On 24 January Communities Secretary James Brokenshire announced
plans for a new housing complaints service for the housing market
which the government claims will ensure both homeowners and tenants
know where to go when things go wrong and for the first time ever,
private landlords will be legally required to join a housing
redress scheme.
These measures have been announced as part of the government's
response to its earlier consultation on Strengthening consumer redress in the housing
market, which closed on 16 April 2018. The government's
response to this consultation proposes:
- a Housing Complaints Resolution Service, a new single point of
access to redress that housing consumers can use
- a New Homes Ombudsman for buyers of new build homes (previously
announced in October 2018)
- to bring forward legislation to close the gaps in redress
services for consumers including to require all private landlords
to sign up to a redress scheme
- a Redress Reform Working Group with the housing redress sector
to develop the proposals outlined in the response over the coming
months
Read the Government's response to the consultation
on consumer redress
The new Housing Complaints Resolution Service will be
established with the aim of providing a straightforward way of
homeowners and tenants getting help when faced with unresolved
disputes about problems with their home.
The Housing Complaints Resolution Service will provide a single
point of access to resolve complaints for housing consumers, when
'in-house' complaint processes have been exhausted, through the
current schemes providing alternative dispute resolution, while
preserving the expertise of existing providers. The Government says
that the new Housing Complaints Resolution Service will be
developed with a new Redress Reform Working Group made up of
representatives from across the sector, working with industry and
consumers.
Private landlords will be legally required to become members of
a redress scheme - with a fine of up to £5,000 if they fail to do
so and the government intends to establish a New Homes Ombudsman
which will champion home buyers, protect their interests and hold
developers to account with legislation being brought forward to
require all new developers to belong to the Ombudsman. Developers
will also have to belong to the new body by 2021 if they wish to
participate in the government's landmark Help to Buy scheme.
However, redress for social housing residents is being
considered separately with details expected to be published in
spring 2019 as part of the government's response to the social housing green paper and the call for
evidence for the review of social housing regulation.
Nevertheless, the government's response to the earlier
consultation goes into a little more detail and sets out the
direction of travel saying that the "ambition is for the new
service to cover all housing tenures including tenants and
leaseholders of social and private landlords as well as purchasers
of new build homes and users of all residential property agents."