Summary: Mr X complains about the Council’s handling of his requests for larger refuse bins and payment of annual charges on two rental properties. There was no fault in the Council’s handling of Mr X’s request for larger bins. The Council’s communication with Mr X about payment of service and ground rent charges could have been better. The Council has agreed to apologise to Mr X for the frustration caused by this.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I have called Mr X, is a freeholder of rental properties within the Council’s area. He complains about the Council’s handling of his requests for larger refuse bins at two rental properties and payment of annual service and ground rent charges owed to him by the Council. Mr X says the Council has repeatedly ignored his requests for larger bins, which has led to him receiving complaints from his tenants. Mr X also had to take the Council to court in 2018 and 2019 to get it to pay him the service and ground rent charges it owed. Mr X feels the Council’s administrative processes are inadequate and have not been set up to ensure he (and other freeholders) receive service charge payments on time.
2. Mr X has also complained about the way in which the Council has dealt with his concerns about the behaviour of a social housing tenant who lives next door to one of his tenants.

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What I have investigated

3. I have explained to Mr X that I have investigated his complaints as set out in paragraph 1 above. I am unable to investigate complaints he has about how the Council has dealt with issues about one of its social housing tenants. This is because we cannot investigate complaints about the provision or management of social housing by a council acting as a registered social housing provider. (Local Government Act 1974, paragraph 5A schedule 5, as amended)

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone could take the matter to court. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to go to court. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(c), as amended)
5. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
6. If we are satisfied with a council’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

7. I have spoken to Mr X and considered the information he has provided in support of his complaint.
8. I have considered the information the Council has provided in response to my enquiries.
9. Mr X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.

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What I found

Refuse bins

10. Mr X owns two rental properties that consist of nine and four flats respectively. The Ombudsman previously considered a complaint from Mr X about the lack of adequately sized bins at both properties in April 2018 (under reference 17010524). That investigation found the Council had written to Mr X in December 2017 to offer suitable larger bins for the properties.
11. Mr X says the matter remains unresolved since then and his last complaint to the Ombudsman.
12. The Council last contacted Mr X on 29 January 2018 about larger bins. It asked him to agree to pay to have larger bins at residential properties in line with the Council’s policy not to provide free refuse collection from properties consisting of five or more flats. The Council’s policy states that owners of these properties can purchase refuse collection from the Council or other suitable third-party organisations. The Council’s policy also states that blocks with three or four flats, with front gardens or yards, would be expected to have individual waste storage provision. The Council does not recommend the use of communal waste for such blocks of flats to help simplify waste collection services.
13. Mr X was unhappy the Council was seeking to charge him for the provision of larger bins to his properties and has not returned the service agreement the Council sent to him at the end of January 2018.

Ground rent and service charges

14. Since 2018, the Council sought to acquire over 300 properties for social housing and has been working on a wider project to implement systems for the administrative management of these properties, including the payment of annual service and ground rent charges. The Council purchased the leasehold on properties owned by Mr X in April 2018, which carry fixed annual service and ground rent charges
15. Mr X took the Council to court for non-payment of service and ground rent charges for 2018. The Court ordered the Council to pay Mr X’s costs for making his claims to the court in addition to the outstanding ground rent and service charges. The Council made payment for the charges and legal costs to Mr X by cheque on 24 October 2018.
16. Mr X hand delivered a letter to the Council on 7 April 2019, setting out the amounts it owed for ground rent and service charges that year. On 9 April 2019, the Council wrote to Mr X about the 2019 charges. It asked him for the amounts it owed for that year and for his bank account details so it could make payment.
17. On 27 June 2019, Mr X obtained a second judgement from the court for the outstanding service and ground rent charges due in April 2019. The Court ordered the Council to pay Mr X’s costs for making the claim. Mr X wrote to the Council two days after the judgement to ask it to set up a standing order to make future payments on time.
18. The Council made payment to Mr X on 1 July 2019. The Council’s payment included an additional sum to cover the service and ground rent charges until the end of March 2021 plus a further £426.74.
19. In early January 2020, the Council contacted Mr X to clarify the amounts held on account against service and ground rent charges. While Mr X agreed the account was in credit, he disputed that this covered the charges until the end of 2021. Mr X told the Council he considered the amounts held in credit on the account covered the costs he had incurred in repeatedly writing to the Council rather than any future charges. The Council says Mr X has declined to discuss the matter further or provide details of his costs. Mr X asked the Ombudsman to investigate his complaints just before this last discussion with the Council.

Analysis

20. There was no fault in the way the Council has dealt with Mr X’s request for larger refuse bins. It has applied its usual policy for properties containing three to four flats, and five or more flats. Mr X’s view that he should not have to pay for larger bins is not maladministration by the Council. It remains open to him to pay the charges to enable to Council to supply this service to the flats he owns.
21. In response to my draft decision, Mr X has requested the Council provides larger bins free of charge to reflect the times he has requested these from the Council. Since the Council told Mr X he would need to pay for larger bins in January 2018, I am not satisfied he has suffered sufficient injustice to justify the remedy Mr X is seeking.
22. Mr X has been put to time and trouble in seeking payment for service and ground rent charges from the Council since it purchased the leaseholds in 2018. However, much of that injustice has already been remedied through the legal judgements Mr X has obtained via the courts in 2018 and 2019. These orders have included payment for Mr X’s costs so it would not be appropriate for the Ombudsman to seek to duplicate this action or redress.
23. Likewise, the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction does not extend to considering any further costs Mr X believes he has incurred as a result of the Council’s action. Mr X has the option to approach the court as appropriate forum for this determination in respect of the credit held on account.
24. The Council’s communication with Mr X since his successful legal claim in 2018 could have been better. If the Council had explained why it was unable to make standing order payments or proceed with its planned approach of adding freeholders to its electronic invoicing system, it might have reassured Mr X of its efforts to ensure it made service and ground rent payments to him on time. The Council should have also explained to Mr X that it had put an alternative system of regular checking to ensure it made timely payments to freeholders. The lack of clarification from the Council has no doubt contributed to Mr X’s level of frustration and annoyance.

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Agreed action

25. Within one month of my final decision, the Council has agreed apologise to Mr X for the lack of clarity in its communication about the systems it had put in place to ensure it made timely payments for service and ground rents charges.

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Final decision

26. I have completed my investigation and found fault causing injustice to Mr X. The Council has agreed to take action to remedy that injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman