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Our standards

As a registered provider of social housing, we are required to provide our tenants with information about the standards of service they can expect from us.

Detailed information about our services and what our tenants can expect from us can be found in our policies.

Here is an overview of our standards covering the following areas:

Contact

As detailed on our Contact us page, our standards  for responding to messages are:

  • Web chat: We aim to respond to queries by web chat during our opening hours within five minutes.
  • Phone: If we cannot answer your call, we will return it within two hours (during our opening hours) when you select the callback option.
  • Email: We aim to get back to you via email within two working days, but during busy times it might take us a little longer.
  • Social media: We aim to respond to direct messages via social media within two working days.

Repairs

Depending on the severity of the issue, our response times will be from within 24 hours to a maximum of 20 working days:

  • Emergency repairs will be responded to either on the same day or within 24 hours depending on their severity
  • Urgent repairs will be responded to within five working days
  • Routine repairs will be respoinded to within 20 working days.

For a complete list of how we prioritise repairs, see our Repair priorities page.

Fly-tipping

When we receive a report of fly-tipping, we will first confirm that we are the landowners. If so we will instruct our contractors, Just Ask, to attend - they will do so within five working days.

Anything representing a specific fire risk or risk of danger will be removed by our contractors within 24 hours.

Graffiti

Our timescales for dealing with graffiti are as follows:

  • Offensive graffiti - e.g. racist or homophobic - will be removed within 24 hours of being reported; however, if the offensive graffiti can be removed as part of our standard cleaning service - e.g. pen marks on internal areas - it will be removed within two hours of being reported.
  • Other graffiti will be removed within two days of being reported.

Antisocial behaviour and hate crime

Reports of Antisocial behaviour (ASB) and hate crime are handled by our contact centre, so the contact standards for response times listed above will apply.

Depending on the severity of the incident, a case may simply be logged and advice and signposting provided to the person making the report. If the case requires further contact and investigation a member of staff will contact you within 1 to 5 working days, depending on the severity of the allegation.

For full details of our ASB service, including how we handle allegations of hate crime and harassment, and deal with noise nuisance, see our ASB and noise pages.

Safety

We carry out annual fire risk assessments of all our blocks where there is a communal space.

We arrange gas safety checks of our homes every 12 months. These are carried out for us by a Gas Safe-registered engineer. We provide you with a copy of the Landlord Gas Safety Record before you move into a home, or within 28 days of an annual service. We keep records of gas safety checks for at least two years.

We carry out an inspection of our homes and produce an Electrical Installation Condition Report - like an MOT of your electrics – every five years.

Mutual exchange

We will make our decision within 42 days of receiving a completed application for mutual exchange.

Lettable Standard

When you become a Red Kite tenant, we make sure your home is up to the high standard we want for you by carrying out work before you move in, explaining your tenancy to you, and visiting you within two months of the start of the tenancy to make sure you have settled in well and to offer any advice or support to help you maintain your tenancy.

Feedback/complaints

Whatever it is that you want to tell us, we're here to listen and do something about it. By giving us positive feedback, you let us know where we're performing well and giving you a good service.

When you tell us about something that hasn't gone well, or didn't meet your expectations, we use that information to improve our services and do our best to make sure it doesn't happen a second time.

If you choose to use our alternative resolution route to address a complaint we will contact you within two working days to discuss the complaint and how we will resolve it and in what timescale.

Formal complaints and appeals - we will:

  • acknowledge these within two working days
  • confirm their scope within five working days from acknowledgement
  • send you a formal response within 10 working days of agreeing the scope with you.

Full details of our feedback process and how we deal with complaints can be found on our feedback pages