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FTHN: From the Hornets Nest

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FRANCO!

Notting Hill Genesis is a mess and this above is its CEO, messy looking Patrick Franco, Franco’s previous job was at Foxtons, the estate agent-an estate agency which attracted much controversy

Chaos seems to reign at NHG. Interventions by regulators and floods of complaints from angry tenants and owners. It is time the government stepped in.

Here is just a brief synopsis of that chaos

Notting Hill Genesis (NHG), a major London housing association, has faced significant controversy regarding, severe, chronic repair delays, widespread errors in service charges (including charging tenants for non-existent services), and, as detailed in the Social Housing Action Campaign report, a failing grade from the Regulator of Social Housing regarding tenant safety and service quality. 

Key controversies and issues surrounding Notting Hill Genesis include:

  • Service Charge Failures: Residents reported significant errors in service charge notices, including instances where residents were charged for services not provided, such as a lift in a building that only had stairs. NHG apologized for “incorrectly apportioned” costs after residents faced potential, unjustified, thousands-of-pounds increases.
  • Housing Ombudsman Findings: The Housing Ombudsman has documented cases of maladministration, including serious failures to handle complaints, address damp/mould, and manage repairs after sewage floods.
  • Poor Conditions and Management: Tenants have raised concerns over long-term disrepair, such as mold and pest infestations, alongside accusations of implementing “poor doors” to separate tenants.
  • Failed Regulatory Rating: The Regulator of Social Housing downgraded NHG to a ‘G3’ grade, indicating a failure to meet governance requirements and a need for major improvements in risk management.
  • Misleading Advertising: The Advertising Standards Authority previously ruled against NHG for overstating the benefits of their shared ownership schemes.
Post Views: 100

21 responses to “FRANCO!”

  1. witheld Avatar
    witheld

    I am disabled have been sexual assaulted, physically assaulted twice, racially abused. Police intervention. NHG, Housing Officers, Management are clearly above the UK Housing Laws period. They do not adhere to any Government guidances, or any housing Laws. Living in NHG, I have no human rights, housing rights and just a prisoner in their property. I have had 2 attempts at ending my life, just to GET OUT of NHG. NHG DORS GIVES A SHIT THEY ONLY WANT MONEY. THEY ARE A LOAN ******HOUSING ASSOCIATION. THEY SHOULD NOT BE GETTING CONTRACTS

    Reply
  2. Avatar
    Anonymous

    Service charge accounting was dire at the Kensington and Chelsea TMO too.

    Now remember, they even reinstated charging rent six months after the fire at Grenfell Tower for homes that were no more.

    Reply
    1. The most unremarkable and foolish kind Avatar
      The most unremarkable and foolish kind

      The people who work in social housing would be unemployable anywhere else. Even worse are those tenants who are puffed up with their own self importance who find their way on to social housing governance boards – now, they really do take the biscuit.

      Why didn’t the KCTMO sack the person responsible for operations when they recharged rent for homes that were uninhabitable six months after the Grenfell fire?

      Reply
      1. What a shower Avatar
        What a shower

        “Those tenants who are puffed up with their own self importance and who find their way on to social housing governance boards” are usually low ability people who rubber stamp the decisions put up by the HA’s Executive Officers. I would not have employed any of the KCTMO shower in my business.

        Would you employ:-

        Robert Black,
        Sasha Jevans,
        Peter Maddison,
        Yvonne Birch, whom I understand got a pension top top because she left KCTMO two years prior to retirement age.

        Reply
        1. Avatar
          Anonymous

          Just what did Kensington’s Councillors think they were doing allowing so many incompetent people to run the Tenant Mismanagement Organisation? I used verb “to run” instead of the verb “to work” because no one did any work at the TMO.

          Reply
  3. Avatar
    Anonymous

    Notting Hill Genesis must now be the one of the most incompetent housing providers in the country.

    Reply
  4. The Leather Geezer Avatar
    The Leather Geezer

    How this Franco bloke got a top job at Notting Hill Genesis beats me.

    Did this scruffy, unshaven, leather geezer wear a suit when he was at Foxtons, the estate agent which attracted much controversy but somehow did “great business.” By “great business,” they made a lot of money but there again so did Wonga back in the day.

    Does Franco have the Institute of Housing examinations or a degree in a housing related discipline? Or did he did he go to Art School?

    I remember Foxtons putting a for sale board up in Alastair Campbell’s garden when they had no instructions to sell his property. They sent a big bunch of flowers to his wife to say sorry. That may have been before Franco’s time.

    Reply
  5. Notting Hill resident Avatar
    Notting Hill resident

    NHG’s roots lie in the 1960s as Notting Hill Housing (social enterprise and registered charity) and Paddington Churches Housing Association, both set up to provide reasonable and affordable homes for local working people in London.

    The bloated conglomerate that is NHG is now pretty much as far as it is possible to be from those roots – they have over the years morphed into what is essentially a property development company (look up NHG Homes), building primarily for private sale, or for the ‘worst of both worlds’ part rent-part buy con trick, with their residual ‘social housing’ tenants being left at the bottom of the heap.

    I note the Genesis component in particular, from the below article in the Guardian 2015 – ‘One of the largest housing associations in the UK last week announced it would no longer build social housing. Instead, its chief executive said, it will only build homes for sale, for rent at full market rates or for shared ownership. Furthermore, Genesis housing association, which owns and manages about 33,000 homes around London and the south-east, will consider selling or raising the rents on its existing social homes once they become vacant.’

    https://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2015/aug/07/housing-asssociation-no-longer-build-homes-poor-genesis

    So this family’s experience as below as NHG tenants is, unfortunately only to be expected, and there are no doubt many, many other NHG tenants (as opposed to private buyers) suffering similar neglect………

    https://www.mylondon.news/news/west-london-news/housing-association-ignored-8-months-33706202

    Reply
  6. Avatar
    Anonymous

    Emma Dent Coad had a chance to do something about Notting Hill HA when she was in parliament. She knew how bad it was because people told her. What did she do? Sweet FA.

    Reply
    1. Avatar
      Anonymous

      Is it true that Councillor DC lives in a property in which is 50% owned by Notting Hill Genesis?

      Reply
  7. The woman for all seasons Avatar
    The woman for all seasons

    Emma Dent Coad missed the boat when it came to doing something about the poor standards in social housing accommodation in Kensington. She admits she knew about the problems in Kensington’s housing. She could have made a big difference when she was in a position of power to influence purposeful change at both the Council and Notting Hill Genesis.

    Instead, she thought that “Tenant Identity Politics” was what was needed. She told Grenfell Survivors, she was “one of them” because she had lived in bad housing and she knew what it was like. I found that very poignant, I must say.

    Emma also told the Daily Express, that she was “one of them” when she proclaimed her Spanish Aristocratic Heritage which she could trace back to the day of Columbus. She is a descendant of the Borgias.

    This underachieving “woman for all seasons” who knows best about social housing.

    Reply
  8. Avatar
    Anonymous

    Socialists are not supposed to be “poignant.” There is no place for keenly felt emotion in socialism.

    Reply
  9. The Corbynite Creep Avatar
    The Corbynite Creep

    EDC ” missed the boat” when it came to doing something about Council housing conditions when she was in parliament. But she was on board when it came to crawling to Corbyn. Here is an extract from her Wiki page –

    She tweeted, “the Prime Minister Theresa May was ‘ugly’ due to her ‘ugly thoughts’, whereas Jeremy Corbyn had ‘good thoughts’ and was ‘lovely’. Conservative MP George Freeman said: “The re-appearance of misogyny and racial prejudice in Corbyn’s Labour Party isn’t a surprise.”

    “Due” is an adjective, she should have said, ‘owing to.’

    Reply
  10. Avatar
    Anonymous

    EDC is a pathetic, detestable, creep.

    Franco is useless.

    Reply
  11. Julie Waxmann Avatar
    Julie Waxmann

    I did not think Jeremy Corbyn was “lovely” with only good thoughts.

    In 2009, this “lovely” antisemite said,

    “It will be my pleasure and honour to host an event in parliament where our friends from Hezbollah will be speaking. I’ve also invited our friends from Hamas to come and speak as well”.

    I know Dent Coad is politically unaware but I did not know she was a such an incredibly stupid woman.

    Reply
    1. Avatar
      Anonymous

      Don’t worry, Julie, EDC is no longer a councillor and she is not standing for election in 2026. After suffering a humiliating defeat at General Election in 2024 (and a lost deposit,) she knows Corbynism has no future in any of Kensington and Chelsea’s pleasant wards.

      Reply
      1. Avatar
        Anonymous

        Who needs enemies with Franco and Dent Coad fighting the good fight for social tenants in Kensington? She is doing another book about Grenfell and wants to devote her time to that; very praiseworthy. It is a good way of saving face and avoiding another serious electoral defeat.

        Reply
        1. You have ben warned Avatar
          You have ben warned

          She’ll be pulling the strings of the Emmaites who have been allowed to stand again for a Town Hall seat by the Party’s powers that be. I remember Ted Knight back in the day in the People’s Republic of Lambeth. He had more power in that Town Hall when he was surcharged and disqualified from office than he did when he was a councillor proper.

          Labour voters were promised the demise of the Emmaites but alas none of that lot were given their marching orders. Perhaps, I should vote Lib Dem, the Emmaites are not for me but they will get in Golborne.

          Reply
        2. Avatar
          Anonymous

          She wrote a book for Grenfell Survivors whilst serving as a Councillor in the run up to the Labour Party deciding she was not suitable to be an MP. Her decision not to stand in order to devote her time to writing another book for Grenfell is a face saver. She did not want to stand and lose to Labour, again.

          Reply
  12. Atonement Avatar
    Atonement

    I suppose one could say that EDC has had the decency not to stand.

    She was a TMO Board Member at the time of the publication of Maria Memoli’s damming Report in to the “goings on” at the TMO. The Memoli Report exposed a litany of mismanagement, incompetence and, wrong doing. One of Memoli’s investigators turned up a potential fraud and the Board shelved the Report.

    Robert Black TMO Chief Executive told the Inquiry that he did not remember reading it. How convenient! He commented on it in the local press when he joined the TMO. He read it alright.

    The TMO shelved the Memoli Report and Emma in her capacity as a Board member went along with that shelving. The Grenfell Tower Inquiry Chairman was damming about the TMO and the Council failing to heed what Memoli reported and for failing to address matters. A lost opportunity.

    Councillors Campbell and Marshall were also on the TMO Board when the Memoli report came out. Have they hanged their heads in shame and bowed out of the election for their failures over the Memoli Report? Don’t be silly!

    Reply
  13. Ex-TMO top brass Avatar
    Ex-TMO top brass

    Get rid of Franco.

    The higher they come, the harder they fall.

    Reply

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