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HML group with 33,500 units under management joins LKP

July 11, 2012 by

The Leasehold Knowledge Partnership is delighted to welcome managing agents HML Holdings plc, which has today joined the accreditation service.

The AIM-listed company, which comprises HML Anderton, HML Hathaway, HML Hawksworth and HML Shaw, has 33,500 units under management, predominantly in London and the South East.

The largest element of the group, HML Anderton, joined LKP at the beginning of the year and has already won renown among leaseholders for taking over the management of Charter Quay in Kingston.

In May, HML Anderton, the court-appointed managing agent, helped secure another £90,000 in repayments from the landlord and his out-going managing agents. This brought the total re-payments to leaseholders at Charter Quay to more than £500,000.

The other three companies applied to join LKP last month, providing details of open and regular accounting. A random selection of references from among the residents was also taken up to gauge their views of the service.

“The accreditation of HML Holdings is a game-changer for LKP,” said Sebastian O’Kelly, director of Leasehold Knowledge. “To have a company of the stature of HML sign up to the elementary, consumer-oriented ethos that we advocate is a hugely positive step for leasehold management.

“It is a call for other large managing agents to do the same. The old gig of back-stratching trade bodies, with their omertà vows of silence in the face of persistent and inexcusable conduct by their members, is busted.

“HML Holdings, under its chief executive Robert Plumb, has an excellent record of speaking out against this (more here), helping initiatives such as the London Assembly’s Highly Charged report and the forthcoming leasehold study by the centrist political think tank, CentreForum, which comes out next month.”

Commenting on the accreditation, Robert Plumb said: “We at HML have always practised an open, honest and transparent approach to property management and are fully supportive of the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership’s drive to make our industry more accountable.

“We recognise that leaseholders have a right to know how their money is being spent and to be treated with respect. Sadly, residential management has received negative publicity and harsh criticism, some of it fair and appropriate, and some of it as a result of misunderstandings that arise from poor transparency.

“We welcome LKP’s initiative to encourage openness and accountability.”

For more information about HML Holdings  see www.hmlholdings.com or contact 020 8439 8529.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: ,

Managing agents owned by landlords must come clean … says leading managing agent

June 20, 2012 by

A managing agent owned by the freeholder should be made to disclose this relationship clearly to the leaseholders, one of the country’s leading managing agents has announced.

“They should be obliged to disclose if they have, or any party to whom they are financially connected has, any beneficial interest in the freehold title,” says Rob Plumb (left), chief executive of HML Holdings plc.

“Such a relationship clearly gives rise to doubts about their impartiality.”

Plumb’s comments appear in a letter in response to the London Assembly’s continuing investigation into leasehold service charges. In March it issued a report, Highly Charged, which was critical of “opaque” charges and claimed that leasehold complaints had increased by more than 50 per cent in ten years (more here)

The letter has also been forwarded to the Association of Residential Managing Agents and the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership. HML manages 35,000 residential properties.

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Filed Under: Insurance scams, London Assembly, News Tagged With: ,

CentreForum think tank ponders leasehold

April 26, 2012 by

CentreForum invites LKP to contribute to its leasehold report

 

In three weeks time another important report into leasehold is to be published, this time by the liberal think tank CentreForum.

Earlier this month LKP was invited to its Queen Anne’s Gate to offer its contributions to report, which – we are assured – were gratefully received.

CentreForum had been alerted to LKP following its instigation of the House of Lords debate on the desirability of leasehold regulation, which took place last Monday.

Baroness Gardner of Parkes, who invited LKP’s Melissa Briggs and Sebastian O’Kelly to the Lords last month, was behind the move.

CentreForum’ has been researching the issue of leasehold since the autumn. Given that members of LKP have been behind the most outstandingly successful LVT actions in London, winning hundreds of thousands of pounds for leaseholders, CentreForum has wisely decided to ask us over.

Similarly, LKP-accredited managing agent Alan Coates, of HML Anderton has offered to contribute the benefit of his experiences to the report’s researchers.

They have already discussed the issues with Peverel executives at its offices in New Milton, Hampshire, and will undoubtedly benefit from an alternative view.

So far the report appears to be treading similar ground to the London Assembly’s hard-hitting Highly Charged, which was published last month. It is supporting regulation with licensed managing agents and an ombudsman scheme to provide the low-cost redress that LVTs have failed to offer.

The whole issue of LVTs – how they work, the costs, the barristers cleaning up at them etc – is to be examined further by LKP.

CentreForum’s recommendations are still being finalized and LKP is delighted to have had the opportunity to contribute to the report.

Filed Under: House of Lords, London Assembly, News, Parliament Tagged With: , , , , ,