Cause for concern
On average, Inside Housing receives two calls a month from tenants seeking help with complaints about their landlord.
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In the majority of cases they have never heard of the Housing Ombudsman Service (for housing association tenants) or the Local Government Ombudsman (for local authority tenants).
Judging by the surge in complaints to both ombudsmen in recent years, however, it seems that our callers are in the minority. Does this mean social tenants are becoming more savvy or simply less satisfied with the service they receive? The answer, according to Dr Mike Biles of the HOS at least, is a bit of both. But Dr Biles does not expect the growth in complaints to continue. Almost two-thirds of complaints are resolved by helping tenants through their landlords’ existing complaints process.
Landlords need to respond to Dr Biles’ own complaint by showing that they are taking peoples’ concerns seriously and devising user-friendly complaints services.