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Tenant complaints in England skyrocket by 74% in one year
The number of complaints made to social landlords has shot up by over 70% in one year, according to a housing data company’s latest survey.
Housemark’s January Pulse report, which tracks the performance of UK social housing providers, shows complaints in England were 74% higher in December 2022 than the same month in 2021.
The company said one reason for the surge could be improvements in English landlords’ complaint identification and recording mechanisms, following changes to the Housing Ombudsman’s complaint handling code published last October.
The report also showed that customer satisfaction levels dropped by seven percentage points from January to December 2022.
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Many in the lowest quartile for customer satisfaction are large inner-city landlords with densely packed, high-rise stock, Homemark said. Several are now reporting satisfaction levels below 60%, with some below 40%.
The company also highlighted a large increase in emergency repairs resulting from December’s “freeze and thaw”, the period of heavy snow followed quickly by unseasonably warm weather. Some landlords are reporting emergency repairs volumes increased by more than 40%.
Overall, emergency repairs rose 13% from November 2021, and 23% compared with December 2021.
The report found that one in four landlords reduced rent arrears by more than 10% between November and December 2022, while a handful reported arrears falling by more than 20%.
According to the data company, this was due to rent-free weeks, a widespread practice where landlords charge rent in 48 weeks of the year, with breaks at certain points, such as Christmas.
Separate research published recently by Housemark found that the majority of large housing associations have been using tenant surveys that yield more positive results.
In the three years to last September, 60% of housing associations with 1,000 or more homes were using transactional surveys, which on average produce results 15 percentage points higher than perception surveys.
