Tenants and residents of Hyde Housing no longer have confidence in Hyde's service charging system. We believe it is wrongly extracting money from tenants and residents. We demand immediate action to review previous charges, and ensure that all future charges are accurate and legitimate.

A recent report by the Social Housing Action Campaign (SHAC) exposed Hyde's widespread illegitimate service charging. These are not isolated individual errors, but a systemic problem for which the board and executive bear responsibility.

We demand that the board of Hyde to carry out the following:

1. A full, independent audit of all service charges applied over the past five years.
2. Where the organisation has overcharged, double-charged, charged for ‘phantom’ services, or otherwise erred, award a full refund.
3. Develop a plan to immediately implement robust controls over all future service charging.
4. Make a commitment that future service charge rises will not exceed the rate of CPI inflation.
5. Order all service charge bills to be fully itemised and accompanied by validated receipts.
6. Where it is found that the contractors have been dishonest, remove the contract and take legal action against the company, with compensation awarded to tenants and residents.
7. Improve the complaints process so that errors are addressed swiftly and efficiently.
8. Improve monitoring and oversight by the board of both the service charging and complaints systems.
9. Publish a report to tenants and residents confirming that these actions have been completed.