How do I make a general complaint?

HomeGround is committed to providing a good standard of service to our leaseholders and resident owners and their solicitors, in fact, to anybody who needs to contact us. If we have not met the high standards we set for ourselves, then please let us know.

We commit to carefully reviewing what has happened, to giving you a full and transparent explanation, to learning from our mistakes, and to using your feedback to improve our procedures and staff training.

1) Our complaints procedure IS designed to deal with situations involving our service to you, for instance:

  • Failure to respond to communications and requests within a promised timescale
  • Inaccurate or unhelpful communication
  • If a member of our staff has been rude, dismissive or unprofessional with you
  • You believe you have been discriminated against or treated unfairly by us.

If you wish to make a complaint about a service issue, then please go to the section on how to make a complaint.

2) Our complaints procedure is NOT suitable for other, non-service issues, such as:

  • The level of the fees we charge for the functions we carry out on behalf of our clients
  • Ground rent disputes
  • Breaches of obligations in a lease or title document
  • Insurance.

If you wish to make a complaint about a financial or legal issue, then please do not use our complaints procedure but see Section 4 on independent regulation.

Making a complaint

Please address your complaint to the Customer Service Manager. You will need to supply:

  • your 12-digit customer reference number
  • the full property address and postcode of the original query
  • a summary of why you feel we have failed in our service delivery
  • a list of the dates of previous contact with HomeGround
  • copies of relevant correspondence that supports your concerns

You can send your complaint FAO Customer Services Manager by:

What happens next?

The Customer Service Manager will investigate the issues you have raised and may contact you for further information if necessary.

HomeGround commit to:

  • Acknowledging receipt of your complaint within 3 working days
  • Asking you for any additional information needed to fully investigate the issue
  • Providing you with a full response no later than 15 working days from the date we first receive your complaint – if we need longer we’ll tell you before the 15 working days are up
  • Clearly explaining the outcome we believe is appropriate to resolve your complaint
  • Acknowledging any mistakes HomeGround have made or any poor service we have delivered and to apologising
  • Confirming how we intend to avoid such errors in future
  • Offering any redress that may be appropriate.

If you are not satisfied with the resolution set out in our response letter, you have a further 15 working days to ask us to review the issue further. If we do not hear back from you within that time, we will consider the issue resolved and the complaint will be closed.

Complaints Stage 2

HomeGround recognise that after receiving our response you may consider that we have not taken into account some additional, relevant information, or that we have made an error in our review. For these reasons, and to ensure that we offer a robust procedure, we offer a second review stage.

Please address further correspondence to the Complaints Officer, clearly marked ‘Stage 2 Complaint’, together with any other material you want us to take into account, and send by:

The Complaints Officer will:

  • Acknowledge receipt of your Stage 2 complaint within 3 working days
  • Aim to provide you with a full response within 10 working days of your referral, and will let you know if additional time is required
  • Review our original response and resolution, together with any further representations or material you send us
  • Check the handling of your complaint and our response times from the original date of receipt
  • Confirm whether or not the original resolution of your complaint is being upheld and, if not, how we now intend to resolve it

If we do not hear back from you within 15 working days of our response to your Stage 2 complaint, we will consider the issue resolved and the complaint will be closed.

If you are still unhappy

While our intention is to resolve all complaints to the satisfaction of all parties, we recognise that in some cases this will not be possible.

If at any stage of the complaints process we feel that further referral or review is not appropriate we will send you a final viewpoint letter. At which point you can refer your complaint to the Property Ombudsman, even if fewer than eight weeks have elapsed since your original complaint was made.

Before approaching the ombudsman we strongly advise you to read their guidance on the types of complaint they investigate and what you should do before referring a complaint.

The Property Ombudsman

Homeground is a member of the government-approved redress scheme, The Property Ombudsman Service, or TPOS (the Ombudsman), to which unresolved complaints can be referred once you have exhausted our complaints procedure, or if at least eight weeks have passed since your original complaint was made and we have not dealt with it satisfactorily.

Full details, and an electronic contact form, are on www.tpos.co.uk

The Property Ombudsman, Milford House, 43–55 Milford Street, Salisbury, Wiltshire, SP1 2BP

The Financial Conduct Authority

If your complaint relates to our insurance services, these will be dealt with under the requirements of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). To learn more about the redress scheme offered by the FCA, please visit www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/consumer-leaflet.htm 

If you would like a physical copy of the consumer leaflet, we’d be happy to send you one. 

Other authorities

You have the right to refer any complaint to a different body, such as a court. 

HomeGround Management Limited - 9 January 2019