 2021 that it would conduct a final review under its complaint procedure and would respond within 20 working days. The landlord sent its stage two (final review) letter on 7 June 2021, 36 working days after it received the resident’s email of 14 April 2021. Although this was outside the landlord’s target timescale of 20 working days, the landlord had acted appropriately by writing to the resident twice in the meantime to advise him of the need for an extension of time.
  5. Overall, the Ombudsman considers that the landlord’s acknowledgment of its complaint handling failings and its offer of compensation of £350 constituted reasonable redress to cover the time, trouble and inconvenience experienced by the resident. This service’s remedies guidance states that financial redress of £100-600 is appropriate in cases where “there was a failure which adversely affected the resident”.
  6. This service is unable to comment on the whether the £100 compensation offered by the landlord for the calculation error referred to in its final response letter was appropriate. This is because the Ombudsman has not investigated the level or accuracy of the service charges.

Determination (decision)

  1. In accordance with paragraph 53(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, and in the Ombudsman’s opinion, there was reasonable redress provided by the landlord for its service failure in relation to its response to the resident’s request for information about the 2019/20 service charges.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 53(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, and in the Ombudsman’s opinion, there was reasonable redress offered by the landlord for its service failure in its handling of the resident’s complaint regarding the service charges.

Reasons

  1. There was a short delay in the landlord’s response to the resident’s initial enquiry and a lack of contact with the resident to explain the delay and advise the resident when he could expect a reply. However, the landlord apologised for the delay and advised the relevant team of the error.
  2. There were service failures in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaints. However, the landlord accepted and apologised for these failings and offered compensation of £350, which this service considers to be fair given the circumstances of the case.

Recommendation

  1. It is recommended that the landlord pays the resident the £350 it offered for the complaint handling failures if it has not already done so.