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Tenants and Residents
If you are a council or housing association tenant you can play an active
role in how your home or estate is run. There are grants available to help train
you and develop the skills and knowledge you may need
Getting
Started
This can be anything from:
- Organising Community Events
- Sports Teams
- Fun Days
- Charity Days
- organising community projects
- Neighbourhood Watch Schemes
- Gardening and Allotments
- collecting rent
- collecting service charges
- organising repairs
- planning maintenance
- making sure buildings are kept clean and tidy
Types of organisation
There are
two main types of organisation you can set up or participate in:
- tenants’ or residents’ association - getting together with others to put
views across to your landlord or organise events
- Tenant Management Organisations – taking on the responsibility for the
day-to-day management of your home or estate
Setting up
your organisation
Tenants associations are groups of people
living in an area, block or street who come together to take up issues about
their housing or immediate area with the landlord, local authority and other
relevant agencies involved in running and maintaining where they live. There are
many reasons why you may want to set up or join a tenants association.
For example you may want to:
get to know your neighbours and find common interests
find people to socialise with
resolve common problems
find out other people’s views on important events that effect people where
you live
get fellow residents or tenants together in order to get something changed
launch a campaign for new facilities or against something happening in your
area
ActivityForum can help you organise events or promote a greater
sense of community, become the community notice board.
If there isn’t a
tenants association for your area you could find out who is interested by
organising a `fun-day’ or local community activities and spread the word about
what your organisation would like to do in the area.
You can find out
more how to go about setting up a tenants’ or tenants’ and residents association
by contacting the Tenants Participation Advisory Service (TPAS)
Your
council’s housing department will also be able to help.
If you decide
that your group wants to take over management of some or all of the management
tasks there are various stages to go through. You will need to form a Tenant
Management Organisation (TMO).
Tenant Management Organisations
(TMOs)
Some TMOs decide to take over most of the day-to-day
management of their area while others may take on management of particular
service for example: cleaning and care taking. The majority of local authorities
support tenant participation and will encourage and support tenants groups.
You may also qualify for a grant.
You will need
to register your Tenant Management Organisation (TMO) with the relevant body as
either:
- an Industrial and provident Society
- a Company Limited by Guarantee
- a Community Interest Company
You will be responsible for running
an organisation and be responsible for finances and making sure the organisation
operates within the law. For more about what your responsibilities might be,
read ‘Becoming a trustee’.
There is plenty of free help and advice
available to help you as well as professional independent advice agencies who
can support you through the process of setting up and running a TMO.
We
can also help you by helping you set up ActivityForum for your Association along
with a free trial period.
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London Hub