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Elections Results Results for the election of Directors have now been released by the Electoral Reform Services. Results in full See who stood in your area: Candidates March 8th 2008. The Islington Leaseholders Association, the ILA, is getting a new site and a more user friendly website name. The new ILA site at ila.org.uk. Islington Leaseholders can now contact the ILA at info@ila.org.uk The new Board of the ILa is now discussing how to proceed in the wake of the LVT decision which ruled against collecting membership subscriptions with the annual service charge. Plewase check back with ila.org.uk for updates. December 16th 2007. The Leasehold Valuation Tribunal (LVT) has now ruled that Islington Council, and hence its managing agents HFI and Partners, cannot include the subscription to the ILA in its annual service charges for those people who challenged the charge. Full details of the case can be downloaded here as a PDF file. Members of the newly elected Board met, informally, on Tuesday 11th, before the result was declared. The decision clearly calls into question whether the ILA can now receive any funding to provide the professional services that have been proposed. Until such time as the Board and the Council have discussed the new situation we cannot make any comment on the future of the ILA as currently conceived. 
Monday 19th November. Leaseholders picketed HFI headquarters to greet members of the Audit Commission team inspecting HFI. Their team leader kindly stopped and chatted to us for about a quarter of an hour. We presented the Audit Commission with a booklet of press clippings, letters to the papers and copies of LVT decisions won by leasehoders. Our message was, don't take our word for it, look at what others are saying about HFI and Partners. 
Protesting against HFI's interference in our elections; 15th Oct 2007. 25 October 2007 The Council has proposed that various eligibility criteria, or more properly ineligibility criteria, should apply to the forthcomeing elections for the ILA board. The Steering Group has not been able to endorse some of these conditions. We’ve tried to set out the position, below, in fairly simple terms. The discussions themselves covered a wide range of ideas so this is very much the core issue. The Council (as represented by HFI) wants to stop people in the following categories from being Directors of the proposed Islington Leaseholder Association.
We agreed that anyone
We felt that anyone who was
The Steering Group’s view is that there is no good reason for us to limit who could be candidates. We felt that if the Council wants to impose these conditions they should negotiate with the new Board once it is elected. We did not want to set a precedent that could restrict the future Board. The Council was prepared to meet us part of the way on this. We were told that these people could stand for election but might be disbarred later. The point at which such disbarring might take place will be when the Association becomes incorporated as a legal entity or as a limited company. So we are looking at a situation where the current elections are for what is called a Shadow Board who could normally be expected to become the Actual Board upon incorporation. The Council are telling us that people elected now can serve on the Shadow Board but may be disbarred from going on to become members of the Actual Board. The Steering Group felt that we could not accept such a condition which could tie the hands of the future board and amounted to gerrymandering the election. What is very clear is that this argument is basically only the first shot in a long process of establishing the ILA’s Independence. The Council do not want us to be Independent and will try to hedge us in with ‘red tape’ and procedural wrangling. What is likely to happen now ? In all probability the elections will go ahead and the Council will impose the eligibility conditions it wants. It will be up to the new Shadow Board to take a view on the Council’s conditions. What will the Steering Group now do? I don’t think anyone’s going to withdraw from the election but I think we will protest at what we see as the Council’s (HFI’s) interfering in our Association.  Oct 15th Protest outside HFI Headquarters 11th October 2007. Last night's packed meeting at the Town Hall resolved to picket the Homes for Islington (HFI) Board meeting at Highbury House to complain about HFI's interference in Elections for the ILA Board. Our steering group has been ignored and Consensus, the advisors we chose, have been ordered by HFI to follow their directions and ignore us. HFI has drawn up eligibility criteria for our Directors which we have not been consulted on, yet alone agreed to. Is HFI using our subscriptions to pay for their Election? Assert that you voted for an ILA that is independent of HFI, Partners and the Council. You can also write to HFI and the Council to complain about this unwarranted interference in our Association. Check here for Email addresses and attach the ILA condemns HFI interference passed unanimously at the meeting. 6th October 2007. Information Packs and Nomination papers have been sent out to would-be Directors of the ILA. Elections for the board of the ILA are due to be held in October. This should be good news. But is it? The recent newsletter and the information pack has been sent out by Consensus. Consensus was appointed by the Islington Leaseholder Forum's steering group to advise on establishing the ILA. But, Consensus is now working to an agenda set by Homes for Islington and the steering group has been shut out of discussions. Indeed, it appears that members of the steering group were not informed about the newsletter and didn't even receive a copy. This effectively ruled them out of being able to be nominated to stand as Directors. The information and nomination packs contain eligibility criteria which have been set by HFI, not leaseholders. They refer to a Memorandum of Association and a Service Level Agreement which don't exist. So, is HFI really running the show under the cloak of Consensus? It looks very much like it. February's ballot to establish the ILA promised that we would be truly independent of LBI, HFI or Partners. HFI's actions run directly counter to that promise. We are calling on all leaseholders to attend the open Forum meeting to assert the principle of the ILA's complete independence. The meeting will be held on Come and Support an Independent ILA 2nd October 2007. The ILA's 1st NewsLetter has now been sent to all leaseholders There are now over 10,000 leaseholders living in ex-Islington council properties. Together we pay millions of pounds each year to Homes for Islington and Partners for Improvements in Islington for landlord management charges and major works. Until now we have been on our own, but all that is about to change. In February this year Islington leaseholders voted to set-up an Islington Leaseholders Association (ILA) to help represent our interests both jointly and individually. An interim Steering Group has been set up by the, Leaseholders' Forum to assist with the launch of the new Association this Autumn and ‘consensus’ consultants have been commissioned to assist in this process. The main task is now organising the election of the first Board of Directors. The election is scheduled to take place in October following the Homes for Islington board elections in September. Thursday 8th March 2007. Islington Leaseholders voted overwhelmingly to set up a properly funded Leaseholders Association. The vote in favour was 76% on a turnout in the postal ballot of 22% which compares favourably with turnout for local by-elections. The Islington Leaseholders Association is being launched to provide all Islington council leaseholders with an independent organisation to support and represent them. The Association will
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