Council housing complaints

Handling housing complaints

Ealing Council follow the Housing Ombudsman's Complaint Handling Code. The purpose of the code is to enable landlords, such as the council, to review their current complaints procedure and performance in relation to social housing tenants and to identify areas for improvement to ensure complaints are dealt with quickly and efficiently.

The council carried out a self assessment against the Complaint Handling Code and created a new complaints policy and procedure to help comply with the code. If you would like to make a complaint about a council housing related issue, you can log this via My Account

Complaints policy and procedure

The policy and procedure is for tenants and leaseholders of Ealing Council only. We refer to this group as ‘residents’. By following the Housing Ombudsman Service Complaint Handling Code, the council's housing service will make sure all complaints are investigated fairly and efficiently. There are 2 stages to our complaints process:

  • Stage 1
    Stage 1 complaints are acknowledged within 5 working days of being received and will be fully responded to within 10 working days of the stage 1 acknowledgement date. Sometimes complaints will be more complex and may take longer to investigate. In these cases, we will contact the resident that has made the complaint to negotiate more time (up to 10 working days). If a resident is unhappy with our response at stage 1, they can escalate their complaint to be considered by another person at stage 2.
  • Stage 2
    Stage 2 complaints are acknowledged within 5 working days of being received and will be fully responded to within 20 working days of the stage 2 acknowledgement date. Sometimes complaints will be more complex and may take us longer to investigate. In these cases, we will contact the resident that has made the complaint to negotiate more time (up to 10 working days). 

If a resident is unhappy with our response at stage 2, they can escalate their complaint to the Housing Ombudsman Service. They can be contacted by:

Telephone: 0300 111 3000
Email: info@housing-ombudsman.org.uk
Online: www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk where you can fill in a complaint form
Post: Housing Ombudsman Service, PO Box 1484, Unit D, Preston PR2 0ET