First Garden Cities Homes
Housing association.
Before you bid
Thinking of turning down an offer? Check your council's rules first. Saying no to an offer can affect your place on the housing register.
Rents out about 2,182 homes in England. This is the number of tenants in rented homes it counted for its 2025/26 tenant survey.
Source: [5]
The regulator's grade
C2
The Regulator of Social Housing checks how well landlords treat tenants. It gave First Garden Cities Homes grade C2 on 25 June 2025.
C2 means there are some weaknesses. The landlord needs to improve. Grades go from C1 (best) to C4 (worst).
Source: [1]
How it compares
We compared First Garden Cities Homes with 118 similar landlords: housing associations and for-profit landlords, 1,000 to 9,999 homes. These are tenants' answers to the 2025/26 survey and the landlord's own records.
Overall satisfaction: 75.6% of tenants were happy with the service. That puts it in the lower middle of similar landlords. ↑ Up from bottom quarter in 2024/25.
Repairs and homes: in the top quarter. ↑ Up from upper middle in 2024/25.
Being heard: in the bottom quarter.
Neighbourhood: in the bottom quarter.
Top quarter means it did better than at least three in four similar landlords. Bottom quarter means it did worse than at least three in four.
Source: [5]
Complaints to the Housing Ombudsman
In 2025-26, the Housing Ombudsman looked at complaints about First Garden Cities Homes Limited. It made 6 findings. It found the landlord at fault in 0% of them.
From October 2025 the Ombudsman looks at how complaints were handled in every case. So these figures are not comparable with earlier years.
Source: [3]
Safety checks
All done. Every home that needed a gas, fire, asbestos, water or lift safety check had one (as at 31 March 2026).
Source: [5]
The figures, 2025/26
| Measure | Figure | Among similar landlords |
|---|---|---|
| Repairs and homes | ||
| Satisfied with repairs | 82.1% | upper middle |
| Satisfied with how long the last repair took | 79.6% | upper middle |
| Satisfied the home is well maintained | 78.7% | lower middle |
| Homes that don't meet the Decent Homes Standard | 0.0% | top quarter |
| Non-emergency repairs done within the landlord's target time | 96.5% | top quarter |
| Emergency repairs done within the landlord's target time | 99.5% | top quarter |
| Being heard | ||
| Satisfied the landlord listens and acts | 62.5% | bottom quarter |
| Satisfied the landlord keeps them informed | 70.7% | bottom quarter |
| Agree the landlord treats them fairly and with respect | 78.1% | bottom quarter |
| Satisfied with how complaints are handled | 29.8% | bottom quarter |
| First-stage complaints answered in time | 99.1% | upper middle |
| Second-stage complaints answered in time | 100.0% | top quarter |
| Neighbourhood | ||
| Satisfied communal areas are clean and well kept | 74.0% | upper middle |
| Satisfied the landlord helps the neighbourhood | 60.9% | bottom quarter |
| Satisfied with how anti-social behaviour is handled | 52.6% | bottom quarter |
| Shown but not compared | ||
| Satisfied the home is safe | 81.2% | |
| First-stage complaints per 1,000 homes | 50.6 | |
| Second-stage complaints per 1,000 homes | 9.9 | |
| Anti-social behaviour cases per 1,000 homes | 16.8 | |
| Anti-social behaviour cases involving hate incidents per 1,000 homes | 0.8 | |
Source: [5]
Earlier Ombudsman figures
From October 2025 the Ombudsman looks at how complaints were handled in every case. So these figures are not comparable with earlier years.
| Year | Name in the report | Findings | At fault |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-25 | First Garden Cities Homes Limited | 5 | 100% |
Source: [2]
Where it has homes
Homes it owns in each council area, 31 March 2026. We added up the figures for each company in the group.
- North Hertfordshire: 1,325
- Welwyn Hatfield: 426
- Central Bedfordshire: 418
- East Hertfordshire: 20
- Stevenage: 19
- Hertsmere: 6
Source: [4]
Where these figures come from
Every figure on this page comes from one of these published files. We do not change them.
- Regulator of Social Housing, Regulatory Judgements and Enforcement Notices Table (current). The file, fetched 2026-11-06. Open Government Licence v3.0.
- Housing Ombudsman Service, Landlords with individual performance reports ( xlsx ) ( xlsx, 0.39 MB) (2024-25). The file, fetched 2026-11-06. © Housing Ombudsman Service; reuse terms being confirmed.
- Housing Ombudsman Service, Landlords performance data tables ( xlsx ) ( xlsx, 0.4 MB) (2025-26). The file, fetched 2026-11-06. © Housing Ombudsman Service; reuse terms being confirmed.
- Regulator of Social Housing, Private registered providers data release (2025/26). The file, fetched 2026-11-06. Open Government Licence v3.0.
- Regulator of Social Housing, Tenant Satisfaction Measures Full Dataset (2025/26). The file, fetched 2026-11-06. Open Government Licence v3.0.