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Cooperatives in the UK are a type of organisation; the term is defined by law and regulation, but there is a broader/looser usage which is sometimes used, meaning roughly "mutual organisation". This confuses public debate about the use of cooperatives for housing (e.g., for blocks of flats or shared houses).
The term "cooperative" has a definition established by the long-running cooperative movement, and this movement and its related concepts translation national boundaries. It's not really something that can or should be redefined by governments. This would give us a third sense of "cooperative" in the UK, except that UK law delegates the interpretation of "cooperative" to the Financial Conduct Authority, who in turn state that they try to follow the usage of the International Labour Organisation and the International Cooperative Alliance:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2014/14/section/2
https://www.handbook.fca.org.uk/handbook/RFCCBS/4/3.html
https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::P12100_ILO_CODE:R193
https://ica.coop/en/whats-co-op/co-operative-identity-values-principles
The ICA in particular enumerates seven principles:
So the UK state's legal definition of cooperative is firmly aligned with the non-state actors (the coop movement and the ILO) in how the word "cooperative" is used.
The state's position matters because in practice you need legislative support for cooperatives to work (e.g., for the members' liability to be limited, just like with most companies). To function as a cooperative in the UK, an organisation must conform to the British state's definition of "cooperative", which is basically the same as the coop movement's definition.
In practice, that definition means that coops are for-profit organisations of willing members who trade with the organisation (either as customers, suppliers or employees) and run it on a one-member-one-vote, democratic basis, excluding non-members from any role in the governance.
The strict sense of cooperative does not fit well with block ownership/management structures:
The term "cooperative" is also used more loosely in Anglophone parlance ...
The loose sense of "cooperative" is basically as shorthand for "mutual organisation": a democratic organisation of members, where non-members have no role in the governance. But a mutual does not necessarily have to be aimed at making a profit, or to have one-member-one-vote.
All cooperatives in the stricter government/ICA sense are mutuals, but not all mutuals are cooperatives in that sense.
A good example of a mutual that is not a cooperative is BUPA, the health insurer - it is a non-profit company where the people having their health insured can vote on who is to be a director, and on other motions
https://www.bupa.com/about-us/governance/annual-general-meeting
Unlike a coop or a partnership, however, BUPA is *not* in the business of distributing its operating surplus to its members! (The surplus of a mutual can accumulate over the years, leading to pressure for demutualisation).
The most widespread pattern of housing ownership or management, for collective housing such as flats or estates, is that there is an owner who manages the common parts for profit. Blocks of flats, in particular, have corridors, roofs and other facilities that are relied on by multiple dwellings. They require maintenance, which someone must organise.
It is possible in some cases to buy out or otherwise displace the owners or managers of blocks of flats. This need not necessarily lead to a mutual or fully mutual ownership/management structure. A block of flats could be bought from its owner by a subset of the owners of the individual flats. They could sell the block on to a different investor, they could own it themselves, they could invite the other flat owners to join in, etc. If someone owns more than one flat, they may or may not get more than one vote.
As a concrete example: imagine a block of ten flats. Five individuals who each own one flat, and one individual who owns two of the flats, band together to buy the freehold of the block. They split it into seven shares, with the owner of the two flats getting two shares and two votes. The flat owners of the remaining three flats do not become members of the company that owns the block, and continue paying their ground rent, to the company owned by the six flat owners who conducted the freehold purchase. This is a mutual organisation: it is run by and for the six shareholders. It's not "fully mutual" because it excludes the other three flat owners. And if an external financier had had to be brought on board, who isn't a flat owner, then it's not a mutual organisation at all.
Most blocks of flats in England are non-mutual. That means the interests of the owners/managers and the consumers are much more likely to be in conflict. These conflicts are endemic, and have the appearance of widespread abuse.