A major Scottish landlord is pulling out of property management to focus on social housing, it has announced.
Chief executive Angela Currie says Hanover Scotland wants to “focus all attention on our core business of providing top quality social housing” (picture: Hanover Scotland)
Sharelines
The decision by housing association Hanover Scotland means that nearly 1,200 homes will need new property managers in place by the end of September 2024.
The affected homes in Scotland, predominantly rented by older people, have been given until that date to find a new property manager to look after repairs, maintenance and upkeep of their homes.
Angela Currie, chief executive of Hanover Scotland, said: “We recognise that this places a burden on the homeowners, renters and landlords of those developments.
“We are doing our utmost to communicate with them, to allow maximum notice [and] make the process as smooth and manageable as possible.”
Hanover has contacted local politicians about its decision, which will affect 34 privately owned developments.
It has also arranged a series of consultation meetings with residents to respond to their questions about the upcoming changes to who manages their homes, despite not being able to recommend new property managers to them.
The changes will not affect the two ‘trust tenure’ developments in Edinburgh and Dunblane, as Hanover will continue to manage them.
The decision follows Hanover’s multi-year review of non-social landlord activities, as Ms Currie says it wants to “focus all attention on our core business of providing top-quality social housing”.
Hanover, which is one of Scotland’s largest registered social landlords with more than 4,500 homes, will look to integrate its property managers affected by the changes into the wider organisation.
According to a Scottish Housing Regulator performance report, 89.9% of Hanover’s homes met the Scottish Housing Quality Standard compared to the 79% Scottish average, despite tenants reporting only an 81.5% satisfaction with the overall service Hanover provided compared to the 86.7% Scottish average.
Sign up for our Scotland newsletter
