Life at GreenSquareAccord for Residents and Employees
GreenSquareAccord markets itself with promises of being “Simpler, Stronger, Better,” but mounting evidence from residents and even its own employees tells a very different story. In this blog we are focused on just past year, with GreenSquareAccord has again been inundated with negative reviews on public platforms – so much so that it currently holds a “Bad” rating of just 1.4 out of 5 on Trustpilot. These reviews paint a bleak picture of poor communication, unaddressed repairs, burned-out staff, and a culture of deflecting accountability. In this blog, we delve into these recurring issues, using direct quotes and testimonies to hold GreenSquareAccord accountable and challenge the glossy image it tries to project.
Residents Describe Poor Communication and Unresolved Repairs
Customers across multiple platforms describe shockingly poor service, especially when it comes to getting repairs done and getting anyone at GreenSquareAccord to listen. On GreenSquareAccord’s own Facebook tenant group, one frustrated resident didn’t mince words: “Greensquare are a disgrace! Been waiting since before lockdown for repairs to be done, the complaints process is absolutely disgusting too. I [am] at a loss!” (facebook.com). This sentiment of years-long waits for basic repairs and an “absolutely disgusting” complaints process is echoed by many. In fact, a recent Housing Ombudsman special investigation into GreenSquareAccord found residents “waited years for essential repairs to be carried out,” with a 79% rate of maladministration in property condition issues (scottishhousingnews.com). Such delays often leave tenants living in unsafe or unhealthy conditions with no timely remedy.
Many residents have shared photos of severe damp and mould in their homes, visible damage that has fallen on deaf ears when reported to GreenSquareAccord. These unresolved maintenance issues aren’t just inconveniences – they pose real health and safety risks. Yet reviewers consistently report that urgent repair requests go ignored or “resolved” only on paper. “Don’t waste your time; they are absolutely hopeless and all they do is prolong your misery and agony,” one tenant wrote in a scathing Trustpilot review, underscoring how complaints often drag on with no resolution. Another Trustpilot reviewer warned that GreenSquareAccord’s customer service is essentially a brick wall, and trying to get help is “absolutely hopeless”. These firsthand accounts describe a pattern of poor communication – phone calls and emails going unanswered – and chronic neglect of repairs that leaves tenants feeling abandoned.
It’s little wonder GreenSquareAccord’s Trustpilot page is flooded with one-star reviews (the lowest possible rating) while only a token few five-star reviews exist by comparison homeviews.com. As one observer pointed out, there are “loads of 1 star (can’t give lower)” ratings pouring in homeviews.com. The message from residents is clear: GreenSquareAccord is failing at the most fundamental aspect of its mission – providing safe, well-maintained homes and responsive customer service.
Communication failures are a running theme. Numerous reviewers talk about being ignored by GreenSquareAccord when they raise issues. On Trustpilot, tenants describe having to chase the landlord repeatedly via phone and email, often with “very little response” homeviews.com. Even when GreenSquareAccord does respond, it often fails to address the root problem, leading to a cycle of repeat complaints. The Housing Ombudsman’s report noted the same, finding that GreenSquareAccord’s poor complaint handling caused “delays, confusion, and inadequate compensation for residents”scottishhousingnews.com. All of this points to a landlord that not only drops the ball on maintenance, but then goes silent when residents beg for help. Such poor communication leaves tenants feeling that “they don’t care” – a far cry from the attentive, customer-focused image the company tries to cultivate.
Burnt-Out Staff and Toxic Internal Culture
It’s not just residents sounding the alarm – GreenSquareAccord’s own employees have been speaking out about an internal culture that may be contributing to the bad service. On Indeed.com (where the company averages only 2.6 out of 5 stars from staff reviews), workers describe a toxic work environment and chronic burnout. One former customer service employee wrote: “Awful place to work. Management treat you as a statistic not a human being… High turnover of staff… Being constantly monitored and watched.” This review (“Treated like a statistic”) highlights a dehumanising culture where front-line staff feel unsupported. The high turnover it mentions is corroborated by others – “Staff are always leaving”, noted another Indeed review, which went on to say “they don’t show any sympathy, respect or care towards their staff”. It’s a vicious cycle: unhappy, burned-out employees are less able to provide quality service to residents, which in turn creates more frustrated customers.
Employees consistently point to poor management and lack of resources as core issues. A support worker in West Bromwich praised their direct manager as one of the best they’d had, “but the company is awful. The pay is low, hours are long, no progression opportunities, the higher ups do not value support staff, no benefits, poor training, poor working conditions, no resources.”
This laundry list of problems – low pay, overwork, no training or tools, and feeling undervalued by higher-ups – paints GreenSquareAccord as a company that sets its staff up to fail. Another employee review bluntly stated: “Management is extremely poor and unprofessional… Atmosphere is very negative and toxic. Staff are always leaving… From my experience it’s not a good place to work.”
When management doesn’t listen to or support their teams, staff morale plummets. Indeed, on Glassdoor one anonymous review’s title was “Hated every second”, with the employee citing “abysmal morale and I’m surprised anyone [is] left. Staff are grafters but no thanks from higher management.” In other words, employees work hard (“grafters”) but get zero recognition or gratitude from the top – a classic recipe for burnout.
Such internal dysfunction inevitably spills over onto residents. Understaffed teams and demoralized workers mean tenant phone calls take longer to answer (if they get answered at all) and repairs get backlogged. One Glassdoor review noted that the company is perpetually “short of money, not enough staff,” and that “departments work poorly with each other, [leaving] tenants unhappy with the service.”
When different parts of the organisation don’t communicate (mirroring the communication breakdown with tenants), issues fall through the cracks. Front-line employees on the customer service phones have described being stuck in the middle between angry residents and unresponsive management. As a result, some admit “some tenants can be rude” out of sheer frustration, as one customer service advisor put it, even though “most are lovely”.
The stress on staff is enormous – yet head office seems out of touch. In April 2025, a team leader wrote that “GSA’s executive team does not seem to listen but is very good at implementing tick-box exercises and appearing to take staff and customer concerns seriously without actually providing meaningful support.”
This statement is damning: it suggests upper management cares more about looking like they’re addressing issues (checking the boxes) than actually fixing the problems. If true, it means both employees and residents are being fed talking points and platitudes instead of real solutions.
Of course, it’s not just the frontline staff that Ruth Cooke struggles to retain. With 50% of the Executive team recently appointed on an interim basis, this clearly indicates that the issues lie at the top as well.
Lack of Accountability and a Misleading Public Image
Perhaps most troubling is GreenSquareAccord’s apparent lack of accountability and the contrast between its public relations and reality on the ground. Many residents feel the organisation is more interested in protecting its image than solving problems. For instance, GreenSquareAccord’s social media presence has been carefully managed to filter out criticism – “Previously, GreenSquareAccord restricted comments on Facebook, preventing residents from publicly voicing concerns”. (Only after complaints started flooding in did they allow more comments, and it remains to be seen if they will revert to silencing tenants online.) This tactic of controlling the narrative extends to more extreme measures as well.
As published by Social Housing Action Campaign in support of me wrote, GreenSquareAccord went so far as to take legal action against a resident, Ben Jenkins, who spoke out, even attempting to have him jailed for complaining in public forums. SHAC, which advocates for social housing tenants, noted that “of all the bullying landlords – and there are many – GreenSquareAccord surely tops the list for going to the most vicious and extreme lengths in order to silence a resident for complaining about their services.”
“Such an accusation underscores how far the company’s leadership might go to avoid accountability. (It’s worth noting that this same resident had tried the proper channels: he wrote to GSA about safety issues and was ignored, met with the CEO who apologised but still didn’t fix the problems, and even won a Housing Ombudsman case – yet “GSA continued to ignore the disrepairs and other issues”.
GreenSquareAccord’s public communications often paint a rosy picture that reviewers and watchdogs strongly dispute. For example, the company regularly posts upbeat messages about customer engagement and satisfaction on its website and newsletters. Yet behind the scenes, internal reviews describe a culture of covering up or spinning bad news. As one employee observed, management’s specialty is “appearing to take staff and customer concerns seriously without actually providing meaningful support.”
This aligns with what many residents suspect – that GreenSquareAccord’s leadership is more concerned with optics than outcomes. They may talk about “continuous improvement” and publish policies, but the Housing Ombudsman found those efforts often hollow, noting that new complaint policies are nice on paper but “should not be viewed as something to be in place simply because there is a requirement… the work involved to embed these changes is not to be underestimated.” In plainer terms, GreenSquareAccord has been quick to announce initiatives and slow to deliver actual results.
The disconnect between GreenSquareAccord’s glossy PR and residents’ lived reality has not gone unnoticed. Tenants point out that while the CEO and executives speak about values and culture, basic issues like moldy walls, broken heating, and unsafe structures remain unresolved for months or years. The company frequently highlights positive stories and a handful of good reviews, but those are drowned out by the sheer volume of complaints about unfulfilled promises. As one tenant advocate quipped, “GreenSquareAccord’s leadership seems to spend more effort on spinning the narrative than fixing the problem – it’s all ‘listen just enough to say you’re listening’ but never enough to be held accountable.” This observation hearkens back to a memoir about Facebook’s PR tactics quoted by our GreenSquareAccord resident blog: “The culture was built to maintain an illusion: that we were listening, while quietly filtering out voices that threatened the narrative.”. In GreenSquareAccord’s case, the “illusion” of listening comes in the form of polite apologies, press releases, or social media statements – but residents see little follow-through. Even the Housing Ombudsman’s special report, which should have been a wake-up call, acknowledged the company’s promises yet stressed that actions, not words, are what count now.
At the end of the day, GreenSquareAccord cannot escape the truth voiced by those who know it best. The recurring themes are unmistakable: poor communication, unaddressed repairs, an overworked staff, zero accountability, and a chasm between the public image and actual performance. These issues feed into one another, creating a perfect storm of discontent. Residents feel “ignored and silenced” while their homes fall into disrepair, and staff feel “ignored and expendable” as they burn out trying to hold things together. It’s a false narrative for GreenSquareAccord to portray itself as a caring, top-performing landlord when so many of its tenants and employees are telling a story of neglect and frustration.
In conclusion, the past 12 months have made one thing clear: GreenSquareAccord has a lot to answer for. No amount of PR spin or selectively highlighting good news can negate the chorus of negative experiences now on the record. True accountability will require GreenSquareAccord to confront these criticisms head-on – fixing the long-neglected repairs, improving communication, supporting its staff, and being transparent about its failings. Until then, the 1.4-star “Bad” rating and the scathing reviews will remain, challenging the landlord’s self-proclaimed narrative at every turn. GreenSquareAccord’s residents and frontline workers deserve better than hollow promises. It’s time for the organisation to close the gap between its words and its actions, because the people living and working in GreenSquareAccord communities are watching – and they are speaking out loud and clear - and in growing numbers.