AIMS Services for Residents

10 July 2008

AIMS is Age Concern England’s Advice, Information and Mediation Service, an independent and impartial service for people living (or working) in private retirement or sheltered housing. Established in 1989, AIMS combines its knowledge of this specialised housing sector with expertise in dispute resolution, as well as Age Concern’s experience in working with and for older people.

Our website (www.ageconcern.org.uk/aims) provides further details of all our services.

Information and advice
AIMS provides basic information and advice on housing-related issues such as legislation and good practice, as they relate to people living or working in private retirement or sheltered housing. The service is confidential, so we will always ask for your written permission before discussing your case with anyone outside AIMS. We aim to provide a full reply to any enquiry within 10 working days of receipt. Some of the most common issues which AIMS helps with include:

• Rents and service charges; 
• Role of the scheme manager/warden; 
• Rights to repairs and improvements; 
• Consultation rights and tenant participation; and 
• Noise and neighbour disputes.

AIMS is an independent and impartial service, so we cannot take sides or represent the interests of one side against another. AIMS may, therefore, refer enquirers to local Age Concerns or other approved Community Legal Service (CLS) service providers, if appropriate. Where the cause of a particular dispute is an unmet need for support or advocacy, for example, the role that local Age Concerns and other relevant organisations are able to play can be invaluable.

AIMS has a Quality Mark from the CLS in the ‘general help with housing’ casework category.

Mediation service
AIMS successfully uses mediation to help resolve disputes between residents and their landlords, managers and staff, and between residents themselves, by helping to turn a two-way ‘fight’ into a three-way search for a solution. Mediation is not a legal process concerned with rules and regulations, but a common sense and practical process in which people work to find their way to a sensible solution. Mediation involves an independent and impartial third party (the mediator) who can help people in dispute to reach their own voluntary and mutually-agreed resolutions.

Core information and advice services are delivered free of charge.

 

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