Our updated complaints policy

We’ve updated our complaints policy (pdf, 383kb) to comply with the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code.

The code is now law, and we have a legal duty to comply with it.

Some of the key changes are:

We’ll always give you the option of making an official complaint if you’re dissatisfied with the service you receive from us.
We now accept complaints up to 12 months after a problem occurs or you become aware of an issue.
We’ve appointed a Board member as a Member Responsible for Complaints (MRC).
We’ll report our complaints handling performance to the Housing Ombudsman each year and formally respond to the complaints assessment and service improvement report.
We’ll publish the self-assessment report on our website.

Responding to complaints

The timescales for responding to your complaint remain unchanged.

Stage 1 complaints

We will acknowledge your complaint within five working days of receipt.
Our Complaints and Resolution Team will manage your complaint.
We will provide a stage 1 response within 10 working days after acknowledging your complaint. Our response will explain whether your complaint has been upheld, not upheld or partially upheld.
A complaint will be closed once we have provided the answers to your complaint as part of our stage 1 response.
Any issues that need to be resolved (e.g. Repairs to a property or a referral to another ISHA staff member) as part of the complaint will be recorded on a commitment log and monitored to ensure they are completed.

Stage 2 complaints

If you are unhappy with our stage 1 response, you can ask that it be reviewed as a stage 2 complaint.
You have 20 days from the date of our stage 1 response to request it be escalated to stage 2.
A more senior member of staff will handle a stage 2 investigation.
A stage 2 complaint does not re-investigate the original complaint. Instead, it looks at how the complaint was handled at stage 1 and whether anything should have been done differently.
A request for a stage 2 investigation will be acknowledged within five working days of receipt, and you will receive a final stage 2 response within 20 working days after our acknowledgement.

Contacting the Housing Ombudsman

If you are still unhappy with our response after we have investigated your complaint as stage 1 and stage 2, you can ask the Housing Ombudsman to review it.

You can also contact the Housing Ombudsman if you are having problems accessing the complaints process or feel we have not responded in line with our complaints policy (pdf, 383kb).

You can find contact details for the Housing Ombudsman in our complaints policy (pdf, 383kb).

More information

For more information, see our website's updated complaints policy (pdf, 383kb) or the Housing Ombudsman website's ‘How to complain to your landlord’ section.

How to make a complaint.