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Housing association with ex-First Priority leases breaches regulator’s Home Standard

A housing association that took on some of First Priority’s homes after that association nearly went insolvent failed to check its homes were safe, the Regulator of Social Housing has said.

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A housing association that took on some of First Priority’s homes after that association nearly went insolvent failed to check its homes were safe, the Regulator of Social Housing has said #ukhousing

A regulatory notice has said that Bespoke Supportive Tenancies breached the Home Standard after failing to check its homes were safe #ukhousing

In a regulatory notice, it said Bespoke Supportive Tenancies (BeST) breached the Home Standard, which governs the condition of social housing, by lacking “assurance that the homes where its tenants live are safe”.

The notice said that BeST failed to carry out checks and risk assessments across “a range of health and safety areas, including gas, fire, electric, asbestos and legionella”.

BeST, which manages 1,350 homes for people with learning disabilities and other mental health needs, is one of a number of small housing associations providing specialised supported housing that do not own the vast majority of the homes they manage.


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Instead, the homes are owned by investment funds, which lease them to BeST. BeST makes monthly index-linked payments to these funds.

The English regulator has been particularly interested in housing associations operating this model since one of them, First Priority, almost became insolvent last year.

This, as Inside Housing previously revealed, was because of the association taking on leases where the payments due to investors were higher than the rent being received for the homes.

In July last year, the fund Supported Living Infrastructure Limited (SLIL) transferred the 35-year leases for 24 homes it was leasing to First Priority to BeST. Inside Housing has contacted SLIL for comment.

Then in May this year, the regulator made BeST the sixth housing association operating this model to be declared non-compliant with its standards on governance and financial viability.


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Regulatory_Notice_Bespoke_Supportive_Tenancies_Limited.pdfPDF, 86 KB

In today’s follow-up notice, the regulator said that some safety checks by BeST were overdue and that some had not even been carried out at all.

It added: “We also saw evidence that BeST did not originally appear to properly understand whether it, or the property owner, was responsible for carrying out some of the checks.”

The notice went on to say: “The risks arising to tenants from BeST’s failure to carry out statutory health and safety checks is self-evident and we consider that BeST’s tenants, including some vulnerable individuals, have been put at risk.”

Kevin Appleby, chief executive of BeST, said: “Following the Regulator of Social Housing’s engagement, BeST has taken steps to ensure that it reaches a position of full statutory compliance and has commissioned a number of statutory checks with independent support, a review of processes and procedures and work to strengthen the proper discharge of our responsibilities in relation to leased stock.

“Our priority is to operate with effective governance and management to ensure that we are able to provide our tenants with safe and secure homes.”

Update: at 16.47 on 12.8.19 This story was updated to include a comment from Mr Appleby, which replaced a statement that had been posted on BeST’s website.

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