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About us

Our vision is to improve residents’ lives and landlords’ services through housing complaints.

What we do

Our vision is to improve residents’ lives and landlords’ services through housing complaints.

The Housing Ombudsman is an independent, impartial, and free service for social housing residents.

We make the final decision on disputes between residents and landlords that are registered members of its Scheme - including tenants and leaseholders of social landlords (housing associations and local authorities), as well as for our voluntary members (private landlords and letting agents).

We also work to strengthen internal complaints procedures and encourage landlords to learn from complaints to prevent service failures being repeated.

About the Housing Ombudsman Service

The Housing Ombudsman Scheme

All local authorities and registered social housing providers must be members of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme. We also have members that are private landlords who have joined voluntarily.

The Housing Ombudsman Scheme sets out our role, what complaints we can consider and the obligations of our members.

The Housing Ombudsman Scheme

Membership information

Governance framework

We are an executive non-departmental public body, sponsored by the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.

The Framework document (PDF) sets out the respective responsibilities and accountability of the Housing Ombudsman, the Secretary of State and officials within the Department.

Systemic framework

Our systemic framework sets out how we will look beyond individual disputes to identify key issues that impact on residents and landlords’ services, sharing learning with the sector to promote good practice and support a positive complaint handling culture.

You can find out more and view the systemic framework on our dedicated page.

Systemic framework

Others we work with

We work with the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO), the New Homes Ombudsman, and the Regulator of Social Housing, under a Memorandum of Understanding, to agree a common approach to collaborative working.

You can find out more and view Memorandum of Understanding documents on our dedicated page.

View our Memorandum of Understanding documents

Who we are

We are made up of 3 directorates:

  • Quality, Engagement and Development
  • Dispute Support & Resolution
  • Finance and Corporate Services

These teams are supported by our Executive Leadership Team (ELT) and Senior Leadership Team.

We collaborate with an Audit and Risk Assurance Committee (ARAC), an Advisory Board and an Independent Reviewer of Service Complaints to support our activities, encourage external perspectives and continually improve our performance.

Our values

Our 4 values are important to us, and we strive to uphold these in everything we do, both internally and externally.

Fairness: We are independent and impartial; we take time to listen carefully and to understand the evidence.

Learning: We share knowledge and insights to maximise our impact and improve services.

Openness: We are accessible and accountable; we publish information on our performance and decisions.

Excellence: We work together to provide an efficient, high-quality service.

Our values and the behaviours that underpin them

Fairness: We are independent and impartial; we take time to listen carefully and to understand the evidence Learning: We share knowledge and insights to maximise our impact and improve services Openness: We are accessible and accountable; we publish information on our performance and decisions Excellence: We work together to provide an efficient, high-quality service

Policies and data

Our policies

We have published a range of our internal policies and guidance for transparency.

Internal policies and guidance (opens in a new tab)

Expenditure data

We are required to publish our expenditure data as part of the government’s transparency agenda.

Our expenditure data (opens in a new tab)

Resident information

Our commitment to you

Find out more about our aim to improve residents’ lives and landlords’ services through housing complaints.

Our commitment to residents (opens in a new tab)

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

View the list of residents Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) including information about the service, the complaints process, and dealing with landlords.

Resident FAQs (opens in a new tab)