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Complaints, feedback and appeals

Feedback is important to us as it helps to shape our services. If you want to share a suggestion, give a compliment or make a complaint please contact us here.

What is a complaint?

A complaint as per the Housing Ombudsman Code is defined as ‘An expression of dissatisfaction, however made, about the standard of service, actions or lack of action by the organisation, its own staff, or those acting on its behalf, affecting an individual resident or group of residents’.

In the event you would like to make a complaint we would recommend that you talk to us first by contacting the team who dealt with your initial enquiry. They will try to resolve your complaint for you on the spot. If you still feel aggrieved you can make a formal complaint.

We are happy to communicate with you in the way that you prefer.  This could be in writing, over the phone, in person, or by email.

If you do not wish to make the complaint yourself, we are happy to deal with someone who will represent you.  This may be a local official, family member, or other body such as an advocate.  You may need to give us permission if your complaint concerns sensitive information.

Complaints do not include the following:

  • Neighbour disputes
  • Neighbour nuisance or anti-social behaviour complaints – unless you feel that we have not dealt with a nuisance complaint properly
  • Complaints about the actions of a party that is not working for, or supported by OVH

What is an appeal?

In instances where you wish to contest a decision made in line with OVH’s published policies or procedures, you may raise an appeal. A non exhaustive list of issues you may appeal include:

  • Eligibility for independent living following a needs and risk assessment
  • Decisions on investments or adaptation work
  • Decisions to allow ‘Right to Buy’ and ‘Right to Acquire’ applications
  • Service charges for tenants and leaseholders

What is a suggestion?

This is a comment about how we can improve our services. We will report the types of suggestions we receive and what we are doing as a result in our tenant newsletter and on our website. We value your feedback as an opportunity to improve the quality of our service.

What is a compliment?

If you feel you want to make a positive comment about an individual, team or service, we will treat this as a compliment. We welcome all compliments, as these help us to identify where we are performing well and share this good practice with other parts of our organisation.

Investigating your complaint or appeal

You can make an official complaint or appeal, in the following ways:

We will acknowledge your complaint or appeal within two working days and give you a full response within 10 working days.

Escalating your complaint or appeal

If you are unhappy with the outcome of your complaint or appeal, you can request a review of your case. You can do this in the same way that you made your initial enquiry. Please tell us why you are not satisfied with our initial response. Again, we will acknowledge your contact within two working days and provide a full written response within 10 working days. Your response letter will also include an explanation of what you can do if you are still unhappy.

Tenant Complaint Champions

Tenant Complaint Champions are a group of tenants who have volunteered to assist customers who require a little help throughout the complaint process. This might include help with getting your complaint across, accompanying you at any meetings, or just someone to have a chat with.

If you would like to speak to one of the Champions, you can contact us by calling 0300 365 1111 or writing to One Vision Housing, PO Box 891, Orpington BR6 1LY

 

Contacting the Housing Ombudsman Service

The Housing Ombudsman (HO) is an independent complaints regulator, set up to impartially resolve complaint disputes between Registered Providers and their customers.

We work in line with the HO’s complaint handling code. This helps us to resolve your complaints fairly, quickly, and effectively in line with best practice, whilst providing data to set industry benchmarks.

At any point of the complaints process, you are able to contact the HO, who may offer assistance whilst we investigate your complaint.

You can contact the HO via:

  • PO Box 152, Liverpool L33 7WQ
  • 0300 111 3000
  • info@housing-ombudsman.org.uk

In July 2020 the Housing Ombudsman released a Complaint Handling Code to enable us to resolve complaints raised by our residents quickly and to use the learning from complaints to drive service improvements.

We are fully compliant with the new code and are committed to providing an annual self-assessment, to ensure we remain compliant, enabling a positive complaint handling and improvement culture across the organisation. This self-assessment is reported to our Board members and is also available for customers.

We continually monitor our complaints to improve our processes and make it easier for you to raise a complaint when needed. We will report on the complaints we receive and provide information on other feedback we receive in our annual Complaints Report.

We regularly review how we are performing as an organisation and report on our performance quarterly and annually.

If you would like to make a suggestion, compliment, complaint or appeal, please or contact us.

Complaints Report

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We continually monitor our complaints performance in order to make it easier for you to make a complaint and to improve our response to your complaints.

Our Complaints Report

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We believe it’s important to act on customer feedback to improve the services we provide.

The information you give us about our services is shared with our managers and involved tenants to make sure we are learning and improving as a result of your feedback.

Take a look at our recent improvements

Complaints Policy

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Visit our Policies page to find more information on our Complaints Policy.

Policies

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This page was last updated on 19/01/2024