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Havebury Housing Partnership

Your rights as a resident

This page sets out key information you need to know about your rights as a resident and our responsibilities as your landlord.

In addition, later in the spring, we’ll be launching our new customer service standards. These are our commitment to you that we’ll always deliver great customer service and put you first. They will set out what you can expect from us, including response timescales, regardless of the team you contact.

Accessing our services 

You can contact us via phone, email, social media or our app, myHavebury. You’ll find all our team’s contact details here.

You can also arrange for us to visit you at your home, or you can meet with us at our office in Bury St Edmunds. All you need to do is contact the team you want to meet with and they’ll arrange an appointment at a time that suits you.

We want to ensure you can access our services, and where we can, we remove barriers from preventing you to do this. This could mean that we carry out repairs quicker, because you have a medical condition or we need to wait longer when we visit you, because it takes you a bit of time to answer the front door. It could also be that you need all communications in large print, or a different language.

Please let us know if your circumstances change, so we can ensure our services are tailored to you. You can do this by contacting our Communications team by calling 0300 3300 900, entering extension number 7314 when prompted, or emailing communications@havebury.com.

Our services 

Here is some more information about the services we provide.

  • Repairs and maintenance

    Click here to view our repairs and maintenance page. It includes:

    • Our repairs and maintenance responsibilities
    • Your repairs and maintenance responsibilities
    • How to report a repair
    • Information about damp, mould and condensation and how to report this
    • Information about how to report fence repairs

    Our timescales for dealing with repairs are: 

    Emergency repairs – 24 hours 

    This includes loss of electricity/gas, uncontrollable water leak, loss of hot water where there is no alternative, and dangerous structural issues.

    Please note, the total loss of heating will be treated as an emergency repair and responded to within 24 hours between 1 October – 31 March. Outside of these times, it will be responded to within 48 hours.

    Damp and mould – 10 working days 

    This first appointment will be for our technician to carry out damp and mould survey and a mould wash. They will then contact you to confirm if any additional work is needed once they’ve reviewed the survey.

    Day-to-day repairs – Within 28 working days 

    This is for the initial visit. If follow-on works are required, our technician will confirm this during the appointment.

    Planned repairs – Up to 12 months 

    This includes fencing, concreting, and replastering. We always try to get this done sooner and will keep you updated throughout the process.

    Here, you can also find our repairs and maintenance policy and our damp and mould policy.

    In 2023, we launched our One Common Goal campaign, which sets out what you can expect from our technicians before, during and after they have carried out a repair in your home.

  • Complaints and compliments

    Click here to view our complaints and compliments page. It includes:

    • What is considered a complaint
    • How to make a complaint
    • Our complaints process
    • Housing Ombudsman Service details
    • Our self-assessment against the Complaints Handling Code

    Here, you’ll find our complaints policy.

  • Aids and adaptations

    If your home needs adaptations, we’ll work with you to do this. This will typically start with an occupational therapy referral, and we’ll work with partner agencies and your council to complete the works needed to ensure your home is tailored to you and your needs.

    We carry out minor adaptations such as the fitting of grab rails, lever taps and additional stair rails. You can contact the team to discuss additional support by calling 0300 3300 900 and entering extension number 7307 when prompted or by emailing supportedteam@havebury.com.

    For all major adaptations, including level access showers and stair lifts, please contact Suffolk County Council. 

    Here, you’ll find our aids and adaptations policy.

  • The Right to Buy Scheme

    If you have been a resident of ours since transferring from St Edmundsbury Borough Council in 2002, you may be eligible to buy your home through the Right to Buy scheme. You can find out more about this here. If you have any further questions, please contact our Home Ownership team by calling 0300 3300 900 and entering extension number 7302 when prompted. Alternatively, you can email them on homeownership@havebury.com.

Our responsibilities as your landlord

As well as the services above, your tenancy agreement sets out our responsibilities as your landlord and your responsibilities as a resident.

If you have any questions about your tenancy agreement, please contact our Neighbourhood & Estates team by calling 0300 3300 900 and entering extension number 7333 when prompted. Alternatively, you can email them on myarea@havebury.com.

It’s your responsibility to insure the contents of your home, should the worst happen. We’ve teamed up with Thistle Tenant Risks, who provide specialist resident contents insurance policies. You can find out more here. 

Here is some more information about our responsibilities as your landlord. 

  • Ensuring your home remains safe

    Our priority is to ensure you’re safe in your home, and there are specific pieces of law that apply to you as a resident. Our chief executive officer, Andrew Smith, is our health and safety lead.

    You may have seen in the media that Awaab’s Law will shortly be in place. This is a result of the tragic death of Awaab Ishak, a two-year-old boy who died due to damp and mould in his home. This law will require social housing landlords to inspect, make good and/or repair hazards within a timeframe. We’ll provide an update on this and what’s required, when this becomes law. To find out more about our damp and mould process, including how to report any issues you are experiencing, click here. 

    We will carry out regular safety checks. Click the links below to find out more information.

    We’ll give you plenty of notice before we carry out safety checks, or to carry out an inspection of your home. We will also arrange an appointment that is convenient for you, and on the rare occasion we need to change this, will contact you to discuss a suitable time.

    We ask in return you contact us if an appointment for a service no longer suits you, so we can allocate this to another resident; and you allow us access to carry out repairs, safety checks and other visits, so we can ensure you and potentially your neighbours, remain safe.

  • The Decent Homes Standard

    We’re required to ensure our homes meet the criteria of the Decent Homes Standard.  The Decent Home Standard was introduced by the government for housing provided by housing associations like us, or councils. This is a minimum standard, and ensures that homes are warm, weatherproof and have reasonably modern facilities. The current standard is quite old now – it was created in 2000 and updated in 2006 to include health and safety hazards – and the government is expected to review this again soon.  Here, you can find out more about the current Decent Homes Standard.

    As part of ensuring you home meets this Standard, we will undertake a stock condition survey every five years. As part of this, we will also carry out an inspection for any health and safety hazards in your home, using the housing health and safety rating system. You can read more about this here. This was introduced by the Housing Act 2004, and focuses on the hazards that can be present in homes, such as damp and mould, and aims to avoid or to minimise these. It considers the chance of harm, how serious it would be and if there’s any extra risk to residents, such as the elderly or very young.

    Serious hazards are called ‘category 1’ and include things like loss of electricity, gas leaks and a flood or leak. We will treat these as emergencies. Less serious hazards are called ‘category 2’ and we’ll contact you to arrange an appointment for this to be resolved.

  • (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018

    In March 2019, this new law came into force, which was to ensure rented homes were ‘fit for human habitation’. If a home isn’t, the resident can take a landlord to court. More information about this is available here.

    If you have concerns about any health and safety issues in your home, contact us on 0300 3300 900.

How we’re regulated 

We are regulated by the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH). Through the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023, from 1 April 2024, the RSH has set out standards – collectively called the Consumer Standards – for social housing landlords, which are designed to protect residents and improve the services you receive. The standards are:

  • Safety and Quality
  • Transparency, Influence and Accountability
  • Neighbourhood and Community
  • Tenancy

We’ve put together a page on our website that explains the Consumer Standards in more detail and what you can expect from us as your landlord. Our director of operations, Jenny Spoor, is the lead for complying with these standards.

 


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