By a Twenty-Twenty Resident Twenty-Twenty House A is an attractive, modern apartment block in the trendy Mabgate area of Leeds. Twenty-Twenty A houses 30 apartments, most of which are occupied by homeowners with full or shared ownership leases of (initially) 99 years. On a first take, everything at Twenty-Twenty A looks sharp: it is in… Continue reading A 20-20 Vision of How Social Housing Landlords Fleece Leaseholders
Just one year ago, a community of women from mainly Bengali migrant and refugee backgrounds living in the east end of London would probably not have described themselves as grass-roots housing activists. Yet their substandard housing conditions left them keen to fight for better, and their ESOL (English language) class gave them both the perfect… Continue reading SHAC and English for Action: Empowering Community Housing Action
When the new round of service charge demands began to take effect at the start of April, SHAC found itself supporting a host of new tenant and resident groups embarking on service charge strikes. Tenants and residents are often presented as being helpless in the face of superior landlord power, with their bottomless resources, ready… Continue reading Tenants and Residents Turn to Radical Action
In the middle of January, an extraordinary meeting was held between tenants and residents of Hyde from the Stockwell Towers estate, the Stockwell MP who helped facilitate the meeting Bell Ribeiro-Addy, and Hyde chief executive Andy Hulme alongside other Hyde staff, plus local councillors. The meeting was extraordinary because Hulme is notoriously shy about engaging… Continue reading Familiar Stories from Hyde’s Meeting with Stockwell Tenants and Residents
The Regulator of Social Housing has reported that service charge income for housing associations soared by 15.8% to £1.9 billion in the year to March 2024. Also in 2024, service charge disputes brought to the First Tier Tribunal concurred that tenants and residents had been overcharged in over 70% of cases. Taken together, these figures… Continue reading Tribunals Research Finds Overcharging in 70% of Cases as HA Service Charge Income Soars
By Lindsay Bush Isn’t it interesting, and a coincidence, that Matthew Pennycook MP (Minister of State for Housing and Planning) made a statement just one day ahead of the BBC publishing a major investigation into leaseholders suffering inflated charges and lack of services for the privilege?! Matthew Pennycook MP, Minister of State for Housing and… Continue reading Leasehold and the Enforcement Gap
Residents of One Stratford say they are trapped in a system of financial abuse by One Housing Group (OHG), a housing association which merged with Riverside Housing Group last year after falling into financial difficulties. At least 40 residents at One Stratford are now withholding service charges or ‘balancing charges’ after receiving a series of… Continue reading OHG-Riverside Residents Strike Back
By Anne Jones* Ten years ago I used to catch an evening bus to go from the city to my village. I had this new bus driver for the first time. I had asked him for a single to my destination. It was cash and a paper ticket in those days as opposed to the… Continue reading The Service Charge Scam – An Insider Speaks
A petition launched by the SHAC Secretary calling for measures to end service charge abuse has received a reply from Michael Gove's department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (LUHC) after exceeding the first target of 10,000. See the Petition and government reply. At the present time, the petition has gathered 16,100 signatures and has… Continue reading Gove’s Lame and Lying Reply to Service Charge Abuse Petition
As major announcements go, this year's statement on the social rent cap (SRC) has to be one of the quietest in history. A page on the Regulator of Social Housing's website confirms government's return to the social rent cap formula. Unlike last year, there was no fanfare heralding its arrival. It means that the majority… Continue reading Social and Other Housing Assocation Rents to Rise by 7.7% in April
