Leaseholder Improvement Group (LIG) 20th May 2010

Silbury House writes on the Sydenham Hill blog:

I managed to attend the first hour of the meeting, held at the Civic Suite in Catford, missing the last part relating to help for leaseholders in paying their major works bills.

The only Lewisham Homes official present was Sandy Canham, who took a bit of a roasting from the attendees over costs of services being unreasonable, also that numerous paragraphs were left off the minutes of the previous meeting: especially those of particular embarrassment to Lewisham Homes.

It was noted that the minutes of the meeting held on 20th May, when available, will be complete.

The general feeling in the room was one of frustration and disbelief. The residents felt that they did not have the forum with this meeting to actually bring their concerns to Lewisham Homes. The agenda is rigged and all the issues, specifically relating to costs and standards of services repeatedly raised, are either left off the minutes or not remedied by Lewisham Homes at all.

Crosswhatfields writes:

How very true, Silbury House. Unfortunately the minutes written by Ann Fitzgerald are not provided digitally, and I am not about to spend time scanning and OCRing them.

On the whole I thought the minutes of the last meeting had recorded all salient points. The problem being that all salient points require further discussion and this is never allowed for, especially if someone's point has been treated with the classic "Ms Canham will see you at the end of the meeting" (about your pointless and pathetic little personal vendetta that has nothing to do with the wholly fictional picture we want to present)...

Especially notable how Mr Griffiths of St John's Vale is treated. This elderly gentleman makes his points quite eloquently and forcefully but is accused by Canham as only speaking for himself. Fortunately his neighbours were there to back him up and point out that he spoke on behalf of all of them, many of whom were not at the meeting.

We spent the first 45 minutes just on Matters Arising from the Last Minutes and could have spent the entire meeting discussing the various points raised at the last meeting (which was about Repairs, Caretaking, Estate Inspections and Pest Control, all too much in one meeting)....The inadequate service in those areas are our main concerns and the reasons we attend these meetings.

I wanted to follow up on items recorded in the minutes such as:

- Estate maps showing which areas on everyone's estate the Green Team (ie Glendales) would be working were reported as being available to view online by April (they were not, doh!)

- Mick Duncan from Repairs had said he'd look into the possibility of providing monthly reports to TRAs of logged repairs

Sandra Canham was pleased to announce that any leaseholder or tenant who reported the requirement for a communal repair would now be texted about the progress of this repair following their report. You can just see the headlines in Home magazine now: "TEXTING GOES LIVE IN TWO WEEKS TIME"...Yes, Sandra, but only the reportee of this repair will know what's happening. No one else will. And many of these repairs are reported by the caretakers, so what will we know about that?

I suggested that TRA Reps were also texted, but what about those estates that did not have TRAs? Nothing here to celebrate regarding TRANSPARENCY.

Much to Sandra Canham's annoyance, this latter item was discussed at length, with many attendees agreeing it was desirable that EVERYONE gets to know when a repair is taking place. Canham said we could come anytime to her office and find out this information. Someone said why do we have to come to her office in Holbeach and take time out of our working week? Canham mentioned there had been special Saturday surgeries held at Holbeach for leaseholders to come and discuss their concerns over their service charges after the bills went out, but these opportunities had not been taken up. An attendee remarked that it must therefore be obvious how pointless these were.

Another attendee suggested that if that information was available why couldn't we just have it emailed to us, to our TRA Reps or put on the web? Canham then backtracked and said the information she would provide would be retrospective since the figures were only produced quarterly. We had to point out to her that we weren't after figures and costs to leaseholders, but just wanted to know EXACTLY WHAT BLOODY REPAIRS ARE TAKING PLACE.

Without even ending the discussion, Canham steered the meeting onto her first agenda item, which was providing low cost loans to people who can't afford Major Repairs. The Council had decided that these mainly favourable loan terms were not available to leaseholders who did not live in their homes (ie, rented them out). The Council considers these leaseholders to be commercial owners, not in need of financial help. They can simply raise their rental charges to cover the costs, or remortgage.

Whilst I can't help agreeing, I can see in this decision the remnants of the Council's discrimination and hatred against leaseholders who took up the Right To Buy that has been prevalent from the beginning. It's probably the only Old Labour trait of this New Labour Council that's still recognisable. It accounts for a certain attitude towards leaseholders (leaseholders = cash cow) that doesn't work for those who have bought without the RTB, or for those who did whose incomes haven't risen above the national minimum wage or are now on negligible pensions not quite low enough for benefits. Nevertheless, those with equity have means...

I then got a coughing fit and missed most of the rest of the meeting. Gas Servicing was on the agenda but I might have missed it. The idea was to make it a compulsory and legally binding part of the lease.

Ms Canham closed the meeting, thanking us for our contributions. But were you listening, Sandra?

(Written from memory in absence of notes left elsewhere so may be added to)...