We welcome our members making complaints about things that we get things wrong.  If there is something we could improve, then we want to hear about it.

Members (or others) can make a formal complaint.  We will try to address the problem quickly, but we will also manage the complaint formally in accordance with our complaints policy (which you can download from this page).

We need complaints to be set out on our complaints form (also downloadable from this page), but we can assist you in completing the form if you want us to.  Complaints can be raised with BVT or with a member of the committee.

There are various parts to our complaints procedure, but a formal complaint involves the following:

• an investigation of the complaint, which will probably involve interviews with the complainant and anyone else involved
• us formally stating our position on the complaint – ie. whether we think the complaint was justified or not and what we are going to do about it
• if the complainant is not happy with our position – they can request a review of the complaint and someone different will hear the review.

Members can get advice about their complaint from the Housing Ombudsman Service.  And if a complainant is not happy with the outcome of their complaint when we have given you our final view on the matter, then the matter can be raised with the Housing Ombudsman and we will comply with what they say on the matter.

There are different types of complaints:

Management complaints – where a complainant wishes to complain about one of our housing services.  These complaints will be dealt with in accordance with our complaints policy.

Anti-social behaviour or harassment complaints – where one or more complainants want to complain about the behaviour of one of our members, their families or their visitors, or about someone else who they consider is causing them problems.  These complaints will be dealt with in accordance with our Anti-Social Behaviour Policy.  If a member is not satisfied with the way we have managed an Anti-Social Behaviour issue – they can then make a complaint using the Complaints Policy.

Neighbour disputes – where two or more neighbours have disputes with each other.  These will also be dealt with in accordance with our Anti-Social Behaviour Policy.

Governance complaints – where a complainant wishes to complain about how one or more of our committee members is behaving in relation to their role on the committee.  This will be dealt with in accordance with our Code of Conduct.

Finally – the Housing Ombudsman has published a Complaint Handling Code which sets out their expectations of how we should manage complaints.  Part of that is that we should do a self-assessment of our complaints policy and the complaints we have received.  We have done a self-assessment and this is also downloadable from this page.