ABOUT THE TENANCY REDRESS SERVICE

Helping tenants resolve complaints with their landlords

The Tenancy Redress Service is working with the National Residential Landlords Association to help tenants resolve complaints about participating landlords.

If you are a tenant of a home managed by a letting agent then you have the right to complain to one of the two organisations which handle complaints about letting agents. But if your landlord is managing the property themselves [an independent landlord] then you are unlikely to be able to use the letting agent redress schemes.

Tenancy Redress Service aims to provide redress for tenants of independent landlords. Under this pilot scheme the NRLA has enrolled a number of landlords who have agreed to participate in the scheme. Tenants of participating landlords can raise a complaint with the TDS Tenancy Redress Service if they are not satisfied with how their landlord has addressed their concerns.

Tenancy Redress Service

The Tenancy Redress Service is operated by The Dispute Service Limited [a not-for-profit company specialising in dispute resolution] and we’re here to help tenants resolve complaints they may have with their landlord, who has agreed to be part of this scheme.

The Dispute Service www.thedisputeservice.com is a not-for-profit company which operates a number of services across the UK.

Tenancy Deposit Scheme, SafeDeposits Scotland & TDS Northern Ireland.
TDS Resolution, which is a conciliation/mediation service that aims to facilitate a satisfactory resolution of disputes and complaints between tenants and landlords without the need for Court action.
Tenancy Redress Service, which provides a tenancy redress service for tenants of participating NRLA landlord.
New Homes Ombudsman Service providing redress for consumers who have a complaint against a Registered Developer in relation to their new home.

Our services are free to tenants and purchasers of new homes.

The National Residential Landlords Association is the UK’s largest membership organisation for private residential landlords, supporting and representing over 90,000 members. Their members own and manage around 10% of the rental sector, equating to half a million properties.

The NRLA provide the expertise, support and resources needed for a rental sector that works for all. They represent landlords who have signed up for the Tenancy Redress Service and actively recognise the contribution landlords make to the rental sector and wider society, in the provision of safe, legal and secure homes.

Memberships & Accreditations

The Dispute Service is a complaint handler member of the Ombudsman Association [OA] and the New Homes Ombudsman Service is a full Ombudsman member of the OA.

We are authorised by the Chartered Trading Standards Institute as an Approved Provider of Alternative Dispute Resolution services.

We have accreditation with the British Standards Institute ISO 10002 Customer Satisfaction [Complaint Handling]

We hold the Government's Customer Service Excellence Award.

An overview of the Tenancy Redress Service

When NRLA landlords sign up to the Tenancy Redress Service we will send them a Guide setting out in detail how the scheme works, what tenants can complain about and how they can access the Tenancy Redress Service. We will ask the landlords to pass on the Guide to their tenants.
In all cases tenants must raise complaints first with the landlord, who in most cases will resolve the complaint to the tenant’s satisfaction.
If tenants remain unhappy with the landlord’s response, they will be able to raise a complaint with the Tenancy Redress Service and to send us all of the information which is relevant to the complaint. Tenancy Redress Service will then forward the complaint to the landlord and ask them to respond.
We will always try to resolve the complaint informally using our skilled conciliators but if that is not successful we will ask one of our adjudicators to review the evidence supplied by both parties who will come to a decision as to how the complaint should be resolved.
The landlords who are enrolled in the pilot scheme have agreed to cooperate with the Tenancy Redress Service in resolving the complaint. As such we do expect most landlords to implement our decisions; if not we will advise the tenant as to what they can do next.

If your landlord is enrolled in the pilot NRLA Tenancy Redress Service, you will have been given information about what we can do to help and provided with full details of how to raise a complaint.