BLA Annual General Meeting

Another date for your diary - the Brockley Leaseholders' Association Annual General Meeting. 

This will be held at 19.30 on Thursday 15 May, at the St Andrews Centre (church at the bottom end of Wickham Road). Amongst other things we will be hold our annual elections to the committee, and considering how we should prepare to the forthcoming cyclical decoration works that will be carried out by Rydon. 

Leaseholder Forum

The next leaseholder forum, held by Regenter B3, will be on Thursday 10 April 2014 at 19.00 at the St Andrews Centre (church at the bottom end of Wickham Road). Do attend to listen to Regenter's updates and to ask any questions. 

How to raise a complaint - an update

Some of you have asked how to make a complaint to Regenter B3 – whether this be on a day to day basis or something more substantial. We have previously provided a guide on this, but given that so many people at Regenter B3 have left, we thought it would be worthwhile updating it. 

One lesson many of us have learned is that making representations in person at the housing office or on the phone is not necessarily effective. Often are complaints ‘lost’ or ‘forgotten’. 

It is far better to put complaints in writing, either by email to Suzanne Ste-Croix (leasehold services manager) at suzanne.ste-croix@pinnacle-psg.com or to the housing office at 111 Endwell Road, Brockley, London SE4 2PE (though the benefit of email is that you can confirm receipt, and is of course quicker).

If your complaint is not dealt with, you should raise it as a ‘Stage 1 complaint' to Pinnacle. You then have 10 working days for them to send a response. This invokes the formal complaint procedure and should (in theory) be logged and then be reflected on Regenter B3’s (not very good) performance statistics. 

Failing that resolving the issue, you should then write to or email the Director of Housing at Lewisham Council (Genevieve Macklin - genevieve.macklin@lewisham.gov.uk) entitled 'Stage 2 complaint'. A Stage 3 complaint should be referred to Lewisham's independent adjudicator if this fails to resolve your complaint. 

The other benefit of keeping things in writing is to ensure there is a full audit record, which can prove invaluable. 

Some of you will be aware that the utterly-feckless Alwyn Lewis has left Brockley to work on another PFI arrangement. Tapiwa Jiya and Jim Duke have also left. 

Looking to buy in Brockley?

We have been contacted recently by a number of people who have been looking to buy ex-Lewisham Council properties which are now managed by the PFI consortium Regenter B3, covering Brockley and parts of Ladywell and New Cross, and who have heard of the problems that many leaseholders have had since the PFI took over in 2007. 

While there have been some problems with the PFI, our view is that these are now over. Brockley leaseholders have had a number of gripes over the quality, cost and necessity of renovations carried out during the "Major Works programme" in 2007-09. However, after actions taken forward by a number of leaseholders, these have been rectified. More importantly, the culprit - Higgins Construction - is now no longer part of the PFI consortium. 

Your solicitor's searches should note that there are plans for another round of cyclical decoration works which will start to take place in the next few years. Note that the costs of these is capped at £10,000 which, while a lot of money, is much less than leaseholders in other ex-LA properties nationwide can be subject to (and indeed elsewhere in Lewisham such as those run by Lewisham Homes). Such caps very rarely exist in leasehold properties with a private freeholder either. Regenter has stated that costs would be limited to decorative works in communal areas - so it is hard to anticipate costs being anywhere near the £10,000 mark anyway.

Be assured also that, while still not perfect, Lewisham Council has upped its game in managing and monitoring the PFI, and we believe that lessons have genuinely been learned. 

The upshot is, there is relatively little to worry about - there are of course some niggles, but these are in the same order of magnitude as any leasehold property - private or ex-LA. If you have any questions, contact us at brockleyleaseholders@gmail.com and we can point you to who to ask for more details at Lewisham Council and at Regenter B3. 

You can also be assured that there are other leaseholders to provide advise and help should there ever be any issues. Brockley and Ladywell are also amazing places to live!  

Brockley Leaseholders' Association AGM - 21 February

**Updated with venue** 

BLA's Annual General meeting will be held on Thursday 21 February at 19.30. The event will take place at the St Andrews Centre on the corner of Wickham and Brockley Roads. This is open to all Brockley leaseholders - so please spread the word. 

We will start by having elections to the BLA committee, including the Chair, Deputy Chair, Secretary, Treasurer, and five other (so-called "ordinary") members. 

We will then any issues that leaseholders have. As ever, if you have any issues you want to discuss with other leaseholders, please contact brockleyleaseholders@gmail.com.

We hope to see as many members there as possible. 

Please note that the quarterly 'Leaseholder Forum' organised by Pinnacle, and which was postponed from November, does not yet have a revised date. We expect at that meeting Rydon will give an update on their planned redecoration works. 

New Regenter B3 'Leaseholder Forum' - this Thursday 22 March

In their wisdom, Regenter has decided to set up a forum for leaseholders - we think this is about five years too late, but give them a chance... 

Copied from their new website www.regenterbrockley.com (incidentally, I'd be interested to know if anyone has been sent their PIN number - I asked for mine six weeks ago and have received nothing...)

We are very pleased to inform you that we will be starting up a new service for leaseholders in the shape of a quarterly forum.  This will be held at St Andrews Church Centre at 19.00 on the:

· 22nd March 2012

· 19thJuly 2012

· 22nd November 2012

The first meeting will discuss the new Brockley Website and the new Leasehold handbook.  From there the group will collectively decide what topics should be raised for the following meeting.  The forum should be used as a vehicle to discuss wider leasehold issues and should you have an individual issue you are advised to contact leasehold officer Tapiwa Jiya on 020 7635 1219.

I urge you all to go and be vocal! 

Brockley Residents' Board - another meeting

As if it was not long enough since Regenter B3 called another meeting at the drop of a hat, there appeares to be another meeting of the Brockley Residents' Board on Thursday 19 January at the St Andrews Centre (bottom of Wickham Road).

The Board is coordinated by Regenter B3 and chaired by a tenant, and is generally seen as a talking shop for non-leasehold issues. However, the issue of service charges is on the agenda for discussion, building upon the discussions on 12 January. Feel free to go along and make your voice heard.

Take coffee.

Link to National Audit Office report into housing PFI

As noted below, the National Audit Office published a report earlier this year which looked at the use of Private Finance Initiatives to fund housing projects. It noted the massive overspend that a number of these projects have managed to incur. The Brockley PFI is one of the projects considered. Somehow the staggeringly inept Lewisham council has managed to spend over twice as much as the original £43 million budget - on what, it's difficult to say. Looking around Brockley, I see precious little evidence of improvement.

Brockley Leaseholders - Meeting Wednesday, 15th September

The Leaseholders Association will be holding a meeting on Wednesday, 15th September in the Broca cafe, by Brockley railway station. This will start at 6.30 p.m. For those who aren't involved in the LVT, you are welcome to come and we will deal with general matters first, then move on to matters concerning the LVT.

Could all who attend please remember to buy a coffee or tea or even a cake. Then we won't have to pay extra for using the room.

Brockley Leaseholders Association - who we are

We are a group made up of leaseholders of properties in Brockley and Ladywell for which the freeholder is Lewisham council. Some of us have flats in estates or separate buildings, some have street properties. All have a common interest in demanding that Lewisham council treats us reasonably and justly. The Brockley Leaseholders Association exists to assert our rights as leaseholders, and to ensure that our voice is heard by the council.

The Association was formed in 2007 in response to widespread anger and concern over the private finance initiative (Brockley PFI) which the council had set up to take over the maintenance and management of our properties.

For a long time the council had neglected its role of freeholder, and has attempted to make good this neglect by handing over the task to a group of private companies. These private companies, with the comfort and security of long-term contracts, are not under the pressure to do a good job or keep their costs down, that they would ordinarily be as sub-contractors.

It is therefore necessary to remind Lewisham council and Mayor Bullock of their responsibilities to us, and to insist that work is reasonably priced and done to proper standards.

All leaseholders within the Brockley PFI area are welcome to join us. We hold a number of meetings through the year which are open to all members and new-comers. We can be contacted on the following email address:

Brockleyleaseholders@gmail.com