DAMNING VERDICTS ON LIVERPOOL HOUSING ASSOCIATION

`Eighty two  per cent give Riverside a bad rating``

The website Trustpilot which  publishes reviews of  businesses by consumers worldwide has recently listed a series of damning verdicts on the giant Riverside Housing Association, owner of 50,000 homes.

Out of 22 Trustpilot reviews, 82 per cent rated  Liverpool-based Riverside a bad association and nine per cent rated it poor.No review rated Riverside  excellent or average, but nine per cent rated the association great.

Here are a few of the damning verdicts:

They don`t answer your complaints and you wait years for repairs

Awful, just awful

Money grabbers

Disgusting housing association

Avoid Riverside if you are a serious person.

Terrible landlords, they don`t do repairs as promised and then if you complain they try to evict you 

Evolve messed up my bathroom! We phoned Riverside to tell them about a small hole in the bathroom floor! After about 2 months we had a team of Evolve guys/2 vans and 4 blokes! They came and made a total mess of the floor with more holes than they started with! And I could get my foot on one of them....

 Here is  the only complimentary verdict:

 Great service

Great service, very helpful friendly staff from every member I've come across. Probably depends what region and office you get to deal with. No complaints whatsoever and very good at always getting back to me about things.

TheTrustpilot report gives the Riverside reply to each of the complaints made. The replies do not always go into the details of the complaints but all the complainants are invited to contact Riverside and make the complaints direct.Contact telephone numbers are given and in each case Riverside says it is sorry to  hear of the allegations.

The complaints and verdicts  are no surprise to Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation  which publishes this blog.

For 17 years the Federation has campaigned against  Riverside`s bossiness and gross inefficiency in the way it runs its 6,000 homes in the Carlisle  area.

A Federation spokesman said today:”We are pleased the Trustpilot reviews back up everything we have been saying.Terrible to relate that  no-one in authority has taken any notice of what we and others have been saying.

“Riverside is a law  to itself and until someone  is prepared to do something, nothing will change”

Trustpilot is a consumer review website founded in Denmark in 2007 which hosts reviews of businesses. The site is free for consumers. Trustpilot employs more than 700 people and nearly one million new reviews are posted each month.

   Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation publishes this blog. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 52227

NEW ALLEGATIONS BACK UP RIVERSIDE ACCUSATIONS

`Shameful culture of gross inefficiency`  
 
 A housing officer who wishes to support the campaigning work of Carlisle Tenants` and Residents’ Federation has offered this blog some reflections about the poor and inefficient working practices  experienced while working for  three big housing associations  in Scotland and the north of England.

The allegations  are very similar to those levelled  by the federation over several years against Liverpool-based Riverside Housing Association.

From this, it is difficult not to conclude that several large  housing associations are riddled with a culture of grossly inefficient working.

This is what the housing officer says: 

“The work of the Carlisle Tenants and Residents’ Federation  highlighting the bad management practices of/abuse of power by remote, unaccountable Riverside (and other)  large housing associations is impressive and necessary 

“I have worked for registered social landlords for more than
30 years, and in the last three years have been employed by three large associations:  Home Group, Your Housing Group, and
Liverpool Mutual Homes (now part of the Torus Group)
In my view, there was scant evidence of a service ethic.

“ In the three large  housing associations  I worked for, I witnessed much management and organisational inefficiency, chaotic day to day operational practices and inexperienced and unsupported staff making things up as they went along.'

“Overpaid senior staff (some of whom delighted in behaving in a bullying and intimidating way towards staff), were committed to denying the reality of terrible service to tenants and residents, choosing instead to believe their associations’ hype and glossy publicity material which focused on highly suspect and unreliable performance statistics.

 Direct contact from tenants/service users with housing and maintenance staff was discouraged and made difficult, and complainers were frequently demonised

It has long concerned me that un-elected, unaccountable but generously subsidised housing asociations are so politically favoured - and that their appalling practices and excesses regularly go unchallenged.”

  Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation publishes this blog. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 522277