Issue - meetings

To consider any items admitted at Item 3 above.

Before entering the exempt part of the meeting, the Cabinet Member for Housing and Estate Renewal provided the following information in response to concerns that had been raised by a Love Lane Leaseholder for Cabinet to note and consider, prior to considering the exempt report on Housing Options at 500 White Hart Lane to support the High Road West Scheme.

• This report was about maximising housing choice for Love Lane leaseholders- something the Council had committed to do in the HRW Leaseholder Guide.

• The Council could not offer old homes for new, but we can try and make these homes affordable through the equity loan arrangements. No interest was paid on the unowned equity.

• The leaseholders’ properties were valued independently to ascertain the market value and an arbitration process is available if needed. The 500 WHL properties cannot be sold for under market value, but the equity loan offer could make them affordable to leaseholders.

The following responses were provided to the specific concerns raised:

• The Council is building replacement homes at High Road West for leaseholders that wish to move into them and will consult residents in the autumn on the HRW Leaseholder Offer which provides a number of rehousing options, including equity loans and leasehold swap.
• The leaseholders’ properties were valued independently to ascertain the market value and an arbitration process is available if needed. This was committed to by the Council in the 2014 Leaseholder Guide and is set out in the draft Leaseholder offer.
• The leaseholders are eligible for an equity loan on a property elsewhere in Haringey to help make these homes affordable if they do not wish to move to the High Road West scheme.
• The equity loan offered at 500 White Hart Lane and on the High Road West scheme would be interest free and does not need to be repaid unless the property is sold or transferred.
• The terms of the equity loan as set out in the ERRPP are that the Equity Loan will need to be repaid when the property is transferred to another owner unless the property is inherited by the leaseholder’s spouse, civil partner or a person living with them as their husband or wife.
• There are affordable housing conditions that require the Council (or any registered provider) to sell the units according to a valuation which is less than 3 months old, so the council would not be legally able to sell these flats below this value.