Lambeth Living's housing howlers

1 The first Lambeth Living chair was forced to resign after she was arrested on suspicion of fraud.

Asuman Ozkan was arrested in December 2008, on suspicion of obtaining property by deception.

No charges were brought against her.

2 In June 2009 Lambeth Living sent out inflated service bills to residents, many of which turned out to be incorrect and for contracts that did not exist.

Estimated charges for heating and hot water more than doubled, adding thousands of pounds to residents' yearly bills. One Herne Hill resident reported an 1,800 per cent rise in their bill for block cleaning costs, rising from £35 to £650 in just a year.

Lambeth Living was forced to admit it had made a mistakes with many bills, and brought in external auditors to check the estimates. Revised bills were sent out to many residents months later.

3 Lambeth Living was exposed in October 2009 for having one of the worst performances in London in terms of fire safety checks on its high rise social housing blocks.

A Freedom of Information (FoI) request showed the overwhelming majority of Lambeth Council housing blocks did not have valid fire safety certificates, despite the dangers exposed by six people dying in a fatal fire in a 12-storey housing block in Southwark in July.

Residents expressed serious concerns about the safety of the blocks they were living in, but said not enough work was being done to reduce fire safety risks.

Lambeth Living had to accelerate its fire inspection programme. The results are due to be published soon.

4 Lambeth was recently exposed as having one of the highest numbers of empty homes in London.

Of more than 5,600 empty properties in the 22 London boroughs which replied to a Freedom of Information request (FoI) in January, almost one in five was in Lambeth.

In January some 1,090 homes were empty, because they were not in a suitable condition, an increase of 183 homes in nine months. Some 100 properties were also squatted in 2009.

Empty homes were estimated to cost Lambeth £8m in lost rent.

Lambeth Living was accused by critics of letting repairs on its void properties spiral out of control.

The Almo said it had brought 899 empty homes back into use in the past year, and had earmarked £7m to bring a further 340 empty properties up to a lettable standard, and an additional £2m to 200 vacant properties.

5 Lambeth Living was left red-faced when it took a tenant to strike a deal with squatters to move out of his home, after it was invaded because the Almo had left it empty for so long.

The squatters entered Alan Faggetter's home in West Norwood after bungling housing bosses moved Mr Faggetter and his family out of their home of 27 years to carry out urgent repairs, only to leave it empty for four months. They did not carry out the repairs promised and it was targeted by squatters.

But while Lambeth Living started legal action against the illegal tenants, Mr Faggetter asked them to leave, which the 10 professional squatters did, saying they did not realise they had taken a family home.

6 Tenants were seething when Lambeth Living oversaw the highest rent increase by a social landlord in the UK in 2009.

Rents went up a whopping 14 per cent, while service charges went up by 65 per cent, even though residents said they saw a worse standard of service.