Rent and Service Charges

Regulation and Changes Within Housing

The Regulator of Social Housing and Housing Ombudsman have stepped up recently in highlighting what landlords need to do so that there is good governance and customer care. Recent decisions about some landlords have caused considerable reputational damage to the sector. Examples include:

-£9.7 million overcharge of rents and service charges for tenants over a prolonged period of time due to poor data and controls, the Regulator can identify charges and inconsistencies through the Statistical Data Return.

-5000 cases of damp and mould needing to be reviewed with two vulnerable tenants awarded compensation as well as a £12.8m loss within 22/23 financial year, landlord given regulatory notice.

-Non compliance of the home standard because of lack of safety checks covering fire, electrical and asbestos, the Regulator usually downgrades the governance rating of landlords who fail to meet safety standards.

-Poor decision making by the landlord's Board where usually the Regulator would indicate they have a lack of skills and oversight, some as far being advised the Board have relied on inaccurate data.

I have never seen an Ombudsman be so proactive in seeking to help and guide landlords. On 5th Oct 2023 I attended an Ombudsman webinar which featured the specific landlord providing a presentation on the changes they were making to enable better customer care as the Ombudsman found there was apathy. Other great examples of the Ombudsman being for the people include answering phone in questions via LBC Radio and producing case decisions that are comprehensive and go as far as requesting the Chief Exec to apologise.

Some tenants and leaseholders contact me at random asking me for general advice. I explain to them about the examples above and recommend to them what their landlord could do to improve. Data is really key in getting right and those that have robust systems, policies and procedures do succeed.

There are a couple of landlords I have worked for where I tried to bring about change and could not do so at the time but I always said to myself eventually it will either be the Regulator and/or the Ombudsman that will enforce the change. Other landlords I have succeeded because of the talented and positive attitude and culture people that I worked with and even outside of work with them such as winning football tournaments to fortnightly mentoring colleagues in achieving the best they can.

I look forward to the many changes in housing that will arise. These include:

-Mandatory qualifications, I wrote to the Rt Hon Michael Gove about this in which his department advised me on flexibility around level 4 and level 5 qualifications. This links to Lord Best's proposals.

-Regulatory enforcement, I have seen that the Regulator will have the power to go as far as advising a landlord or even one of their staff that it will be a criminal offence if they obstruct the Regulator to carry out a survey of a property.

-Housing Ombudsman Code of Practice for complaint handling.

Since August 2023, I have studied intensively and become a Financial and Forensic Accountant. On 26th July 2024, I attended a graduation ceremony in Manchester and 20 years ago I did exactly this.

I have worked on building skills through volunteering having been a Treasurer and Management Accountant for two charities. To date I also have completed a couple of formal charity examinations to enable the charities to submit their accounts to the Charity Commission.

There are persons out there that need housing to support them and some of those are vulnerable. There needs to be smarter ways of working for some landlords and hopefully gradually this will put less of a burden upon the Regulator and Ombudsman.

Here is the Europa League theme that has existed since 2020.

I hope my website helps in someway give you symphony out of the silence.