Telling us about a complaint
We aim to deliver a positive experience, for all customers, all of the time.
But we recognise that sometimes things go wrong. Your complaint gives us the opportunity to put things right, learn from what's happened and make improvements to our service, information and communication.
Service requests are enquiries where we can offer a quick and informal resolution.
We’ll listen and try to resolve your request; or agree actions to be taken to your satisfaction, the first time you contact us. We’ll log your request so we can learn from the feedback and make changes to our service.
When you contact us, please let us know what you’d like us to do.
The quickest way to get in touch is to complete our online form.
A complaint is an expression of dissatisfaction about the standard of service, actions or lack of action by us, our own staff, or those acting on our behalf, affecting an individual customer or group of customers.
If we can't resolve a service request or enquiry to your satisfaction, you can raise a complaint. We have a two-stage complaints process, which aims to reach a resolution as quickly as possible.
The quickest way to raise a complaint is to complete the online complaints form.
Each complaint will be considered on its own merit. There are some things that aren’t dealt with as complaints. These include:
- When it's the first request for a service from us (for example if a boiler breaks for the first time, this would be a repair request, not a complaint).
- When the issue happened, or you were aware of the issue over 12 months ago, and didn't report it at the time. We will consider whether to apply discretion to accept complaints made outside this time limit where there are good reasons to do so.
- Where the underlying issue is not within our remit or control.
- When it's an anonymous complaint. However, we would carry out an investigation of the reported issues and take action accordingly.
- When it's an anti-social behaviour or neighbour nuisance issue – these should be dealt with in accordance with our ASB Policy and Procedure. If, however, the complaint relates to the process, or our failure to deal with the concerns raised, it should be dealt with under this policy.
- When legal proceedings have started. This is defined as details of the claim, such as the Claim Form, Particulars of Claim, having been filed at court. A disrepair claim will be actioned in conjunction with a formal complaint.
- When the matters have previously been considered under the complaints policy.
- We sometimes receive complaints that are vexatious (aggressive, abusive, or unreasonable). If we believe this is the case, we will contact the customer and explain why we have reached this decision. We may also restrict contact in accordance with our Acceptable Behaviour Policy.
- Any personal injury claims. These should be referred to our insurance company.
We’ll consider a complaint and/or escalate it, unless there's a valid reason not to.
If we decide not to accept a complaint, an explanation will be provided to you setting out the reasons why the matter is not suitable for the complaints process and your right to take our decision to the Housing Ombudsman. If the Housing Ombudsman does not agree that the exclusion has been fairly applied, the complaint will be investigated.
The Customer and Business Support Team will be responsible for your complaint.
They will:
- accept and acknowledge your complaint within three working days
- agree your preferred communication method
- carry out an investigation
- respond to you within ten working days of the complaint acknowledgement. We will always provide a letter to confirm the outcome of your complaint.
If a resolution isn't achieved at Stage 1, you can escalate your complaint to Stage 2. You’ll need to do this by the date stated in our full response.
Stage 2 process
- We’ll try and establish your reason for escalating and desired outcome; we will not refuse an escalation if this is not provided.
- We’ll acknowledge the request within five working days.
- A review will be conducted and we will write to you with the outcome of the review within 20 working days of your Stage 2 acknowledgement.
- If we don’t hear from you within 20 days of the Stage 2 letter, we’ll close the complaint.
If you remain dissatisfied you can refer your complaint to the Housing Ombudsman Service.
We’ll use the insight and data from complaints to listen, understand and learn how we can improve our services to ensure customers are happy and live in safe and well-maintained homes.
We’ll make sure customers’ views shape and influence our decisions and services to help us to improve services and communication.
See our performance and 'You said, we did' information, which we report to our board, in our newsletter and annual report.
More information about making a complaint
The Complaints Policy is applicable to anyone who receives or requests a service from us, for example residents and shared owners.
We will also accept complaints from family members, local councillors or other advocates, providing the customer has given authorisation for them to do so.
External stakeholders
Complaints received from other stakeholders (for example, a parish council) will be dealt with under the same principles applicable to other complaints. However, the review meeting representatives may differ and there is no right to refer the complaint to the Housing Ombudsman.
Residents do not have the right to withhold rent while we are investigating a complaint.
Closing your complaint
If at any stage of the process we've given a full response to a complaint and there's been no contact from you by the date stated in our response, the complaint will be closed.
Measuring satisfaction
Once a complaint is closed, we'll contact you to complete a short questionnaire.
This is to review our service, it does not change the decision made about your complaint.
If we can’t agree a resolution by the end of Stage 2 of our process, you can take your complaint to the Housing Ombudsman Service.
The Housing Ombudsman Service is there to support you if you're not happy with the outcome of your complaint with us. They will carry out an independent review of how we handled your complaint and make recommendations if we could have done things better.
The Housing Ombudsman Service can support both you and us at any point during the complaint process, to help us come to an early resolution. You can contact them directly at any time:
Online: Housing Ombudsman Service website
Email: info@housing-ombudsman.org.uk
Phone: 0300 111 3000
Post: Housing Ombudsman Service, PO Box 1484, Unit D, Preston PR2 0ET
If we feel you are being abusive or aggressive, have unreasonable demands or are being unreasonably persistent, we will contact you and explain why we have reached this decision. At our discretion, we may give you the opportunity to act in a more reasonable manner or we may refuse to progress the complaint.
Full details, including what is considered unreasonable, abusive or aggressive, are in our Acceptable Behaviour Policy.
Permission must be given by the resident(s) for us to talk to an advocate on their behalf.
If a solicitor has been appointed to act on behalf of the customer, this will be referred to the Association’s solicitor and not dealt with as part of this policy.