The Housing Ombudsman Service (HOS) is an independent and free service set up by law to help resolve disputes between residents and their housing provider. As a Registered Provider of social housing, your co-operative is a member of this service.

The HOS is a key resource for tenant-members of housing co-operatives and also for their co-operative landlords. The service is free to residents and provides guidance, training, and resources to improve complaint handling and housing standards.

As a tenant-member of your co-operative, you can bring a complaint to the HOS if you have completed the complaints process with your co-operative, and you are not satisfied with the response. For more information on how to contact the HOS, or to find out more about the services they offer, visit the resident portal on the HOS website or use the online complaint form provided.

As a co-operative landlord you are required to follow the HOS Complaint Handling Code which became a statutory requirement from 1 April 2024. This requires co-operative landlords to have a Member Responsible for Complaints (MRC) on their governing body to ensure the effectiveness of their complaints system.  Find out more about what this means for your co-operative on the Confederation of Co-operative Housing website here.

We would encourage all Management Committee Members to sign up for the Ombudsman’s regular newsletter, and to also sign up to the Landlord Portal and the Centre for Learning here.

Your co-operative: The Complaint Handling Code requires your co-operative to publish its complaints data on an annual basis.  Where MB Housing provides a full management service to your co-operative, we publish this on our website.  You can view this information here.