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Clarion completes second stock transfer in less than one month
Grand Union Housing Group has acquired just under 140 homes from the UK’s biggest landlord, Clarion, to add to its stock of almost 13,000 homes.
The transfer in north and west Northamptonshire comes just weeks after Portsmouth City Council took on 747 tenanted homes from Clarion, with a further 71 to follow over the summer.
The homes being acquired by Grand Union comprise 54 for social or intermediate rent, 42 for affordable rent and 42 shared ownership properties.
Phil Hardy, Grand Union’s executive director of operations, said the Milton Keynes-based housing association was “delighted to be taking ownership of these homes, as this is our heartland and they sit alongside many that we already own”.
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“These are homes and customers that are well known to us,” Mr Hardy said.
He explained that Grand Union had already been managing the housing on behalf of Clarion since it was built between 2008 and 2011. The value of the deal has not been disclosed.
“It makes good sense for us to become the landlord,” he added.
“By bringing these homes into our ownership, it will simplify the service to current customers, as well as driving efficiencies as a wider benefit.”
In all, Grand Union provides homes for more than 27,000 people across Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Northamptonshire and Hertfordshire, with plans to build more than 1,500 over the next five years.
Rob Lane, Clarion’s chief property officer, said: “Following a formal consultation, we’re really pleased to have been able to provide Grand Union the opportunity to build on their longstanding relationship with these customers.”
Besides the recent sale of its stock in Portsmouth to the local authority, Clarion disposed of 445 homes to Housing 21, which specialises in retirement housing, in June 2023. That portfolio included 11 schemes across London, East Anglia and the South East.
The 125,000-home landlord has been engaged in a property rationalisation programme, selling off 1,162 homes to other registered providers in its last full year.
But in its last quarterly financial update, in January, Clarion recorded a £73m reduction in its operating surplus, which it said was largely down to it adopting a “more cautious approach” to disposing of homes in the current economic climate.
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