Decision

GreenSquareAccord Limited (LH3902): Regulatory Judgement - 7 October 2026

Updated 7 October 2026

Applies to England

Our Judgement

	Grade/Judgement	Change	Date of assessment
Consumer	C2 Our judgement is that there are some weaknesses in the landlord delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards and improvement is needed.	Based on previous assessment	October 2025
Governance	G3 Our judgement is that the landlord does not meet our governance requirements. There are issues of serious regulatory concern and in agreement with us the landlord is working to improve its position.	Downgrade	October 2026
Viability	V3 Our judgement is that the landlord does not meet our viability requirements. There are issues of serious regulatory concern and in agreement with us the landlord is working to improve its position.	Downgrade	October 2026

Reason for publication

We are publishing a regulatory judgement for GreenSquareAccord Limited (GSA) following responsive engagement and an investigation into whether GSA meets the requirements of the Governance and Financial Viability Standard. GSA was placed on the gradings under review list while we investigated these issues.

As a result of our investigation, we have concluded that GSA is not delivering the outcomes of the Governance and Financial Viability Standard.

Prior to this regulatory judgement, the consumer, governance and financial viability grades for GSA were last updated in a regulatory judgement published in October 2025, following an inspection, which confirmed a consumer grade of C2, a governance downgrade from G1 to G2, and a V2 grade for financial viability.

Summary of the decision

Based on evidence gained during the investigation, it is our judgement that GSA does not meet our governance requirements. Our investigation found weaknesses in financial governance, risk management, quality of information and internal controls. Although GSA has commissioned reviews and established improvement programmes, there is insufficient evidence that these actions have resulted in sustainable improvement. On this basis, we have concluded a governance grade of G3 for GSA.

Based on evidence gained during the investigation, our judgement is that GSA does not meet our financial viability requirements. Our investigation confirmed GSA has a history of weak financial performance, is reliant on the disposal of social homes to maintain financial resilience and has limited capacity to absorb a reasonable range of adverse scenarios. While GSA remains compliant with lender covenants, continued compliance is dependent on the delivery of significant disposals, cost reductions and transformation programmes. On this basis, we have concluded a viability grade of V3 for GSA.

We have not reassessed GSA’s delivery of our consumer standards as part of this investigation and responsive engagement. The C2 grade published in October 2025 remains unchanged.

How we reached our judgement

GSA was placed on the gradings under review list in May 2026 following a deterioration in financial performance, concerns regarding governance effectiveness and weaknesses in financial forecasting, risk management and internal controls.

Our regulatory judgement is based on all the relevant information we obtained during the investigation and responsive engagement, as well as analysis of information supplied by GSA in its regulatory returns and other regulatory engagement activity.

Summary of findings  

Consumer – C2 – October 2025

Below are the findings of our most recent regulatory judgement about GSA’s delivery of the outcomes of our consumer standards which assessed GSA’s consumer grade as C2. The regulatory judgement was published in October 2025 following a programmed inspection, and GSA’s consumer grade remains unchanged. We expect GSA to continue delivering the actions required to address the issues that resulted in its C2 grade.

The Safety and Quality Standard requires landlords to identify and meet all legal requirements that relate to the health and safety of tenants in their homes and communal areas and ensure that all required actions arising from legally required health and safety assessments are carried out within appropriate timescales.

Through our inspection, GSA provided evidence it was continuing to address fire safety remedial actions identified following an accelerated programme of fire risk assessments as part of a structured programme. However, there are still a significant number of actions, including some that are overdue and high priority. We will continue to engage with GSA while it finishes its programme of remedial actions, which was scheduled to be completed by April 2026, to ensure it has appropriate mitigations in place to keep tenants’ homes safe.

We gained assurance over GSA’s delivery of outcomes in other areas of landlord health and safety including in relation to electrical and asbestos safety. 

The Safety and Quality Standard requires landlords to have an accurate and up to date understanding of the condition of their homes at an individual property level based on a physical assessment of all homes. We gained assurance that GSA has a good understanding of the condition of its homes, through a rolling programme of physical stock condition surveys that underpins its reporting on compliance with the Decent Homes Standard and informs its investment plans. GSA has an established approach to managing issues in tenants’ homes relating to damp, mould and condensation. There is a need however for reporting and oversight to be strengthened in this area.

The Safety and Quality Standard requires landlords to have an effective, efficient and timely repairs service. We saw evidence of fluctuating performance in delivering repairs service improvements. Reporting indicates that the time taken to complete a repair has reduced, but there remains a significant backlog of overdue repairs. We will monitor progress as part of our ongoing engagement to ensure delivery of sustained improvements. We gained assurance that there are arrangements in place so that information on vulnerabilities is used to prioritise tenants’ repair requests.

In relation to the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard, we saw evidence that GSA treats its tenants with fairness and respect. Through the inspection, we have assurance that the customer panel has opportunities to influence a range of services, but that the impact of these opportunities was not always clear. GSA is in the early stages of delivering its customer involvement and empowerment strategy and a forward engagement plan for scrutiny was being developed. We will continue to monitor progress in this area with GSA. 

GSA acknowledges that there is more it can do to strengthen its approach to using relevant information to understand the diverse needs of tenants and to assess whether its housing and landlord services deliver fair and equitable outcomes for tenants. A programme of tenant visits supports this approach to collecting data.

GSA has initiated some changes to its complaints handling service to improve the timeliness and quality of its responses. We have assurance that performance is improving and that reporting will be expanded to clearly identify any use of extensions of time to respond to a complaint. The level of complaints from tenants is relatively high and highlights that better outcomes for tenants need to be sustained. GSA is reviewing how it can further improve and we will continue to engage with GSA to ensure it is delivering a timely complaints handling service for tenants. 

GSA provides tenants with accessible information about its performance and landlord services including a monthly infographic on its website.

In relation to the Neighbourhood and Community Standard, GSA’s approach to antisocial behaviour is set out clearly in its policy, which is accessible on its website alongside information to tenants on how to raise anti-social behaviour issues and report hate crime. We have assurance that GSA works in partnership with other organisations and undertakes a range of measures to support tenants experiencing anti-social behaviour. We also saw evidence that it is allocating and letting its homes in a fair and transparent way and is supporting tenants to maintain their tenancies. 

Governance – G3 – October 2026

GSA was formed in April 2021 following a merger between GreenSquare Group Limited and Accord Housing Association Limited. Since the merger, steps have been taken to simplify the group structure and scale back commercial activities. Challenges arising from the merger remain and the actions taken to address the underlying issues over the past five years have had limited effectiveness. Based on evidence gained through our investigation, we have concluded that GSA does not meet our governance requirements, leading to a further downgrade.

The Governance and Financial Viability Standard sets out that landlords are expected to operate with an effective risk management and internal controls assurance framework. We found that GSA is unable to demonstrate it meets these requirements. We found that GSA’s approach to financial risk management is not sufficiently robust, resulting in weak financial performance in recent years which deteriorated further during the year ended 31 March 2026. We did not gain sufficient assurance that risks were identified, monitored and managed effectively, or that mitigations were implemented in a timely way.

Our investigation also found significant weaknesses in quality of information, systems and internal controls. GSA continues to rely on multiple unintegrated systems, manual processes and labour-intensive workarounds. The board has not been provided with information that consistently supports effective, risk-based decision making. While GSA has taken action after issues have occurred, we have insufficient assurance that it has addressed the root causes of these failures or established an effective control environment. This has resulted in poor outcomes for GSA and its tenants.

GSA has recently established several transformation and recovery programmes. However, these programmes remain at an early stage and there is insufficient evidence that they have delivered sustainable improvements. We will require further assurance that these initiatives result in meaningful improvements to governance, risk management and operational performance.

While board members have demonstrated awareness of the issues facing the organisation and have commissioned external reviews, we found insufficient evidence of consistent and effective board challenge in relation to key strategic and financial risks. We therefore conclude that GSA is not being managed with the degree of skill, diligence, effectiveness, prudence and foresight required by the Governance and Financial Viability Standard.

Viability – V3 – October 2026

Our previous regulatory judgement published in October 2025 concluded that GSA was experiencing a period of sustained weak financial performance. Although compliant with the Governance and Financial Viability Standard, the judgement noted the materiality of risks and the need to more closely monitor GSA’s financial performance and capacity to manage adverse scenarios on an ongoing basis.

During our investigation we confirmed that GSA has a history of weak financial performance, including repeated failures to meet its budgeted targets, financial losses, weak interest cover and poor forecasting accuracy. Performance deteriorated materially during the year ended 31 March 2026, despite the board approving mitigation measures.

GSA’s business plan relies heavily on the disposal of social homes to maintain cashflow, support liquidity and deliver long-term financial sustainability. Maintaining viability is now dependent on the delivery of a financial plan that will result in a decrease in the number of social homes GSA provides. GSA’s ability to meet non-discretionary costs from operating income in the long term is dependent on significant cost savings and transformation programmes that are not yet fully developed, evidenced or delivered. In combination, we conclude this reflects a failure to manage resources effectively.

Although GSA has not breached lender covenants, compliance is being maintained through a financial strategy that depends on high levels of asset sales and future savings. Given GSA’s track record of weak financial performance and failures to deliver its budgets, we do not have sufficient assurance that the improvements in performance assumed in the financial plan are deliverable.

We do not have sufficient assurance that the landlord has the financial capacity to withstand a reasonable range of adverse scenarios without taking actions that could negatively impact its social housing assets. Further options for mitigating action include additional disposals and reductions in repairs and maintenance expenditure. As a result, we have concluded that GSA is not currently managing its resources in a way that ensures its long-term viability and the protection of its social housing assets.

Background to the judgement

About the landlord

GSA was formed through the merger of GreenSquare Group Limited with Accord Housing Association Limited in April 2021. It operates in 36 local authority areas across the West Midlands, Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire and owns and manages around 25,500 social homes. It also develops new homes and provides care and support services.

GSA employs the full-time equivalent of around 1,500 staff. Its turnover for the year ended 31 March 2026 was £209m.

The group includes seven wholly owned unregistered subsidiaries and two joint ventures. This includes GreenSquareHomes (market sale development), LowCarbonLiving Homes Limited (a timber frame manufacturing business) and Green Square Estates Limited.

Our role and regulatory approach

We regulate for a viable, efficient, and well governed social housing sector able to deliver quality homes and services for current and future tenants.  

 We regulate at the landlord level to drive improvement in how landlords operate. By landlord we mean a registered landlord of social housing. These can either be local authorities, or private registered providers (other organisations registered with us such as non-profit housing associations, co-operatives, or profit-making organisations). 

We set standards which state outcomes that landlords must deliver. The outcomes of our standards include both the required outcomes and specific expectations we set. Where we find there are significant failures in landlords which we consider to be material to the landlord’s delivery of those outcomes, we hold them to account. Ultimately this provides protection for tenants’ homes and services and achieves better outcomes for current and future tenants. It also contributes to a sustainable sector which can attract strong investment. 

We have a different role for regulating local authorities than for other landlords. This is because we have a narrower role for local authorities and the Governance and Financial Viability Standard, and Value for Money Standard do not apply. Further detail on which standards apply to different landlords can be found on our standards page. 

We assess the performance of landlords through inspections and by reviewing data that landlords are required to submit to us. In Depth Assessments (IDAs) were one of our previous assessment processes, which are now replaced by our inspections programme from 1 April 2024. We also respond where there is an issue or a potential issue that may be material to a landlord’s delivery of the outcomes of our standards. We publish regulatory judgements that describe our view of landlords’ performance with our standards. We also publish grades for landlords with more than 1,000 social housing homes. 

The Housing Ombudsman deals with individual complaints. When individual complaints are referred to us, we investigate if we consider that the issue may be material to a landlord’s delivery of the outcomes of our standards.  

For more information about our approach to regulation, please see Regulating the Standards.

Further information

• Regulating the standards
• Regulatory standards for landlords

Related documents

• Decent Homes Standard