Can a Housing Association do this?
Discussion
I own my current flat and have lived there for ~6 years. The flats in the block that I am in are all privately owned. The block opposite is owned by a Housing Association (Moat Homes) and is occupied by their tenants. I pay ground rent to Moat (£85 per month).
Since moving in, there has been a plethora of household items either flytipped in our communal car park (which my living room looks on to), or placed in the communal bin store which, on bin collection day the bin men have to remove to get the bins out (fair enough) and then leave outside the bin store in the same communal car park.
If I don't call the housing association/council the items will remain there for weeks without being touched. This week, a Fridge Freezer & 3 piece suite was fly tipped in the car park...
A day or so after it appeared I noticed this on the fridge freezer...
My question is, can they make all tenants pay for this? The area is open (not within secure gates etc) so anyone could just dump their stuff there. There is no CCTV.
Since moving in, there has been a plethora of household items either flytipped in our communal car park (which my living room looks on to), or placed in the communal bin store which, on bin collection day the bin men have to remove to get the bins out (fair enough) and then leave outside the bin store in the same communal car park.
If I don't call the housing association/council the items will remain there for weeks without being touched. This week, a Fridge Freezer & 3 piece suite was fly tipped in the car park...
A day or so after it appeared I noticed this on the fridge freezer...
My question is, can they make all tenants pay for this? The area is open (not within secure gates etc) so anyone could just dump their stuff there. There is no CCTV.
Edited by Avidfanofstuff on Thursday 21st May 09:50
Thank you for all of the replies. In particular this one...
TooMany2cvs said:
All leaseholders, yes. It's one of the things that the service charge is for.
If you owned your own house and garden, and somebody unknown (might be a neighbour, might be your kids, might be somebody else entirely) dumped a sofa in your drive, who would be responsible for disposal of it? You. There's no real difference. Because this "drive" is shared by various households, the cost is shared amongst all the households, and responsibility is taken on by the people you employ (through the service charge) to maintain the common areas. The only difference between the owner-occupied and let flats is that the tenants don't much care, because their rent doesn't change to reflect increases in the service charge - whether their landlord is the HA or a private owner.
The fact that the freeholder and management company are the same organisation, or that they're social landlords of half the flats, is irrelevant. The hat they're wearing here is that of management company, who you employ through your service charge to maintain the estate.
I will admit that I was seeing this from an incorrect and very naive angle. Thank you for taking the time to explain the situation. The management company are coming to see me in the next few weeks to discuss options of dealing with the recurring issue (maybe with the use of some CCTV) so it's good that they are willing to discuss it with a view to helping. Will see how it goes. If you owned your own house and garden, and somebody unknown (might be a neighbour, might be your kids, might be somebody else entirely) dumped a sofa in your drive, who would be responsible for disposal of it? You. There's no real difference. Because this "drive" is shared by various households, the cost is shared amongst all the households, and responsibility is taken on by the people you employ (through the service charge) to maintain the common areas. The only difference between the owner-occupied and let flats is that the tenants don't much care, because their rent doesn't change to reflect increases in the service charge - whether their landlord is the HA or a private owner.
The fact that the freeholder and management company are the same organisation, or that they're social landlords of half the flats, is irrelevant. The hat they're wearing here is that of management company, who you employ through your service charge to maintain the estate.
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