This guide can be downloaded here.
Introduction
If your landlord has acted poorly, you should pursue this through a formal complaint, as well as campaigning. Some tips for making complaints include:
Your Landlord
Start by asking your landlord to provide their complaints policy and follow the steps to making a formal complaint. If you are not satisfied, complain to a designated person, the Housing Ombudsman, or Regulator of Social Housing.
A ‘Designated Person’
Make a complaint to a ‘designated person’, in other words your MP, a local councillor or a tenant panel.
The Housing Ombudsman
If you and your landlord still can’t resolve the problem, the next stage is the Housing Ombudsman. It can intervene in individual disputes. The Ombudsman Service was set up by law to look at complaints about the housing organisations that are registered with them. They state that their service is ‘free, independent and impartial’. The types of landlords registered with them include housing associations and local authorities, plus some private landlords and letting agents. Visit the Ombudsman here, email them here, or call them on 0300 111 3000.
The Regulator of Social Housing
The Regulator’s role set out in legislation (the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008), and is a body tasked by government with regulating private registered providers of social housing (mainly housing associations) to ‘promote a viable, efficient and well-governed social housing sector able to deliver homes that meet a range of needs’. Visit the Regulator here, email them here, or call them on 0300 124 5225.
Citizens Advice Bureau
The Citizen’s Advice Bureau also gives lots of advice on dealing with repairs in rented housing. Please see the links below.
NB This is generic advice for people living in England. If you live in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland then visit the site here and click on the top left hand corner (just under “Benefits”) to change to the advice for the country you live in.
CAB advice includes:
If your landlord fails to fix a reported issue (which they are responsible for) then this is covered under Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenants Act.
Updated 22nd July 2019