Leaseholder Update October 2019

Since it has been a while since we last met or communicated I thought it would be good to update you all on where we are and what the council are offering to us.

The original budget for the refurbishment agreed by the council was for £30 million of which £15 million was from a Central Government grant and not liable to be recharged.

Following a successful meeting of Government ministers with the RA, the MGCLG made a further grant of £9.9 million and the council agreed to put in a further £18 million.

The maximum recharge to leaseholders on money funded by the council is capped at £15,000 over 5 years under the Social Landlords Mandatory Reduction of Service Charges (England) 2014 Act (or Florrie's Law). The council have acknowledged this and offered a discount of 20% on work not covered by the grants to all resident leaseholders, which they define as leaseholders who live in their property as their primary residence and we have been assured that will include part-ownership. They have also offered the possibility of easy payment terms or as a charge on the mortgage of the property if it is sold.

Obviously we want this to go further, why should we pay for the works we paid for years ago would have never have happened without the fire? We are working to get further grants of £20 million loans to allow us to have a state of the art, environmentally friendly green heating system for the estate which would all be exempt from recharge to the leaseholders. It is also possible to structure the works so they are either considered as improvements which are exempt or that they are covered by the Government Grants. The council have also agreed to pay for independent legal advice for us.

Nothing definite has been agreed about the leaseholders yet and the council say they are open to listening to us. We will be meeting in the next two weeks to discuss strategy and organise our next steps. If you haven't yet please go here and register so you can get the details of our next meeting.