Provision of a Housing Loans Service for Denbighshire, Flintshire and Gwynedd County Councils

Descriptions

Denbighshire County Council working in collaboration with Flintshire and Gwynedd County Councils is seeking to appoint an appropriately experienced organisation to provide a housing loans service to each of the Authorities. The agreement will be offered for a period of three years commencing 2nd April 2012 with the option to extend for a further one year. The Authority will also make any framework agreement available for use by Wrexham County Borough Council, Conwy County Borough Council and Anglesey County Council should they wish to use it during the lifetime of the agreement. The Regulatory Reform (Housing Assistance) (England and Wales) Order 2002 expanded the powers of local authorities to give assistance to persons directly, or to provide assistance through a third party such as a home improvement agency, specialist financial intermediary or other special purpose vehicle. In particular it allowed for authorities to offer loan funding.Denbighshire County Council has chosen to use those powers to provide a choice of loans throughout the County to vulnerable households. The Authority may also provide loans to support a number of other priorities such as providing deposits to first time buyers. Details of all the loans to be offered under this contract are outlined in the section titled Requirement below.The current policy in Denbighshire provides for a wide range of assistance but relies heavily on fairly traditional grant aid although in many cases assistance is registered as a charge on the property, some with applicable time periods, and fully repayable. The contract is to administer and provide the loan products outlined in section 3. The primary purpose of the loans will be to fund home improvements and energy efficiency measures to vulnerable homeowners. The Council understand that it is relatively unique in choosing to support landlords with financial assistance but this will be geographically targeted into a very difficult renewal area that requires significant investment. The loan provider will be expected to hold the legal charge and manage the loan portfolio and deal with redemptions and repayments.