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MTVH residents go on service charge strike after waiting seven years for accounts
A group of more than 20 Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing (MTVH) residents living on an east London estate are withholding their service charge as they claim there is a lack of transparency around what their money is being spent on.
Starting next month, residents of the East Ferry Road estate on the Isle of Dogs will not pay their service charge until MTVH provides a comprehensive set of accounts covering the past seven years and answers a number of key questions about what their payments have been spent on.
They are the latest group of housing association residents to resort to a strike following similar action from residents of L&Q, Hyde and others.
In a letter to MTVH’s chief executive Geeta Nanda, the East Ferry Road residents said that their service charge is “too high”, adding that the housing association has failed to “provide a clear and concise breakdown of accounts since 2015”.
One shared owner living on the estate, who did not wish to give their name, told Inside Housing that they currently pay almost £350 per month on service charge alone, which is over £100 more than what they were paying five years ago. Another resident reported paying £390 per month.
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“This is supposed to be affordable housing. We were promised the charges would always stay affordable,” they said, adding that the current payments are “hardly affordable”.
As part of the demands, the group of residents are asking MTVH to provide a detailed breakdown that outlines what their money is being spent on and how estate-wide costs are allocated to each leaseholder.
One of the charges they are looking for clarity on is £145,787.92 to an unknown third-party service provider.
They are also asking for information about the estate’s sinking fund, including what the current balance is and confirmation that this money will be used for upcoming repairs, rather than these repairs being charged as an additional service charge item.
The residents are being supported in their strike action by the Social Housing Action Campaign (SHAC), which said it is also supporting residents of more than 20 social landlords to withhold service charge payments.
Suzanne Muna, secretary at SHAC, said: “SHAC is supporting the East Ferry Road tenants and residents, and others who similarly feel forced into dispute with their housing association landlord just to get a transparent account of their service charges.
“We believe that all landlords should be legally obliged to justify every penny taken from tenants and residents, and SHAC is calling for fundamental reform of the service charge system.”
A spokesperson for MTVH said: “We fully understand the frustrations of East Ferry Road residents over the past auditing of service charge accounts. They understandably expected this to be dealt with more efficiently. This is an unusual situation, and we are thoroughly committed to rectifying it.
“We have had ongoing and productive communication with resident representatives over the past few months, in order to do this. A meeting has been scheduled with residents on 13 June to give full details of the progress we are making, and we propose meeting monthly to provide ongoing updates. As already discussed with resident representatives, we are working hard to deliver complete accounts for the period in question. To this end, we have committed to residents that we will work with the managing agent to provide residents with all previous year’s financial accounts by the end of August.
“MTVH regrets the inconvenience that this situation has caused. We are dedicated to putting things right and are satisfied that a plan is now in place to resolve things fully, to the satisfaction of residents. Moving forward, we hope to build closer relationships with East Ferry Road residents to ensure not only that all accounts are regularly available, but that we can do better at responding to any future issues.”
