Leaseholders of Islington ex-local authority properties and our aim is to to ensure that Islington Council, its managing agent(s) and Partners, provide leaseholders with a better service and value for money
ISLINGTON LEASEHOLDERS ASSOCIATION MEETING on WEDNESDAY
13th November 2024 in St Mary’s Church Upper Street (located approximately 100 yards from the Town Hall walking towards the Angel.) 7-9pm Meetings are still held on the second Wednesday of every month www.ila.org.uk
Please be aware that the ILA will still be taking place AS usual…But since the Council will no longer allow us the use of a room in the Town Hall we will re-locate as above…Please watch future posts for important up-dates on this situation…. 😥 and other developments…
Dr Brian Potter said it was disgraceful that the council won’t take bookings from the ILA
A FAMILIAR face is looking to upset a council by-election contest with the message that leaseholders are being treated as the “magic cash cows”.
Dr Brian Potter, the chair of the Islington Leaseholders Association (ILA), revealed this week he will be among the candidates on the Junction ward ballot.
It is the third council by-election in six months and comes in a year when voters have already taken part in the London and general elections.
Dr Potter is furious that the council has told the ILA that it can no longer book the Town Hall in Upper Street for its meetings.
It has held one there every month for the past 10 years.
“It’s disgraceful,” said Dr Potter who says the organisation, which represents a third of those living in the borough, no longer has a place to meet.
The action came after the ILA said it was un-invited to a council-run “home owners’ event”. Dr Potter decided to hand out leaflets for an ILA meeting outside this event, and at this point was approached by a council officer telling him that the association would not be allowed to use the space.
Dr Potter said: “We’re the best-attended meeting in the borough and now they won’t let us have a room. It’s crazy.
“If they were to do that to anyone else, it would go viral.” He added that he would be “getting on the internet” to spread awareness of the injustice.
The Town Hall say, however, that Dr Potter was not barred from the event last week and claim that the ILA can no longer use the council chamber because it does not represent the council.
The ILA advocates for the rights of leaseholders in the borough and says they are often hit by repairs bills totalling thousands of pounds that they cannot afford.
Dr Potter said: “We get extremely bad works, and the cost given by the council to leaseholders is astronomical and unjustifiable.
“The council are letting the contractors run riot. The billing is absolutely crazy.”
He added that his campaign in the Junction ward would raise awareness of the ILA and encourage “any leaseholders with problems” to contact the association.
“They just see us as the magic cash cow, we just keep producing money but it doesn’t matter what you do, you can’t justify these bills,” he said.
An Islington Council spokesperson said: “Here in Islington we’re determined to ensure that everyone has a safe and decent place to call home.
“As part of that we work closely with leaseholders to provide the best quality service, to keep them updated on any works that are being carried out and to ensure that these works offer value for money.
“We know that local people, including leaseholders, know their borough better than anyone and we’re committed to listening to their views.
“That’s why we’re in the process of setting up an independent Leaseholder Forum, which will give leaseholders the opportunity to share their views with the council, hold us to account, and be properly governed.”
The known candidates declared so far for the Junction by-election are James Potts from Labour, Rebecca Jones for the Liberal Democrats, Devon Osborne for the Greens, Jackson Caines from the Islington independents and now Dr Brian Potter.
Any other candidates need to have applied to stand by today’s (Friday’s) deadline.
Islington Councils latest budget, as usual, is all “Doom and Glum” and continually pointed at the great hole in the borough’s finances.
Nevertheless, since the councils main funding stream is basically through council rents and Maintenance bills, their obvious solution is to raise the average Council rents by a whopping great £9.71p per week. This is in order to replenish the Housing Revenue account, and facilitate further mis-running of the borough.
However, strange though it may seem, whilst the borough is financially struggling to survive, the Council have also re-purchased 389 ex Council flats. It’s not to move islington tenants out of temporary accommodation, such as bed and breakfast, which costs the borough a fortune, but to be used as further…short term accommodation..!
Question, if this borough is having financial problems : – Just how/and from where, did they acquire the money to finance such a massive purchase?
Using a broad brush approach, approximately 389 flats at an average cost of £400.000 each? (and we all know, that in this borough you can’t buy a shoe box for that, much less 2, 3, and 4 bedroom flats) comes to approximately £155.6 million pounds!
Question, If the purchase of these flats involved a grant…how much was it in total?… if a loan, just how much undisclosed debt are we now jointly carrying?…and what % interest are we going to be paying?, to whom, and for how many years to come?. Which of course will be solved, once again, by simply, raising the RENTS and MAINTENANCE bills …Again and Again…
It “Beggars Believe” what both Tenants and Leaseholders of this borough are forking out in order to cover financial mismanagement…
Hopefully, the usual “Smoke and Mirrors” won’t be enough this time around.!!!
A simplistic explanation of why we pay so much…!!!
Why are council Rents and Maintenance bills, so inexplicably high? …simple, …Just follow the money!
The council state that their main funding stream is basically via council rents, and maintenance billing. This is paid into the Housing Revenue Account by tenants, leaseholders, and 4000 absentee landlords…So…
1/ Islington Council issue contracts to maintain the borough’s estates.
2/ The Contractor scopes out the work, price the job, and bill’s the Council for work completed.
3/ The Council (using 33% of the housing Revenue account) pays the tenants contribution. It apportions the remainder between their leaseholders and absentee landlords.
4/ The absentee landlords then recover their cash by raising their rentals.
Who gets this public money?
1/ Builders get paid directly by the council, come what may.
2/ The council simply raise the tenants rents, and present Home owners with a massive bill.
3/ Landlords increase their rental charges to cover their liabilities.
Where does the money wind up!
1/ Contractors reinvest their massive profits in new projects.
2/ Builders simply “rack it in” by piecemeal subbing-out of the fractionated contracts.
3/ Council reduces its gross over spending to appear efficient.
4/ Landlords pay off their Mortgages.
5/ Private tenants reduce their renting costs by flat sharing.
6/ Mortgage lenders always win in the long run, since their investment is inevitably founded in “Bricks and Mortar”.
All financed from the constant uncontrolled wastage of public money.!
Solution…
1/ Council reduces contract sizes
2/ Council stops issuing astronomical bills to pay contracts
3/ Council controls Building and Maintenance costs by bringing building projects “Back in House”…
4/ Council demands total accountability
5/ Council demands value for money
6/ Council accepts “Individual Corporate Responsibility”, as the norm.
Which is no more than what they’re already being handsomely paid for doing…!!!
ILA’s Dr Potter asking Islington Council staff Ian Swift and Councillor Una OHalloran at last nights February ILA meeting on 14.02.24 why individual Leaseholders are getting huge bills for £46K and £72K.
Dr Brian Potter, sent the Letter of October 23 from MP Michael Gove to Victoria Lawson, CEO Islington Council to the tribune this week obo the ILA.
The Tribune published it in this weeks edition…
The letter discusses the Housing Ombudsman’s Special Report condemning Islington Councils “severe maladministration rate [which] is four times the national average”.
Gove goes on “This is unacceptable. The report identifies unreasonable delays, poor record keeping and communication with your residents, and a failure to follow your own policies and procedures. You failed to identify underlying issues – instead, you took a superficial look at problems such as damp and mould. It is not surprising that, as a result, many of your residents have suffered prolonged periods of distress”
Since it was dated Oct 23., Dr Potter suggests the Questions we should ask are… Why did we not know about it until this week…? and what has/will the council do about it now that it is in the public domain…?
Judging from what I have read in the press of late, plus the horror stories which I hear at the monthly meetings of the Islington Leaseholders Association, (in Islington Town Hall), leaseholders are being unmercifully targeted financially by the council and their contractors.
Whilst the Cyclic/Major works costing are of primary interest to leaseholders, of secondary concern is the actual “Quality” of the work observed. Unfortunately this aspect of leasehold complaints is probably, due for the main part to the overall neglect of adequate inspection by the councils own building control department.
On behalf of the ILA I have frequently asked the upper echelon of the council how many surveyors do the council directly employ in order to provide a sufficient degree of control over their contractors, and even more important, SUB CONTRACTORS on council estates…their answer has always been 70…!!!
My secondary question has always been, how many are RICS members, the answer is invariably, none, except on one occasion when they corrected themselves and stated, one..me, but I do need to pay my fees, straight way…
A further question as to why were they not RICS, elicited the reply, “cost of membership”.
So, Just who will inspect the INSPECTORS. In the main, the problems associated with massive bills, enforced on both leaseholder, as well as TENANTS, who pay for the councils disgraceful lack of control by way of ever increasing rents, sits firmly on the council shoulders as result of their inability to control the contracts they issue on our behalf…
Any way you look at it…since the council use our money to pay the contractor directly, surely they must be considered to be simply a managing agent…and as such responsible to the Residents of this borough…Corporate responsibility…???
With the Leasehold reform bill on its way, its maybe time for Islington council to consider options like this.
Originally written by Jon Dean Thursday, November 1, 2012.
More than £20million could be raised for new homes if Islington Council becomes the first to adopt a pioneering scheme suggested by homeowners.
The plan, thought to be the first of its kind in the country, would see the town hall offer leaseholders a one-off chance to extend their leases by 99 years at a knock-down price. With around 11,000 people owning former council properties, the initiative could raise in the region of £22million if the price was set at £2,000 as suggested. The idea is the brainchild of Brian Potter, chairman of the Islington Leaseholders Association (ILA), who contacted Cllr Catherine West, leader of Islington Council, to put forward the proposal. He said: “The beauty of this idea is that homeowners get security for two generations and can leave their home to their children, while Islington Council get some much needed funds. “I think they will go for it – I mean, they will definitely want the cash. Other councils are raising money by selling off properties…they’re selling the family silver. “This way Islington get to keep the silver and make bundles of money by essentially selling cans of air.” When people buy a former council home, they usually buy a lease for the property for a fixed period, normally 125 years, while the town hall retains the freehold. When the lease gets down to around 80 years, it can be hard to sell or mortgage the property and extending the lease can be a costly, complicated process. The cost of extending a lease on home worth £200,000 starts at around £7,500. Under the proposed scheme the price of extending would be between £1,000 and £3,000 depending on the value of the property. The council confirmed it was looking into the idea. Cllr James Murray, Islington Council’s executive member for housing, said: “We are keen to look at new ideas like this, particularly at a time when we continue to face huge cuts to our funding by central government.
Between 2012 and 2018, JLIF which invested in 65 PFI and Public Private Partnership schemes around the world, had pre-tax profits of £526.1m but paid only paid £2.1m (or 0.4pc) in UK tax. Academic and housing campaigner Stuart Hodkinson, whose 2019 work Safe As Houses scrutinies the “corporate greed” of PFI schemes, estimates the total contract value of PFI 1 is £357m, while PFI 2 is said to be worth £421.3m.
Dr Brian Potter, chair of Islington Leaseholders Association, led a campaign to stop the PFI deals in the early 2000s. He argues offshore or tax haven registered companies profiting from PFI deals, while not illegal, is “unethical” and “insidious”. He said: “This is one of the major problems with selling off contacts. Once you have sold the contract you have no control, so there is no quality control – nobody accepts responsibility for anything wrong with the original contract. You’re just left with a money spinning machine just eating money over the years. It was the worst council financing decision.”
Islington council is consulting on the Site Allocations Direction of Travel Document and is seeking feedback until 26 March 2018.
The Site Allocations Development Plan Document (DPD) is a key document within Islington’s Local Plan. Site allocations provide site specific policy for key sites to help secure specific land uses, meet identified development needs and ensure the infrastructure required to support growth is in place. The DPD is used alongside relevant planning policies to guide decision-making on planning applications relating to allocated sites.
Over 150 sites have been identified, which could accommodate new housing, workspaces, shops, open spaces, or leisure and community facilities. The council is inviting feedback on the proposed site allocations. Any comments received during the consultation period will be used to inform the drafting of the final version of the document.
