Labour councillor James Slater

A DAMNING Town Hall report into how it manages 10,000 homes bought from council stock reveals how costly repairs are often botched, causing huge bills for leaseholder.

The report, drawn up by Labour councillor James Slater, covered issues facing leaseholders who have Camden Council as their freeholder.

The catalogue of complaints ranged from badly done repairs, sky high bills with no explanations, difficulties speaking with the Town Hall and a maze of rules over what they can and can’t do in their own homes.

The report showed how high the levels of dissatisfaction are among leaseholders, with 35 per cent saying they were satisfied, and 47 percent dissatisfied. Only 20 per cent said they felt the council had listened to their views.

In Camden, there are just under 10,000 properties where Camden Council owns the freehold. Leaseholders pay ground rent as well as service charges that include the upkeep and repair of buildings.

In some estates it also means contributing to gas and electricity charges.

Many of the properties were bought under the Right To Buy Act in 1980. The report says the most common complaint is about repairs.

Cllr Slater said: “There was a feeling among many that simple repair jobs are often not done to their best and fullest. I have received dozens of examples of individual cases where incomplete jobs had resulted in repeat visits by contractors.”

Other issues included how the Town Hall speaks to leaseholders, with the report stating many found messages from Leaseholder Services “confusing, unnecessarily bureaucratic and difficult to understand.”

The report added: “Residents claimed of charges being too generic, especially given the amounts of money being charges – for example, ad hoc repairs are often mentioned but never explained.

“This leads to many residents requesting a break down of their service charges, including full schedules of repair jobs, but many thought if this information was provided as standard then it would save Camden a lot of time responding.”

Other leaseholders told Cllr Slater they felt they were treated as “second class”compared to council tenants and were often told that any issue was their problem to solve.

The report added complaints about anti-social behaviour were not taken seriously if reported by a leaseholder.

The report recommended a working group made up of leaseholder council officers and housing repairs department to improve communication and help build up confidence that the works being completed are done right first time and offer value for money.

The report also called for a new post to be created, making a councillor a leaseholder champion who would work with the Town Hall’s housing chief to represent leaseholders.

Councillor Georgia Gould, leader of Camden Council, said: “I asked Councillor Slater to do this work as I want the council to address issues leaseholders had raised head on and improve the quality of services our leaseholders receive. “We are committed to implementing the recommendations of the report and we will also be creating an associate cabinet member position to ensure that we continue to improve our services for leaseholders.”

The council said that as part of a housing and repairs transformation programme that is currently under way, it had also carried out an internal review of its offer to leaseholders and was developing an improvement plan taking account of the findings from this as well as Councillor Slater’s report.

The council also noted that “many of the issues faced are not exclusive to Camden” and the leasehold sector as a whole is under review with the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill, following a series of recommenda­tions by the Law Commission.