Friendly Housing Action is a campaigning group representing the interests of grassroots fully mutual housing co-operatives, that are not social housing providers.

FHA was originally established in response to the inadvertent inclusion of fully mutual housing co-ops in the HMO licensing regime implemented by the Housing Act 2004. Housing co-ops in Scotland had for some time been exempted under the equivilent Scottish legislation.

Following a successful campaign on the HMO issue, we have responded to government consultations and represented fully mutual housing co-ops to government where this has been necessary on a number of other issues.

Annual Tax on Enveloped Dwellings (ATED)

ATED is intended as a mechanism to catch tax avoidance aimed at wealthy people, but housing co-operatives also fall within the definition used for ATED. However as a result of a joint campaign with Co-ops UK, the government has granted a relief from ATED for housing co-ops.

See ATED and Higher Rate SDLT for more information.

Landlord Registration in Wales

Following Friendly Housing Action's consultation response, we met with civil servants in the Welsh Assembly Government and successfully put the case that it would be inappropriate for housing co-ops to be included in the mandatory landlord registration scheme being introduced in Wales.

FHA consultation response (PDF)
Registration exception for fully mutual housing co-ops - Housing (Wales) Act 2014, section 8 paragraph 8(e)

HMO Licensing

Exemption wording (link to parliament.uk)
Briefing Document (PDF)