When to get help from the Housing Ombudsman
The Housing Ombudsman Service is a fair and impartial service which was set up by law to look at complaints about housing organisations that are registered with us. Our service is free of charge to all residents in social housing.
The Housing Ombudsman Scheme (the Scheme) sets out what we can and cannot consider within our role, how we look at complaints and when a resident or landlord can request a review of a decision we have made.
When to get help from the Housing Ombudsman
You can bring a complaint to the Housing Ombudsman Service for investigation if you have completed your landlord’s complaint process and the issues have not been resolved.
We can also help if your landlord is not responding to a complaint you made to it.
The steps below explain how to make an effective complaint to your landlord, what you need to bring the complaint to us, and our process for investigation.
Complain to your landlord
Complaints are an opportunity for landlords to put things right and learn from where things have gone wrong, to stop the same issues happening again.
You can find more information on how to make a complaint to your landlord online.
Find out how to complain to your landlord
Your landlord should respond to you within its complaint policy timescales – these can be found in your landlords' complaint procedure.
We can help if your landlord does not respond
We can help you to get a response from your landlord where we have evidence that a landlord is not following its own complaint procedures and the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code.
We will ask to see a copy of the complaint you made to the landlord. This will help us understand if the landlord is not following its complaint process.
Where we have evidence that a landlord is not following its process, we can make orders for it to respond to you. This is also known as a Complaint Handling Failure Order.
If necessary, we can support you to the end of the complaint process.
If you have made a complaint to the landlord and it is not responding to you, please get in touch.
Refer your complaint to us
You can bring a complaint to the Housing Ombudsman for investigation if the issues have not been resolved after using your landlord's complaint procedure.
You will need to tell us what you think has gone wrong and what you think the landlord should do to put things right.
We will only consider a complaint for investigation when we have received evidence that your landlord has supplied a full and final response to your complaint.
A complaint must be referred to the service within 12 months from the date of the landlord’s final response.
Next steps in your complaint
Bring a complaint to the Housing Ombudsman
Our online complaint form will ask you for information about you and your landlord and the details of the complaint you made to it.
How we investigate your complaint
Find out how the Housing Ombudsman investigates complaints including early resolution and what recommendations we can make.