Angus Housing Association has received a £1.3 million windfall after successfully challenging the Clydesdale Bank over the mis-selling of a loan.
The seven figure payment relates to a loan product the housing organisation took out around 10 years ago.
The news was revealed at the group’s annual general meeting by chairman Sheena Welsh.
She said the 2014-15 financial year was “probably, in overall terms, the most successful year in the more than 40 years of our history”.
The surplus for the year as a result of the bank’s payment was £2.4m, more than twice what had been expected.
She said this would mean the association had greater financial security, which would be much needed to face “what looks like five more years of austerity ahead”.
Mrs Welsh said there could be a negative impact on the association’s tenants’ incomes if there was “even more, as yet unidentified, cuts in the welfare budget”.
On a more positive note, the association’s members noted there had been a return to growth through the development of new homes at Monarch’s Rise and Great Michael Road in Arbroath and at North Brown Street, Carnoustie.
Mrs Welsh told the meeting she was particularly pleased to see the new 32-house development at Ormiston Crescent on Dundee’s Whitfield estate get under way more than 25 years after the first phase of regeneration of the area was started by Ormiston People’s Housing Co-operative.
Members also heard that record levels of investment were being made in the association’s housing stock of around 1,800 homes.
Mrs Welsh added: “In total, we invested more than £2.5m in our existing housing stock in 2014-15.
“I believe that it speaks volumes for how far advanced we are in investing in the assets that are our housing stock, when we are now comprehensively modernising houses that are only around 20 years old.
“More significantly, we are able to commit this level of investment going forward from our rental income streams without the need for subsidy or additional borrowing.”