Homeowners Report 2014_Homeowners 21/10/2014 15:40 Page 1
Annual Report to Homeowners
2013/14
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Cover: An aerial view of Franklands Park, Addlestone Top right: Drifts Close, Barrowden Bottom right: Thurston Mews, Peterborough
Hello and welcome to our first annual report specifically for homeowners. We have sought your views on a number of issues over the last year and you’ve told us that you want us to keep you better informed about services and things of importance to you. We have produced this annual report as one way to keep you informed, in addition to the newsletter we produce three times a year. We hope you find this publication interesting and useful, and we would welcome your feedback so we can ensure it meets your needs. You may receive a short telephone-based survey in the coming weeks, so please do let us know your views.
Far left: St Catherines, Manningham, our large scale renovation project in Bradford. Left: David Orr, Chief Executive of the National Housing Federation (far left) joined Accent Chair Gwyneth Sarkar, and Chief Executive Gordon Perry (right) for a tour of St Catherines.
Inside you will find information about our new developments, and the opportunities we have for new and current homeowners, such as how shared owners can staircase. We have provided you with an update on our structure, and our ‘personal, modern and better’ service offer, along with a reminder
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of your responsibilities and ours. We have also taken the opportunity to advise you about the work we are doing to improve our services to you. If you have any queries on any of the articles in this publication, please contact us.
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Let’s get personal! The last year has seen significant change at Accent, with the launch of our new ‘personal, modern and better’ service offer. We have put a new staffing structure in place, with specialist homeownership officers in each of our five regions, and patch-based contract surveyors ensuring we have detailed local knowledge among our technical staff. We also have regional contact centres with staff trained to deal with the majority of your queries. Where the query is more complex, your homeownership officer will be responsible for resolving it. We are investing in our ICT to improve how we deliver our services and to enable you to self serve via our website. You can already pay your service charge and report repairs and anti-social behaviour online, but we plan to offer the ability for you to check your account, print statements and view current and historical repairs on-line too. These changes should be in place by spring 2015.
We have a dedicated national repairs contact centre which now deals with all repairs enquiries, including those to communal areas, across all Accent homes. It is expected to deal with over 110,000 calls each year, as well as 30,000 emails. We have extended our hours of operation to 8am to 8pm on weekdays, and 8am – 12 pm on Saturdays so we can better meet your needs. We have been working hard to give you more chances to have your say. Across Accent, we launched our new resident engagement strategy and introduced customer service committees in each of our regions. Resident members on these committees oversee and challenge our performance. We have developed other opportunities for you to engage with us and to scrutinise our performance. We recognise that your time is precious, so we offer opportunities to engage with us via the comfort of your own homes, as well as more formal scrutiny arrangements for those of you that would like to get more involved. Please get in touch if you want to get involved.
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How are we doing? Last year’s satisfaction survey showed that the majority of you (83%) are satisfied with the quality of your home, while 77% of you are happy with the area in which you live. However, only 51% of you are happy with how we keep you informed of things that may affect you, and only 39% of you are satisfied with how we deal with repairs and maintenance. We were disappointed to see that only 57% of those of you who responded to the survey were satisfied with the overall service we provided. We carried out a similar follow-up survey this year, to understand a bit more about why satisfaction was so low. We are determined to get these levels of satisfaction up. In this report, we have set out a number of areas where we are making improvements. Of course, implementing change and improvements costs money and it’s important that we collect the service charges due from homeowners. Unfortunately, at the end of March 2014, homeowners’ debt to Accent stood at £875,000. We have worked hard to reduce that debt and at the end of September, it had reduced to £698,000. We will continue to work hard to collect this debt. If you owe money to Accent and you are struggling to pay, please get in touch with your home ownership officer. Depending upon your financial circumstances, you may be able to claim assistance from the Department for Work and Pensions and we have specialist officers who can help you.
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A panaromic view of Franklands Park, Addlestone.
Who’s responsible? The recent satisfaction survey has identified that some of you are unclear about what are your responsibilities, and what are ours, especially in respect of repairs and maintenance. The general rule of thumb is that you are responsible for internal repairs and maintenance. Freeholders are also responsible for the structure of their property. We are responsible for the repair and maintenance of the external structure of blocks and for communal areas. The exact split in responsibilities will be set out in your lease or transfer document but we recognise that it’s in all our interests to ensure that homeowners are aware of their responsibilities. We are reviewing all of our leaflets and literature over the next few months to ensure that the information we give you is clear. We will also offer all new homeowners a welcome visit from their homeownership officer. If you are in any doubt about who is responsible for what, please get in touch.
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We are listening
Service charge review
In developing our improvement plan, we have focused our attention on your key areas of dissatisfaction. Key improvements include developing a clear policy on service charge setting, clearer service charge statements, offering meetings or surgeries to discuss service charge budgets, and creating a standard pack of documentation to inform you about charges, services, policy and guidance. We will also offer new homeowners a welcome visit to ensure you are clear on what are your responsibilities, and what are ours. We will also be reviewing how we consult with you over planned works that affect your home. We want to do more than simply follow the legal requirements. You will see these improvements implemented over the course of the next year.
We are midway through a comprehensive review of our approach to service charges. The aims of the project include:
Have we missed anything? Are there other improvements you would like to see? If so, let us have your feedback.
• Having a clear policy for the setting, apportioning and collecting of service charges. • Managing service charges in a consistent way across Accent to maximise efficiency and effectiveness. • Having a consistent approach to how we communicate and engage with our homeowners. We have recently finalised our new policy and will shortly publish it. We are currently producing new and clearer standard documentation for your annual accounts, service charge budgets and statements, which will be used in service charge setting for the 2015/16 financial year. We will also make sure that all relevant staff are trained in the new processes and procedures.
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Extending homeownership
Fulbourn The final phase of Fulbourn in South Cambridgehire is coming to an end with the completion of the last home expected later this year. There has been a radical change on site from the original ‘Radburn’ style layout with parking located away from the homes, to the current layout that encourages a natural flow through the estate and incorporates ‘secured by design’ principles to increase safety and security.
Our work will conclude over seven years on site, with the demolition of 159 old homes and the rebuilding of 258 new homes, over half of which have been for outright sale or shared ownership. Two bedroom apartments are available for shared ownership in this popular village, just four miles from Cambridge. Prices are currently from £192,450. Priority is given to those with a connection to the area.
Our work at Fulbourn has seen the d homes and the development of 258 n 6
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Left: How the homes at Fulbourn used to look, and how they look now, inside and out.
Below: An artist’s impression (bottom) of homes currently being built at Franklands Park and some recently completed homes (top).
Franklands, Surrey Having already provided nine houses and nine apartments for shared ownership in the first phase at Franklands Park, we are now focussing on delivering a further 71 homes for shared ownership in the second and final phase over the coming months. There are high levels of demand for the properties being built at the site near Addlestone and the first residents are now moving in. The homes at Franklands, a mix of houses and apartments in a variety of sizes, are due to be completed by the end of March 2015. The setting of the estate is excellent with significant areas of open space and woodland within the site’s boundary that residents are able to enjoy. Further facilities, such as a trim trail, are due to be added soon. This large development of shared ownership homes offers a wide range of designs from one bedroom apartments to three bedroom houses, all of which come with a high specification. Current prices are from £94,000 (40% share) for a two bedroom apartment. Priority will be given to people living within the Runneymede Borough.
Harlow Moor, Harrogate We have six, two bedroom apartments available in Harlow Moor, a popular location in North Yorkshire. These are due to be for sale in late 2014.
e demolition of 159 old 8 new, affordable homes.
We can, of course, also help you if you plan to move on, or increase your stake in your home (staircasing). Please direct all re-sale applications to the sales and marketing team in Peterborough. Any residents with staircasing enquiries should contact the legal sales team at our head office in Shipley, on 01274 717 500. We take part in the National Fraud Initiative, which means we share information about our residents and staff with other organisations. For more information, visit our website or contact the business assurance team on businessassurance@accentgroup.org or 01274 717 506.
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Tel: 0345 678 0590
We need to change that! We are joining with housing associations, tenant groups, and private housebuilders across England to get all the political parties to sign up to ending the housing crisis within a generation.
Show your support for the Homes for Britain Campaign by sending us a picture of you holding up our campaign notice and messages using the space below. We’ll use all your photos as part of our support for the campaign. #homesforbritain
Email: burnley@accentgroup.org
Find out more about the campaign at www.homesforbritain.org.uk
Please write a message of support in this box, photograph yourself holding the message then send it to: heather.jacklin@accentgroup.org
‘Homes for Britain’ is a national campaign to get housing firmly on the election agenda. There is a housing crisis in this country and our children could find themselves unable to afford their own home, yet housing is not a priority for voters.
We’re supporting the Homes for Britain campaign…
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