We’re committed to ensuring you have the best possible experience with us. We love to hear when we’ve exceeded your expectations, as it helps us celebrate what’s working well and motivates our team. On the other hand, if we’ve fallen short, we’d like to know so we can make things right and improve. Your feedback—whether it’s a compliment or a complaint—helps us grow and deliver better services for you.
Reasons to make a compliment
If a member of our team has gone above and beyond, or if you’ve been impressed with the service you’ve received, we’d love to hear about it. Here are some examples of when you might compliment us:
- A team member provided exceptional customer service.
- Repairs were completed faster than expected.
- You received clear and helpful communication from us.
What happens after you make a compliment
After we’ve received your compliment, we’ll log it on our system and ensure your feedback is passed onto the team or colleague you've mentioned. Compliments help us recognise dedication and celebrate success within our team.
Reasons you might make a complaint
Some of the things you can complain to Accent about include:
- Missed appointments
- Not meeting repair standards
- Not dealing with your concerns in line with our policies
We don’t consider anti-social behaviour reports or repair requests to be complaints.
For instance, telling us about a difficult neighbour or broken fence wouldn’t be a complaint. However, you could make a complaint if we don’t resolve the issue when we said we would.
What happens after you make a complaint
After we’ve received your complaint, we’ll log it on our complaints system and get back to you within five working days to confirm by email or post.
Who receives your complaint?
Your complaint will be sent to our Complaints Resolution Team to look into the problem.
How share your feedback
Whether it’s a compliment or a complaint, here’s how you can reach us. The quickest and most effective way is to use our online form.
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Complain via our online form
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Tell a member of Accent staff in person
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Post your complaint to Accent Housing, 3rd Floor, Scorex House, 1 Bolton Road, Bradford, BD1 4AS
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Call us 0345 678 0555 from 8am to 6pm Monday to Friday
Complaint stages
Your complaint might go through multiple stages. We’ll keep you updated throughout the process.
At stage one, we’ll investigate your issue and work out what we think is needed to resolve it, and write to you to let you know what we’re doing.
We aim to do this within 10 working days, but for more complex issues, it might take longer. We’ll let you know if we think it’s going to take longer than expected.
If you’re not happy with how we resolved your complaint, you can ask us to move it to stage two.
At this stage, we’ll investigate your issue to understand what’s gone wrong and what we can do to put it right. We’ll write to you to let you know what we’re doing.
We’ll acknowledge your complaint within 5 working days and aim to get back to you within 20 working days.
If your complaint is more complex and takes longer to sort out, we’ll let you know and tell you how much extra time we need. This won’t be more than another 20 working days.
If your complaint has been reviewed by a senior manager or director, but you’re still unhappy, you can contact the Housing Ombudsman to review your complaint and give you independent advice.
The Housing Ombudsman is an independent UK governmental organisation. It’s not connected to Accent.
You can submit a complaint to them by using their online complaint form.
Alternatively, you can call them on 0300 111 3000.
Or, you can write to:
Housing Ombudsman Service
PO Box 1484
Unit D
Preston
PR2 0ET
Frequently asked questions
Complaints can be about services we provide that you are unhappy with, for instance, not dealing with problems when we say we will, missing appointments or not meeting our repairs standards.
You can't make complaints about repairs, anti-social behaviour or other issues unrelated to our services.
Under the Housing Ombudsman framework, a complaint is defined as “an expression of dissatisfaction, however made, about the standard of service, actions or lack of action by the organisation, its staff, or those acting on its behalf, affecting an individual resident or group of residents”
When a complaint is received it will be sent to our Customer Resolution Team via our Housing Hub or our Technical Hub.
You’ll hear back from the team dealing with your complaint within five working days, either by email or post. They might want to talk to you to get more information about your complaint.
We always aim to provide a full response within 10 working days, but if it’s a complex issue it may take longer.
If we do need more time to investigate, we’ll let you know and agree on a reasonable timeframe with you. This is usually no more than an extra 10 working days.
Next, we’ll decide the action we’re going to take, and write to you to let you know more information. If you agree, we’ll resolve the complaint.
Afterwards, we’ll send you a survey to ask for your feedback on how we handled your complaint.
If you’re not happy with the solution we’ve suggested, you’ll need to let us know within 20 working days.
After this, we’ll escalate your complaint to stage two of our complaints process.
At stage two, your complaint will be managed by a senior manager or director. They will contact you by email or post within five working days to acknowledge they’ve seen your complaint and might need to speak to you to get more information.
If you’ve escalated your complaint to stage two, we’ll aim to give you a full response within 20 working days. In our response, we’ll let you know what we’ve done to resolve your issue.
If your escalated complaint is complex, it could take up to another 10 working days.
If you’re happy with what we’ve suggested, we’ll close your complaint.
If you’re still not happy with our solutions, we will give you information on how to refer your complaint to the Housing Ombudsman Service.
If you’re a homeowner, you may have extra options – check our complaints policy.
After this, we’ll close your complaint and send you a feedback request.
You can submit a complaint to the Housing Ombudsman by using their online complaint form.
Alternatively, you can call them on 0300 111 3000.
Or, you can write to:
Housing Ombudsman Service
PO Box 1484
Unit D
Preston
PR2 0ET
Some residents are contacted by claims companies or solicitors who offer to make a disrepair claim for them, often saying it's on a "no win, no fee" basis. Before you sign anything, it's important to understand what this could mean for you.
Read more on our disrepair claims and claims companies page.
Yes. Accent is committed to providing an accessible complaints service that meets the needs of all customers. If you need support to raise or progress a complaint, we will make reasonable adjustments so you can engage with us in a way that works for you.
Customers may ask an advocate, support worker, family member, friend, or another trusted person to help communicate with us. With your permission, we can share relevant information with this person and communicate with them directly about your complaint. We may ask you to confirm your consent before discussing your complaint with a third party, to protect your privacy and personal information.
If you require additional assistance, such as translation, interpretation, alternative formats, or other communication support, please let us know. We will work with you to understand what adjustments may help and will make every reasonable effort to accommodate your needs.
Our complaints and compensation policies
These policies explains how we handle complaints, how we put things right, and when we may offer compensation for loss, inconvenience or distress. It also sets out our commitment to fair and accessible service for all customers.
In 2024/25 our Member Responsible for Complaints, was Helen Jagger, Accent Group Board
Speaking of the 2025 self-assessment report linked above, Helen said:
I am pleased to introduce this year’s Complaints Performance and Improvement Report. At Accent, we recognise that every complaint reflects a moment when we’ve fallen short. While our aim is always to get things right first time, when things do go wrong, we are committed to putting them right, and to learning from every single one.
Our approach to complaints is shaped by a clear principle: we put our customers at the heart of everything we do. That means listening closely, responding effectively, and making sure the insights we gain from complaints drive improvements across our services. We’ve worked hard to embed a culture where everyone at Accent understands their role in delivering great customer experiences and where complaint resolution is seen not as the job of one team, but a shared responsibility.
Over the past year, we’ve made significant changes to how we manage complaints. We’ve established a dedicated, centralised Complaint Resolution team, invested in systems and training, and introduced a quality assurance framework. These steps have helped us understand what needs to change and where we need to do better, particularly around how long it takes us to respond. Crucially, we’ve seen real improvement in how satisfied customers feel with the way their complaints are handled, giving us a strong foundation to build on.
We’ve also introduced a Customer Champion role to ensure customer perspectives shape the improvements we make. This, alongside the work of our new team, is driving better outcomes in key areas.
We must also be honest about where we’ve not lived up to our standards. We have received findings of severe maladministration from the Housing Ombudsman linked to historic issues, particularly around damp and mould. We are sorry we didn’t get these right. Since then, we’ve taken clear steps to change how we work, strengthening our processes and training. We are beginning to see the impact, including a sharp reduction in new referrals to the Ombudsman.
We will continue to face complaints with transparency and urgency. Where we can resolve issues, we will do so quickly. When we see patterns in complaints, we will ask ourselves why, and we will change what needs to change.
This report shows the progress we’ve made and the areas where we must continue to improve. We remain focused on driving change, building trust and making sure that every learning opportunity leads to a better experience for our customers.
Please note: Our new board member responsible for complaints (MRC) at Accent is Simon Brooksbank, Chair of our Customer Experience Committee.
Our commitment to improving our complaints process
We’re working hard to improve our complaints process. This includes updating our complaints and compensation policy, outlining how we’ll treat your complaints fairly and professionally, and how we’ll always work to resolve them quickly.
Our policy is mostly compliant with the Housing Ombudsman Complaint Handling Code, however, there are a few areas we are still working on improving including:
- making sure our customers are aware of our complaints process
- keeping customers updated with their complaint’s progress
- sharing information we’ve learned from complaints
- providing more evidence that we are cooperating with the Housing Ombudsman’s guidelines
We also ask our customers for feedback on complaints via a survey, so we can find out exactly how well we did with our response while collecting extra information and details.
Our board member responsible for complaints (MRC) at Accent is Simon Brooksbank, Chair of our Customer Experience Committee.
Unacceptable behaviour policy
As part of our complaints and compensation policy, we’ve also created a new unacceptable behaviour policy which outlines our duty to protect our staff from verbal or physical abuse.
That means that although we understand the stress and frustration that can result from things going wrong, we might step in to address contact or communication that we consider unacceptable.
You can learn more in our unacceptable behaviour policy, linked below.