The BBC is making a short documentary to mark the 30th anniversary of Thatcher’s “Right to buy” policy. We’re looking for leaseholders who have bought ex-local authority flats and want to hear about their experiences – positive and negative. Have you recently had bills for huge repair costs on your property that you couldn’t afford and didn’t want? Do you feel that these costs for home improvements are justified?
If you’re happy to be contacted by the BBC then please get in touch with Victoria either by email at victoria.holden@bbc.co.uk or by phone Tel 0207 765 5985 or 07790 903213
if you do contact the BBC, could you copy any emails sent, to Dr Brian Potter (his email address is “Brian Potter” islington.leaseholders@hotmail.co.uk).
We will update you all when the programme is being shown.
2 replies on “BBC Documentary – Leaseholders Wanted”
if you want leaseholders to respond to this you need do more than just put it on the web, you need to remember that not all leaseholders are on the net. Also i think the BBC should investigate how and why the bills are so “erroneously” high and “manifestly” wrong. In many boroughs “all using the same outdated I.T System” that produces this typical result.
I pay for a garage every week in the local paypoint shop, i receive a letter to say i am in arrears. I go to the neighbourhood office whose computer is supposed to be linked to the computer at “hackney homes and the town hall accounts department”
I say this is impossible here are all the receipts, they go to their computer terminals and they say “my garage does not exist there is no such garage”. They even ask for supervisors to come and check and seven individual people type away at 3 computer terminals between them and they all say “your garage does not exist” yet i have been paying rent for it and parking my vehicle in it for thirty years.
At which point i leave the neighbourhood office.
The point of this typical demonstration email response is this
“the same computer systems across the nationwide are producing garbage “leaseholder major works bills” and if not vigorously challenged, leaseholders will be evicted based on “wrong accounts”
because the “onus is on leaseholders to conclusively prove the accounts are wrong in a court”.
It is not enough to turn up to court and hope the tribunal will agree the figures are wrong.
I also think the BBC should look for people who bought their flat, sold it, and bought a bigger property – something they could never have achieved had they not had the right to buy to start with.