Complain or give feedback
If you feel we have done something well, got something wrong or provided a poor service, please tell us. If we have made a mistake, we want to have the opportunity to put things right.
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Complain or give feedback
If you feel we have done something well, got something wrong or provided a poor service, please tell us. If we have made a mistake, we want to have the opportunity to put things right.
- Visit: Housing Ombudsman Service
- Email: info@housing-ombudsman.org.uk
- Write to: Housing Ombudsman Service, PO Box 1484, Unit D, Preston PR2 0ET
- Call: 0300 111 3000
The Housing Ombudsman's phonelines are open Monday to Friday 9am - 5pm, except for Thursdays when they close at 3.30pm for staff training. Calls are recorded for training and monitoring purposes.
Our complaints procedure
If you make a complaint, we will:
- Acknowledge your complaint.
- Ask you at the start what outcome you are hoping for.
- Inform you of what action we will take to bring your complaint to a satisfactory conclusion.
- Resolve your complaint quickly and fairly. You will have the chance to discuss this in person with us and can bring a relative, friend or advisor if you wish.
- Phone you once we have resolved your complaint to ask you how satisfied you are with how we handled it. This call is made by an independent organisation who has not previously been involved in the process, so you can speak freely and honestly.
On occasions we may not accept a complaint. If this is the case, we will explain why in writing, and you will have the right to bring the matter to the Housing Ombudsman.
Read our:
How we will respond to you
Feedback / service request
A customer service advisor will log and share your feedback with the relevant service manager as soon as you get in touch. If we have tried to resolve the issue and you remain unhappy, we will treat this as a stage 1 complaint.
Stage 1 complaints
We will inform you who has taken on your case and aim is to reach a satisfactory conclusion within 10 working days of you first raising the issue.
If new issues are raised during this stage of the investigation, the complaint handler will try to incorporate these (if relevant) into their investigation and subsequent response. However, if the new issue(s) will cause an unreasonable delay to the stage 1 response, it will be logged as a new complaint.
If you remain dissatisfied with the solutions offered at this stage, you have 5 working days in which to tell us you wish to escalate the complaint (stage 2).
Stage 2 complaint escalation
A senior manager will contact you to introduce themselves and have a further 20 working days in which to review and resolve your case. This review will include investigating all the previous steps taken to get to this stage. You will receive a written response with full details of the findings.
Unresolved issues
We work closely with the Housing Ombudsman Service, the official independent body set up by law to look at complaints about housing organisations that are registered with them. Their service is free, independent and impartial for our customers to access.
If you do not feel that we have resolved the issue satisfactorily, you may consider taking your complaint at any stage of your enquiry to the Housing Ombudsman Service
What we do with your feedback
We value all feedback and use this to help us improve our services.
- View our latest Customer feedback and performance
The Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code
The Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code sets out requirements to allow us and other landlords, to respond to complaints effectively and fairly. The purpose of the Code is to enable landlords to resolve complaints raised by their customers quickly and to use the data and learning from complaints to drive service improvements.
The Ombudsman has a legal duty to monitor whether housing associations like Cottsway comply with the Code, regardless of whether the Ombudsman receives a complaint from customers about their landlord.
Our 2025-26 complaints handling performance and Board response
Each year we publish and submit to the Housing Ombudsman a:
- Self-assessment - we assess ourselves to ensure we are complying with the Code and will also do this whenever we introduce major service changes.
- Complaints and service improvement annual report - which summarises the complaints we’ve received, any compensation awarded and any service changes or improvements we have introduced as a result.
These findings are also presented to our Board each time they are reviewed and the annual report includes our Board's formal response, along with commentary from our Customer Scrutiny Group Chair.
"At Cottsway, our aim is to provide safe, secure, and well-maintained homes, and to deliver services that our customers can rely on. We know that having a home you feel safe in really matters, and we never lose sight of that.
I believe everyone deserves a decent, affordable place to call home where they are respected and treated with care.
As this is my first year as Chair, I have had the opportunity to learn more about Cottsway and the communities we serve. What has stood out to me is the genuine commitment of colleagues, customers, and Board members to making a positive difference and ensuring customers' voices are heard.
We are committed to the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code, which sets out how landlords should handle complaints fairly and properly. But for us, it’s about more than following rules. It’s about listening properly, taking concerns seriously, and doing the right thing when something has gone wrong.
When customers tell us something isn’t right, we want them to feel confident that we will listen and take action. We investigate complaints carefully, we put things right where we can, and we make sure we learn from what people tell us, so the same issues are less likely to happen again.
Every complaint and piece of feedback helps us understand our services better. We share what we learn across the organisation, from frontline teams through to the Board, so that improvements are identified and delivered.
To support this, as part of our Governance structure we have a Customer Committee that, amongst other things, looks closely at complaints, feedback, and performance. The Committee is Chaired by a Non-Executive Board Member with expert experience in customer service.
Our Customer Scrutiny Group give up their time to help us see things from a customer perspective; their challenge and insight are critical to in helping us improve and regularly attend Customer Committee to provide updates on their work.
Together with the Board, they have reviewed complaints, customer feedback, and the key insights and analysis presented in this report.
To ensure full transparency we share updates every quarter on our website and through our customer newsletter, Homepage. These updates explain what customers have told us, what we have learned, and what we have changed as a result. We want customers to be able to see the impact their feedback is having.
Our Tenant Satisfaction Measure results for 2025-26 reflect strong levels of customer satisfaction, which we are really pleased about. But we also know there is always more we can do so we will continue to listen and learn with enthusiasm.
I want to say a sincere thank you to every single customer who has taken the time to contact us over the past year - whether to raise a concern or to share something positive. It all helps us improve."
"As Chair of the Customer Committee and Member responsible for complaints, I have a particular interest in ensuring that customers’ voices are heard and that feedback leads to meaningful improvements.
The Customer Committee provides oversight of customer satisfaction, complaints, and service performance on behalf of the Board. Working closely with the Deputy Chief Executive, we review complaint trends, monitor performance, and seek assurance that lessons learned are leading to improvements.
While the overall picture is positive, the committee continues to challenge performance and monitor the impact of service improvements to ensure they deliver better outcomes for customers.
We recognise that effective complaint handling is not just about responding within timescales, but about understanding customers' experiences and using that insight to improve services.
I hope customers and stakeholders can take confidence from the fact that complaints and feedback are regularly reviewed at Board level and help shape decisions across the organisation."
Make a complaint or give feedback
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We will not tolerate unreasonable behaviour.