We always aim to deliver the highest quality service to our customers, but we understand that there may be occasions where we get things wrong, and you may want to give feedback or make a complaint.
You can provide feedback or make a complaint in the following ways:
We take complaints seriously and we are committed to acting swiftly to put things right and find a resolution. We want to work closely with our tenants and other customers, and ensure we learn from their feedback to improve the services we deliver.
Our approach to dealing with complaints adopts the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code 2024 and its dispute resolution principles, namely:
We have a two-stage Complaints process and consider all complaints on a case-by case basis.
We will maintain openness, impartiality and accountability and are committed to dealing with complaints as quickly and efficiently as possible. We will keep in regular contact with complainants and collaborating with other partners and colleagues as required.
Where something has gone wrong, we will take actions to put things right, considering the impact on the customer and making clear what will happen and by when.
We are committed to ensuring our approach to complaints is accessible to all customers, fulfilling our legal duties under the Equality Act 2010 to advance equality of opportunity and prevent discrimination.
Stage 1
At Stage 1, we will acknowledge that we have received your complaint within five working days of us receiving it. We’ll clarify with you our understanding of your complaint and how you’d like it to be resolved.
After we’ve investigated your complaint, we will provide a full written response to your complaint within 10 working days of us acknowledging your complaint. This will set out what our decision is and what actions we will take in response to your complaint.
Sometimes we might need to extent a response deadline by up to 10 further working days if we cannot provide a comprehensive response before then. We will let you know the reasons for the delay and keep you up to date.
If you are unhappy with us extending and you are a GHH tenant, you have the right to contact the Housing Ombudsman, and we will tell you know you can do this.
After we issue our response to your complaint, we will continue to progress any outstanding actions as agreed as promptly as possible.
Stage 2
If you are not satisfied with our response at Stage 1, you can progress your complaint to Stage 2, unless an exclusion ground applies.
This is the final stage of our complaints process and Stage 2 complaints are dealt with by a member of our Executive Leadership Team.
Again, these will be acknowledged within five working days of the escalation request being received by us. You don’t have to tell us why you are escalating the complaint but we’ll work with you to understand why you are unhappy and how we can find a solution.
You’ll receive a final written response from us within 20 working days of the complaint being acknowledged, which will state our decision and how we plan to respond to your complaint. There may still be actions we are required to progress after we provide you with the response.
In some cases, the complaint may be complex, so we may have to extend our timeframe to issue our response by no more than 20 working days without good reason. We’ll explain to you why we need to extend our timeframe and agree how we will keep you up to date in the meantime.
You can make a complaint via an advocate. This could be a friend, relative, or an advocacy service such as the Citizens Advice Bureau. Your advocate can come with you to meetings with GHH about your complaint or attend on your behalf. However, we will need your written consent before we can engage with an advocate acting on your behalf.
If you are a GHH tenant and you are unhappy with how we are dealing with your complaint, you can contact the Housing Ombudsman Service.
If you are not a GHH tenant but are unhappy with our approach to your complaint, please do let us know so we can work with you to find a satisfactory resolution.
Grosvenor Hart Homes are members of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme. This means that we agree to be bound by the decisions and adjudications of the Housing Ombudsman’s Service.
We will respond positively to all Ombudsman enquiries, investigations and recommendations, and will comply promptly with any Housing Ombudsman decisions.
If you are a GHH tenant and you are unhappy with the way we are handling a complaint, you can contact the Housing Ombudsman Service:
Email: info@housing-ombudsman.org.uk
Phone: 0300 111 3000
The phone line opening hours are Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 3.30pm
Write: Housing Ombudsman Service, PO Box 1484, Unit D, Preston, PR2 0ET
Fax: 020 7831 1942
You can also complete their online complaint form: https://www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk/residents/make-a-complaint/
We will ensure that our Complaints Policy and procedures comply with the Housing Ombudsman Complaint Handling Code 2024.
The Code is available here: https://www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk/landlords-info/complaint-handling-code/
You can view our self-assessment detailing how we meet the requirements of the Code here
For more information, you can visit www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk.
There may be some circumstances where we cannot accept your complaint. This might be because the issue happened over 12 months ago or because there are ongoing legal proceedings. If this is the case, we will explain the reasons for this and look at how we can address your concerns. You can find out more about our ‘Exclusion Grounds’ in our complaints policy.
It is essential that we learn from your feedback, and we are committed to establishing a positive complaint culture, where insights, themes and trends from complaints we receive are used to help us to improve the service we provide and to adapt our policies and procedures so they better meet the needs of our customers. This includes collection and reporting on the Tenant Satisfaction Measures we are required to collect by the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH).
We will ensure that our Board are kept update on the types of complaints we receive and our complaint handling performance and that this scrutiny leads to service improvement. This will be led by the Lead Member Responsible for Complaints who sits on our Board.
Complaints handling performance will also be considered as part of the remit of our customer stakeholder groups.
You can read the GHH Annual Complaints Performance and Service Improvement Report 2023-2024 here
To find out more about the GHH approach to complaints, you can find our Complaints Policy here