Complaints
Make a complaint
A complaint is defined as:
an expression of dissatisfaction, however made, about the standard of service, actions or lack of action by the organisation, its own staff, or those acting on its behalf, affecting an individual resident or group of residents.
If it is the first time you are telling us about an issue, you should report it to us before making a complaint.
You can make a complaint in whichever way you prefer. Using our form is the best option because it means we get any essential details we need from you. If you'd prefer, you can also email, call, write or visit us.
Email us
Call us
01332 888777
Write to us
Complaints
Derby Homes Ltd
839 London Road
Derby
DE24 8UZ
Visit us
Derby City Council
Council House
Corporation Street
Derby
DE1 2FS
We are committed to making the process of complaining as simple as possible. We will acknowledge your complaint within five working days. We aim to investigate, respond and put things right in a fair and timely manner.
As a members of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme our complaints policy follows the statutory requirements of the Housing Ombudsman and Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code.
You can contact the Housing Ombudsman at any time during the complaints process. Alternatively, if your complaint is about Money Advice, you can ask for it to be reviewed by the Financial Ombudsman.
Our complaints process
This is a summary of our complaints process. You can find our full process in the Complaints and Financial Redress Policy at the bottom of the page.
Stage one - formal complaint
We aim to resolve all complaints at this stage. Most stage one complaints can be resolved quickly with an explanation, apology or resolution.
We will:
- acknowledge your complaint within five working days
- investigate and provide a full response in writing within ten working days of the complaint being acknowledged.
In some cases, due to the complexity of the complaint we may need to extend the full response timescale. This will be no more than ten days without good reason. If we do, we will contact you to let you know.
During the investigation process we’ll contact you to find out more information about the complaint and ask if you have any support needs to identify any reasonable adjustments you may need.
We'll always try and contact you before we send the full response.
Stage two - complaint review
If you’re not happy with the outcome of your complaint, you can ask for it to escalated. We call this a 'stage two' complaint.
The investigating officer will not be the same person who investigated the initial complaint.
We will:
- acknowledge your complaint within five working days
- investigate and provide a full response in writing within 20 working days of the complaint being acknowledged.
In some cases, due to the complexity of the complaint we may need to extend the full response time scale. This will be no more than 20 days without good reason. If we do, we will contact you to let you know.
If you are still dissatisfied you can contact one of the ombudsman services.
Exclusions
There are some things that are not considered complaints and will be dealt with outside of our complaints process. These include:
- If it is the first time you have reported an issue to us and asked us to put it right. We call this a service request
- Anonymous complaints
- Reports of Anti-Social Behaviour – unless it is a complaint about how we have handled a report.
- Requests for information or explanation of our policies
- Complaints that have already been fully investigated in line with this policy
- Complaints about legal action we are taking against you
- Complaints relating to legal action you have taken against us - this does not include disrepair claims
- Complaints from people we have no relationship with or obligation to provide a service, or where the issue is not within our control or remit
- Personal injury claims
- Disagreement with decisions that have dedicated appeals process
- Issues that occurred more than 12 months ago
If we decide not to accept your complaint, we will explain why.
Complaint decisions
Complaint not upheld
If our investigation finds that we were not at fault, your complaint will be classed as 'not upheld'. We will tell you the reasons why it was not upheld in our response.
Complaint upheld
If our investigation finds that we were at fault, your complaint will be 'upheld'. We will tell you about the actions we will take to put things right in our response.
There are several ways we may do this:
- Making an apology, acknowledging and providing explanation why things have gone wrong
- Taking action if there has been a delay
- Carrying out the service required
- Reconsidering or changing a decision
- Amending or correcting a record
- Change our practice, policies or procedures as part of our lesson’s learned
- Employee training and development
- A financial remedy such as, financial redress and goodwill gestures
Financial redress
In some circumstances, we may consider a redress payment towards financial loss, inconvenience or impact.
Financial loss
This includes:
- Cleaning bills
- Carpet / flooring
- Utilities consumption directly impacted by a delay to repair or service failure
- Takeaway food / ready meals due to loss of cooking facilities for an unreasonable period of time
- Damage to property or possessions
When calculating the cost of replacing any items, we will consider their market value, age, and their condition.
Other financial redress / goodwill gestures
If our service failure has caused you inconvenience, we may consider additional redress payments not covered by financial loss. This can include:
- Unreasonable delays to complete a repair or resolve a situation
- Missed appointments or unreasonable additional visits to complete a repair
- Poor complaint handling
- Failure to provide a service that has been charged for
- Temporary loss of facility for an extended period
- Not meeting target response times
- Loss of use of part of the property
- Not following policy or procedure
- Misinformation or misdirection which has in turn caused other impact
The amount of redress will depend on the amount of impact our failing has caused.
Remedy or redress value: £50 up to £100
Failures which have resulted in distress and inconvenience, time and trouble, disappointment, loss of confidence, and delays in getting matters resolved.
Redress value: £100 - £600
Serious failures, which have adversely affected the resident, but for which there is no permanent impact.
Redress value: £600 - £1,000
Significant impact or prolonged service failure or loss of facilities, resulting in disruption, inconvenience, damage or physical and / or emotional impact.
Remedy or redress value: £1,000+
A single significant failure in service or a series of significant failures which have had a seriously detrimental impact on the resident. Consideration will be given as to whether the matter would be best directed via a legal or insurance route.
Missed appointments
We may consider awarding £10.00 for a missed appointment. A missed appointment applies if we fail to attend an appointment and have not notified the customer by:
- 8am that day for morning appointments.
- 12noon that day for afternoon appointments.
Learning from complaints
We don’t always get things right. When we don’t, we work hard to prevent it from happening again.
Complaints help us identify issues with our processes and the way we deliver services. We look beyond the circumstances of the individual complaint and consider whether any service improvements should be made.
An update on learning from complaints is sent to Derby Homes Board every three months.
Ombudsman services
There are a number of different ombudsman services, that oversee different types of complaints. You should check which ombudsman is right for your complaint.
The services we provide are overseen by the following ombudsman services:
- Housing Ombudsman
- Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman
- Building Safety Regulator
- Financial Ombudsman Service
Housing Ombudsman
As a landlord, we're a member of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme. The scheme is set up by law to look at complaints about housing organisations that are registered with them.
If you are not satisfied with the response to your complaint from Derby Homes, you can ask for your complaint to be reviewed by the Housing Ombudsman at any time during the complaints process.
They’ll investigate your complaint and gather evidence to help them reach decision. Their powers are similar to those of a court in terms of getting evidence, and they’ll keep you up to date with the results of their investigation. Their decision is final, and there is no right of appeal.
0300 111 3000
Housing Ombudsman Service
PO Box 1484
Unit D
Preston
PR2 0ET
Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman reviews complaints about local authorities. This includes housing allocations, homelessness, general housing advice, housing benefit, housing improvement grants and adult social care.
If you have been through all stages of our complaints procedure and are still unhappy, you can ask the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman to review your complaint. The Ombudsman expects you to have given us chance to deal with your complaint, before you contact them. If you have not heard from us within a reasonable time, it may decide to look into your complaint anyway. This is usually up to 12 weeks.
When things go wrong, they can make orders and recommendations to put things right or to improve service failure. The service is free, independent, and impartial.
0300 061 0614
Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman
PO Box 4771
Coventry
CV4 0EH
Building Safety Regulator
If you live in a high-rise building and your complaint is about our building safety services. You contact the Building Safety Regulator at any time during our complaints process. This can include complaints about:
- issues in a high-rise residential building that could lead to fire spreading
- issues in a high-rise residential building that could lead to part or all of the building collapsing
- issues with fire safety or structural integrity in a high-rise residential building that is being designed, built or renovated
- people and organisations the regulator oversees, for example building inspectors and people accountable for safety in a building
- The Building Safety Regulator itself
www.gov.uk/guidance/contact-the-building-safety-regulator
0300 790 6787
The Building Safety Regulator,
The Health and Safety Executive
Redgrave Court
Merton Road
Bootle
Liverpool
L20 7HS
Financial Ombudsman Service
Our Money advice service is a financial service that is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. If your complaint relates to our financial services, you can ask for it to be reviewed by the Financial Ombudsman if:
- you are not satisfied with the response to your complaint, or
- eight weeks have passed since you raised your complaint
The Financial Ombudsman will only investigate your complaint once we’ve had an opportunity to look in to it, so please contact us first. They’ll investigate your complaint and gather evidence to help them reach decision.
Their powers are similar to those of a court in terms of getting evidence, and they’ll keep you up to date with the results of their investigation. Their decision is final, and there is no right of appeal.
www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk
0800 023 4567
The Financial Ombudsman Service
Exchange Tower
London
E14 9SR