Service Requests

Problems with your housing conditions?
How will we deal with your complaint regarding your house?
Confidentiality?
How do we go about resolving your housing conditions?
Tenants and Landlords
Legal Action?
Best Value
What do you do if you are unhappy about our service?
Service Standards
Contacts

Problems with your housing conditions?

These are the standards we have set in order to maintain and improve private sector housing conditions.

Each year we will produce an Annual Action Plan, which details the Housing Activity we plan to undertake, and how we have performed in the previous year.

How will we deal with your complaint regarding your house?

Firstly, we record your complaint and send you an acknowledgement letter naming your investigating officer.

Following this we will respond specifically to your complaint according to type:

Immediately, or within 1 working day, for serious health and safety complaints which place you, or others at imminent risk (e.g. dangerous electrical wiring)

Or, within 3 working days for other types of housing complaint (e.g. disrepair)

This initial contact will be by letter, telephone, or by a visit from the investigating officer. Details of the complaint will be confirmed with you and a visit arranged.

We will respond to complaints during normal office hours, although appointments at other times may be considered if necessary to safeguard the health, safety and welfare of occupiers.

Confidentiality?

Our staff are sensitive to the confidentiality of information which you provide and accordingly always respect the privacy of those who use our service.

We always encourage complainants to give their names and addresses and will not normally release these details. Anonymous complaints are difficult for us to investigate, but will be investigated where we believe there is an obvious risk to health and safety and/or the complainant is legitimately frightened of retribution.

How do we go about resolving your housing conditions?

Following the visit we will carefully consider the correct course of action whether formal or informal, in line with our enforcement policy.

We will try to advise on legal positions, rights and duties and seek co-operation to resolve complaints amicably. We will inform all parties when we believe their complaint has been resolved. We will try to keep complainants informed of progress with their complaints at not less than monthly intervals.

Some statutory actions to resolve conditions take a long time so all service requests will be reviewed after 3 calendar months if still unresolved.

Tenants and Landlords

The tenant will be kept informed of the action being taken. All relevant conversations with your landlord will be confirmed in writing to him/her and the legal situation fully explained. Supporting information will be provided as appropriate i.e. a landlord information pack.

Legal Action?

If a Legal Notice has been served on your landlord in respect of your housing conditions this will be followed up in line with the Council's enforcement policy and the time scales laid down within the Notice.

If informal action has been taken, then the complainant will be contacted within one month of the action to ensure the matter is being satisfactorily resolved.

Best Value

In line with Best Value policies, we will continuously monitor and improve our service. We will invite comments from the Community in respect of our service and provide questionnaires to complainants to help us determine our effectiveness and review our quality of service.

What do you do if you are unhappy about our service?

Warrington Borough Council is committed to providing high standards of service. If we fail to meet your expectations we would like to know so that we can put things right, learn from our mistakes and improve our services wherever possible. You can complain by calling in person or by telephoning Private Sector Housing on 01925 442446.

If you prefer, you can put your complaint in writing to Mr T Wallace, Head of Service- Housing, Protection and Community, Community Services Directorate, Palmyra House, Palmyra Square North, Warrington, WA1 1JN.

Contacts

For more information, or to make a service request, please contact: -

Private Sector Housing
PO BOX 875
Warrington
WA1 1WP
01925 442425