More than 1,000 complaints have been made to the housing ombudsman from tenants in Greater Manchester in the last five year, new data reveals. The study, from Online Mortgage Advisor, shows that 1,009 referrals were made to the ombudsman from private sector rental tenants from 2016-21.
The data also shows the most commonly complained about issues — with the most likely complaint being ‘property condition’. There were also dishonourable mentions for ‘complaints handling’, ‘tenant behaviour’ and ‘charges’.
Community activists also say the problems are not simply minor repairs going without attention — they can include structural collapse. That’s according to ACORN officer, a community union, Louisa Olympios.
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“Some of the big things that we come across is lots of disrepair, and it’s really common to see that happening across Greater Manchester,” the Member Defence Organiser for Manchester said. “We have some members we took on recently… they were not able to stay in their property because of a leak.
“They were waking up with a sodden room. We have seen evictions happening and some people are scared to report disrepair because of those evictions."
She added: “Mould is an issue, and structural collapse is a bigger thing than you would think. If people report it, it does not get resolved — or they get an eviction notice.”
Manchester, with the largest population in the region, had the most number of complaints for property condition, with 101. Tameside had the lowest number of property condition complaints, with five.
In all, there were 275 property condition complaints across the city-region, with ‘complaints handling’ qualms being reported 119 times.
Overall, Manchester got the most complaints, with 377. Tameside was lowest, with 17, the Freedom of Information Request identified.
Bolton was second on the list, with 109, closely followed by Salford with 106. Places with fewer complaints included Wigan and Rochdale, with 43 and 50 respectively.
