How to complain about a housing association or social landlord

The stages at a glance

1. 01Stage 1: Formal complaint to your landlord

   Response: 10 working days

   Complain in writing to the landlord's complaints team. The Code defines a complaint broadly as any expression of dissatisfaction, so a landlord cannot fob you off by calling it a “service request”. It must acknowledge within 5 working days and respond fully within 10 working days of that, explaining any extension (of no more than a further 10 days) in writing.

2. 02Stage 2: Review / final response

   Response: 20 working days

   If you are unhappy with the Stage 1 answer, ask for escalation; the landlord cannot refuse without good reason and cannot add extra stages. Someone not involved at Stage 1 must review it and issue the final response within 20 working days of acknowledgment. This letter must tell you about the Housing Ombudsman. Keep it, because escalation runs from it.

3. 03Stage 3: Housing Ombudsman

   Free and independent. Bring the complaint within 12 months of the landlord's final response. The ombudsman investigates against the Code and the landlord's own policies, and can order compensation, repairs, and changes to how the landlord operates. These are orders, not recommendations, and compliance is monitored and published. It also accepts complaints where the landlord is simply not progressing your complaint at all.

Damp, mould and Awaab's Law

Since October 2025, Awaab's Law has begun setting legally fixed timescales for social landlords to investigate and fix dangerous hazards, starting with damp and mould and emergency hazards. A landlord that misses the investigation or repair windows is in breach of your tenancy agreement, which you can enforce through complaint and ultimately in court.

For any damp, mould or disrepair complaint: photograph the problem with dates, report it in writing, keep reporting each recurrence, and record every appointment kept or missed. The ombudsman's severe maladministration findings in this area lean heavily on landlords ignoring repeated reports.

Which ombudsman: Housing or Local Government?

The boundary trips people up, especially council tenants:

• Housing Ombudsman: the landlord relationship, including repairs, the condition of the home, how anti-social behaviour reports were handled as a landlord matter, service charges for tenants, and complaint handling itself.
• Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman: the council's wider functions, such as homelessness applications, the housing register and allocations, and housing benefit administration.
• Private tenants: the Housing Ombudsman only covers private landlords who have joined voluntarily (rare). Otherwise use the council's private-sector housing team for disrepair, the deposit protection schemes for deposits, and the courts.

What to keep as evidence

Housing Ombudsman investigations are decided on the repair log and the complaint correspondence, so build your own copy of both:

• Every report of the problem, with dates and reference numbers, and each time it recurred.
• Dated photographs and videos of the condition of the home over time.
• Appointments offered, kept and missed, and the state the work was left in.
• The Stage 1 and Stage 2 responses with their dates against the 10 and 20 working day limits.
• Impact evidence: GP letters about health effects, ruined belongings, heating costs, days off work.

Common questions