The Housing Ombudsman, one of the council and housing association regulators, has declared Tower Hamlets Community Housing (THCH) guilty of severe maladministration in relation to service charges and disrepairs over a significant period of time.
THCH is a troubled and failing housing association. It has a £90 million deficit and is due to be taken over by Poplar HARCA, although the rescue landlord is not inspiring a great deal of hope amongst long-suffering THCH dwellers (THCH Tenants Protest Against Merger).
Ombudsman’s Investigation
The Ombudsman’s findings arose from a complaint by Gaz, a leading resident activist who lives in THCH’s Vollasky House. It found that THCH had failed to comply with its obligations under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 because it was unable to support service charge demands with relevant invoices.
The Housing Ombudsman (CEO Richard Blakeway, pictured), has reached a damning verdict on Tower Hamlets Community Housing
THCH also left Gaz and his family with persistent leaks and did not show any urgency to make fixes. The Ombudsman concludes damningly that THCH has shown itself incapable of learning from the many complaints that were submitted by Gaz and other residents.
All of this was recognised by the Ombudsman as causing significant distress and inconvenience to Gaz, his wife, and his children. Gaz says:
“Life as a resident of THCH has been really, really bad. They won’t engage with tenants and residents, except through legal processes like the Ombudsman and courts. They ignore residents’ needs full stop.”
The Tower Hamlets community is one of the most diverse and deprived in Britain. Gaz explains that THCH exploits their vulnerabilities, and is wilfully neglecting their needs whilst collecting rents and service charges.
“THCH make no effort to reach out to tenants and residents – in fact they work hard to actively ignore them. They are quite happy to leave people living with leaks and disrepairs.
It is not just Gaz who is affected by appalling disrepairs. Others on the THCH have suffered the managed decline of a landlord which gave up caring about conditions on its estates when its executive opted to merge to escape financial difficulties. This video is from another home.
“Some of the homes on the estate are in such dilapidated condition, even when there are children in the home. There are buckets in every room to catch leaking water. There are rat infestations so bad that some people can’t even use their kitchens. These are terrible conditions for families to endure.”
Mistreatment of Residents
The residents’ group has a mass of evidence of their landlord’s mistreatment, but Gaz is particularly distressed by what happened to one of his neighbours, an elderly couple, who were left without any hot water at the end of last year. Gaz explains:
“THCH did not take action to fix the problem for more than two months. The husband had bad health, but couldn’t even bathe. Eventually the wife was moved into a hotel, but the husband’s health had deteriorated so much at that point, he was taken straight to hospital. He died within two days of being separated from his wife. It’s a really terrible and sad case”.
The impact of the landlord’s neglect has also taken its toll on Gaz’s family:
“Myself, my wife and my kids were put at risk. I was having to pay out to try and fix the leaks but the problems kept coming back. In the end we had to move out, which cost me more as well. It put a lot of strain on the family. I think about the struggle with the landlord all the time – when I’m with the family, when I’m at work. All the time. My kids are missing out on a normal life because of this.”
He recalls the damage to family belongings caused by leaking water, and the risks when it entered electrical fittings. The ceiling soon began to crack, and mould developed. Their situation was so severe, it was featured in a BBC London report.
Time to Go
Gaz concludes that the THCH executive and board members need to go. It is clear to him that they’re not capable of change, or indeed of properly running a housing association. The Ombudsman Service would appear to agree, setting out a long list of actions they expect the landlord to take alongside an apology and compensation for Gaz.
Remedial orders include providing five years’ worth of service charge information within a month, repairing windows, and permanently fixing the roof within three months. The Ombudsman also expects THCH to be diligent about logging and testing works when they have been done.
Anita Khan is the chief executive of THCH
At a governance level, THCH has been ordered to review the learning from the Ombudsman’s report, and has been given three months to advise the Ombudsman on how improvements have been made to its operations. This includes better oversight of complaints, adequate record keeping, and adherence to its own policies.
For Gaz and many other families in THCH homes, the battles over service charges continue. Many are withholding payment of disputed charges, and are being supported by SHAC.
29 March 2024
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