You are here: Home / Archives for JPC Law

Green MP wades in to help leaseholders facing £30,000 legal bills

August 8, 2012 by

Caroline Lucas

Residents from the Kingsmere development in Brighton – who face legal bills of £30,000 following a bungled right to manage application – are to meet their local MP this Friday.

Caroline Lucas, of the Green Party, has taken an interest in the issues raised and is demanding to know how ordinary families at the 120-unit Seventies development have been so badly let down by their legal advisors.

In a letter to the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal, Lucas stated: “I am concerned at news that this attempt [to exercise right to manage] by ordinary members of the public, with little knowledge of leasehold law and entirely reliant on professional advice, should have left leaseholders with a significant financial burden.

“I would be grateful if the tribunal would consider the case put forward by Kingsmere RTM Company and, as far as possible, would limit the financial cost to residents of attempting to exercise their Right To Manage.”

The Kingsmere residents approached solicitor Yashmin Mistry when she was employed at Brethertons, but she took the case up after she moved to JPC Law.

The two legal firms are now embroiled in litigation over breach of contract, for which Brethertons has been collecting evidence from the Kingsmere residents.

Only last month in the Commons, Sir Peter Bottomley, MP for Worthing East, condemned “legal torture” by lawyers repeatedly delaying an LVT action taken by pensioners in a retirement development.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: , , ,

Solicitors squabble in High Court, while leaseholders face a £30,000 right to manage legal bill

July 31, 2012 by

Solicitor Yashmin Mistry

Residents at the Kingsmere estate in Brighton, who have been left facing legal bills of £30,000 following a disastrous right to manage action, are being dragged into a squabble between rival firms of leasehold solicitors.

Last Thursday (July 26) Yashmin Mistry, the leasehold solicitor with JPC Law who acted for them, was the subject of a High Court action in London as her former employers, Brethertons, argued that she had broken her contract of employment when she left the company last year.

But Judge Richard Seymour upheld an application that the restrictive covenant in her contract of employment was too wide to prevent her, at JPC, from acting for clients who may have initially contacted her at Brethertons.

Brethertons has made other applications, but the case was adjourned until October.

Mistry was approached by the leaseholders at the Kingsmere estate when she was still employed at Brethertons, but she took on the case when she joined JPC Law.

As it became apparent that the freeholder, Anstone Properties, was going to contest the right to manage application, she instructed a barrister, which added to the costs, when the case came before the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal in February this year.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Leasehold Valuation Tribunal, News, RTM Tagged With: , , , ,

£30,000 bill for RTM ‘fiasco’

June 13, 2012 by

A group of 120 leaseholders in Brighton have failed in their bid to win “right to manage” and have been left with a legal bill of more than £30,000.

The RTM company set up at Kingsmere, a Seventies building on the London Road in Brighton, has only £800 left in the accounts and faces going into administration.

“We have been completely let down by lawyers and by the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal process,” says John Deacon, chairman of the residents’ association and the RTM company.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Leasehold Valuation Tribunal, News, RTM Tagged With: , , , , ,