This article is an external press release originally published on the Landlord News website, which has now been migrated to the Just Landlords blog.
The former Head of Housing at the Audit Commission has called on tenants to scrutinise their landlords further to ensure that they are carrying out a satisfactory performance.
Roger Jarman has issued the call in response to the disbanding of The Tenants Services Authority in March of this year. Formally, social landlords were permitted to submit performance data to the Authority, alongside other Government bodies.
Now however, landlords are no longer bound to report on the successes of any repairs or maintenance. Instead they only need inform their tenants. This, Jarman explains, is why it is imperative that tenants must ask landlords for as much information as possible.
Too much to too little
Jarman is of the opinion that the Tenant Service Authority was previously responsible for asking for too much information from landlords. With this now scrapped, Jarman believes that the methods of checking landlord efficiency have gone to the other extreme. Mr Jarman suggests that there is no way of effectively comparing landlords.
Despite the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) now being responsible for monitoring social landlord performance, they do not actively involve themselves in day-to-day performance issues. The HCA does not possess any rights to ask for information on satisfaction or repair issues.
Julian Ashby of the HCA does say however that most landlords do collect data which allows them to monitor their own performance.