We provide housing mainly in the north London Boroughs of Hackney, Islington, Camden and Waltham Forest. You can apply for a home from ISHA through one of the following routes:
If so you can contact ISHA about intermediate rent or shared ownership opportunities or contact www.housingoptions.co or telephone 020 8920 7777
ISHA is developing a number of such new homes. You can call or email us for further details – see Contact us
We provide a small amount of ‘move-on’ from some of our supported schemes for those tenants who are ready to move onto independent living – if you are interested in this please contact your Agency.
We operate a transfer process for those tenants for whom their present home
is no longer suitable.
The options available to tenants are;
To find out more about how these schemes operate you should contact the Allocations Officer on 0207 7047348.
Go to Paying your rent for full details.
If you receive state benefits or are on a low income, you may be entitled to receive Housing Benefit. This is paid and administered by your Local Authority.
Remember, if you receive or claim housing benefit, you are responsible for ensuring that your claim is processed by the Local Authority quickly to avoid arrears of rent on your account. This applies even if payments are made directly to us.
Claims for housing benefit cannot usually be backdated, so it is important that you send your claim form to the housing benefit office as soon as possible. If you need any help filling in the form please speak to your Revenue Officer.
It is your responsibility to keep the housing benefit office informed
of any change in your circumstances, which might affect your claim. For example
if you start work after being unemployed.
If you are claiming benefits you must tell your local Department of Work and Pensions office your new address and provide proof of your new tenancy.
All tenants are given 4 weeks notice of any intended change in the rent. If you disagree with the rent which has been set, you have the right to appeal within 28 days to the Rent Assessment Committee.
Since April 2002 rents have been set in accordance to new Government policy. This requires all housing associations to use a single method of setting rents, based on a rent formula.
The rent formula sets a “target rent" for your home that reflects the property value and the average income of people living in your area. Housing Associations have 10 years (year 1 being 2002) to change the amount they charge for rent so that at the end of 10 years (2012) the rent you pay should be similar to its target rent.
Your tenancy will be assured if you became a tenant of the Association on or after 15th January 1989. Your rent is set by the Association and is reviewed annually. We will give you one month’s notice of any change. Your rent is made up of the basic rent and the relevant service charge for your home.
You are a secure tenant if you became an ISHA tenant before 15th January 1989. The local Rent Officer assesses the rent every two years. You will still have a target rent set for your property.
In some cases, especially for those living in flats, your rent may include an amount in respect of providing and maintaining services to your home - this could be in relation to lifts, communal cleaning, grounds maintenance, communal lighting, TV/satellite aerials, refuse collection/bin hire.
The cost of providing these items is reviewed annually and you will be consulted on this at residents meetings or via questionnaires. We will ensure that the service provided is efficient and represents good value for money, thus keeping costs down and helping to keep rents affordable.
Your rent does not include Council tax, which must be paid to your Local Authority.
These are not included in your rent. You are responsible for paying the water rates, electricity and gas in your property. There are no rebates or benefits available towards the cost of water charges. However, most water authorities accept payments by instalments.
If you receive a fuel bill that you cannot afford to pay all at once, contact the fuel company straight away. You can usually arrange to pay the bill by instalments and can discuss the best option for you to pay for future consumption.
If you are threatened with disconnection, you need to seek advice quickly from your local Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB: see numbers below). There is a code of practice regarding disconnection and they will advise you whether your circumstances are covered by this code. In any case, they may be able to help you negotiate with the fuel company and avoid disconnection.
CAB Telephone Numbers
ISLINGTON 0870 751 0925
CAMDEN 0845 050 5152
HACKNEY 0870 126 4026
WALTHAM FOREST 0870 126 4013
Remember, the more you borrow, the more you have to pay back. This can leave you short of money to pay for one of the most important household items… your home…don’t risk losing it!
We all have to do this to make sure that we can afford to pay all the household bills. Of course, it is important to work out how much you need to spend each week or month on essential items. How much of your income does this take up?
ISHA aims to provide residents with good standard of accommodation and an
efficient maintenance service whilst keeping rents affordable.
Being able to do this depends on our ability to collect the amount of rent
due to us. If you are having problems in keeping up with rent you must contact
your Revenue Officer straight away. He/she will try and help you. You can
also get advice from the Citizens Advice Bureau or a local Law Centre.
In the case of persistent arrears or where ISHA feels a reasonable effort is not being made to reduce arrears, legal proceedings will be taken. This could result in you losing your home.
You may be experiencing some delays in the length of time it is taking for your claim to be assessed. Whilst we appreciate this and will liaise with the Local Authority to speed up the assessment, we are still obliged to follow our rent recovery procedures.
It is important therefore, that if you are waiting a long time for your claim to be processed, you ring, visit, or complain (formally if necessary) to your local benefits office.
It is also very important that you ask for a receipt when handing over any documents at the benefit office. Click to download a Budget Plan.
ISHA has a lettable standard. This sets out the standard that ISHA properties will meet when they are let to new tenants.
The intention of the standard is to strike a balance between ensuring that the property is safe, clean and in a reasonable state of repair and the need to let the properties as quickly as possible to reduce rent loss.
We will endeavour to undertake all works before the tenant moves into the property, but where works are not of an urgent nature, the Association may give an undertaking to carry them out after the tenant has moved in. In those cases, a target time for completion will be given.
Please click here to download the full document.
Getting It Right ... Our Complaints Form
ISHA aims to provide a high quality service but recognises that there may
be occasions when residents are not happy about something and if this is
the case, it is important for us to know so that we can sort the matter
out.
Please click here to view our Complaints Policy.
The complaints procedure also gives us the opportunity to monitor the quality
of service we provide so that we can continually work to improve it.
If you wish to make a complaint, please download our Complaint Form, and
return this by post to: ISHA, 102 BLACKSTOCK ROAD, LONDON, N4 2DR.
You can also email your complaint to isha@isha.co.uk.
Alternatively, you may contact your Tenancy Services Manager, or any other officer who was been dealing with your initial enquiry, in order to lodge your complaint. They will deal with your complaint and also explain to you how the process works.
You can also contact the office at any time to request a copy of our complaints policy and a complaints form. Our complaints policy will explain how to make a complaint, how we will deal with it and what will happen if your complaint is upheld.
Officers investigating your complaint will address your concerns, fairly, sensitively and confidentially.
If you have made a complaint ISHA would be grateful on your feedback because the information that you provide will help us to improve our services. To download a complaint feedback form that you can then email to us as an attachment please click here.
If you feel that you have exhausted ISHA’s complaints procedure yet still feel your concerns have not been adequately resolved you can complain to the Housing Ombudsman. Service at:
Housing Ombudsman Service
Norman House
105-109 Strand
London WC2R 0AA
