Housing association saying I’m unreasonable I don’t think I am !!!

Well we all have to deal with this sort of thing. It isn’t exclusive to social housing tenants. Keep your DC off school as a PP suggested. Not really worth all this drama.

Standard for this sort of thing.

Either you book the children into before school or after school club that day, or you just keep them off.

My husband works with HA’s and he said quote ‘they will absolutely do nothing about it’ they can’t take you to court when they are being unreasonable and not making adjustments to your personal commitments. I would explain that you are unable to be at home between XYZ and let them give you an alternate slot. You aren’t able too ‘book off work’ when it’s childcare, they quite rightly come first. Plus you’ll be getting fines from school if you don’t take them! You can’t win.

It may not be down to the HA, it may be the contractor.

My council's contract with the contractor for most work is that they will offer morning or afternoon appointments. If they specified a different range of times in the tender, the contract price would go up.

I was an HA housing officer for 7 years. The HA was a specialist provider for tenants who were vulnerable because of MH issues or LDs. Because of the vulnerability of the tenants, they decided to offer more specific 3-hour time slots, and it meant that the contract cost more than it would have done.

Even with specific time slots, there were still cases where we had to get a court order to enforce entry, because tenants either weren't there or wouldn't let contractors in.

Having said that, if you know who the contractor is OP, you could give them a call and see if they'd be willing to specify a time after 9.30 or whatever. They might well prefer that to having a wasted journey.

Do you have a Housing Officer (HO)? It sounds like your HA are undertaking planned maintenance works.
If this is the case you should have a Resident Liaison Officer (RLO), who is directly employed by the contractor undertaking the works. The RLO is essentially your 1st point of contact in respect of the works and in terms of them meeting their customer obligations they have to work with you to find a suitable appointment time. Have you discussed this with them?
You should have received a leaflet with their contact details pre the works commencing.

Where they cannot provide you with a specific slot they should be able to advise you on how many hours they estimate they may need on a given day, allowing you to advise on a late morning/ early afternoon appointment.

Your HA is obligated to ensure the contractors provide you with the necessary provisions to meet the necessary appointments, more so as your child/ren have additional needs and the Housing white paper advises all housing providers, must level the playing field so to speak for all customers, mandating that they work with you to ensure you receive the same services/ considerations as others. (Provided your HA are aware of your specific needs, they are in breach).

You should email the RLO, and include your HO, your ward MP and Cllr and ensure you include your HA's main customer service email address.

List your previous requests on the same and whether you received a response as well as what the response was.
Ask them to work with you to complete the necessary works and ensure you remain professional throughout your email.

I hope this helps.

Or if you know what company the contractor is from, maybe speak to them directly to explain

I've lived in Council social housing, and I believe the "someone there to let them in" is because only a person over 18 can let them in/sign if needed. I've never had a problem leaving them in the house though to do school pick up. Could you ask your HA to ask the contractor to call when they're on their way? Most contractors are reasonable and understanding, and they'd rather speak to the tenant to hear they are only a few mins away, rather than turn up and no-one there.
Saying that though, my mum, and my stepson and family both live in HA, and my mum has had to take whole days off work before! HA can be a nightmare tbh!

She clearly doesnt want them home for an extra day because thats a straight forward solution.
Id take an afternoon slot and pick them up early for "the dentist", its honestly not as hard as being made out!

Missed your comment. I have said exactly the same thing below. Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill. This is so easily fixed.

If they are reliable and you know they will turn up on the specified day, call the kids in sick and let them stay home. At least you will get it over and done with.

It works the same way even if you own your own house. The folks doing the work don’t know when they’ll be at your property unless you’re their first job of the day. Their insurance / company policy won’t let them work alone in your home in case you accuse them of theft / damage. I work full time and have a young child at school so I understand how unfair it feels but it’s just the way it is.

I work for a HA and we have a school run time slot which is from 9.30 to 2.30 appointments,so parents can book that. Surprised your HA don't do the same.

You are being unreasonable. You are rejecting suggestions made on here as to how to solve this. It's for you to solve and you will need to do so, just like you need to solve all life's other problems, which could be a lot worse than this one. Do you suffer with anxiety? Because the way you are rejecting every possibility suggests that you may be struggling to be flexible and find a creative solution to the problem. Perhaps you need to rigidly stick to the same routine all the time to create a feeling of safety? I am obviously just speculating but it is striking how difficult you are finding it to solve this problem that is annoying but not that difficult.

This. We run a firm that works for a couple of HAs, it is nigh on impossible to specify times for exactly this reason.

As a one off, if be arranging for someone else to do the school run.

If it is an external service provider, the HA are probably charged an abortive visit fee each time the firm turns up and cannot carry out the work, so the HA will be keen to minimise this.

Oh for gods sake not rocket science

just say both kids a little under the weather, don’t say temperature or sickness and have them go back the next day.

problem solved - really not hard

I've hired private contractors before I always say can you come after school run time please? And they say yes

As does my housing association usually we have had a few set toos over the years but not many because for the most part they understand people need to be in for the work to happen and it's just wasting time when we arnt

Breakfast club

im
sure you say it’s full

you don’t seem to want to make the appointment

what would you do if it was something you had purchased and was being delivered during these time slots and you missed the first 2 of 3

That's half the problem though, if you don't know you've got the appointment, how do you do that? And even if you do, and take the reasonable step of doing that, and you're told nope, that's when it's happening and that's that, what then?
Because that's my experience. As a shift worker who has days off during the week.
HA tenants aren't all trying to be 'uncooperative and obstructive' but it helps if they are given the opportunity to be bloody cooperative in the first place!

i work nearly every day, dh also had a morning job which meant he got home at about 9 am
we asked them to avoid school run
it was a totally reasonable request

Paramedics and other frontline NHS staff usually have shift patterns that have days off in the week, sometime 4 or 5 in a row. I’d worry about a professional persons organisational skills if they couldn’t ring up and say - I can’t do that date but I’m available all day on this day, this day or that day.

that is a bit unnecessary imo

Kinda exactly rhe same as people in non HA houses. Make a plan the world doesn't revolve around you.

It's a bit obvious they can't let themselves in, what if they get accused of stealing cmon use your brain. And yes they can take action usually by kicking you out or warning then a final one because they have tried to fix a job more than once and if they don't legally services etc if not up to date the housing association will get in trouble by law. Happened a lady on our street she just refused to let them in to do a boiler service and she got a final warning and was laughing about it saying they wouldn't do anything and 3 weeks ago she was removed all because she wouldn't let them in to do the yearly legal gas certificate which tbh is very important to anyone surely anyway

we always ask them to avoid the school run, no problem