@drbrianpotter Sadly, Islington councils maintenance policies are wasting vast amount of public funds , Vote Potter (Independent) for Junction on Thursday 28th November votedrpotter4junction, drpotter4junction, junction, archway, islington, IslingtonBC, IslingtonCouncil, votepotter4junction, voteindependentpotter4junction, votepotterindependent4junction, FITA, Whittington, potter4junctionchange, potter4change, HoldIslingtoCouncilToAccount, IslingtonCouncil72000PoundsRepairBill, VotePotter28thNovember, ILA, BrianPotter, IslingtonCouncilOvercharging TikTokPotter, NoToN1Mould, VoteNoMoreMould, IslingtonOmbudsmanShockReport, IslingtonOmbudsmanReport, IslingtonBossToBusyToTalkMould, CouncilBosstoBusytoStopMould, islingtonCouncilMouldyOldHomes, IslingtonDamp, DampIslington, PartnersDamp, MajorWorksCauseDamp, YourVoiceYourCommunityYourChange
♬ original sound – drbrianpotter – drbrianpotter
Category: Repairs
To Brian:
part 1 in an occasional series..
How I removed £1436.49 removed from my service charges.
Hi Brian,
I challenged poor workmanship on my Block using photos I had taken, 2 jobs were removed as a result and £1436.49 removed from the service charges and £93.79 refunded to all leaseholds in the block.
I have achieved many other refunds previously…. ALL achieved by attending the ILA meeting hosted by your good self and learning how!!!!!
Thank You Brian
#Islington #IslingtonBC #IslingtonCouncil #poorworkmanship #UnfairServiceCharges #Leaseholders #BrianPotter #ILA #IslingtonLeaseholderAssociation
Dr Brian Potter is repeatedly asked for the Ombudsmans ‘Shocking” report on Islington Council while campaigning.
We’ve all heard how Islington Borough Council’s Housing Chief (and now Boss) Una O’Halloran was too “busy” to speak to the Islington Tribune’s news reporter recently.
Perhaps her understandable reticence to be interviewed concerned the shocking report, which high lighted council tenants still trapped in home’s riddled with damp and mould years after the Ombudsman’s damning report into Islington’s serious Mismanagement of this Borough, (link here )
The Rt Hon Michael Gove’s scathing letter to the council which followed, detailing how Islington Borough Council’s appalling administration rate’s were four (4) times higher than the national average, and noted that IBC still repeatedly failed to follow their own procedures and policies, as reported here on the ILA website earlier this year.
Dr Brian Potter was repeatedly asked for, and supplied numerous copies of the ombudsman’s report (attached below) while campaigning as an independent for Junction ward on housing issues.
Perhaps it was this revelation which upset the council to the point where at November’s meeting of the ILA, the meeting required relocating, without notice, after the Council banned the ILA from hiring the Town Hall after 17 years of service to the Borough.
Possibly, their actions were due to the councils inability to handle any form of tenant criticism, or as others have frequently noted, their propensity for censorship and total lack of democracy. When questioned on the subject, the council simply stated that they “did not recognise the association” after 17 years…!!!
So much for democracy.!
The Landlord and Tenant Act 1985
sets out the basic rules for service charges. It defines what is considered a service charge, and sets out requirements for making sure costs are reasonable. Landlords should consult leaseholders before entering into any agreement for work or services which would lead to a service charge.
The Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 also applies to payments of service charge under a lease whilst a management order is in place under Part II of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987.
Section 18 (1) of the act defines a service charge as ‘an amount payable by a tenant of a dwelling as part of or in addition to the rent
- which is payable, directly or indirectly, for services, repairs, maintenance, improvements or insurance or the landlord’s costs of management; and
- the whole or part of which varies or may vary according to the relevant costs.’
The costs of the services, repairs, maintenance, improvements, insurance and management must be reasonable, and the tribunal may decide whether they are.
Please note: the definition in section 18 (1) does not overrule the lease. The item or service must still be included in the lease for your landlord to be able to charge for it.”
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…!!!
Dr Potter…
Chairman ILA… (www.ila.org.uk)
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…?
This weeks letter in the Gazette…
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…???
Dr Potter
Chairman ILA
read more in Gazzette
From PFI article in ISLINGTON GAZETTE this week
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.”
Read the full story here
Mayor quietly signs off funding for 34 estates, dodging new ballot rules
At Mayor’s Question Time this week, the Mayor gave me a firm promise not to sign off any new funding for estate demolition while his new policy to require a ballot of residents was out for consultation. But he was concealing the fact he has recently rushed through funding for dozens of controversial schemes, allowing councils and housing associations to dodge his new policy.
The new policy to require ballots was announced on 2 February, with a consultation on the details (such as the size of schemes, who can vote, whether independent organisations should carry them out etc) open until 3 April.
I asked him at MQT this week not to sign off any schemes meanwhile, and he was clear he would not do this, saying: “I will be signing no new funding contracts until the consultation has ended and we’ve published the final guide.”
This seemed quite good. Along with campaigners from many estates across London, and with the support of the Assembly, I’ve been working to change the Mayor’s policy on giving residents a say since his truly appalling draft ‘Good Practice Guide’ to estate regeneration was published in December 2016. A consultation on that draft closed nearly a year ago in March 2017, and the results were that 95 per cent of responders asked for ballots for residents facing demolition.
However,
I have now found out that, all this time, the Mayor has been quietly signing off funding for some of the most controversial estate schemes in London….despite promising in his manifesto to “require that estate regeneration only takes place where there is resident support, based on full and transparent consultation.”
By Sian Berry
Grim it may be, but the government’s approach to getting dangerous Grenfell-style cladding replaced on tower blocks certainly appears consistent. Credit: Private Eye, Housing News