Yorkshire Housing Limited (202326472)
REPORT
COMPLAINT 202326472
Yorkshire Housing Limited
25 April 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 requests for it to provide her with a discounted gardening service (the service).
Background
2. The resident is an assured tenant of the property which is owned by the landlord, a housing association. She reports that she has health difficulties including fibromyalgia. The property is a family home which the resident occupies with an adult child. It has a large garden which the resident says she cannot manage due to her disability.
3. The resident wrote to her MP in 2022, saying some of the landlord’s other tenants received the service but it would not offer it to her. The MP passed the letter to the landlord which responded to both the resident and the MP. It advised it had offered the service in the past but no longer did so. Only a few “historic” cases now remained. It said it was considering reintroducing the service and would tell the resident if it did so.
4. The resident continued to raise the matter with the landlord and complained formally on 23 May 2023. She said it was unfair that her neighbour, who was in a wheelchair, received preferential treatment because their disability was obvious. She said the landlord refused to offer the service to her because her disability was invisible.
5. In the landlord’s stage 1 response of 10 June 2023 it said it did not provide the service on the basis of disability. It had offered the service in the past but only 4 “historic cases” now received it. It was not open to new applicants.
6. The resident escalated the complaint on 23 June 2023, saying it was “totally disgusting” that only 4 of the landlord’s 20,000 tenants received the service. She said that, if the landlord did not provide the service for everyone, it should not provide it for anyone.
7. In its stage 2 response of 14 July 2023, the landlord repeated its stage 1 response and advised the resident to contact us if she wanted to take the matter further.
8. In her referral to us of November 2023 the resident stated that the landlord was discriminating against her because of her invisible disability. She submitted that, if she could not have the service, no one should have it.
Assessment and findings
Scope of investigation
9. In May 2024 the resident contacted the landlord saying it had failed to cut her lawn after offering to do so. This occurred a year after the events set out above. As the matter did not form part of the complaint under investigation here, it is not considered further in this report. If the resident remains dissatisfied with the landlord’s response to this issue, she may wish to raise a new complaint.
The resident’s requests for the landlord to provide her with the service
10. The resident’s tenancy agreement says that she is responsible for the upkeep of the property’s garden. The landlord therefore has no duty to provide her with a gardening service, subsidised or otherwise.
11. The landlord says that, in the past, it provided the service to some tenants. The resident has said it offered it to her approximately 8 years ago. However, it says the service is now “historic”. This means that those who signed up for it in the past can continue to receive it but the landlord does not accept new users.
12. The resident says the service is not historic as her neighbour still receives it. However, this does not mean the service is not “historic” as detailed above. It means it is closed to new applicants.
13. The resident says it is unfair that her neighbour should receive the service when she does not. However, that is not the test of unfairness. If the resident had been an existing recipient of the service when the landlord withdrew it, she could still receive it. If any of her other neighbours applied for the service now, they would not. That is fair as all are treated equally.
14. The resident says the landlord has discriminated against her as it has failed to recognise her disability because it is not obvious. Meanwhile, she says, it offered the service to her neighbour who uses a wheelchair. If the landlord had failed to properly consider the resident’s rights under the Equality Act 2010, we would have found it at fault. However, the landlord says it does not offer the service on the basis of disability and there is no evidence to the contrary.
15. The resident says that, if she cannot have the service, the landlord should not offer it to anyone. However, the fact that it does so does not amount to maladministration. It was a legitimate management decision for it to withdraw the service and to allow those already receiving it to continue doing so. The landlord is free to make such decisions in the interests of making the best use of its limited resources. As a result, the landlord’s position was fair and reasonable, and no further action is required in response to the complaint.
Determination
16. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was no maladministration by the landlord in its handling of the resident’s requests for it to provide a discounted gardening service.