Right to manage
Housing law in England gives local authority tenants a collective right to take on the management of the council housing where they live.
This may happen where a local residents’ group believe that they could provide a better or more cost-effective service, like arranging repairs or estate cleaning, if they were to have direct control of the money that the council (via South Essex Homes) spends on that service.
The ‘Right to Manage’ has been improved to make the process quicker and less complex for tenants who want to set up a 'tenant management organisation'.
What is a tenant management organisation?
When tenants join together to manage their own homes, they set up a ‘tenant management organisation’, often called a TMO for short. Tenant management organisations, in different shapes and sizes, have been managing council housing around the country for around thirty years.
There are safeguards built into the law to make sure that a tenants’ group can only take on housing management functions if they have the support of residents in the homes, and if they can show they have the skills and knowledge that will be needed to be successful.
What do TMOs do?
A TMO is a means by which tenants and leaseholders can collectively take on responsibility for managing their homes.
Those resident members of the TMO create an independent legal body and usually elect a tenant led management committee to run the organisation. The TMO can then enter into a legal contract, the management agreement, with the council. The TMO receives an annual management and maintenance budget to pay for the management and repair duties that they take on. This is based on what the council spends on the same functions.
The services managed by the TMO vary but may include day-to-day repairs, allocations and lettings, tenancy management, cleaning and caretaking, and rent collection. Any services that a TMO chooses not to provide will continue to be provided by South Essex Homes on behalf of the council.
The TMO does not affect tenancy rights. So council residents managed by a TMO still have the council as their landlord and retain all their rights as a council resident.
TMO’s may not be right for every community but they are one of many ways in which residents can influence their housing. Success is more likely where there is a committed residents’ group with a clear sense of what they want to do and strong links with the community they represent.
Find out more about setting up a TMO
Tenants interested in setting up a TMO, should read through the Statutory guidance on the matter. Support may be available once a Right to Manage notice has been issued to the Local Authority.
More information is available from the Government’s Department for Levelling Up.
To find out more about how you can get involved with your housing service, contact the Resident Engagement Team on residentengagement@seh.southend.gov.uk
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