Leasehold & Right to Buy Officer - Portsmouth

Leasehold & Right to Buy Officer - Portsmouth, PO12AL, United Kingdom

Job Category: HousingRegion / Division: UK RegionLocation: Civic Offices, PortsmouthWorking Hours: 37

Fixed Term Contract/Secondment for 12 months

This is a fantastic opportunity to be part of our Leasehold and Right to Buy Services team and really make a difference!

Your new role

You will be working within the Council's Housing, Neighbourhood & Services, the largest social landlord in the area, responsible for approximately 18,000 properties. These properties are a mixture of flats and houses, including Freehold, located within Portsmouth, Havant, Gosport and Winchester. 

The Right to Buy legislation has resulted in the private leasehold sale of circa 1850 flats and maisonettes managed by Leasehold and Right to Buy Services.  This position sits within the Leasehold and Right to Buy Services team and reports directly to the Leasehold Services Manager. Complex legislation and pending legislative reforms make leasehold management a demanding and challenging area of the business (quite distinct from social housing). The Council has recently acquired a number of shared ownership properties and freehold houses that requires careful management to comply with legislation and regulations.

In this role, you will provide a high-quality service to the leaseholders, shared ownership and freehold customers, ensuring that they are managed in accordance with the terms of their leases and deeds, legislation, regulation and best practice. To ensure residents receive a quality, helpful, responsive and value for money service. To maximise income to the business ensuring leaseholders and other customers contribute fully to their lease or contract obligations. You will be responsible for all aspects of leasehold management, including Right to Buy and shared ownership sales and any subsequent re-sale on the open market. You will be required to assist in the calculation, communicate and collect service charges and other associated costs as per the lease agreement. You will also be required to understand and enforce the terms of the lease to assist both the leaseholder and Portsmouth Homes as the landlord.  

For full details please see the job profile attached at the bottom of this page!

Who is the person?

You will need to:

• Demonstrate a sound working knowledge of legislation governing local authority leasehold management and the Right to Buy, including relevant housing, landlord and tenant, and service charge legislation, with the ability to keep this knowledge up to date and apply it in a local authority context.
• Ensure compliance with Consumer Standards, regulatory requirements, and landlord obligations, including responding to challenge and scrutiny via the First Tier Tribunal and other regulatory bodies.
• Be an assertive and resilient person, who has the ability to deliver excellent customer service and to tailor delivery to the customers' individual needs.
• Be able to use your initiative, applying PLAN, and have the ability to make informed and appropriate decisions.   This ability is especially relevant when dealing with high level complaints and Councillor enquiries.
• Have the ability to: understand and manipulate complicated numerical data used to calculate service charges, and precisely collate and determine leaseholder income and expenditure, at times without their full co-operation, to recoup arrears and sustain payments.
• Have the ability to research, understand, interpret and relay complex legislation in regard to leasehold legislation and reforms.
• Be able to work well under pressure, manage a diverse workload and meet crucial, legislative deadlines.
• Be able to apply the use of independent professional judgement when managing complex cases, determining appropriate enforcement action, and making decisions with financial and legal implications for the Council.
• Have an independent work ethic and the ability to work when required.
• Have excellent IT skills (in particular Excel, Word, Outlook and mainframe applications such as Northgate). 
• Possess a full driving licence (and ideally have access to own vehicle with business insurance).  Some amount of time will be spent visiting leaseholders at their homes not necessarily in the Portsmouth area. 

About Portsmouth City Council

Portsmouth City Council is a unique organisation, committed to making a difference, and is guided by core values that set who we are as people, what we stand for, and how we act.

We are committed to our values of respect, integrity, collaboration, inclusivity and being people-focussed. These values set out how we can contribute to the success of the council and our own success as individuals. Learn more about our values and behaviours. 

Our recruitment process

Full information about our recruitment process can be found on our support for applicants' page: Support for applicants - Careers portal

You must demonstrate why you are suitable against each of the points described in the 'Who is the Person' points on the Job Profile using examples from your experience or transferable skills. This might be through qualifications or descriptive examples from your work / personal experience, which clearly illustrates what you did and the effect it had. If you apply without a detailed personal statement, it is unlikely that you will be successful. 

We are a disability confident employer and Armed Forces Covenant gold standard. More information can be found at Equality, diversity and inclusion - Careers portal

If applying as a secondment you will need permission from your current line manager releasing you for this secondment.  Please state you have this on your personal statement on the application.

You will need to demonstrate that you have the Right to Work in the UK. No post will be offered without it.

Read more about working at Portsmouth City Council and our benefits on our career's portal homepage: Careers Portal - Find jobs with Portsmouth City Council

Should you require any support in completing the application form please contact recruit@portsmouthcc.gov.uk or call the recruitment team on 023 92 616 800.