Rob Callister

[Non-Believer]

1 hour ago, Holte End said:

Well I think he will have to, when he was standing on a transparency platform to be elected .

No just Rob Callister, but Onchan Commissioners have year on year called for a zero increase into rents, while massively overspending.

 

 

They all do. LA rents are set by Central Govt. But there's rarely, if ever, any effort made to recoup justifiable incurred costs from tenants. 

Every year there are the thousands, yes thousands, spent on repair and refurbishment of damage inflicted by tenants.

Trash the place? Fine, we'll send the decorating and/or building team round to sort it. No charge. If it's too bad we'll rehouse you in another.

Leaving the property for good? Leave it in shit state, it's ok, we'll clear the house and garden after you've gone, take all the old furniture and shit to the incinerator and get rid. Redecorate and repair. Cut the grass and hedges that you didn't bother with as a tenant. Despite such conditions being in your agreement. No charge to you.

Too much like hard work to chase it. Gets in the way of coffee and newspapers. No votes in it.

Especially when you can just dump the costs on the private ratepayers every year.

[TheTeapot]

8 minutes ago, Non-Believer said:

They all do. LA rents are set by Central Govt. But there's rarely, if ever, any effort made to recoup justifiable incurred costs from tenants. 

Every year there are the thousands, yes thousands, spent on repair and refurbishment of damage inflicted by tenants.

Trash the place? Fine, we'll send the decorating and/or building team round to sort it. No charge. If it's too bad we'll rehouse you in another.

Leaving the property for good? Leave it in shit state, it's ok, we'll clear the house and garden after you've gone, take all the old furniture and shit to the incinerator and get rid. Redecorate and repair. Cut the grass and hedges that you didn't bother with as a tenant. Despite such conditions being in your agreement. No charge to you.

Too much like hard work to chase it. Gets in the way of coffee and newspapers. No votes in it.

Especially when you can just dump the costs on the private ratepayers every year.

I'm going to disagree here. When I was living in one a few years back we moved to a larger property, and there was absolutely NO work done whatsoever from how the previous tenants left it. I patched up and decorated the whole house myself.

[Non-Believer]

5 minutes ago, TheTeapot said:

I'm going to disagree here. When I was living in one a few years back we moved to a larger property, and there was absolutely NO work done whatsoever from how the previous tenants left it. I patched up and decorated the whole house myself.

It does vary from LA to LA, admittedly. But you're one of the few. Peel Comms in particular are notorious for not upkeeping their properties. But if you're not happy with what you're being offered as a new occupier you can turn it down too.

My point is though that regardless of circumstances this expenditure is rarely, if ever, chased and recouped. And it should be.

Edited July 5, 2020 by Non-Believer
Typo

[TheTeapot]

Just now, Non-Believer said:

It does vary from LA to LA, admittedly. Peel Comms in particular are notorious. But if you're not happy with what you're being offered as a new occupier you can turn it down too.

My point is though that regardless of circumstances this expenditure is rarely if ever chased and recouped.

It was a DoLGE (or whatever department it is now) property rather than a commissioners one, so there probably is significant variation. I was really surprised, I thought they'd go in and paint the whole place white or something, and fix any damage etc on tenant transfer. Clearly not. I also found during the time I lived in their properties that their works teams were absolute shite, and it was quicker and easier just to address any problems yourself, even though it was stated in the lease anything not cosmetic you were supposed to contact them.

[finlo]

21 minutes ago, TheTeapot said:

It was a DoLGE (or whatever department it is now) property rather than a commissioners one, so there probably is significant variation. I was really surprised, I thought they'd go in and paint the whole place white or something, and fix any damage etc on tenant transfer. Clearly not. I also found during the time I lived in their properties that their works teams were absolute shite, and it was quicker and easier just to address any problems yourself, even though it was stated in the lease anything not cosmetic you were supposed to contact them.

And if they need to bring in any subcontractors it's only their golfing buddies thar are permitted to do any work on them!

[Holte End]

It is the amount of spend in such a short period.

If there are specific reasons behind the costs increasing at such a rate,then decreasing as rapidly.

you would hope somebody would come out and say.

But even last year commissioners from Onchan were saying they would like to see a zero increase in rents,

knowing that they were overspent.

Looking at other commissioners financial reports, they do not seem to have this massive spend, at the same period.

Edited July 5, 2020 by Holte End

[Roger Mexico]

4 hours ago, John Wright said:

Not much point asking Rob. He was an Onchan Commissioner from 2012 to September 2016. Those big overspends would have been planned whilst he was on the board

Is that even legal?  How can you 'plan' an overspend?  Certainly that pattern looks like some sort of capital scheme being paid for out of maintenance, though you could argue that the main benefits wouldn't appear till after the 2016 Keys Election, because that's where most of the spending is shown to have happened.  But then elections are won on promises.

The alternative is that spending on maintenance gradually got completely out of hand under the Commissioners' Board of 2012-16.

[The Dog's Dangly Bits]

3 hours ago, Neil Down said:

what's funny about it?

Plenty.  If you're a nutter.

[Southfork]

8 hours ago, Neil Down said:

what's funny about it?

Funny as in a strange coincidence not funny as in .. funny. As suggested there are probably a lot of questions that need to be asked because at some stage the rate payers are going to end up shelling out for any repairs. 

[Holte End]

18 hours ago, Non-Believer said:

They all do. LA rents are set by Central Govt. But there's rarely, if ever, any effort made to recoup justifiable incurred costs from tenants. 

Every year there are the thousands, yes thousands, spent on repair and refurbishment of damage inflicted by tenants.

Trash the place? Fine, we'll send the decorating and/or building team round to sort it. No charge. If it's too bad we'll rehouse you in another.

Leaving the property for good? Leave it in shit state, it's ok, we'll clear the house and garden after you've gone, take all the old furniture and shit to the incinerator and get rid. Redecorate and repair. Cut the grass and hedges that you didn't bother with as a tenant. Despite such conditions being in your agreement. No charge to you.

Too much like hard work to chase it. Gets in the way of coffee and newspapers. No votes in it.

Especially when you can just dump the costs on the private ratepayers every year.

But this is a year on year expense and not located in one particular parish.

I would imagine this kind of  damage is very rare and would already be budgeted for. 

 

[Non-Believer]

1 hour ago, Holte End said:

But this is a year on year expense and not located in one particular parish.

I would imagine this kind of  damage is very rare and would already be budgeted for. 

 

In which case there needs to be a full breakdown and examination of how this overspend in that sort of sum has occurred. Warts and all. And no lumpy rugs for "inconveniences".

And "rare" damage? You think so?

[John Wright]

22 minutes ago, Non-Believer said:

In which case there needs to be a full breakdown and examination of how this overspend in that sort of sum has occurred. Warts and all. And no lumpy rugs for "inconveniences".

And "rare" damage? You think so?

Having looked at the full Onchan Housing document I’m not sure it’s really an overspend. More a misallocation of expenditure.

Repairs and maintenance is fixed at 25.1% of net rental income.

over the years in the table above they’ve done the following:

Recent Schemes:
❖ Funding for schemes such as new builds and regeneration of existing estates should be met from capital costs by applying for loans through Central Government.
❖ External Refurbishment Scheme of 118 properties (School Road, Barrule Drive (Odds), and Nursery Avenue)
❖ Reroofing of 62 properties (Hackett Close, Meadow Close, Ballachrink Drive)
❖ Replacement Boiler Scheme (411 properties)
❖ Replacement Doors and Windows (Heywood Park)
❖ Replacement Windows (Springfield Court Phase II)
❖ Replacement External Doors (Hewyood Court)
❖ Conversion of the former Police Station to 5 social housing units
❖ New Build Scheme – 10 Units (Marion Road)
Future Schemes:-
❖ External Refurbishment of First Avenue
❖ External Refurbishment for The Park Houses
❖ Kitchen Framework Agreement throughout the general housing stock ❖ Electric Mains Board Upgrades and Periodic Testing
❖ Springfield Court Refurbishment/Regeneration including lift installations
 

Much of that has been allocated to the repairs and maintenance revenue budget, whereas they’re capital and funds should have been borrowed.

As a result the maintenance and repairs account is cumulatively in the red by nearly £400,000 over 7 years - they had a surplus before this - hence not higher.

 

[Roger Mexico]

20 hours ago, Non-Believer said:

Leaving the property for good? Leave it in shit state, it's ok, we'll clear the house and garden after you've gone, take all the old furniture and shit to the incinerator and get rid. Redecorate and repair. Cut the grass and hedges that you didn't bother with as a tenant. Despite such conditions being in your agreement. No charge to you.

The trouble with trying to charge departing tenants is that the reason they're departing is likely to be that: (a) they're dead; (b) they haven't paid the rent; (c) they're completely feckless; (d) they've done a flit; (e) some combination of these.  None of which will make them particularly good candidates for getting money out of.

From what I've heard, I rather agree with the Teapot and the real problem is not that the housing authorities do up the place to compensate for tenant negligence or worse.  It's that the HAs frequently hand over the properties in a worse state than the tenant left them in, having got rid of perfectly serviceable furniture, carpets etc (no doubt someone has a lucrative contract for doing the clearance), leaving the place stripped to the bare boards and walls and with any garden overgrowing during the vacancy. 

But many of those going into local authority housing won't have the finance or the skills to deal with this - they may be old, disabled, vulnerable, without much social support or the money to pay for others to make the place decent or even pay for materials etc.  These after all are the people who are most in need of local authority housing.  And yet they're the ones who suffer the most because of the way some LAs deal with vacancies.

[Non-Believer]

3 hours ago, Roger Mexico said:

The trouble with trying to charge departing tenants is that the reason they're departing is likely to be that: (a) they're dead; (b) they haven't paid the rent; (c) they're completely feckless; (d) they've done a flit; (e) some combination of these.  None of which will make them particularly good candidates for getting money out of.

From what I've heard, I rather agree with the Teapot and the real problem is not that the housing authorities do up the place to compensate for tenant negligence or worse.  It's that the HAs frequently hand over the properties in a worse state than the tenant left them in, having got rid of perfectly serviceable furniture, carpets etc (no doubt someone has a lucrative contract for doing the clearance), leaving the place stripped to the bare boards and walls and with any garden overgrowing during the vacancy. 

But many of those going into local authority housing won't have the finance or the skills to deal with this - they may be old, disabled, vulnerable, without much social support or the money to pay for others to make the place decent or even pay for materials etc.  These after all are the people who are most in need of local authority housing.  And yet they're the ones who suffer the most because of the way some LAs deal with vacancies.

All valid points Roger but my point remains, that these people (and I'm not for one minute trying to suggest that it's all LA tenants) regardless of their circumstances (your a to e) have incurred costs to the LA and little effort is made to recoup. If they were in private rentals they'd have kissed their deposit goodbye at least. Under present policy it just seems to be accepted and brushed aside. At at least partial cost to the private ratepayers.

The feckless and the debtors are therefore the winners and are therefore unlikely to feel compelled to ever change their outlook or practices in that respect? Which brings up a whole sector of society blessed with the same ethics.

[Holte End]

4 hours ago, John Wright said:

Much of that has been allocated to the repairs and maintenance revenue budget, whereas they’re capital and funds should have been borrowed.

As a result the maintenance and repairs account is cumulatively in the red by nearly £400,000 over 7 years - they had a surplus before this - hence not higher.

Someone really does need to explain this.

Should the rate payers of Onchan expect a substantial increase.