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The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government have very kindly extended the deadline for email responses to their consultations on regulating agents and adoption issues. We are grateful for this opportunity as the team have struggled with this campaign due to health and other issues. We have had stalwart support from other knowledgable HorNets, but still could have done with more time to mobilise estates.

SO PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD ON YOUR DEVELOPMENTS – NUMBERS MATTER AS WELL AS A WIDE RANGE OF VIEWS TO INFORM GOVERNMENT POLICY. SHARE THE LINKS FROM THE WEB SITE, RATHER THAN THE FACEBOOK GROUP AS NOT ALL YOUR RESIDENTS WILL BE GROUP MEMBERS

THIS IS FOR EMAILS ONLY. THE QUESTIONNAIRE IS CLOSED NOW. WE HAVE UNTIL 26th March

If you don’t know where to start we have guidance and the email addresses at

Adopt the Lot!

and

Enhanced Protections Response

This has been our message for some years now, regulation of agents just doesn’t hack it.

We have an opportunity to send this message to government via its Reducing the prevalence consultation which does talk about adoption going forward, but is inadequate to deal with existing estates. We will be second class residents in a two tier system if adoption is not retrospective as well. It needs to be zero prevalence!

We have studied the lengthy consultation and guidance, and come to the conclusion that it is really too long and technical for residents to complete, and in many ways does not give us the opportunity to get across our key messages.

So just as with the first consultation we recommend emailing a response to reducingprevalence@communities.gov.uk

Suggested points – please customise – the more you personalise the better :

I live on a new build/ex council/ex MOD development subject to estate maintenance charges due to lack of local authority adoption. I am a freeholder/leaseholder/shared ownership/housing association owner/tenant. My experience is that managing agents are exploiting me via this system, but that this is an effect of underlying lack of adoption and not the root cause of my unfair treatment.

[here you could insert a paragraph describing your estate and its unadopted areas. If you were a freehold purchaser were they as described when you were looking to buy?]

In my view the only route to justice is adoption of all estates with any kind of public access, amenity or benefit (such as flood risk management). This would be fair to estate residents but also to the wider community as they would get better quality infrastructure.

Government could help by making adoption the default in future via planning policy and national standards for future new builds. The conditions for retrospective adoption could be created by collective enfranchisement and support for residents and local authorities to negotiate adoption of existing estates. There will be some funding required for remediation, but I believe there is a lot of unspent 106 money which could be used.

The only exceptions would be for estates which are actually private and for the exclusive use of the residents. This group would benefit from regulation of agents and companies, with redress, together with a right to manage.

I am very worried that I will end up on a second class estate because it already has private management and is not adopted. Regulation and redress will not solve this for me. I fear incomplete action by government will devalue my home and may even make it unsaleable.

So please reduce the prevalence to zero as soon as possible.

Don’t be discouraged from filling in the government questions, but we have found them to be over technical for ordinary people to answer, they seem to be designed for industry and councils to submit. perhaps they don’t really want to hear from us. Please do an email response at least. numbers matter!

It’s important to respond to consultations – we believe the positive outcome of the CMA market study in identifying lack of adoption as the underlying problem might have been very different if a record number of 250 individual responses had not been submitted. It is vital that government gets grass roots responses. Industry have whole departments dedicated to lobbying, we do not, so we have decided to produce an email template/guidance document for you to personalise. We hope that this helps more people to respond and give an opportunity to share more individual perspectives. If you do decide to respond this way email to: protectinghomeowners@communities.gov.uk

this is our suggestion for you to adapt:

Response to enhanced protections consultation

I live on a new build/ex council/ex MOD development subject to estate maintenance charges due to lack of local authority adoption. I am a freeholder/leaseholder/shared ownership/housing association owner/tenant. My experience is that managing agents do exploit me via this system, but that this is an effect of underlying lack of adoption and not the root cause of my unfair treatment.

[here you could insert a paragraph describing your estate and its unadopted areas. If you were a freehold purchaser were they as described when you were looking to buy?]

I have read through the consultation and agree that many of the detailed measures to regulate agents and repeal the rent charge remedies would be excellent and provide solutions for truly private gated estates with no public amenities, but in my situation only adoption will put things right.

Self management of the surrounding estate is not something ordinary residents wish to take on, nor are qualified to do so. Support from a government quango like LEASE will not suffice and would not be necessary if estates are adopted. In my opinion privately managed public estates are unnecessary, expensive, harm community cohesion and the built environment. The last being due to low standards of maintenance and construction.

I am very worried that mandating adoption for future estates but merely regulating agents for existing ones will create a two tier system devaluing my property and allowing further blight on my estate. In addition, self management and agent regulation will still leave me picking up the tab for an unlimited liability. Lots of things can go wrong with land which need expensive remediation, for example sink holes and collapsing retaining walls. I am concerned that any extra management costs arising from the regulations will be passed on to residents.

Increased flood risks due to climate change in future ought to lead government to ensure water drainage infrastructure is not left in private hands. I believe it is a scandalously irresponsible that section 3 of the 2010 Flood and Water Act has not been implemented in England. SUDs are not being well maintained by most private managers, who are not accountable to the whole local community for flood prevention.

I strongly urge you to refocus on abolishing private management rather than propping up a system which is inappropriate and unjust for estates with public infrastructure. The measures discussed in the consultation will be beneficial for residents of private gated communities, but not for me and my neighbours.

We intend to produce guidance on the second consultation which is about more adoption very shortly. Watch this space!