Some good news, the Ombudsman has replied and has found in my favour. As they don’t have a lot of power, they can’t force the landlord to actually do anything which sucks, but have detailed all of the failings, the misinformation and have basically called them robbing bastards (in more professional language
). They have awarded £250 compensation but I am a little wary of accepting it.
They have stated “The Complainant may, therefore, if he wishes, accept my decision and award, but continue to dispute his service charge liability”. Which sounds good, take the money and continue to fight. But they also say “I will clarify, though, that acceptance of my decision and award will bring the Complainant’s complaint to an end in full and final settlement”.
strawberry float that, I am not accepting £250 but then be forced to pay £6k!
I queried this with the Ombudsman and they replied with (I have altered the property management company name
):
You asked whether accepting the award would affect the service charge dispute.
In the review I have explained that your complaint against the Landlord and the service charge dispute are two entirely separate matters. Your service charge dispute is between you and the landlord (with ThievingCunts acting as the landlord's agent), but your complaint is directly against ThievingCunts.
Therefore, if you accept the decision it will bring an end to your complaint, but it will have no bearing on the service charge dispute with the landlord. It would, though, prevent you from seeking any further compensation directly from ThievingCunts.
I was still a little wary, the last thing I want is the landlord to start claiming that everything was sorted and that I have nothing left to complain about, so I queried it with the Ombudsman again asking if there would be any issues if I accepted the compensation but also wanted to take the case to a tribunal/court. They replied with:
I can confirm that if you accept the decision/award you would not be able to seek any further compensation from ThievingCunts for misleading you. You would therefore not be able to seek compensation from them equal to the amount of reduction you thought had been agreed (i.e around £5,000).
However, it would not affect your ability to argue that the landlord (via ThievingCunts) had actually agreed to reduce your service charge by this amount, nor would it affect your ability to argue that you are not liable for the service charge/major works on the basis that notices were not served correctly and so on. I do not know whether these arguments hold water, legally, and in any event they are not matters that we can consider. You would therefore need to seek independent legal advice on this.
You have raised concerns that ThievingCunts may try to argue that the service charge issue is settled if you accept the decision and award on the complaint. Please note that I tried to make it absolutely clear in the review decision that the two issues are completely separate, to avoid any confusion.
The Ombudsman mentioned it will not affect my ability to argue that I am not liable because notices etc were not served correctly, but I am not sure that is even the issue anymore. The issue is that we reached a settlement agreement that ThievingCunts broke. I think that the Ombudsman is saying that it just brings to an end the compaint with the Ombudsman, but I am not sure why he is saying that I will not be able to seek compensation? I am not all that fussed by compensation, I just want them to honour the bloody agreement we made almost 1 year ago!
I am so paranoid about all this. Do you think I am safe to accept the £250, or should I reject it to ensure that acceptance can’t be used against me?