Southern Housing Group Limited (202211508)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202211508

Southern Housing Group Limited

30 March 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 concerns the landlord’s handling of:
   1. The resident’s concerns about parking arrangements at her property and issues with her parking permit.
   2. The associated complaint.

Background

2. The resident is a tenant of the landlord and lives in a flat with parking facilities.
3. It is understood that the landlord does not own the carpark for the resident’s building, or land which it is situated on. It is understood that the company who owns the carpark, allocates a certain number of parking spaces to the landlord for use by its residents, and that it also employs a parking enforcement company to enforce parking on-site. At times during the complaint, the landlord interchangeably referred to both external companies as the parking management company. For purpose of clarity, this investigation will refer to the company who owns the car park as the carpark owner, and the company who enforces parking on its behalf as the parking enforcement company.
4. The landlord wrote to the resident on 4 December 2020. It acknowledged that a number of residents in the block had received parking fines for using the designated parking area, despite holding a permit. It suggested that the carpark owner had said that it would write to residents prior to this, to explain changes that had taken place in relation to how the carpark was managed, but that this had not happened. It explained that it did not own the car park or land, so was therefore unable to govern any decisions made, nor reconcile any tickets issued. It advised the resident to contact the carpark owner should she have any queries regarding tickets or parking on-site.
5. The resident made a complaint to the landlord in July 2021. She believed that she had been given conflicting information about the parking arrangements and permits, which she said had caused her frustration and confusion. The landlord issued its stage one response on 3 August 2021, in which it reiterated the contents of the letter which it had sent the resident in December 2020. It said that the flats did not automatically come with parking permits as there was not enough parking spaces for every flat. It said that the parking enforcement company previously employed by the carpark owner, did not provide the newly contracted parking enforcement company with details of which residents held parking permits. It acknowledged that its staff member had initially advised the resident that her property came with a parking space, and therefore would honour this agreement going forward.
6. The resident escalated her complaint in July 2022. She said that she had continued to receive parking fines, following the landlord’s decision to keep to their parking agreement. She also said that she had evidence that a member of the landlord’s staff had informed the parking enforcement company that she was not entitled to parking, despite her previously being advised that the situation was beyond the landlord’s control.
7. The landlord issued its final response in September 2022. It acknowledged that it should have contacted residents, before changes were made to the parking arrangements, and that it should have provided clear instructions on who to contact to register vehicles. It said that once residents notified a member of its staff that they were receiving parking tickets, this staff member was quick to ensure that their vehicle details were subsequently passed to the parking enforcement company to prevent further fines from being issued. It acknowledged that its record-keeping and communication fell below its expected standards, and in light of this partially upheld the complaint. It said that the resident could have avoided the parking fines from “evolving further”, in light of them being subject to debt recovery and court action, as it said that she did not appeal the tickets via the correct method. It said that it could not be held liable for costs incurred to the resident as a result of her not following the correct appeal procedure. It apologised for the inconvenience caused, and for the delay in issuing its final response. It awarded the resident £150 compensation. This was calculated as £25 for the delay in responding to the stage two complaint, £100 for poor communication in relation to parking changes, and an additional £25 goodwill gesture.
8. The resident referred her complaint to this Service as she was dissatisfied with the landlord’s response. Her outstanding issues were;
   1. She was unhappy with the length of time the landlord took to respond to her complaint.
   2. She believed that the landlord did not respond to all aspects of her complaint.
   3. She believed that she was given contradictory information.
   4. She believed that the landlord’s agreement that her parking permit would be honoured, had not been the case as she said that she had received parking fines since.
   5. She believed that the compensation offered by the landlord did not reflect her collective experience.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

9. In her complaint to this Service, the resident was unhappy that the landlord did not compensate her for quantifiable loss, which she considered to be the cost of county court judgments (CCJs) she paid that resulted from unpaid parking fines, and that the landlord did not consider the resulting negative impact on her credit file. These aspects will not be considered in the report as they are beyond the scope of this investigation.
10. This is because the Ombudsman’s remit in relation to complaints is set out in the Housing Ombudsman Scheme (the Scheme). Paragraph 42(f) of the Scheme states that the Ombudsman will not investigate complaints which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, concern matters where a complainant has, or had the opportunity to raise the subject matter of the complaint as part of legal proceedings.
11. When the resident received county court claim forms setting out how much the claimant (the parking enforcement company) believed they were owed, the resident would have been given the option to dispute the claim by completing a defence and counterclaim form. It is appreciated that the resident believes that a lack of communication from the landlord resulted in her being issued with CCJs. However, irrespective of the landlord’s communication, this would not have prevented the resident from disputing the claim. It should also be noted that the landlord was not the claimant. An individual is responsible for responding to a court claim by the date on the letter that is received. Failure to respond may result in a person being issued with a CCJ. If an individual receives a judgement, this means that a court has made a legal decision that the individual owes the money, and as a result, this indeed may impact upon ones credit history.
12. Whilst the resident’s frustrations are understandable, the above limits this Service’s assessment of this complaint to an extent. What this Service can assess, is the landlord’s communication, if it responded reasonably to the resident’s concerns, and the associated complaint handling.

The resident’s concerns about parking arrangements at her property and issues with her parking permit.

13. The resident’s tenancy agreement is vague in its reference to parking. Page two of the tenancy agreement states that the property includes space for parking, though it does not elaborate the nature and extent of this. For example, it does not specify that parking spaces are allocated, nor that the tenancy includes the provision of a parking permit. Nonetheless, there is no dispute that at the commencement of her tenancy, the landlord advised the resident that she was entitled to a parking permit for a parking space.
14. In this case, the landlord appropriately recognised in its final response, that its communication in relation to the changes in parking arrangements at the resident’s building was poor, that it should have communicated changes to residents before they took place, and that issues arose with updating the resident’s parking permissions as a result of its poor record keeping. The landlord also appropriately apologised, and awarded compensation for the inconvenience that the resident will have understandably experienced as a result. The £100 awarded by the landlord for its poor communication in relation to parking arrangement changes, in addition to its £25 unspecified goodwill gesture, suitably remedied that aspect of the complaint.
15. An agreed action of the landlord’s stage one response, was that it would honour its original agreement to provide the resident with a parking space. However, in agreeing this, the landlord set the expectation that it would ensure that this was sufficiently updated with the relevant parties in order to prevent her from having further issues with parking and fines. As such, it should have explained to the resident, the actions it would take to ensure that this happened, in order to manage her expectations. It is unclear from the evidence provided, what actions, if any, the landlord took to ensure that the resident’s parking permissions were updated with the parking enforcement company.
16. The landlord did state in its final response, that once residents informed a member of its staff that they were receiving parking tickets and appealing them, this staff member was quick to ensure that residents vehicle details were then passed to the parking enforcement company to update their records. However, no contemporaneous evidence has been provided that demonstrates it doing so on the resident’s behalf and as such this Service cannot conclude that an action took place or that the landlord followed its original agreement. This was unreasonable, and a service failure.
17. In considering the above, the resident emailed the landlord in May 2022 and notified it that she had received court letters (which she included in the attachments), due to previous parking fines not being cancelled. It should be noted that one of the court claim forms was for a parking fine issued on 11 September 2021, which was five and a half weeks following the landlord agreeing to honour the resident’s parking space, in its initial response. This further indicated that the landlord had not taken sufficient action to resolve the matter.
18. A particular factor of the resident’s stage two complaint, was that she believed the landlord had not followed up on its agreement to honour her parking space. Considering that the landlord had received documents which suggested that the resident had received further fines following its stage one response, the landlord should have made robust investigations to determine if it had previously communicated to the enforcement agency that the resident was permitted to park.
19. In considering the above, in email correspondence in August 2022, the parking enforcement company advised the landlord that it had previously received an email from a member of the landlord’s staff, stating that the resident was not entitled to parking. This implied that the company was under the impression as late as August 2022 that the resident did not have parking permission. As such, the landlord should have clarified if the parking enforcement company had received the relevant information, and if not, it should have ensured that this was updated. No evidence has been provided to indicate that the landlord did this, which was unreasonable and an additional service failure.
20. The landlord’s repeated poor communication, shows that it failed to learn from its initial mistakes. This is particularly concerning, given that the evidence shows that following the final response, the resident continued to contact the landlord and reported that she had continued to receive fines. To remedy the above, orders have been made in addition to an increased amount of compensation.
21. An amount has been ordered that is in line with the Ombudsman’s Remedies Guidance (published on our website), for circumstances where there was a failure that adversely affected the resident, where the landlord has acknowledged some failings and made some attempts to put things right, but the offer was not proportionate to the failings identified by our investigation.

Complaint Handling

22. The landlord has a complaints policy which states that it will aim to provide a stage one response within ten working days. It states that it will acknowledge an escalation request within five working days, and aim to respond within twenty working days of the complaint being escalated. It says that this will not exceed a further ten working days without good reason and the resident’s agreement.
23. A particular frustration of the resident’s, was her dissatisfaction with the length of time the landlord took to formally respond to her stage two complaint. She lodged the stage two complaint on 22 June 2022, and did not receive any acknowledgment until 6 July 2022. This exceeded the timeframe set out the landlord’s policy for acknowledging escalation requests by five working days. The evidence shows that on initial contact, the landlord advised the resident to outline her escalation request, in writing to the relevant team, which the resident did on 4 July 2022. The landlord acknowledged this request two days later, and therefore the overall delay was not considerable.
24. In acknowledging the resident’s escalation request, the landlord set the expectation that it would issue its final response by 1 August 2022. However, it unreasonably exceeded this by twenty-four working days and issued its final response on 2 September 2022. Nonetheless, the evidence shows that the landlord was in contact with the resident during that period. In its final response, it appropriately apologised for the inconvenience caused by this delay, appeared to give a reasonable explanation and awarded £25 compensation. This suitably remedied its delay in dealing with the resident’s stage two response.
25. Although connected, the substantive issues of the resident’s stage one and two complaint were clearly distinct. This is because the resident’s initial complaint concerned changes to the parking arrangements for her property, and her belief that she had been given inadequate information in regard to these changes. By the time the resident escalated her complaint eleven months following the landlord’s initial response, as discussed, her main concern was her belief that the landlord’s stage one agreement to honour her parking permit, had not been actioned. The landlord failed to recognise this distinction, which meant that it failed to address this concern in any form in its final response. It also gave no consideration to the resident’s concern, that a member of its staff had advised the parking enforcement company on one occasion that she was not entitled to parking.
26. Given that the above issue was the crux of the resident’s stage two complaint, the landlord’s failure to sufficiently address this was a service failure that was considerable enough to amount to maladministration. The Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (published on our website), clearly sets out that landlords must address all points raised in the complaint and provide clear reasons for any decision. Its failure to do so, ultimately left the resident’s complaint unremedied and unresolved, as she was denied a comprehensive response. To remedy this, additional orders have been made in addition to an additional amount of compensation for the distress and inconvenience the resident would likely have experienced in not having her complaint appropriately responded to.

Determination

27. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in respect of its handling of the resident’s concerns about parking arrangements at her property and issues with her parking permit.
28. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in respect of its complaint handling.

Orders

29. Within four weeks of the date of this report, the landlord is ordered to:
    1. Write to the resident, copying in this Service, and apologise for the service failures identified by this investigation.
    2. Pay the resident £450 compensation as follows:
       1. £200 for the failures identified in respect of its handling of resident’s concerns about parking arrangements at her property and issues with her parking permit.
       2. £100 for its additional complaint handling failures.
       3. £150 as offered in its final response, if it has not already done so.
    3. Contact the enforcement agency, to confirm that it holds the correct parking permissions for the resident, and provide evidence of the arrangement to this Service.
    4. Ensure staff training around communication practices, and application of its responsive complaints policies, to seek to prevent a recurrence of its above service failures.
    5. Write to the resident to confirm what learning it has taken from this case, and what steps it intends to put in place to ensure that the identified service failures do not happen again.
    6. Confirm to this Service that it has complied with the above orders.