In December the Board of HFH cancelled all umbrella group recognition arrangements. At least that is what the minutes said.

On November 15th 2015 Keith Jenkins, the HFH Board Chair, reacted to the Judicial Review decision which had criticised him personally by attempting to reach out to the borough’s leaseholders directly by writing a personal letter.

HLA CLAIM MAJOR VICTORY

According to Companies House records Mr Keith Jenkins, the Chair of the Board of Homes for Haringey, resigned on Monday the 26th of September 2016, one  day before the Board meeting scheduled for the 27th. The HLA feel they made a strong contribution to this happening.

On Thursday 05 November 2015 the High Court in London heard the permission for Judicial Review hearing involving a claim for Judicial Review brought by Lloyd Grandson and others (acting on behalf of the Haringey Leaseholders Association).

The HLA continue to provide advice to individual leaseholders and to encourage the activities of local leaseholder groups. Recently an HLA officer attended a tribunal hearing to give moral support to the leaseholder concerned. The HLA has also been out on site when HfH have agreed to attend so that we can hear first hand how the ‘consultation’ is going.

Hopes have been raised of a rapprochement between the RSP and the HLA after the Chair of the RSP did not rule out the panel taking a second look at developments inside the Association since the SGM and since the panel’s rejection of the HLA’s previous ‘appeal’ in February.This is a step that the HLA would warmly welcome. The HLA value the role of the Scrutiny Panel and consider it  most unfortunate for the borough’s two most important resident groups to be at loggerheads. As between one resident and another it should be possible to find common ground.

Following on from the approval given at the SGM in May the HLA have now lodged a claim with the Administrative Court seeking permission to judicially review the failure by HfH to allow the Association to properly appeal against its derecognition in October last year. The Association’s position is that HfH did not adequately follow their own procedures and that they behaved in an unfair and unreasonable way.

You should have received a survey by post entitled ‘Test of Tenant Opinion’ asking you for your views on the future of the ALMO in this borough. We hope you found the time to fill it in as the better the spectrum of views received the more informed the Council’s decision this September will be.The HLA was represented at all three of the focus groups run by the Housing Futures team where the options open to the Council at the expiry of Homes for Haringey’s contract in the spring of 2016 were explained.

Special General Meeting a success! The HLA’s Special General Meeting held on May 23rd in the Wood Green Social Club was attended by 86 leaseholders, making it the largest since 2009. The meeting had to start late as people were queuing up to sign in and this time nobody went to the Civic Centre by mistake. We didn’t have enough agendas for everybody and without microphones some people at the back found it hard to hear initially. Our thanks go to the management of the Club for re-arranging the venue so that we could meet downstairs.

If the SGM is quorate it will be asked to consider making some important changes to the HLA's constitution in respect of its membership clauses. The effect of these changes will be to move the HLA from a model of 'passive membership' to one of 'active membership' without changing the HLA's basic stance in favour of easy access to the benefits of membership without any requirement to pay.