The Social Housing (Regulation) Act has just received Royal Assent. As a result, this means the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code will gain new powers to use against landlords failing to handle complaints fairly.
Currently the Housing Ombudsman can decide what landlords must do to put a service failure right when it has not been dealt with fairly.
As of September, the Housing Ombudsman will have the power to also compare several complaints to identify any key themes and make the landlord address them. They will also be required to monitor landlords to make sure they are meeting the requirements of the Complaint Handling Code, and can get involved even when a complaint has not been sent to them.
What this means to customers is that there is more assurance that any service failures are dealt with fairly and prevented from happening again.
Each year we have to complete a self-assessment to demonstrate how we meet the code. We are currently completing this year’s self-assessment and it will be available to view on our website later this year.
in the meantime, you can view last year’s self-assessment here!