Platform Housing Group Limited (202317441)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202317441

Platform Housing Group Limited

19 May 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 response to the resident’s queries about service charges.

Background

  1. The resident has been an assured tenant of the housing association landlord at the property since 2022. The property is on an estate (the estate) which was built about 20 years ago.
  2. The landlord charges its tenants rent and a service charge (the charge) to cover the costs of maintaining the estate. It writes to tenants each year in February setting out what the rent and the charge will be for the next financial year. There are some privately owned houses on the estate which do not pay the service charge or rent. There are several roads in and around the estate. The council cuts the verges of these roads 3 times a year.
  3. On 20 February 2023 the landlord wrote to the resident to say the rent for the next year would rise by about £30 to £430.63 per month, and the charge would rise by about £12 to £63.42 per month. The charge included elements for communal heating, communal water, and ground maintenance.
  4. The resident wrote to the landlord on 14 March 2023 saying that she refused to pay the charge. She said the property was “not a communal property” so she did not have to pay communal charges. The landlord investigated and said, in an email to residents of 31 March 2023, that it would write to them about the charge before the end of April 2023.
  5. The landlord wrote to residents in May 2023 saying it intended to remove all elements of the charge apart from the ground maintenance element and an administration element. It said it would reduce the charge from £63.42 to £19.51 per month.
  6. On 18 July 2023 the resident complained formally to the landlord. She said again that she should not have to pay for communal services.
  7. In the landlord’s stage 1 response of 23 August 2023, it upheld the complaint. It said it had failed to write to residents about the charge in April 2023 as it said it would. It had also failed to amend the resident’s account to reduce the charge and this had resulted in her overpaying.
  8. The landlord said it would refund all overpayments of the charge dating back to the start of her tenancy. If the resident received housing benefit or universal credit, the payments would be adjusted with the relevant body. It offered £125 compensation for the inconvenience caused by the delays in adjusting the charges and £25 for its failure to send a complaint acknowledgment.
  9. The resident escalated the complaint in October 2023, stating that she should not have to pay the ground maintenance element of the charge either. She said the council cut the grass 3 times a year, so the landlord did not need to cut it too. She said the landlord could not legally impose charges as it was a not-for-profit housing association.
  10. In the landlord’s stage 2 response of 23 November 2023 it partially upheld the complaint. It said it had decided 10 years earlier that it would cut the grass on the verges in between the council cuts to maintain the appearance of the estate. However, it had now decided, in line with the resident’s suggestion, to stop doing so. This would reduce the ground maintenance charge by a further £5.60 per month. It would stop charging this and would refund her share back to the start of her tenancy, amounting to £77.96.
  11. However, the landlord said it still had to carry out various ground maintenance tasks on the estate including weeding hard surfaces, grass cutting and gardening tasks. It said it would send a revised ground maintenance charge at the right time. It added that it was authorised to impose service charges by her tenancy agreement. It offered £50 compensation for the time the resident had taken in raising her complaint.
  12. In December 2023 the landlord’s records said the resident’s rent account was in arrears by approximately £1,400. She wrote to it on 5 December 2023 to say that, by her calculations, she owed only about £360. She asked it to amend her account. The basis for this claim was largely that she should not have had to pay the charge. The landlord maintained that she owed £1,400.
  13. This led to a lengthy dispute in which the resident refused repeatedly to pay the charge or arrears associated with it. The landlord issued a notice of intention to seek possession in April 2024. The resident then set up a standing order to pay the arrears at £100 per month, but continues to dispute the landlord’s figures. She has asked us to investigate, and disputes the landlord’s position, on various grounds:
    1. The council does the ground maintenance on the estate. All residents pay for this through their council tax. It is unfair that she should pay again for the same service through the charge, particularly when private householders on the estate do not pay that charge.
    2. The landlord is a non-profit housing association and cannot, therefore, impose a charge on residents for administration. In any event, there is no management on the estate.
    3. The landlord has failed to fully refund the charges as it said it would.
  14. The resident has asked us to require the landlord to stop charging the charge and to refund any money that she has paid in relation to it.

Assessment and findings

  1. The resident first raised concerns about the charge in March 2023. The landlord swiftly considered the issue and committed to remove elements of the charge that it accepted it should not have added. These were charges for an alarm, legionella, communal cleaning and electricity, communal heat, water, and fire. It accepts that it failed to do so as quickly as it should. Nonetheless, it did so. This was a good, albeit belated, response to the resident’s concerns.
  2. The resident asked the landlord in her escalation request, to also remove the remaining elements of the charge (for ground maintenance and a management fee associated with the provision of ground maintenance). She said the landlord did not need to provide this service as the council already maintained the estate. However, while the council cut the verges, it did not maintain other parts of the estate.
  3. The landlord agreed to stop cutting the verges in between the council cuts. This was an operational decision which the landlord was entitled to make. It was not an admission that it had been wrong to provide this service before. It decided to reimburse the resident any elements of the charge associated with the trimming of the verges going back to the start of her tenancy. This went beyond the landlord’s obligations and demonstrated that it was committed to resolving the complaint satisfactorily.
  4. Once the landlord had removed this element of the charge, the resident asked it to remove the remaining ground maintenance fee and associated administrative charge. She said it was unfair for her to pay the charge as there were freeholders on the estate who paid nothing for the same service. She also said that many of the shrubs and bushes which the landlord used to maintain had now been removed.
  5. In July 2023 the resident asked the council who was responsible for maintaining the estate and it sent her a map showing the areas it maintained. These were limited to the verges along the roads. The landlord alone was responsible for other areas which did require maintenance.
  6. In its stage 2 response, the landlord set out a list of its ground maintenance activities, including cutting other areas of grass, killing weeds on hard surfaces, hedge trimming, and other gardening tasks. By doing so, the landlord demonstrated that the charge was justified as it was incurring costs which would properly be classed as ground maintenance.
  7. The resident submits that she should not pay the charge as she does not benefit from the ground maintenance, and she should not pay for a service which benefits other non-paying residents. However, as the landlord explained in its stage 2 response, she had signed a tenancy agreement which stated that it would provide services and charge for them. The landlord said in an email that it could not retrospectively impose a charge on those who had bought their property before it took over the estate. However, anyone who bought property using the “right-to-buy” scheme since it had taken over did have to agree to pay the charge.
  8. It is not for us to comment on whether the level of the charge, or any increase in the charge, was appropriate (in accordance with paragraph 42.d of the Scheme). If the resident wishes to challenge the amount being charged, she may wish to seek independent advice in that regard. Instead, we can consider the landlord’s response to the resident’s queries about the charge, and comment on whether it followed proper procedure and good practice, and behaved in a reasonable way. By responding to the resident’s questions promptly, reducing the charge and reimbursing historic payments, and clearly explaining what the charge covered, the landlord did provide a comprehensive and appropriate response to the points raised.
  9. The resident has also claimed that the landlord cannot charge a management fee as it is a non-profit housing association. She has said this is set out in the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. We have not been able to find any evidence to support this claim in the Act and charging an administration fee is common in the social housing sector. As a result, it was reasonable for the landlord to rely on the terms of the resident’s occupancy agreement to levy the charge.
  10. The resident has also said the landlord has not actually refunded all the money it committed to. We are not in a position to determine this matter as we have not seen the figures involved. However, as the resident is in receipt of housing benefit, it is likely that the refund has been paid either to the local council or the Department of Work and Pensions.
  11. When reaching a decision, we consider both the events which led to a complaint and the landlord’s response. If a landlord has recognised its failings and taken appropriate steps to offer redress, this is relevant to our decision. We will not make a finding of maladministration where a landlord has fully acknowledged any failings and taken reasonable steps to resolve them.
  12. In this case, we have found that the landlord made mistakes. In particular, it failed to calculate overpayments and refund them quickly enough. However, it apologised for these errors promptly during the complaints procedure. It agreed to refund most of the charge. It explained why it would not refund the rest. It also offered compensation for the delay in addressing the resident’s concerns and apologised for its errors.
  13. These were appropriate actions. The £175 compensation offered is in line with our remedies guidance, which says payments in the region of £100 for mistakes of this kind are appropriate. This is because the fault identified was minor, the landlord admitted its error at the earliest opportunity, and it took action to remedy the problem. For that reason, we have found that the landlord has made an offer which amounted to reasonable redress for its failure and the impact this had.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 53.b of the Scheme, the landlord has made an offer of reasonable redress for its response to the resident’s queries about service charges.

Recommendations

  1. We recommend that the landlord should, if it has not already done so:
    1. Pay the resident the £175 it offered in its complaint responses. These offers recognised genuine elements of service failure and our finding of reasonable redress is made on that basis.
    2. Ensure that all residents benefit from the reductions it made to the charge.