Working with ‘unregulated cowboy’ S106 managing agents poses a risk to regulatory compliance, Fiona Fletcher-Smith tells conference 

L&Q Group’s chief executive has criticised the Home Builders Federation (HBF) over a claim that a lack of section 106 take-up by housing providers is jeopardising thousands of affordable homes.

In a report published this week, the HBF estimated that around 8,500 affordable homes due to be delivered in the next 12 months are at risk because of a lack of a contract with a registered social landlord.

Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government yesterday said the situation was “not good enough” and said the government has “given housing providers financial stability to help them buy section 106 homes so they are not stood empty” through the 10-year social rent settlement. Housing minister Matthew Pennycook later issued a statement ackowledging the issue was complex.

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Fiona Fletcher-Smith speaking at the Housing Today Live 2025 conference 

Speaking at Housing Today Live at the Building the Future conference in central London this morning, Fiona Fletcher-Smith said the HBF were “whinging” that housing providers “won’t buy our section 106 homes”.

She added: “There’s some very good reasons why many of the G15 will not buy section 106 homes.

“If you ask anybody in my housing management maintenance teams where the biggest set of problems they’ve got are, they’re in section 106 stock that we bought at the last minute.

“We are being left with complex management arrangements, particularly in London.”

Fletcher-Smith said that working with managing agents who are “unregulated cowboys” creates issues for housing associations trying to achieve regulatory compliance. She described having to take legal action against some S106 arrangement managing agents “just to get fire safety information out of them”.

The chief executive of the 105,000-home social landlord also refuted the HBF’s claim that developers sell section 106 housing at a discounted rate. “Nobody I have ever met tried to sell housing associations anything at a discount,” she said.

She urged housebuilders to involve providers as early as possible when planning section 106 schemes and to build high-quality homes with viable management arrangements to increase section 106 purchases.

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