Regulator threatens two social landlords with deregistration
The Regulator of Social Housing has warned two landlords they face removal from its register of accredited providers.
Regulatory notices have been sent to St Andrews Community Housing Association and Kinsman Housing and each has 16 days to make representations.
The regulator said being a registered social housing provider brought with it requirements to meet regulatory standards.
St Andrews and Kinsman are both small providers “which are in serious and persistent breach of the regulator’s standards”.
Each owns and manages social homes where material controls and beneficial interest fall to a third party, as a result of which the regulator “continues to have serious concerns about each provider’s financial viability and weak governance arrangements”.
Neither had taken adequate action in response to enforcement notices from the regulator in February 2023.
The regulator said it had “assessed that St Andrews and Kinsman are unable to demonstrate that they meet eligibility criteria for registration.
“They do not have adequate control over their social housing assets, putting them at undue risk, which means they are unable to sustain their financial viability on an ongoing basis as required”.
The regulator said both “remain in breach of the governance and financial viability standard”, were unable to demonstrate that they could sustain on-going viability and so could not meet the registration criteria.
Jonathan Walters, deputy chief executive at the regulator, said: “We have used a range of regulatory and enforcement powers to make St Andrews and Kinsman address their issues, but they have been unable or unwilling to do so. As a result, we have notified each provider of our intention to remove them from the register of social housing providers.”
Kinsman owns and manages 31 units of social housing including eight in shared ownership and St Andrews only four units, one in shared ownership.
Neither landlord responded to requests for comment.
Mark Smulian
