West Kent's complaints process was updated in line with guidance from the Housing Ombudsman Service to act on and resolve your concerns.
Our complaints process is outlined here but in short, if you tell us you're unhappy we'll aim to resolve this for you in two working days through an informal process. If you're not happy or we've not been able to resolve your concern the complaint enters 'Stage one'. We aim to resolve this within 10 working days. If you're not happy with the outcome of stage one the complaint enters 'Stage two". We aim to resolved complaints at this stage within 20 working days.
If it isn't possible to resolve your complaints within these timeframes, we'll contact you to let you know.
*Data from January to July 2023:
An example
We received a complaint about creaking from the floor in a new build shared ownership property. The same issue affected multiple properties on the same development.
Resolution:
- The resolution team worked with the new homes aftercare team to investigate the issue.
- A specialist was appointed to investigate after several failed attempts to rectify the problem.
What we learned:
- That staff at West Kent, or our approved contractors don't always have the specialism needed to manage all issues.
What we did:
- Worked with the new homes aftercare team to appoint a specialist contractor to investigate and resolve the issues.
- It has now been resolved and work has taken place in the other affected properties.
You can read our Housing Ombudsman complaint handling code self-assessment and action plan here.