Annual Complaints Review 2025-26

Where the landlord has followed their obligations and policies and acted fairly, our investigation will find no maladministration.

The categories of complaints where we saw the highest rates of no maladministration findings were:

• • Moving/Buying/Selling Homes (33% of 905 complaints) – complaints about the condition of homes upon letting, transfer applications, and moving home due to circumstances such as disrepair or antisocial behaviour
  • Occupancy Rights (39% of 114 complaints) – complaints about the terms of a tenancy or lease, assignment, succession, and ending tenancies

The category with the lowest rate of no maladministration was Responsive Repairs at only 10% of complaints.

There are occasions where our investigation may find some maladministration, but the landlord put things right using its complaints procedure. In these cases, we say there has been ‘reasonable redress’.

In 2025-26 we saw an increase in the proportion of reasonable redress findings (20%, up from 13% in 2024-25). This is a sustained increase over 3 years, and it is encouraging to see it continue. This suggests landlords are getting better at recovering service failings, even if services still need improvement to avoid complaints arising. 66% of reasonable redress findings followed an offer of compensation made by the landlord that we deemed adequate.

Complaints in the Managing Relations category had the highest rate of reasonable redress findings (26%). This reflects a change in our process (see section on categories below). Planned Works (20%) and Occupancy Rights (20%) had the next highest rates of reasonable redress.

ASB/Abuse/Nusiance and Information and Data Management complaints had the lowest rates of reasonable redress findings (both 12%). This suggests landlords could do more to consider the impact the failure in these areas has on residents.

A finding of reasonable redress does not always mean a landlord offered compensation – other remedies can also be effective. 22% of reasonable redress findings involved case-specific actions such as providing better explanations for decisions or helping residents to access other services. We encourage landlords to consider where non-monetary solutions may be appropriate when handling complaints.

We will continue to publicise findings of no maladministration and reasonable redress on social media, in our Spotlight reports, Insight reports, and through our Centre for Learning. By doing so, we hope to provide landlords with learning that will support them in early and effective complaints resolution.

The maladministration findings per 1,000 homes metric is a size-adjusted measure of maladministration, allowing for fairer comparisons between landlords. We use this metric alongside the maladministration rate to capture landlord performance relative to size.

The median number of maladministration findings per 1,000 homes was 1.6 in 2025-26. Breaking this down by landlord type shows median rates were slightly higher for housing associations (1.6) compared to local authorities (1.3).

Maladministration per 1,000 homes also varies across landlord size. Large housing associations also had a high median rate (3.5). Small to medium-sized landlords tend to have the lowest numbers, possibly benefiting from established systems without the same level of scale or complexity.

The Regulator of Social Housing (the Regulator) inspects landlords to assess how they are meeting the outcomes of the regulatory standards. It is about halfway through its 4-year cycle of grading all landlords with over 1,000 homes so the statistics here should be treated with caution.

The consumer standards concentrate on the provision of housing services, including complaints. Landlords receive a score from C1 (meeting standards) to C4 (serious failings). We looked at how the Regulator’s Consumer Standards regulatory notices aligned with our performance figures for landlords receiving an individual report in 2025-26.

In 2025-26, landlords with a C1 or C2 grading tended to have lower uphold rates than landlords with C3 or C4 grades. The average uphold rates were 59% for C1 and C2 and 68% for C3 and C4. The difference in uphold rates seems to be partially driven by differences in operations between local authority landlords and housing associations. Almost half of local authority landlords with consumer gradings have been given C3 or C4 (44%), compared with only 5% of housing associations. Since local authorities tend to have higher uphold rates, the average uphold rate for C3 or C4 landlords appears higher.

We also compared median upheld rates for C1/C2 landlords against C3/C4 landlords, broken down by type. Local authorities had similar rates in both groups, at around 2 upheld findings per 1,000 homes. However, housing associations with C3 grades had a median rate of 3.5, 1.5 findings per 1,000 homes more than those with C1 or C2 grades.

Responsive Repairs was the biggest category after complaints handling and represents the greatest number of upheld findings. 80% of cases determined in 2025-26 contained a finding about Responsive Repairs. We upheld 72% of all findings about repairs, a very slightly lower rate than the previous year (73%). The rate of severe maladministration findings in Responsive Repairs has reduced to 5% from 8%.

Behind every repair is a resident who wants to receive a high quality, prompt repairs service. When the most serious failings occur, residents often experience excessive delays, poor communication or a failure to recognise and adapt to their circumstances.

The Hazards in Social Housing (Prescribed Requirements) (England) Regulations 2025, also known as Awaab’s Law, came into force on 27 October 2025. Social landlords now have to address emergency hazards and damp and mould cases that present a significant risk of harm to tenants within fixed timeframes.

Awaab’s Law cases have begun to come through to the Ombudsman for investigation. We are monitoring these cases and aim to publish insights when we have investigated enough cases.

Our Spotlight report on repairs and maintenance contains further learning and guidance. The reports support landlords to reduce the number of complaints about repairs that they receive locally and to avoid escalation to us.

Condensation, damp and mould, and leaks

34% of the repairs complaints we investigated in 2025-26 were about condensation, damp and mould. 23% were about leaks. We upheld over 75% of these complaints.

Besides windows, these 2 categories feature the highest severe maladministration rate at 8% and 7% respectively.

Our Centre for Learning includes resources to help landlords improve their handling of complaints about leaks, damp and mould. The centre also hosts multimedia resources on Awaab’s Law.

Windows

We made 283 findings in complaints about Windows, one of the new categories added at the start of the year. This is a relatively small number in comparison to other categories but has the highest uphold rate amongst repairs complaints. We upheld 80% of Windows complaints and found severe maladministration in 10% of them.

Our May 2026 report on learning from severe maladministration focused on complaints about windows. The report identifies 3 recurring themes:

• failure to consider household circumstances, especially the presence of children, disabilities, and other vulnerabilities
• repairs being deferred due to upcoming major works programmes, often without adequate assessment of the risk to living with window disrepair
• poor management of Responsive Repairs leading to delays

As stated above, in 2025-26 we made some changes to how we investigate complaints handling. We moved the category ‘complaints handling’ to sit under the heading ‘managing relations’, reflecting how residents interact with their landlord. This change allows us to consider complaints handling in the round, looking at timeliness, communication, and quality of investigation.

We started to look at landlords’ complaints handling in all cases. Before this, we only investigated complaints handling when asked to by the resident or if we saw evidence of complaints handling failure during the investigation. Looking at complaints handling on all cases allows us to see where complaints handling was reasonable and fair and acknowledge good practice. This can support deeper insight for our systemic and developmental activities and for landlords’ learning.

This change has contributed to a decrease in the uphold rate for Managing Relations. We upheld 57% of complaints in this category and only 0.6% had a finding of severe maladministration. Landlords may notice that their overall maladministration rate is lower than last year: the change in our process will likely have contributed to that.

No maladministration findings give landlords the chance to see where complaints handling has gone well. We found ‘no maladministration’ in 17% of complaints about complaints handling. Where we found no maladministration, landlords responded to complaints within timescales, addressed the substantive issues and were effective in communicating progress and decisions.

We saw a higher rate of upheld complaints about complaints handling for local authority landlords than for housing associations. The difference is mostly accounted for by a higher rate of redress for housing associations (31% versus 12%). Again, this suggests resident dissatisfaction with services is arising at similar rates, but there are different organisational responses through internal complaints processes.

On this basis, we encourage local authority landlords to consider where complaints can be satisfactorily resolved through redress. We also encourage housing associations to identify where redress is being repeatedly offered and consider what actions might help to reduce repeated complaints arising.

ASB/Abuse/Nusiance complaints make up about 7% of the findings we made in 2025-26. This is the same proportion as the previous year. The uphold rate for ASB cases was higher for local authority landlords than for housing associations (72%; 63%).

About half of all ASB complaints were recorded under the category ‘ASB multiple’. That means that more than one type of ASB issue was present in the complaint. Noise and neighbour disputes were the 2 next biggest categories. This is a reminder for landlords that ASB cases can often be complex, long-term, and can relate to multiple co-occurring issues.

Our learning from severe maladministration report on ASB highlights some key areas landlords could address:

• • risk assessments that take vulnerabilities and changing circumstances into account
  • lack of clear action plans
  • engagement with partner agencies
  • lack of support and signposting, especially in cases of reported hate crime

Our member landlords frequently ask us for our insights on ASB. This is unsurprising given the challenges in delivering an effective service in this area. We’ll continue to review our cases and share insights with our members through our thematic work and the Centre for Learning.

One of the new categories we added in 2025-26 was Artificial Intelligence (AI), under the heading Information and Data Management. Our category guidance says complaints about this may include:

• • the use of AI to make decisions or provide a service to residents
  • AI tools used by staff visiting homes
  • chat bots on landlord websites or apps
  • misinterpreting tenant contact
  • accuracy of the property or personal data used by AI to make decisions affecting residents
  • biased decision-making based on data
  • lack of human interaction

As use of AI increases for both landlords and residents, we anticipate more complaints in this category. We encourage landlords to prepare for this by training staff on appropriate use of AI and the associated risks.

Compensation was the most common order we made following a finding.

Compensation is intended to be restorative. The amount offered should restore the resident to the position they would be in had the service failure not occurred.

We ordered a total of £4.8 million in compensation and recommended a further £1.2 million across over 14,000 findings. This is around 10% more compensation than we ordered and recommended the previous year, slightly less than the increase in upheld findings.

Compensation was the most common order across all complaint categories except Information and Data Management, where we ordered apologies and case reviews more frequently.

We are proportionate in our orders of compensation. They are calculated according to a framework that we created following engagement with landlords and residents. The framework was designed with fairness in mind and this is available on our website.

The average amount of compensation ordered per case has fallen steadily over time. In 2023-24 we ordered an average of £1,151 per upheld case, falling to £947 in 2024-25. This went down again in 2025-26, with average compensation per upheld case at £703. This reflects decreasing severity in complaint outcomes compared to prior years, which is also demonstrated by the reduction in severe maladministration findings.

Over 65% of compensation ordered in 2025-26 followed complaints about Responsive Repairs (£3.3m). The average compensation order made for Responsive Repairs was £623, followed by Planned Works (£448).

Within the Responsive Repairs category, complaints about Leaks had the largest average compensation amount (£827). Condensation, damp and mould had the highest total compensation ordered (£1.1m) for 2025-26. The large amounts of compensation paid speak to the disruption and distress caused by living with leaks, damp and mould.

In 34 cases we made compensation orders of more than £5,000 – more than 10 times the average amount. Responsive Repairs featured in 74% of these cases.

High awards are often linked to prolonged service failures and a lack of resident-centred decision-making. Across repairs cases with the highest compensation orders, we observed:

• • inadequate communication
  • poor knowledge and information management
  • failure to comply with the complaints policy and timescales

Multiple failures also compound service delivery issues, prolonging residents’ inconvenience and delaying effective resolution.

We have published our guidance on compensation, which sets out our expectations for redress and how we calculate the amounts we order. We are planning to release our first issue of statutory Good Practice on compensation.

Compensation is not the only remedy to resolve a complaint. Apologies are a valuable step in repairing trust between a resident and their landlord.

We ordered landlords to make 6,120 apologies to residents for poor handling of their case. There were 32 cases where an apology was the only order we made.

Our apologies guidance says:

“A timely apology given as soon as the problem is understood is most effective. The sooner an apology is given, the sooner the trust and relationship between the landlord and resident can begin to mend.”

Learning from severe maladministration report on apologies

We make ’wider orders’ where we think the landlord should look beyond a single complaint and fix broader problems in policy or practice. We made 16 wider orders in 2025-26. The majority were in Responsive Repairs (10), of which 7 were about the landlord’s approach to condensation, damp and mould. The others were made in findings on:

• • complaints handling (2)
  • temporary moves (2)
  • ending a tenancy (1)
  • information and data management (1)

We ordered 15 landlords to undertake policy or practice reviews. 9 reviews were complied with on time. Landlords conducted most of the reviews internally, but some landlords commissioned external assistance. External reviews often identified issues beyond the initial service area, such as system weaknesses and poor staff training. For some cases, the landlord had commissioned an external review prior to receiving our determination and linked the reviews together.

These reviews often resulted in significant changes to process. At least 4 resulted in a new policy being developed by the landlord. Others led to process improvements or changes to how records were kept, including records of residents’ vulnerabilities. The learning from wider orders underlines how every complaint is an opportunity to learn, reflect, and improve services.