Residents’ update: the Bellway agreement, and the missing money
Maltings Close Residents Association · 9 September 2026
The short version
TTMC was preparing to sign a legal agreement with Bellway for the fire safety remediation works. The version we were sent got the address of our own estate wrong, misnamed the company signing it, had a party missing from the front page, and left the schedule describing the works completely blank. It also contained no date by which Bellway has to finish — or start.
We and our lawyers have been through it line by line and sent TTMC a marked-up version with 40 proposed changes and a covering letter. Most of what we asked for is, we think, uncontroversial, and the agreement is now in a much better place.
Two things are still missing, and they matter to a lot of households on this estate. We need your help on both — there is a short feedback form at the end of this update.
Separately, and on a different matter: the police have now formally taken our evidence on the missing service charge money and a criminal investigation into TTMC is under way. Details are in the section below.
What was wrong with the draft
Some of it was carelessness that a proof-read would have caught, but the consequences were not small.
The property was described as “The Maltings, 1-12 Malting Close, Twelvetrees Crescent”. We live at 1–215 Maltings Close. Twelvetrees Crescent is a different street. An agreement granting access rights over a building has to describe the right building.
The management company was named as “Twelvetrees (Bromley By Bow) Management Company”. That is not its registered name. The cover page listed party (1) and party (3) with nothing in between, and the freeholder — who the agreement repeatedly relies on — was not a party at all.
Annex 1, which is supposed to contain the specification and drawings that define what “the Works” actually are, was empty. As drafted, TTMC would have been granting unrestricted access to every part of the estate for works nobody had written down.
And there was no timetable of any kind. Bellway had to proceed “with all reasonable speed”, and that was it. A tribunal ruled last year that it is not even permitted to impose an open-ended deadline for this kind of work. We should not agree to one voluntarily — particularly when Bellway has already given target dates to the government under its remediation contract and could simply repeat them here.
We have proposed fixes for all of this, together with proper protection on costs, a parent company guarantee from Bellway plc, and a clause confirming that nothing in the agreement takes away residents’ rights under the Building Safety Act.
What is still missing
1. Vulnerable and disabled residents. The draft does not mention them. Not once. There is nothing about extra notice, nothing about support during visits, nothing about rehousing, and nothing about what happens to residents who cannot get down the stairs unaided while the fire doors are being replaced. Bellway’s government contract already makes it responsible for the cost of moving residents out where that is necessary — but nobody has written down who will identify those residents, who will find suitable accommodation, or who will make sure nobody is left behind.
That is a question for all three of them: TTMC as the company that manages the building, L&Q as the landlord of Block A and of 36 homes in Blocks B, C and D, and Bellway as the party doing the work. We have asked for a written Resident Engagement and Vulnerability Plan before the first survey takes place. We have not yet had an answer from any of them.
2. Heat and ventilation. The last two summers have been the hottest most of us can remember. The contractor’s own FAQ says that balconies and terraces will be locked shut “until all works are complete”, and the outside of the building will be covered in scaffolding and netting. That is potentially two summers, in flats that were already hard to keep cool with every door and window open.
Nobody has told us how residents are expected to ventilate their homes during that period. The government’s Code of Practice says opaque coverings should only be used where there is no alternative, and that residents should not be shut out of balconies for longer than strictly necessary. We want to know what Bellway, Regen and TTMC actually propose: openable windows with restrictors, balcony doors that can be secured rather than sealed, netting rather than sheeting, scheduling the most intrusive work outside July and August, or somewhere cool to go on the estate. We have raised it. We do not yet have an answer.
DOWNLOAD OUR TRACKED CHANGE VERSION OF THE AGREEMENT
The missing money: now a police investigation
Many of you will remember the figures from our August updates. The 2023 accounts told leaseholders that £681,477 had been spent. Urang, having confirmed in writing that it had given us every invoice it held, produced invoices for £342,372. That left more than £300,000 of money held on trust for residents that nobody could show had been spent on anything.
That is now a police matter. Officers have formally taken our evidence — the witness statement, the full exhibit bundle including every invoice and both certified expenditure documents, the forensic accountants’ findings on the 2022 accounts, and our reports — and a criminal investigation into TTMC has been opened under a police crime reference for suspected theft and fraud by abuse of position. The investigating officers have everything we have.
Two developments since August strengthen the case rather than weaken it. First, the accountants’ regulator, the ICAEW, has referred its investigation into the 2023 accountants to its Conduct Committee at our request. Second — and this is the part that matters most — the ICAEW’s own investigation established that the accountants held invoices, including over £84,000 from one contractor alone, which Urang had never given us. Urang told us in writing, twice, that no further invoices existed. The regulator has confirmed that was not true.
The 2023 accounts were approved on TTMC’s behalf by Tom Squires, who signed a certificate on 12 May 2025 confirming that all relevant records had been made available for their preparation. Those accounts contained a corrected error from the previous year that was never disclosed as an error, and their headline figure was £70,000 lower than the expenditure TTMC had certified to leaseholders under a statutory notice eleven months earlier. Nothing in the accounts explains the difference.
Residents are entitled to put the two halves of this update side by side. The company that signed off accounts with an unexplained £70,000 gap and an undisclosed error is the same company that was preparing to sign a legal agreement with the wrong address, the wrong company name, a missing party and a blank works schedule. Whether anyone at TTMC is reading these documents before signing them — and whether the people who live here can safely rely on a company that does not — are questions we think TTMC now needs to answer. We have asked them.
What we need from you
We are going back to TTMC, Bellway and L&Q. We would rather do it with evidence than with assertions. Please spend five minutes on our feedback form:
https://form.jotform.com/262513220270039
It asks what matters most to you in the agreement, how much notice you need before anyone comes into your flat, how the heat affected you this summer, and — entirely optionally — whether anyone in your home will need extra support or may need to move out during the works. You do not have to give details of any condition, and nothing that identifies you is shared without your consent.
If you would rather talk to us than fill in a form, email info@maltingsclose.org or stop one of us on the estate or book a meeting with us.
Yours in solidarity,
