Hi again, (Just an update as to where I am now!)
I started this thread back in October when I first discovered I needed to carry out this submission to the Ombudsman. I had no idea what I was doing and I got some marvellous responses and help, particularly Ros at Taunton Heritage Trust.
With an extension from The Ombudsman and this help I managed to complete the submission and upload the relevant documents to our website. I thought that was the end of it until April 2025 when it all has to be done again!
Believe it or not I then received an email 4 months later saying I had two errors I needed to correct and they gave me ONE week to do this.
The errors they claimed were that
The landlord’s self assessment has not been completed on the April 2024 version of the form!
AND, they had been unable to locate the supporting information on the landlords website!
I couldn’t believe they had had my submission for 4 months and then expected me to deal with this, and respond within a week. As it turned out the second point about the information not being on the website was untrue and the first issue, is the version of the form I used is missing some points at the end!
Hardly worth worrying about you would think? I emailed them back asking for an extension, I had an apology for the second point but was told I still needed to do transfer the self assessment to the new form. I did point out that I had used a form that had come up from following one of their links and I also politely asked that, as we are now almost into our next submission could I work on getting that one completed and uploaded correctly. However I have still been told I need to do this, and have one more week to do it!
I too feel that I would like to recommend withdrawing our membership. I feel the Housing Ombudsman has no understanding of who we are. Like Linda above, if a resident has a problem they tell me and I deal with it, if for some reason this didn’t happen the residents know they can speak to the trustees. We have a clear complaints policy and any major issues would be discussed at a Trustee meeting.
As Trevor says perhaps us working together we can get something changed and, at least help each other out.
For that reason I am writing this now just to make people aware of further issues that can come up and to make others aware of all the problems, and the totally ridiculous expectations of the Housing Ombudsman. It can’t just be Almshouses either, there must be lots of smaller landlords trying to deal with this alone.
The Housing Ombudsman has offered no help, I was signed up for their Webinars which they then cancelled, their emails do not state clearly who they are from, and it takes them 4 months to check a submission but they then want a response from us within a week!
I could go on!
Good luck to anyone still needing to complete this, and don’t be afraid to ask for help.