The Association's GM held on Saturday 14th of September went very well. 36 leaseholders attended and the HLA was pleased to welcome an HfH Board member who came along to observe. There was a lively dicussion of the key-leaseholder scheme after a talk from Michael Hooper of HfH. The Association also discussed the current problems with fire-door replacements and heard from two of the candidates for the position of leaseholder Board member. Extracts from the draft minutes are below   (also available to download).

HARINGEY LEASEHOLDERS’ ASSOCIATION

Sue Brown, HLA Chair, explained that there was one leaseholder Board member. Of the three candidates two were present. The present Board member, Adzowa Kwable-Oklikah, had been invited but had declined to attend. Sue Brown invited the two candidates to present themselves, explain why they were standing and what they hoped to bring to the job, what they hoped to achieve and why leaseholders should vote for them.

The HLA has been at the fore-front in fighting for residents’ consultation rights in the belief that residents should have a voice and that only meaningful consultation allows for that. But since 2016 HfH, with the approval of the Council, have been involved in a sustained attack on the rights and structures that they were required to put in place in order to set up the ALMO in the first place over ten years ago.

The next HLA General Meeting will be held on Saturday 14th September between 10am and 12 at the Civic Centre in Wood Green.

The agenda will include the latest difficulties leaseholders have been experiencing on replacing their doors and indeed their windows, the problems at the Leaseholder Improvement Forum, an update on an important case at the Information Tribunal and a discussion of the key leaseholder scheme.

We look forward to welcoming you. All leaseholders are welcome.

Please note the meeting will be asked to approve the following constitutional change:

The HLA has been contacted by a number of leaseholders recently with concerns over the door replacement scheme that is being rolled out. The cost of upgrading to state-of-the art fire doors appears excessive and unpredictable. Leaseholders are also being asked to pay large sums up-front without any certainty as to when the works will actually be carried out. The HLA has been invited to meet with HfH's Asset Management Team to try and get some answers. When we do we will provide an up-date here.

The HLA has now met twice with HfH since last August, on 28^th February and 26^th March this year. A further meeting is scheduled for 8^th May. These meetings, which have taken place with senior members of the Resident Engagement Team, have gone ahead in a productive and constructive manner. We in the HLA feel that a page has been turned and that HfH are no longer trying to get rid of us.

The HLA are very pleased that HfH have once again renewed our recognition, awarding us the full grant of £1,000 for the year. This is the second time we have been recognised since the recognition regime was reinstated following our successful Judicial Review legal action in 2017. We are also pleased that our reservations about the proposed changes to the recognition criteria that we raised in discussions with HfH in August 2018 have been listened to and that the 2007 criteria have not been tampered with.

The old Leasehold Panel was unfairly scrapped just to stop the HLA from raising the topic of the abolition without consultation of the entire previous wide-ranging Resident Involvement Agreement. Unsurprisingly therefore its replacement is a disappointment.

                The HLA continues to have concerns about the independence and procedural robustness of this flagship resident involvement vehicle. Under its previous leadership the RSP allowed itself to be used as a tool with which to attack the HLA. In effect the organisation that was officially touted as the means for residents to hold HfH to account – the RSP -  had in fact been used to undermine and discredit the residents’ group that was actually doing that job – the HLA.