News – 25 February 2021
In November 2020 we made some big changes at Grand Union in response to customer feedback, so we can provide you with a better service.
We introduced a new structure for managing and sustaining tenancies, which is why we’ve moved away from the traditional ‘housing officer’ role and streamlined our knowledge and skills into specific areas.
Successful Tenancies team:
Customer Partners offer support and advice to customers who may be struggling to maintain their tenancy for any number of reasons. They liaise with our in-house support services (like Financial Wellbeing, Wellbeing & Support) and other agencies to find solutions.
Tenancy Enforcement Officers investigate antisocial behaviour complaints and try to find ways to resolve neighbour disputes, for example they can arrange for a mediation service to help. They will also deal with serious tenancy breaches, such as unauthorised occupation, tenancy fraud and abandoned properties.
Successful Tenancies Assistants support our Customer Partners and Tenancy Enforcement Officers, including giving permission to customers to alter or improve their homes, run a business from their home and to keep a pet.
Payment Support Advisors contact customers who owe rent and other money to Grand Union. If customers are struggling to pay, our Advisors are here to offer help and guidance, for example options to pay by instalments and advice about benefits. They can put you in touch with our Financial Wellbeing team or other in-house support services if needed.
Onboarding & Relocations team (previously the Allocations team):
This team also provides some of the services previously done by ‘housing officers’. ere is what they do.
The Onboarding team manages all aspects of advertising properties, checking applications, viewings and signing customers up to their new homes (all of which can be done digitally now on the MyGUHG account). The team acts as the central point of contact for the moving in and out process and they also stay involved for the first year of a customer’s tenancy.
The Relocations team supports customers to move home if their property is no longer suitable or if they wish to change location. They also carry out the mutual exchange process, help customers find suitable temporary accommodation if essential repairs need to take place in their home, and can help customers with tenancy changes such as successions and requests to turn tenancies from joint to sole tenancies.
We’ve also introduced a new role in the organisation – Property Managers (formerly known as Surveyors). They are responsible for everything to do with your home and its surroundings, making sure it’s safe, secure and well maintained. There are 10 Property Managers, each of whom is responsible for a different region. They act as a single point of contact for customers which makes keeping up with things like building works or repairs much easier for you.
We hope this helps to explain who’s who in our new teams. We hope that this new forward-thinking structure will provide a more tailored and targeted service to our customers.
If you have any questions about these changes, please get in touch with us.