www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/housing-association-linked-grenfell-tower-16165571
Housing association linked to Grenfell Tower left tenant without light for WEEKS
EXCLUSIVE: London-based Notting Hill Genesis didn't repair one tenant's rotten window for six months and still collected rent from one tenant for five years after he died
A housing association that was slammed for failing to fix a fire door in Grenfell Tower has been accused by tenants of making their lives a misery.
Notting Hill Genesis is riddled with incompetence, they say.
One 86-year-old resident was left without lights for eight weeks. Another waited six months for a boarded-up window to be replaced.
The giant London-based group even collected rent totalling £41,504 from one man for five years after he died.
They claimed the bank refused to cancel the standing order without a death certificate which they were “unable to obtain”
In another instance NHG collected £26,416 after a tenant had moved out.
It has received almost £7million in overpayments yet to be paid back.
Local MP Emma Dent Coad said: “Overpayments have been noted and brought to their attention and they have failed to repay and apologise. I find that shocking. They have not stepped up.”
The Labour MP warned it was only a matter of time before someone died because of delays in vital repair work.
She claimed NHG warned one tenant not to contact MPs if they wanted repairs done.
Mrs Dent Coad said: “They have a casual attitude to the way they are destroying people’s lives. There is a culture of disdain and bullying from many housing associations at the moment but particularly from Notting Hill Genesis.
“There is a culture of seeing tenants as the little people. They would never see them as serving the tenants who pay their wages.
NHG was criticised at the public inquiry into the 2017 Grenfell fire that killed 72 people for failing to fix a fire door. Police tests found that the 100 fire doors resisted flames for 15 minutes, half the time required by building regulations.
The Sunday People spoke to tenants who accused NHG, a registered charity, of being slow to carry out repairs.
In the shadow of Grenfell, Patricia Bishop, 50, a school caterer, spent almost eight weeks over Christmas with no mains lights after a leak in an upstairs flat shorted the electrics.
She said the leak was not fixed for two years.
Ms Bishop, who is the sole carer for her father Julius, 86, said: “My father couldn’t see to wash himself or clean himself after he’d been in the toilet.”
She added: “When our upstairs neighbour has a bath, her used water runs into my bathroom. One time I was in the bath and had to jump out because all this dirty water ran down on top of me.
“I now have a system with the lady above us, where she tells me when she is having a bath and I keep out of my bathroom.”
Molly Ayton, 65, an NHG tenant in Maida Vale, said that when her window became rotten it was boarded up for six months without a replacement
On another occasion, fist-sized lumps or mortar fell down from a flat above on to her path.
She said: “No Notting Hill Genesis properties around here have had cyclical repairs for 24 years. They look shabby and dirty from the outside.”
NHG, which looks after 64,000 homes, apologised for delayed repairs and said the leak affecting Ms Bishop had been fixed.
It has denied refusing to fix properties of tenants who complained to MPs.
A spokesman said: “We respect completely their right to seek help from an MP or councillor.”
Last year it emerged NHG overcharged residents at flats in Maida Vale by more than £85,000 for cleaning bills.
They have repaid the cash after admitting they charged for five days a week cleaning when there had only been one clean per week.
NHG, which received £800million of public money in the last ten years, said housing benefit overpayments were always paid back to councils.
The group states that its mission is to “house London’s working poor, providing them with a home in which to build themselves and their families a secure future”