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Making a Complaint

This section of our site tells you about our complaints process.

This guidance is about complaints concerning the handling of your case by panel staff and/or members. If you are unhappy about the decision in your case and the members' reasons for reaching it, there are formal avenues of appeal to:

• the courts in the case of Rent Assessment Committee and Rent Tribunal cases;
• the Lands Tribunal in cases involving Leasehold Valuation Tribunals.

If you want to complain about the members or a particular member of your committee or tribunal, you should write to the President of their panel at the address given on the our offices page. You will know which is the right panel by looking at the letterhead on the correspondence you have received about your case.

If you want to complain about the way panel staff have handled your case, you should write to the Panel Secretary, again at the address on the our offices page.

If you want to complain about the conduct of a President or Vice-President personally, you should write to the Senior President who is part of the Corporate Unit at the address given on the our offices page. She will select two or three members of the RPTS Management Board to decide the appeal.

If you want to complain about the conduct of a Panel Secretary you should write to the Operations Director, who again is part of the Corporate Unit at the address given on the our offices page.

If you wish to complain about the conduct of the Senior President you should write to the:

Head of Division
Housing Private Sector Division
Office of the Deputy Prime Minister
Eland House
Bressenden Place
London SW1E 5DU

Your complaint should take the form of a letter or note setting out as precisely as you can your grounds for complaining and what you feel was handled wrongly. You do not have to set out your complaint formally, but you should include

- the case reference number or numbers used in letters from the panel;

- as a further check, the address of the property or properties that were the subject of your case.

What will happen then?

Your complaint will be treated with urgency and respect. It will be acknowledged within two working days of receipt, and a full response (or advice that a delay is necessary in order to complete the investigation) will be given within 15 working days.

If a complaint about a member is very serious and might lead to his or her dismissal, it may require an independent investigation by a judge. In such cases, you will again be notified of the delay while the investigation takes place.

If you are not happy with the way a complaint about panel members has been handled by a panel President, you should write to the Senior President at the Corporate Unit, the address of which is given on the our offices page. She will ask two or three members of the RPTS Management Board to consider your case.

If you are unhappy with the way a complaint about the panel staff has been handled by the Panel Secretary, you should write to the Operations Director at the Corporate Unit's address given on the our offices page.

As with your original complaint, there are no forms to complete or set format for your appeal. But it would be helpful to include your case reference number or numbers and the address of the property that was the subject of your case.

What happens then?

Again as with your original complaint, you should receive an acknowledgement within two working days of receipt, and a full response (or advice that a delay is necessary in order to complete the investigation) within 15 working days.

You and the Ombudsman

There is an alternative means of complaint about the administrative handling of your case. This is your right to approach the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration (the Ombudsman) via your Member of Parliament. Once again, there is no prescribed format, but it would be helpful to include your case reference number as well as details of your complaint.