Cllr Mark Harrison refutes Lambeth Leaseholder Service Charge Increases

Cllr Mark Harrison has asked me to publish a comment below from him, in order to avoid the Lurking About SE11 blog being used as "a mouthpiece for Lib Dem distortions". It seems to me that he is seeking to refute the views contained in the post I made earlier, entitled Proposed Service Charge Increases for Lambeth Leaseholders.

I'd certainly be interested in getting to the bottom of the matter. It would be very useful to be able to see the minutes, taken at the Labour Councillors Meeting on Monday evening, since those should clear up the matter of whether service charges were raised. It would also be interesting to see comments on this post from anybody with any further information about what took place at the meeting. I do not want this blog used as a mouthpiece for any political party, but I do wish to promote quality discussion about community issues. Cllr Harrison's statement follows:

"The Chair of the North Lambeth Leaseholders' Forum (a prominent Liberal Democrat activist) has put out a misleading statement about rents and service charges which we need to correct.

At Monday's meeting of the Labour Group of councillors the Cabinet member for Housing explained what officers have recommended as a rent and service charge rise for tenants (there was no discussion about leaseholder charges).

A rent rise of around £4.13 on average (5%) has been floated as possible; and an average of 83p (8%) service charge increase for tenants.

This is the very first stage in the rent setting process. At the moment, all figures are estimates, because the government has not yet confirmed what Lambeth's final financial settlement will be. The next step in the rent setting process is a series of scrutiny meetings and Tenants' Council.

Lambeth's Labour councillors will be looking to keep this year's rent rise as low as possible. We are looking for savings from Lambeth Living and Lambeth Council as well as greater investment in areas such as repairs which needs more money. However, councillors have a legal duty to balance the Housing Revenue Account, so our room for manouevre is limited.

To be absolutely clear: no decisions about the level of rent have been taken. And there was no discussion of charges to leaseholders at Monday's meeting. Leaseholder charges are set precisely according to the contracts between leaseholders and the Council.

Labour councillors are working tirelssly to try to achieve value for money, decent homes, good robust management and action on ineffective staff and processes. Transforming Lambeth's housing services takes time. Setting a fair, affordable rent which covers the cost of the service is part of that process.

Your Labour councillors in Prince's ward

Contact Mark Harrison: mharrison@lambeth.gov.uk"

Proposed service charge increases for Lambeth leaseholders

I've received some interesting news which suggests that Lambeth Councillors held a meeting (it's not quite clear to me what group was represented) on Monday night in which they voted to increase management charges for Lambeth leaseholders. It seems that this is not a Lambeth executive decision, but just a vote by certain councillors in favour of increases in rent and service charge. A motion would still need to be voted on by the Council, but perhaps some residents might want to take action before the proposed increases take place.

Proposed service charges for leaseholders would be set to move from the current 10% to 18%, and for those who rent, a 5% rent increase is on the cards. These increases are proposed at a time (as many of you are aware) in which the standard of service provided by Lambeth Living to residents has been despicable.

Those of you who are affected might like to email your local councillors to ask for a transcript from the meeting or to protest the rises. SE11 comprises Princes, Oval or Bishops wards, but you can just enter your postcode here to check who your councillors are. Alternatively, you could email your MP, Kate Hoey, (who I hear is very sympathetic to Leaseholder concerns) at hoeyk@parliament.uk

Keep an eye out for this week's article in the South London Press which might contain further information...

[Please also look at the post entitled Cllr Mark Harrison refutes Lambeth Leaseholder Service Charge Increases. Mark Harrison (one of the Princes Ward councillors) has provided his view of what was stated at the meeting which took place on Monday, as he does not think that any rise in Leaseholder charges was discussed. It would be good to see some reasoned debate taking place about how we appear to have two divergent views on what took place at that meeting.]

Lambeth Leaseholders vs Netball...

...a little tip-off...

Lambeth Leaseholders will be delighted to guess which Chief Executive (hint: the one paid over £100k to make sure Lambeth Living hits government targets to obtain Decent Homes money) considers playing a game of netball to be more important than /staying/ for an entire meeting to hear the views of Lambeth residents views (and ensure their participation, which will help guarantee the money).

Go on... have a guess or three!

[Also, I have another huge Lambeth Council screwup to be released, but I'm waiting for a few details to be confirmed prior to putting it on the blog... Keep an eye out!]

Ongoing Lambeth leaseholder debacle

I've been leaked a copy of an email which was sent to Cllr Steve Reed (leader of Lambeth Council) and Derrick Anderson (Chief Executive of Lambeth Council), which I'm going to paste in full below:

I understand from Chris Lee's email response to me late last week that Lambeth Living stand by their estimates as Lambeth has been informed by their vendor, Lambeth Living, that all the estimates are correct and that, and I quote from Cathy Deplissis from Friday news piece, "Lambeth Living has a legal obligation to bill for service charges and Leaseholders have the legal obligation to pay thiose charges",

May I take this opportunity to remind you that those charges have to be "reasonable" and represent value for money otherwise they will not stand up in Leasholder Valauation Tribunal cases and again, this will be costly for Lambeth and will not help the organisations achieve the balanced budget by March 31st.

I am extremely disappointed that given the initial findings of the Audit Commission on the lack of response to Leaseholders' queries and request for information/evidence of charges etc, that we are still in this position and there seems to be no signs of progress to meet across the table to discuss this major issue.

I know that for political reasons, distancing oneself from the shambles of the ALMO might seem like a good idea, however, I cannot see how this will serve the longevity of any officer or Councillor as the fact remains that our Landlord is not ble to manage their property management contractor.

I can only say that after requesting this meeting, and Cllr. Pecks further follow up which has been ignored, that I will now have to email the residents who have again, given up their own time to work out their charges etc and sent copies to me so that I could have a discussion with you both, only to be let down again. I will aslo be sending this to the other Leaseholders that I have contact with as I have promised them that I will do what I can. and this failure is simply not for my lack of trying.

I am very disappointed that there are around 10,000 household in Lambeth being ignored and expected to pay for these hike in charges and the response is to pass this around and not to meet with us.

I will also be sending information to as many leaseholders as I can to inform them of their rights, under law, to hold Lambeth to account for these charges.

Yours in utter frustration and disappointment,

Steve Rice

It appears to me that Steve Rice is doing a fantastic public service for all Lambeth leaseholders. Remember, the inflated leaseholder bills are an issue across the whole Borough, and are not exclusive to SE11.

If progress on the issue (in the form of public meetings, and so on) is not forthcoming, then I will continue to publicise that fact in a way that makes it known to as many people as possible.

More on Lambeth Leaseholders

I'm getting a considerable number of hits from people who are Googling for Lambeth leaseholder charges. Please do keep the comments coming in. It's part of this blog's function to enable local people to have online contact with one another in order to build real life contacts, and hopefully strengthen our community.

In further news, the BBC published an article at lunch time today about the deteriorating relationship between Lambeth Living and the leaseholders here. Some of you might recognise the cheeky chappy in the picture!

[Edit 27/6/2009]: There is a video link to the BBC article now as well. Click here to view the clip which appeared on the BBC news. It's very interesting, and shows local people arguing that it would make more sense to move out, rent somewhere else and lease their properties back to Lambeth Council. I felt rather sorry for the Chief Executive of Lambeth Living, since her arguments about improving the way that they "capture" information on service charges clearly don't stack up against complaints that work stated on the bills has never actually been performed!

One commentator has linked to an article from Inside Housing, which details a massive catalogue of Lambeth Housing's failures from 2005 here.