Guidance

Information for social housing tenants

This page explains our role as a regulator and what we do when we receive a complaint or referral.

Applies to England

Update on the information on this page

  • Information on this page that describes the work of the Regulator of Social Housing is accurate up to 31 March 2024.
  • The information is being changed to reflect changes to our approach to regulation. You can find out more details about this approach here.
  • The information about complaining to your landlord and contacting the Housing Ombudsman Service will continue to be accurate after 31 March 2024.

How to complain about a provider (landlord) of social housing

Individual complaints

Your home might need repairs or have damp or you might be having trouble with a neighbour. You don’t have to put up with things when they aren’t right. If you’re unhappy with the service from your landlord you should first follow your landlord’s complaints process whether it’s a housing association or local authority. It’s their job to listen to your problem and then work to put things right.

The Housing Ombudsman Service, a free, independent and impartial service focuses on helping to resolve individual tenant complaints. See their Understand the complaints process page for details.

Regulator of Social Housing

We are an independent body tasked by Parliament to focus on regulating the social housing sector at an organisational level.

We ensure that landlords registered with us:

  • are well-managed and financially stable
  • provide their tenants with decent, energy efficient and safe accommodation, act in a transparent manner and residents can hold their landlords to account

We look at systemic (widespread issues). Our role is not to resolve individual disputes between tenants and landlords. Instead this is the role of the Housing Ombudsman Service. We signpost tenants and their representatives, who have individual complaints to the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman also informs us of any potential systemic issues it has come across when dealing with individual complaints about a landlord that is registered with us. Our arrangements for co-operation and communication are set out in this Memorandum of Understanding.

To meet our objectives, we:

  • register and de-register providers of social housing if they meet our eligibility requirements and registration criteria. To find out if your landlord is registered with us, see the Registered providers of social housing page which lists private (non-profit and profit-making) and local authority landlords.

  • have a set of Regulatory Standards in place with specific expectations that landlords registered with us have to comply with (for us to meet our objectives mentioned above).

  • gather intelligence through requesting regular data, checking annual accounts and business plans from landlords and carrying out periodic In Depth Assessments where we discuss providers’ financial strength, their ability to manage risks, how they are governed and their approach to value for money.

  • publish Regulatory judgements to report how well registered providers are managing their risks and if they are complaint with our regulatory standards.

  • investigate cases where landlords are at risk of not meeting our standards or where we find evidence of both a breach of our consumer standards and that the breach may result in actual or potential serious detriment (harm) to tenants and carry out enforcement to find solutions.

  • identify and communicate emerging trends and risks at a sector and sub-sector level and maintain confidence of stakeholders, such as lenders.

For information about our regulatory role, and how to contact us, see our About us page. If you want to find out more about our approach and the action we take to check landlords are complying with our standards, see our document called Regulating the Standards – Section 4 sets out our approach to regulating the consumer standards.

How we handle the information, allegations or complaints (referrals) we receive

We receive information, allegations or complaints (referrals) about providers of social housing (landlords) that are registered with us from various sources including:

  • registered providers (landlords) – these are called self-referrals
  • local councillors or MPs – these are called statutory referrals
  • individuals such as tenants, shared owners, or employees of providers
  • our staff when they identify evidence of breaches of our standards while carrying out routine monitoring and engagement of registered providers.

When we receive a referral about a landlord as part of our consumer regulation role, these go through a three-stage process . At any point in the process, we may need to contact the complainant for more information. We will share any decisions with all the parties involved.

Stage 1

Our Referrals and Regulatory Enquiries team is responsible for gathering all complaints and referrals to the regulator. The team reviews the information provided and decides if the issues raised are within our remit, and if there appears to have been a breach (or a risk of a breach) of our standards i.e. a provider may have failed to meet our standards. If so, the team refers the case to our Consumer Regulation Panel.

Stage 2

Consumer Regulation Panel looks at each case and asks if the issue raised can be evidenced:

  1. Is it likely that there has been, or could be, a breach of a consumer standard?
  2. Would there be any impact on tenants which would cause serious actual harm or serious potential harm?

Stage 3

If the Panel considers there could be a breach of our standards, or if there is a suggestion that tenants are at risk of serious harm, we will look into this further.

For each case, we look at the individual circumstances as well as the responses from the landlord and its willingness and ability to address any failings. We expect landlords to show that they understand what went wrong and why and take effective action to resolve issues promptly. If the landlord takes responsibility and responds to the problems, we will work with them and get assurance that they are putting the issues right.

How we decide on what action to take

By law (currently) we can only take action against a landlord when it has made significant, systemic (widespread) failure that breaches the standards we have set. This means if a landlord fails to meet a standard, or standards we then have to check whether or not significant harm (known as serious detriment) has occurred. We will look at factors such as the number of tenants affected, the duration of the harm (or risk of harm) and the seriousness of the issue. We also consider the diverse needs of tenants, in line with our duties under the Equality Act 2010.

Where there has not been serious harm, or risk of serious harm, we will take no further action. We will explain our decision to the complainant and signpost them to other organisations who may be able to help.

Where we find evidence that a landlord’s systems or processes have led to a wider breach of (failure to meet) a standard and that failure has caused or could cause serious harm, we will think about the most appropriate way of intervening to ensure the problems are resolved.

Once our regulatory processes are complete, we will publish a regulatory notice on our website. You will be able to find this on a table listing all regulatory judgements and notices or on our A-Z list of the registered landlords for whom we have published judgements and notices.

Under circumstances where a provider is unable or unwilling to respond positively, we may have to use our regulatory enforcement and general powers.

What to do if you are not happy with the outcome of your complaint (or referral)

  • To complain about a service we at RSH have provided, please refer to our complaints procedure page. You must make a complaint within three months of the date of our decision.

Our review will not re-assess the decision; it will examine how we have handled the information provided and whether it has been consistent with our policies and procedures.

Further information you may be interested in

Published 14 July 2022
Last updated 29 February 2024 + show all updates
  1. Addition of advisory note on incoming changes from 31 March 2024

  2. Page updated to reflect new provisions in the Social Housing (Regulation) Act.

  3. First published.