Ombudsman orders independent review of Housing for Women rent recovery practice, after resident incorrectly told she owed over £10,000 in rent

The Housing Ombudsman has highlighted a “significant failing” in Housing for Women’s approach to rent arrears and account management, after the landlord incorrectly told a resident they owed more than £10,000 in missed rent payments.

According to the Ombudsman, the landlord has since put in place new processes, safeguards, and staff training to improve the way it manages arrears and complaint handling, following an independent review.

Two days after Christmas, the resident behind the complaint received a legal notice from the court to be evicted from their home.

The resident went to the Ombudsman for help when the landlord, Housing for Women, did not respond to a complaint made to it.

The Ombudsman’s investigation found that the landlord “ignored evidence” to show the resident had in fact made the missing payments and made requests to access their online rent portal. Instead, it continued to take legal action which affected the resident's mental health.

The report noted: “Throughout contact with the resident, the landlord’s tone was dismissive and unsympathetic of the resident’s lived experiences. Nor was there evidence that the landlord offered support or reassurance.”

Due to its findings, the Ombudsman ordered an independent review of the landlord’s rent recovery practice.

An internal review was completed, and the following issues were identified:

• The landlord did not take into account the resident’s vulnerability;
• There was no senior management oversight of the case;
• The landlord repeatedly failed to respond to the resident’s complaints.

Richard Blakeway, Housing Ombudsman, said: “Throughout this case the landlord took an adversarial and heavy-handed stance towards the resident, despite her regularly expressing the impact legal threats were having on her well-being. 

“There can be an inherent imbalance of power between resident and landlord, and this case exemplifies it, very nearly leading to a family being unfairly evicted.

“Landlords have to do their job and residents have obligations to fulfil too, but the landlord’s handling was fundamentally flawed, and the complaint is littered with missed opportunities to reflect with a dismissive attitude, including of the Ombudsman, from the outset.

“Even were its actions right, landlords should consider how to adopt the right tone given the life-changing impact that eviction could have.”

He added: “As rent charges are made for the new financial year, this case shows the importance of regular reviews of rent arrears management. It also highlights the need for landlord staff to put themselves in the place of a resident, show empathy and provide support when working with a resident in arrears, or at risk of losing their home. This has never been more important given the current cost of living challenges and demand for affordable housing.”

In a learning statement, Housing for Women said: “To ensure that this doesn’t happen in the future we have put in place the following policies, procedures, and processes:

• developed and implemented a new complaints policy and procedure that meets the Ombudsman’s complaint handling code.
• developed and implemented a new compensation policy that gives staff clear guidance on when compensation should be offered.
• introduced new response templates for compliant responses, ensuring that staff have clear guidance on how a compliant should be responded to.
• ensured all staff have received training on the Complaints policies and processes.
• introduced reporting and monitoring of all complaints ensuring that there is senior management and Board oversight of complaints, and these are being responded to within the Ombudsman’s published timescales.
• updated our rent arrears procedure to ensure it covers vulnerable residents and implemented additional steps within the procedure when managing arrears where we know the resident has a vulnerability. Our procedure has also been updated to ensure that the Head of Housing & Customer Service must approve the serving of a Notice of Seeking Possession before it is served.
• our Head of Housing & Customer Service and Head of Finance meet on a quarterly basis to ensure that rent payments have been posted to the correct account.

“We are confident that the lessons learnt from this case have made our policies and processes more robust and ensured we have introduced effective monitoring of complaints and arrears management, ensuring that our approach to complaint handling and arrears management is robust and puts the customer first.”

Lottie Winson