In July 2020 the Housing Ombudsman published its new Complaint Handling Code. Under the terms of the Code, where a landlord which is a member of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme fails to comply with the conditions of membership, the Ombudsman may determine that there has been a complaint handling failure and order the failure to be rectified within a given timescale.
The Code also commits the Ombudsman to publishing the total number of complaint handling failure orders (CHFOs) issued, the names of the landlords and the reasons for the CHFOs. The Ombudsman has published its fifth such report covering the period from April to June 2022.
During the quarter the Ombudsman issued 22 CHFOs, down from 32 in the previous quarter. The CHFOs were issued:
- Due to unreasonable delays in the landlord accepting or progressing a complaint through its process
- Due to unreasonable delays in the landlord providing information requested by the Ombudsman or
- Where a landlord failed to comply with its membership obligations.
There were five cases of non-compliance in the quarter for:
- London & Quadrant
- Hyde HA
- Peabody Trust
- Catalyst Housing and
- Deptford Housing Co-operative.
The Ombudsman is formally investigating failures in respect of:
- Arhag HA
- Birmingham City Council
- Notting Hill Genesis and
- Havering Council.
In launching the report, Housing Ombudsman Richard Blakeway said “We know there are immense financial pressures on landlords, but it is crucial that we don’t see a deterioration in complaint handling services. In fact, challenging times mean complaints and their insight are increasingly important to help maintain effective service areas. It’s vital for complaint teams to be respected and adequately resourced to deal with complaints effectively and ensure the landlord learns, improves and prevents service failure. No landlord should lose sight of the need to focus on effective complaint handling. More than 60 landlords have received complaint handling failure orders over the 18 months of these reports, some several times. Those landlords in particular need to ensure they are progressing complaints in a timely way and meeting our standards on complaint handling as set out in the Code”.