Complaints

We will always do our best to get things right and provide an excellent level of service to all our customers. However, we recognise that things may sometimes go wrong and there may be a reason to complain.

It is our aim to deal with your complaint, and resolve it, at the first point of contact. To find out how we will approach dealing with your complaint, please take a look at our Complaints Policy.

Please note that this policy does not apply to Ongo Homes. If your complaint relates to your tenancy with us, we have a different policy and you need to read the Ongo Homes Complaints Policy.

Complaints handling code

What we did

On the 7 July 2020 the Housing Ombudsman published the New Complaint Handling code.

The code sets out good practice to allow landlords to respond to complaints effectively and fairly.

The Housing Ombudsman instructed all landlords to carry out a self-assessment and share the findings with their boards and publish the results.

The ombudsman wanted us to complete a self-assessment before 31 Dec 2020, which is now complete. The reason for this was to ensure that we are compliant against the code and that we use it to improve our complaint handling services for our customers.

Although we were already ahead of the game and our policies and services were mainly compliant, we felt it was a real opportunity to review our services to make sure they are the best they can be for our customers.

We also took the opportunity to ask our involved customers if the exclusions within the policy were fair and reasonable.

What we found out

Overall, we found our services to be compliant and meeting the Ombudsman obligations. These findings were that we already have a very accessible complaint service, where customers can make a complaint through all of our contact methods.

Also the Ombudsman is very keen on the complaint process not having too many stages and recommend a two stage process internally. This is something we had already changed and simplified some time ago.

Below are the areas we will be looking to improve on:

Create dedicated Resolution Officers to improve our complaint handling services and ensure we are consistent across the whole of our business
Update our policy to reflect the ombudsman complaint handling code
Improve accessibility and transparency of complaints information on our website and increase the frequency of complaint information that is shared with our customers

If you would like to know more about the code please see here