Prior to purchasing the house we are renovating (it’s taking soooo long!) we rented a property from Havelok Homes Housing Association for 5 long years.
We moved there through what’s known as a homeswap, basically you find another Housing Association tenant willing to swap with you. At the time of the move I’d recently started a new business that was going really well and purchasing a new property wasn’t far on the horizon, but we lived in Newhaven (East Sussex) and so to get more for our money (and because we didn’t like the south) we moved closer to our roots.
Our plan was to move to the Havelok Homes property in Grimsby because it got us closer to where we wanted to settle (Lincolnshire coast, Skegness, Mablethorpe areas) and then over an 18-24 month period save some cash for a deposit and look for our new home.
That was the plan….
Despite my business doing well property prices rose significantly at that and so we put off our look for a property for a year or so hoping for a slow down/drop in the property market (mistake in hindsight, prices kept rising).
We eventually realised we had to buy and by that time had a significant amount saved (£50K), so in March 2006 we purchased the property we live in now (and are still renovating). After 7-8 months of work on our new home we moved in (November 2006), it was far from complete (big house, still needing lots of work), but roughing it for a while meant we could get more work done and got us to the location we want to live.
That should have been the end of our dealing with Havelok Homes Housing Association, however February this year (3-4 months after moving out) we received an invoice for £335.22 for repairs!
At the time of our move in November 2006 we had to stay an extra week due to illness. I forgot to pay that last weeks rent, though in my defence I’d been holding a cheque from them for over £1000 for over paid rent (long story) that I’d not got around to paying into the bank (left it until a few days before the 3 month cut off). Anyway, coincidentally paid the last weeks rent a few days before we received the invoice for £335.22 for repairs.
Since receiving the invoice I’ve had a couple of telephone conversations with an employee of Havelok Homes Housing Association and letter/email correspondence. The rest of this post is our dealings so far with this registered charity since it’s not right!
The invoice included this list of repairs etc….
Will continue later, misplaced the invoice!
In the meantime if others have had problems with other Housing Association feel free to comment below.
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