Electing a loved one or third party to report your housing issues on your behalf
02 December 2021
Do you have a plan B if you are no longer able to speak or act for yourself?
We understand that residents’ circumstances may change and you may need to appoint someone to act on your behalf if you are no longer able to speak to us yourself. If you are no longer be able to discuss your housing matters with us, or if you simply want to hand it over to a trusted third party to manage for you, you can complete our representative consent form to give explicit consent for this to happen.
The representative consent form allows residents the choice to elect someone to act on their behalf or together with them on housing issues such as repairs, complaints, financial matters, or updating personal data.
You can complete a representative consent form in the Data Protection section of our website here, along with various other online forms you can use to exercise your other data protection rights. If you don’t have access to a computer or need help filling in the form, please call us on 0300 373 3000 and we can complete the form on your behalf over the phone.
Please be mindful that this consent is only valid for use by Network Homes and our agents. In most cases, it lasts for three years and will need to be renewed if you want to continue this arrangement after those three years. If you wish to have a more permanent arrangement in place, you should consider Lasting Power of Attorney, which you can find out more information about here. This is not specific to Network Homes, it applies to all companies as it is a legal power.
What to expect when making a request for representative consent
When you, the named resident, submits a completed representative consent form, this will be verified by the relevant team and they may contact you for more information if needed. A note will then be added to our housing management system and a copy of the form will be saved in your housing records. You will also be contacted to confirm the receipt of the consent, with a link to your online preference centre where you are able to withdraw consent at any time.
Please note that the process from receiving your form to having a note added on the system takes about 14 working days. This may take longer if more information is needed to verify the request.
For further information and frequently asked questions on how we process personal data, please visit the data protection section of our website here: www.networkhomes.org.uk/data-protection
