Methods

Where the figures come from

Source

Every ruling comes from the Housing Ombudsman’s published decisions archive at housing-ombudsman.org.uk/decisions. We collected 18,334 published decisions on 16 October 2026. They are dated from 12 January 2020 to 28 August 2026. Every ruling on this site links to the original on the Ombudsman’s website. The Ombudsman began publishing its decisions on 9 March 2021, starting with decisions made in December 2020 (its announcement). 10 rulings in the archive are dated earlier, January 2020 to November 2020.

How we count

One ruling, one outcome. Each published decision carries one overall outcome tag in the Ombudsman’s archive. We count that tag.
Maladministration found means the overall outcome was severe maladministration, maladministration or partial maladministration. We always give the number it is out of: all published rulings for that landlord, including ones outside the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. Across all landlords it is 13,428 of 18,334 rulings (73%).
Small numbers. For landlords with fewer than 10 rulings we show counts (for example “4 of 6”), not a percentage.
Categories and “orders or recommendations” are tags. One ruling can have several, so they add up to more than the number of rulings. The archive’s “Orders” tag also covers recommendations. Where the outcome was reasonable redress or no maladministration, we call them recommendations.
Untagged rulings. 1,664 rulings have no category tag in the archive, so category totals leave them out.
Dates. We show the date printed on each ruling. It differs from the archive’s listing date for 1,307 rulings; each of these was read twice by independent parsers. 4 rulings have no date and are left out of the year charts.
Names. Landlord names appear exactly as the Ombudsman publishes them. We group published name variants of the same landlord (580 landlords from 643 published names). We do not merge organisations that merged later: their rulings stay under the name they were published under, and the pages link to each other.
Councils and the companies that run their homes. Where a council’s homes are, or were, run by a separate organisation, the pages show a combined total of the rulings published under each name. No ruling is counted twice.

Excerpts from rulings

17,197 of 18,334 rulings have a short excerpt describing what the complaint was about. For older rulings it is the Ombudsman’s listing excerpt; for newer rulings it is the ruling’s “What the complaint is about” section. We show each one as a quotation from the ruling and mark the ones that are shortened. 1,137 rulings have no excerpt.

Why our figures differ from the Ombudsman’s

A single decision can contain several findings, for example maladministration on repairs and no maladministration on complaint handling. The Ombudsman’s own “maladministration rate” counts findings. We count decisions, so our percentages will not match its landlord reports.
Only published decisions are included, and some decisions are not published.
Damp and mould is not a separate tag. The Ombudsman files it under “Responsive repairs/activity”, which we label “Repairs (includes damp and mould)”.
When landlords merge or change name, older rulings stay under the old name. Search for each name.

Size and complaint rates

Landlord pages show two other official sources where they exist.

The Housing Ombudsman’s 2025-26 landlord reports (1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026): 290 landlords. They count findings, and homes owned or managed under the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction, including leasehold. Comparisons of size use only the Ombudsman’s own per-1,000-homes figures, because they cover the same period as its home counts. For Camden Council and Oxford City Council, no report is online, so the figures come from the Ombudsman’s data table.
The Regulator of Social Housing’s Tenant Satisfaction Measures 2024/25 (year to 31 March 2025): 341 landlords. They count social homes owned and complaints per 1,000 homes. Sector medians come from the Regulator’s headline report. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

How we checked this

We checked the rulings against the Ombudsman’s archive in independent ways, most recently on 17 October 2026.

Independent second collection of the whole archive: 18,334 of 18,334 rulings identical on case ID, outcome, landlord name.
The archive’s own landlord search: 643 of 643 published landlord names reconcile with our grouping.
Every ruling page opened: 18,333 of 18,334 load and contain their case ID. 1 returned “page not found” and is flagged on its landlord page.
Dates: the printed date on each ruling is shown. It differs from the archive listing date for 1,307 rulings; 39 rulings print no readable date and show the archive date.
Council and ALMO links (19) and mergers and renames (56) were researched, then re-checked independently.
Ombudsman 2025-26 landlord reports read: 288. Regulator 2024/25 landlords matched: 341.

Independent audit

A final independent check found: 100 of 100 landlord figures matched the live archive; 170 of 170 outcome tags matched; 15 of 15 report figures matched; 19 of 19 council links confirmed; no duplicate IDs or double counting. Its three "must fix" items (dates, undisclosed report/table differences, wording for council-owned companies) were fixed before this version.

From our verification report of 17 October 2026.

Sources and credit

Tenant Satisfaction Measures 2024/25: Regulator of Social Housing. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
This site is independent and is not endorsed by the Housing Ombudsman or the Regulator of Social Housing.

Spotted a mistake?

Email corrections@nomug.ai with the landlord, the case ID and the link to the ruling, and say what looks wrong. Landlords are welcome to write too. Read our corrections and right of reply policy.