Your Housing Group is facing non-compliance with the regulator’s standards due to a breach of gas safety rules and risks breaching the ‘serious detriment’ threshold.
According to Inside Housing:
The 32,000-home organisation is at risk of becoming only the second association to hit the ‘serious detriment’ threshold for intervention by the Homes and Communities Agency due to tenant complaints.
The problems, which YHG said were ‘historical’, relate to gas safety issues on a number of properties. If a case of serious detriment is found, YHG will follow Gallions Housing Association, which was criticised for not carrying out gas safety checks in October, in meeting the new threshold for action if there is actual or potential serious harm to tenants.
As a result of the regulator’s concern, YHG has been placed on the ‘watch list’ of organisations at risk of becoming non-compliant with the HCA’s rules. YHG has a G1 rating, the highest possible. Non-compliance would take its governance rating down by at least two notches to a G3.
YHG was formed in April 2012 from a merger of Harvest Housing Group and Arena Housing Group.
A spokesperson for the HCA said: ‘We are investigating matters which may impact on YHG’s published compliant governance grade.’
The HCA refused to comment further.YHG is the second landlord, after Johnnie Johnson Housing Trust, on the HCA watch list of landlords at risk of failing to comply with the regulator’s standards.
In December, the Tenant Participation Advisory Service criticised the HCA, which took over social housing regulation from the axed Tenant Services Authority in April 2012, for not doing enough to promote consumer standards.