Whitlock & Heaps Complaint Procedure
As a member of the Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA), and The Property Ombudsman (TPO) Scheme, we aim to provide the highest standard of service to all landlords and tenants, in line with their Codes of Practice. One of the requirements of our membership is that we have a process for assessing complaints about our service, appropriate to our firm’s size and structure.
All branch staff will deal with the normal day to day problems on a one to one basis, but once a formal complaint as such has been raised, ‘ie I am not satisfied with the standard of your work/conduct/behaviour etc and I wish to make a formal complaint’, then at that stage you will be requested to put your complaint in writing, setting out your concerns by reference to any related documents – terms of business, tenancy agreement, inventory etc, and send to:
Mr Jack Fisk
Whitlock and Heaps
65 Sackville Road
Hove
East Sussex
BN3 3WE
The grievance letter will be acknowledged within 3 days, investigated in accordance with established ‘in-house procedures’ and a reply sent to you within 15 working days of receipt of the original letter.
If you remain dissatisfied with the way we have handled your complaint please refer your complaint to:
The Property Ombudsman (TPO) Limited
Milford House
43 – 55 Milford Street
Salisbury
Wiltshire
SP1 2BP
(01722) 333306
The Property Ombudsman will consider your complaint, taking into account any points made by you and Whitlock and Heaps. The Ombudsman may, however, refuse to investigate a complaint when your issue refers to something that happened more than 12 months before you complained in writing to the Member Agency, or you referred your complaint to the Ombudsman more than six months after you received the Member Agency’s final offer of settlement or answer.
The Ombudsman’s Office may try to settle the dispute by agreement between you and Whitlock and Heaps. If this is unsuccessful, the Ombudsman will consider all the relevant factors and make a decision according to what he believes to be fair in all the circumstances.
The Ombudsman will send his decision to you and Whitlock and Heaps. You can accept or reject his decision.