We have now finalised the Customer Service Charter and Services Charges/Sinking Fund Explained documents at the last Scrutiny Panel meeting alongside feedback from members and comments received on the Blog. You can find the final documents updated by clicking on the links above.
We have also updated the action plan, we are currently 58% complete. You can also find the updated version by clicking on the link above.
Thank you for your comments received to date on the subjects and documents we have highlighted. In particular we note your comments with regards to the sinking fund and confirm that these are currently being considered and will also be shared with our customer Scrutiny Panel at the next meeting which is still to be confirmed.
The other points that have been raised in respect of the management fee and administration fee have also been taken on board. We confirm that these charges have to be split on the service charge as this is what the lease states. We also take on board our customers comments in ensuring that all of the service charge costs are presented clearly.
We appreciate all your comments and views and would like to thank you all for your time and can confirm that all of the responses we have received to date will also be considered by our customer Scrutiny Panel at a later date.
The first draft of our Service Charges Explained and Sinking Funds Explained Leaflet is now available to view in the menu above. We would any feedback on these documents that you may have.
The first draft of our leasehold customer service charter is now available to view in the menu above.
Please note that any comments regarding personal issues with service charges will not be responded to on this blog but we welcome any feedback on the information posted.
Thank you for all the comments we have received on our blog – we have considered all the comments and note there are some key themes that we would like to reply to as follows:
Estimates and Final Accounts accuracy
Accuracy of the service charge estimates and final accounts is part of our action plan- if you access our service charge review page and look at our action plan you will see a number of actions we have put in place to help tackle this issue.
Under the terms of the lease we have to provide estimated and actual accounts and sometimes there will be an over or under spend as we cannot always anticipate what extra services may be needed throughout that year, however our aim is to try to keep the estimates as close to the actual as we possibly can.
More detailed explanatory notes on services
Again this is an item that we have as part of our action plan and an action that we have completed-please refer to the service charge review page and click on the heading STATEMENT DESIGN – we have revised our actual and estimated statements and consulted with our scrutiny panel who have agreed the format- we would welcome any further feed back from customers on these statements.
Satisfaction on services and value for money
We will ensure that going forward we will have better communication with customers on issues that matter to them and improve the standards of customer service.
We also aim as part of the review to get value for money for our customers by monitoring quality of services and having tighter control of the costs.
We have started to evaluate our home owners stock where we have a responsibility to maintain a reserve fund and are producing stock condition surveys that provide a long-term view of the funds required to maintain an adequate Maintenance Reserve.
Shared Ownership and Affordable Housing
Derwent Living is all about providing different kinds of housing options to our customers whether that be student accommodation – retirement living or family homes. The options are there for each customer to choose from. One of the options we provide is Shared Ownership:
Shared ownership was introduced by the government for people who could not afford to buy 100% on the open market and therefore the scheme is aimed to be affordable- As part of the lease terms the shared owner is responsible for all the costs associated with the property although they may only own a 25, 50 or 75% share.
Whilst we will endeavor to reply to all the blogs that we get, we cannot comment on specific issues relating to individual circumstances and would ask that customers contact us directly to discuss these.
We appreciate customers’ patience as these improvements are introduced and welcome any comments on each stage of our review.
We’ve recently been revieiwing the layout of our service charge statements. Please take a look at the statement design page and let us know what you think.
We have now set up a scrutiny panel which so far consists of 5 members, however, there’s always room for more! As a member of the scrutiny panel we’ll ask you to feedback on some of the key areas of the project. We’ll be asking you for your opinion as a customer and your views will shape the new policies and procedures we put in place. You don’t even need to come into the office for the meetings as we can contact you by email. To get an idea of what we’ll be doing for the next 12 months, please take a look at the new ‘Action plan’ page.
If you are interested in joining the scrutiny panel or have any comments you would like to make about the review in general please reply to this post.
Hi,
Welcome to our service charge review blog. The reason we have conducted a service charge review is because we realise that the quality of our service to home owners isn’t as good as it could be. We now have an action plan in place which will role out over the next 12 months and we will be blogging on each point of the action plan as we go along. Please take a look at the ‘about’ section to see the action plans key areas.
To make sure we meet all of our customers needs it’s really important that we get your feedback and by using this blog facility we can keep you informed of what we are doing.
We’re aiming to update this blog every week, so please keep an eye out for updates and feel free to leave any comments or feedback.
