Telling us about a complaint

We set out to provide a high-quality service and satisfaction to our customers. However, we recognise that sometimes things go wrong, and we need to respond quickly to put them right.

We welcome your complaint as it gives us the opportunity to put things right, learn from what's happened and make improvements to our service.

Raise a complaint >

  • Read our complaints process quick guide
  • We listen and learn from your feedback

    We value complaints and pride ourselves on having a positive complaint handling culture, where we learn from any mistakes we make.

    We aim to provide a quality service and use findings and data from all feedback and contact to proactively make positive changes, that will benefit all residents.

    We report these to our Board, through social media, in our newsletters, in our annual report, and on our performance webpage.

  • What is a complaint?

    A formal complaint

    Is an expression of dissatisfaction about the standard of service, actions or lack of action by us, our own staff, or those acting on our behalf, affecting an individual customers or group of customers.

    A service request

    Is a request from a customer to the landlord requiring action to be taken to put something right. Service requests are not complaints, but must be recorded, monitored, and reviewed regularly.

    A complaint must be raised if a customer expresses dissatisfaction with the response to their service request, even if the handling of the service request remains ongoing. We will not stop our efforts to address the service request if the customer raises a formal complaint.

  • When will a complaint not be considered?

    Each complaint will be considered on its own merit. There are some things that aren’t dealt with through our complaints process. These include:

    • When it's the first request for a service from us (for example if your boiler breaks for the first time, this would be a repair request, not a complaint).
    • When the issue happened, or the customer was aware of the issue over 12 months ago, and the customer didn't report it at the time. We will consider whether to apply discretion to accept complaints made outside this time limit where there are good reasons to do so.
    • Where the underlying issue is not within our remit or control.
    • When it's an anonymous complaint. We would be unable to respond to the complainant as part of this process, however, we would carry out an investigation of the reported issues and action accordingly.
    • When it's an Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB) / neighbour nuisance complaint - these should be dealt with in accordance with our ASB Policy and Procedure. If, however, the complaint relates to the process, or our failure to deal with the concerns raised, it should be dealt with under this policy.
    • When legal proceedings have started. This is defined as details of the claim, such as the Claim Form, Particulars of Claim, having been filed at court. A disrepair claim will be actioned in conjunction with a formal complaint.
    • When the matters have previously been considered under the complaints policy.
    • We sometimes receive complaints that are vexatious (aggressive, abusive, or unreasonable). If we believe this is the case, we will contact the customer and explain why we have reached this decision. We may also restrict contact in accordance with our acceptable behaviour policy.
    • Any personal injury claims. These should be referred to our insurance company.

    We will consider a complaint and/or escalate it, unless there's a valid reason not to. If we decide not to accept a complaint, an explanation will be provided to the customer setting out the reasons why the matter is not suitable for the complaints process and their right to take our decision to the Housing Ombudsman. If the Housing Ombudsman does not agree that the exclusion has been fairly applied, the complaint will be investigated.

How do I raise a complaint?

  • I want to raise a complaint

    Service request - a quick and informal resolution

    We will aim to resolve your matter on your initial contact with us wherever possible.

    We always take swift action to try to resolve your concerns at the first point of contact, establishing what we can do to put things right. If we can reach an immediate resolution and you're satisfied with any action taken, we'll log your concerns and feedback to the relevant department for future learning.

    When you contact us, please let us know why you're dissatisfied and how you'd like us to resolve your issue.

    The quickest way to get in touch is to complete our online complaints form:

    Raise a complaint >

    Download a flowchart of the process.


    Formal complaints

    If we can't resolve the matter to your satisfaction, you can raise a formal complaint. We have a two-stage formal complaints process, with the aim of finding a resolution as quickly as possible.

    Formal complaint - Stage 1

    The Customer and Business Support Team will be responsible for your complaint.

    They will:

    • accept and acknowledge your complaint within 3 working days
    • agree your preferred communication method
    • carry out an investigation
    • formally respond to you within 10 working days of the complaint acknowledgment.  We will always provide a formal letter to summarise your complaint.

    The quickest way to raise a complaint is to complete our online complaints form:

    Raise a complaint >


    Formal complaint - Stage 2, Review of complaint

    If a resolution isn't achieved at Stage 1, you can request to escalate your complaint to Stage 2 - you’ll need to do this by the date stated in the full response.

    A summary of the Stage 2 process:

    • We’ll try and establish your reason for escalating and desired outcome; we will not refuse an escalation if this is not provided.
    • We’ll acknowledge the request within 5 working days.
    • A review will be conducted and we will write to you with the outcome of the review within 20 working days of your Stage 2 acknowledgement.
    • If we don’t hear from you within 20 days of the Stage 2 letter we’ll close the complaint.

    Full Complaints Policy

    Our Complaints Policy explains the complaints process in detail.

About the process

  • Who can make a complaint?

    Our Complaints Policy is applicable to anyone who receives or requests a service from us, for example tenants and shared owners.

    We will also accept complaints from family members, local councillors or other advocates, providing the customer has given authorisation for them to do so.

    External stakeholders

    Complaints received from other stakeholders, for example a parish council, will be dealt with under the same principles applicable to other complaints. However, the review meeting representatives may differ and there is no right to refer the complaint to the Housing Ombudsman.

  • Satisfied with our complaints process?

    Closing your complaint

    If at any stage of the process we've given a full response to a complaint and there's been no contact from the customer regarding the complaint, by the date stated in our response, the complaint will be closed.

    How satisfied were you with the process?

    Once a complaint is closed, we'll send you a link to complete a one question questionnaire. It will ask you: "Were you satisfied with how your complaint was handled?"

    This is to review the complaints process, it does not reassess the decision made during the process.

  • What if I'm not satisfied with the final response to the complaint?

    The Housing Ombudsman can support both you and us at any point during the formal complaint process. This will be entirely based on encouraging an early resolution.

    If you remain dissatisfied after you’ve been through our complaints process, you can pass a formal complaint to the Housing Ombudsman for investigation.

    You can contact the Housing Ombudsman in the following ways:

  • Can I withhold rent during the complaints process?

    No, customers don't have the right to withhold rent during the complaints process.

    Customers do have the potential to undertake existing minor repairs themselves and deduct the cost from future rent payments. If you're considering this, there's a strict process that needs to be followed by customers and all the steps must be followed.

    Read the process on the Citizens Advice website >

  • Unreasonable or abusive customers - vexatious complaints

    We understand that the circumstances leading to someone contacting us may have been upsetting or distressing, and that behaviour may be out of character. However, actions of customers who are aggressive, persistent, abusive or unreasonable may result in unacceptable demands on, or unacceptable behaviour towards, our colleagues. These are known as vexatious complaints.

    If we consider a customer is being abusive or aggressive, has unreasonable demands or is being unreasonably persistent, we will contact them and explain why we have reached this decision. At our discretion, we may give the customer the opportunity to act in a more reasonable manner or we may refuse to progress the complaint.

    What is considered unreasonable, abusive or aggressive?

    • Unreasonable demands include: requesting large volumes of information, asking for responses within a short space of time, refusing to speak to an individual or insisting on speaking with another
    • Unreasonable persistence includes: refusing to accept the answer that has been provided, continuing to raise the same subject matter without providing any new evidence, continuously adding to or changing the subject matter of the complaint
    • Abuse, aggression, violence includes: actual physical or verbal abuse, derogatory remarks, rudeness, inflammatory allegations and threats of violence
    • Overload of contact: this could be via letters, calls, emails or social media and could include the frequency of contact as well as the volume of correspondence or length of phone calls

    Full details are in our Determining Unreasonable or Vexatious Complaints Policy (link below).

Further info

  • Other ways to contact us

    The quickest way to contact us to raise a complaint is to complete the online complaints form:

    Raise a complaint >

    Other ways to complain to us:

    • Online: on MyHomeOnline
    • Email us
    • Write to us at: Memorial House, Whitwick Business Park, Stenson Road, Coalville, Leicestershire, LE67 4JP
    • Call us: 0300 1234 009
    • On Facebook
    • In person: Contact us by email or call on 0300 1234 009 to make an appointment
    • Using an advocate: Permission must be given by the customers. (If a solicitor has been appointed to act on behalf of the customer, this will be referred to the Association’s solicitor and not dealt with as part of this policy.)
  • Support and more information

    Housing Ombudsman

    Any time during the process you can contact the Housing Ombudsman, who provide advice and support to residents.

    The Housing Ombudsman service is set up by law to look at complaints about the housing organisations registered with them. Their service is free, independent and impartial.

How are we performing?

  • Complaints performance

    We monitor and publish our complaints every quarter, so that our customers know how we're doing.

    You can see an easy to read summary of how we're doing with complaints on our performance pages.

    This shows:

    • how many complaints have been made
    • whether they are formal or informal
    • what service areas they relate to
    • how many are resolved at stage one of the complaints process
    • how many are escalated to stage two of the complaints process
    • how satisfied the person who complained was with our process
  • Annual self-assessment

    The Housing Ombudsman has a complaint handling code, and it's a legal requirement for all social landlords, like PDRHA, to comply with the code.

    As part of this, we're required to complete an annual assessment against the Code as part of our annual complaints performance and service improvement report.

    Find out more about our annual self-assessment.