Catalyst Housing Limited Reviews 266

This is the worst housing association I have lived in. I have been complaint about my kitchen and bathroom for months. A surveyor has visited my home 3 times the past two years knowing that my kitchen and bathroom needs renewal. I am sick and tired of calling and complaining about this. My kitchen is falling apart them knowing that is 30 years old! This is affecting my mental health, it’s affecting my kids as well. This is not right, I have now complained there’s mould in my bathroom. I desperately need my kitchen and my bathroom to be renewed. I would not recommend this housing association to anyone!!

Submitted a complaint on 21/03 following the most stressful experience trying to sell my property and having to pay for the shocking, stressful and most exhausting process due to their incompetence and have heard nothing. Have now submitted my complaint to watchdog and will follow up with ombudsman and Peabody now they have merged. Furious at the lack of communication from Catalyst yet not surprised.

The worst housing association out there. We requested our communal storage door to be opened so we could get a meter reading one month ago and no one contacted us back. I even emailed them requesting this and received no response. Called again a month later and they responded with the site mangers are not answering their phone. Reference number

Tried Twice. 31st March and 3rd April. What awful customer service. I tried on Friday, held on for an hour and no one picked up the phone. Tries again today 3rd April, held on for 45 minutes and still no answer. This is not good enough. I was ringing to re-arrange an appointment but, I am not going to bother. You can turn up now and waste your time like you have wasted my time and money holding on for do long. Goodbye. Employed reliable people that wants to work. Appalling service.

I have emailed Catalyst about a fault on my property with no response from anyone (3 emails sent to 3 different email addresses). Everytime you call them you have to wait atleast an hour before someone answers to then be transferred to another team who never pick up. It's like I have nothing else to do but wait on the line for their to be no outcome or resolution. I have tried to call them again today and waited 4 hours before hanging up (have screenshot to prove). This is ridiculous and I have no idea how they operate the way they do. I've read the recent Ombudsman review on this group and think I'll also need to go down this route or possibly cancel my direct debit for rent for them to call me instead!!

The worst housing association out there. We requested our communal storage door to be opened so we could get a meter reading one month ago and no one contacted us back. I even emailed them requesting this and received no response. Called again a month later and they responded with the site mangers are not answering their phone. If it was possible to give them a 0 star rating I would. Disgusting service!

Catalyst housing did I hate efficiency survey last year as they get money from the government to make houses efficient they told us they would let us know what they were going to do as usual it seems they’re not going to do anything apart from keep the money and increase the rent I’ve still got single glaze window that’s about 30 years old they admit there’s absolutely no insulation in the buildings during some minor work. The catalyst employee informed me that he had been told that has these places become vacant. They’re going to be sold off but we still have to live in them until we die and pay rent And live with the damp in the cold

Ombudsman issues special report on Catalyst Housing
Catalyst is trying to silence my review together with the Trustpilot Team by asking me to remove names! I do know you can use people's names as I have left positive reviews in the past mentioning people's names and that was never an issue.
Just read the news: NEWS PRESS RELEASES
Ombudsman issues special report on Catalyst Housing with ‘repeated failures’ indicative of wider service failure, 13 March 2023

By far the most unprofessional and awful organisation.
Avoid them. I have a query, quite a serious one,
Complaint Reference: CAS-981995-W8F4L9.
Furthermore, certain Area Managers and Neighbourhood Customer Specialists - please do not handle customers, as your skills in customer service are rather poor and you are unable to handle negative feedback.

I have missed the number of issues we face living in a Catalyst House apartment...now 20/03/2023 We don't have lift working in our building for almost a month! That is unbelievably disrespectful to everyone who lives here... old people, children, women who just had babies and everyone included... even though we have to pay our service charge on time and with their promise to fix it many days ago..it is still not fixed. We are all tired of catalyst! Go find another housing association that is slightly more respectful with you! Keep yourself far from them.

I have been experiencing significant delays in obtaining information from Catalyst that has prevented the sale of my house since December last year. Despite multiple attempts by both my solicitors and myself to obtain the requested information and numerous assurances of deadlines, the information has not been provided, and the delays have become intolerable. The delay has now caused the mortgage offer of the buyer to run out in a couple of weeks, and the rising interest rates will incur additional costs for the buyer. This ongoing situation has caused me significant stress and is impacting my health, to the point where I have started taking blood pressure medication. Unless the requested information is provided by the end of this week, I will have no other option but to escalate the matter to the Housing Ombudsman Service.
SG2 8DZ

Extremely poor customer service. We bought a house 1.5 year ago and still waiting for a land registry. No answers to outer email,nothing. No communication at all . Not sure what to do?

I am trying to get basic information so we can proceed with the sale of our property.
2 question still remain unanswered since 05 December dispute calling 3 times a week. Solicitors, myself, Estate Agent and the buyers all have called. Why cant you just provide the answers
Have the fire risk assessments to the property been carried out AND are there any major building works due to be carried out in the next 12 months. Simple enough requests dont you think

Absolute shambles repairs are always a patch up job just to make sure it works. I been waiting years for some repairs to be done despite the surveyor visiting and making notes in his little book nothing gets done he don't even return calls. I recently had about 4 call-outs about my heating only on the final call out he turns up with the part to do the repair. Meaning it was known from the start that the part was needed but they did the usual patch up job. I have emailed and informed them I will not be paying my rent arrears until all repairs are completed as I still having work that needs to be done other than the patch up jobs but never received a response so will be leaving the arrears to stagnate and just pay the current rent.

Nice to get a reply from Tamara but what reference number is there? And the repairs team is not the issue...its the SURVEYOR who won't authorise the repairs

I checked my emails for 23rd 24th 25th and 26th and there is nothing related to catalyst or even this thread. Recycle bin and spam checked and all emails for those dates opened just to ensure I haven't missed it.
The income team ate now requesting payment of arrears called their number yesterday and waited from 15:45 no one answered until 16:50 only to be told no one in income team answering. Called today as advised waited 1:52:28 still no answer so I hung up. The option to press 1 is a waste of time as mo one actually calls back.
So now I have been shifted to peabody housing who have written me to say that they are now my landlord and they have also taken over my rent arrears we are now in April so catalyst had no intention of doing any of these repairs ad I was no longer going to be their problem...a call received at the end of march informing me that my housing officer would call to discuss repairs never happened. No suprise as according to peabody they became my landlord on 3rd April. I have already tried call peabody and waited 15 minutes then gave up as was not able to speak to anyone and got tired of the music. So...I will continue this repair issue with peabody and see how far I get.

I've been looking to buy a stake in a resale shared ownership with Catalyst for around half a year.

My solicitors have been waiting nearly *5 months* for some information/documents to proceed with the transaction from Catalyst.

In every interaction with them, they have been profoundly unhelpful, dismissive, impolite, and terse. It's mind-boggling how they're incapable of sending over basic paperwork for the best part of a half-year, never mind how they think this is appropriate to treat customers.

Overall? Incompetent, lazy, rude, and incredibly slow. My complaint pales in comparison to the families they let languish in mouldy flats for months, but illustrates how the entire organisation is absolutely rotten when it comes to doing right by customers.

I have been trying to sell my property to a FTB since July last year.
Firstly it is impossible to get hold of anyone and when you do you do not get replies for weeks. I’m taking hours on hold then being cut off , or departments that can’t put you through to colleagues so you start again with a minimum of 15 minutes before the call is answered
Everyone seems to be working from home and unable to talk to each other or unsure of the processes.

I’ve had to get mortgage offer re issued at great monthly expense and subsequently extended. This expires next week and despite being given plenty of notice catalyst has no one that can sign an important form needed for exchange.
I’ve also had to get the property revalued at more expense as this expired too . Communication has been slow inconsistent , misinformed and at times rude. With no regards to legal process or timelines .
I submitted a complaint in august that was ignored , and again in January still waiting for a response. Now we risk the whole chain collapsing due to hard deadline next week after 8 months , potentially leaving people without homes. As no one able to sign the form is working this week.

We are in the process of selling our property, my solicitor has made a required payment and requested for Management pack and information about lease extension process almost two months ago, I have chased this along with my solicitor but only response we are getting is that they have high volume of inquiries and will send the information as soon as possible, It is really frustrating for my buyer and they can't wait anymore, if we don't get the required information in next couple of days I may lose the buyer, Catalyst is just holding up the whole process, Will go to ombudsman if queries are not resolved in next couple of days

Absolutely awful company. Not bothered about tenants as long as they have rent. I have been left for over 2wks with no heating and hot water and was not offered any alternative heating method. This was during January when the temperature fell to -7. Already have ongoing issues with them as they refuse to replace rotten wooden window frames that shoukd have been changed 10 yrs ago. I cannot shut windows properly and have mould and condensation which has obviously been made worse by having no heating. Made several complaints but as usual all ignored. Staff unhelpful and unconcerned. Will now just be liaising with WATCHDOG and the newspapers. Absolute disgrace. No concern at all for tenants and now they are merging with Peabody it will get worse. Money orientated and don’t care about tenants. My window issue has been pending for several years. Just make excuses. So like I said I will now liaise with WATCHDOG and when the company is all over the tv then they might start listening to residents. Just because we have to live in social housing does not mean we don’t take pride in our homes but catalyst treat people like dregs of society. I will continue to raise my voice until I am heard. I will not shut up or be ignored. Cannot express how awful this company is

Lodged a complain back in July/August regarding damage cause to outside my flat by a neighbour upstairs. No response until last week, walls still yellow, flaking and mouldy, carpet disgusting and lovely yellow stains on ceilings and walls. These people are a disgrace, no response, no resolution. Looks like I will be painting the area myself in black paint as this is all I have. Im sure it will cover the stains.............................................................

There is a serve leak since the 23rd Jan. The garden is flooded and my walls are saturated and full of dam.
Catalyst has done NOTHING. I have contacted them regularly and they’ve not responded once. I keep being told “we are looking into it”. This leak is affecting three properties and their lack of action is creating more damage and costing more money.

I don’t understand why this housing association is so awful. No accountability, no action, I might as well be talking to my soaked walls!

Lost buyer because of Catalyst not being understanding and taking everything into consideration. My buyer could afford the my property but because of Catalyst finance company have sad no.. let alone they were very slow