The Housing Ombudsman Service is an independent organisation which resolves disputes between tenants and social landlords in England.
The service is free, independent and impartial.
They regulate social landlords (housing associations and local authorities), and some private landlords and letting agents who have volunteered to be registered.
You can check if your landlord is included here.
In Scotland, Housing disputes are dealt with by the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman (SPSO). It’s also a free, impartial service.
The Housing Ombudsman deals with complaints about how a landlord has responded to a problem that you’ve raised. They don’t deal with the problem itself, but can help you to resolve the dispute.
Some examples of why you might contact the Housing Ombudsman include:
The SPSO will deal with issues about repairs, maintenance and eviction, but not rent or service charge increases, or individual members of staff.
It’s important to note that you can only contact the Housing Ombudsman when you have been through the landlord’s own complaints procedure and they have sent you a final response.
Similarly, in Scotland the SPSO will only consider complaints after you have gone through your RSL’s own complaints procedure. Once you’ve made a formal complaint to your RSL and either haven’t had an answer or feel that the problem has not been solved, you can ask SPSO to look at your complaint. However, it should be within twelve months of when the problem first started.
So, before contacting the Housing Ombudsman or SPSO, you must have:
You can find letters you can copy here.
Here’s how to send a follow-up letter.
And you must NOT have started any legal proceedings.
At this point, the Housing Ombudsman also advises that you contact a ‘designated person‘. This could be your local councillor or an MP who can help try to resolve the problem.
Here’s information on how to contact your MP or councillors.
You don’t have to do this, but if you don’t, you must wait eight weeks from your landlord’s final response before you contact the Housing Ombudsman.
In Scotland, it’s different: there’s no need to get a designated person to help.
The Housing Ombudsman publish case studies that show how they have resolved disputes previously. It’s good to read these to get a picture of some typical outcomes.
For Scotland, SPSO have a useful document on how to make a complaint.
Tools you can use
Tools you can use
Tools you can use
Tools you can use