The transfer of 1300 homes from the ALMO – First Choice Homes Oldham – to Villages Housing Association must be completed by March 2004. However, a tenant ballot due last month has been postponed until June at the earliest. This delay will make it extremely difficult to meet the March deadline.
Hugh Broadbent, chief executive of First Choice Homes, said that if the deadline were missed by even as little as one week, the HRA subsidy would not be recalculated to take account of the stock lost in the transfer.
Instead, the ALMO would be considered as in receipt of rent on the 1300 properties on the Fitton Hill estate for the whole financial year beginning next April.
It is understood that negotiations between the council and the housing association have taken longer to complete than expected.
Broadbent said: "The bureaucracy of having a cut-off at the end of the financial year doesn't make things easy. We are trying to make a mixed approach stand up and this is an arbitrary deadline that threatens its fundability."
Broadbent added that record levels of right-to-buy purchases – running at roughly 400 homes a year, twice the normal rate – had already reduced Oldham's housing income.
A spokesperson for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister declined to comment on the issue of HRA subsidy, but added that January had been agreed with the council as the target date for transfer.
Meanwhile, John Prescott last week confirmed that 15 councils had expressed interest in joining the third round of bidding for ALMO funding. A total of £700m has been set aside for round three and four ALMOs.
The councils have yet to be named, but it is understood that the total number of properties involved could reach 300,000.
Source
Housing Today
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