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 feel dissatisfied with this resolution, 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:
-
- Write to us
- Call us on 0300 365 1111
- Pass your complaint to a member of staff
- Email us at enquiries@ovh.org.uk
We will acknowledge your complaint within five working days and provide a full response within 10 working days of acknowledgment.
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 three working days and provide a full written response within 20 working days. Your response letter will also include an explanation of what you can do if you are still unhappy.
Contacting the Housing Ombudsman Service
The Housing Ombudsman is an independent complaints regulator, set up to impartially resolve complaint disputes between Registered Providers and their customers.
We work in line with the Housing Ombudsman 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 Housing Ombudsman, who may offer assistance whilst we investigate your complaint.
You can contact the Housing Ombudsman via:
- PO Box 1484, Unit D, Preston, PR2 0ET
- Email: info@housing-ombudsman.org.uk
- Phone: 0300 111 3000
- Fax: 020 7831 1942
In April 2024 the Housing Ombudsman released a new 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.
Our Year-end Complaints Report and Our Self-Assessment against the New Housing Ombudsman Complaint Handling Code have recently been shared with our Board Members. On behalf of the Board, OVH’s Member Responsible for Complaints, Peter Crosby thanked OVH staff for sharing and said,
‘The Board acknowledge a significant increase in Complaints across the Sector and support the heightened Regulatory focus on quality, assurance and accountability. Board are pleased with the level of detail and scrutiny provided within the Year-end Complaints Report. The improvement measures, both implemented and identified help to ensure continuous learning, understand customer perception and priorities, and focus on root cause analysis to enhance Customer Experience. Board are also pleased to note compliance against the New Housing Ombudsman Complaint Handling Code, shared in the form of a detailed Self-Assessment’.
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 contact us.
View our full complaints policy HERE.