Dr Biles became the second Housing Ombudsman on 1 July 2001. Before that he was the Head of the School of Law in the Southampton Business School.

His first degree was a BA (Hons) in law. He also has a doctorate in law from Southampton University entitled "The arousal and denial of residential tenants' non-financial remedies for disrepair, unfitness, and lack of amenity in their homes".

Dr Biles was called to the bar in 1983 by Middle Temple. He is also a Member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and an Honorary Member of the Chartered Institute of Housing.

Dr Biles has taught and researched Land Law, Landlord and Tenant Law and Housing Law extensively. He has published a number of articles in journals and spoken at numerous conferences on Housing Law, Landlord and Tenant Law, and Land Law.

Dr Biles is Visiting Professor in Law in the Southampton Business School.

Before becoming the Housing Ombudsman, Dr Biles was a lawyer member of a Leasehold Valuation Tribunal and a member of the committee of management of a Registered Social Landlord.

Rafael has an Honours Degree in Social Anthropology from the London School of Economics & Political Science, where he became interested in the theory and practice of small-scale conflict.

He has worked in the field of landlord/tenant dispute resolution for two decades. He was a senior programme officer at the Housing Corporation when he took part in the team who set up the first housing ombudsman scheme in 1993, and has been with the project since then.

Rafael has been associated with a number of housing organisations; he served as vice chair of the Campaign for Bedsit Rights, as chair of the King’s Cross Homeless Project and the Private Tenants Rights Group, and as member of the Race & Housing Action Group. He was also the chair of the housing co-operative where he lived throughout the 1980s, and was a member of the management committees of two housing associations.

Before joining the Housing Corporation he worked at a Housing Aid Centre and at a Community Law Centre, taking part in the Duty Solicitor Scheme at the Central London County Court. He is a member of the Chartered Institute of Housing and the Housing Law Practitioners Association.