Housing Ombudsman Service

The Housing Ombudsman (HO) is the final stage for complaints that have already been responded to as part of the internal complaint process. The HO resolves disputes involving the tenants and leaseholders of social landlords and voluntary members (private landlords and letting agents) who are committed to delivering good service for their tenants.

To start a complaint

Inform the council, or your housing provider, directly. Council tenants and leaseholders can visit this page on our website. If you are the tenant of Partners for Improvement or Tenancy Management Organisations contact them directly. Complaints are acknowledged in 3 working days and a full response in 21 days, see complaint process.

If you are unable to resolve the complaint though the complaint process you can contact a designated person. This can be your MP or Local Councillor, see our democracy microsite.

Once you reach the end of the internal complaints process or are referred to the HO the service is free; and the HO conducts independent, impartial investigations of complaints. Full details on how complaints are dealt with can be found at the Housing Ombudsman website.

You can also contact them at:

Housing Ombudsman Service
PO Box 1484
Unit D
Preston
PR2 0ET

Tel: 0300 111 3000 (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday 9am - 5pm, Thursday 9am - 3.30pm) 

Housing Ombudsman Complaint Handling Code

The complaint handling code sets out a list of good practice that will allow landlords to respond effectively and fairly to complaints. As members of the HO service the council and housing providers working in partnership with the council will comply with the set of procedures and carry out regular assessments of performance against the code.

Current performance against the code can be found in the Self-Assessment document below in Useful Documents.

For more details visit the Housing Ombudsman website.