An excellent piece in the Sun by Hollie Borland, the Digital Consumer Reporter, appeared at the weekend giving a resume of the leasehold scandal pegged to the Which? report into the issue.It has the point that some leaseholders said they were charged £252 to own a pet or £60 to change a doorbell.But it adds: “The real concern highlighted by Which? is that leaseholders were discouraged to buy their freehold upfront, only to find out later that it had been sold to a … [Read More...]
THE REASONS WHY …
Latest news
Clive Fenton stands down as CEO of McCarthy and Stone as profits slump
Is the ground rent ban responsible?Sebastian O’KellyI guess when you stand down as boss of a publicly quoted retirement housing company that has seen profits fall from £110 million to £65-£80 the headline-writing punsters are not going to miss a trick.So, Clive Fenton, 60, McCarthy and Stone’s CEO, is being “pensioned off” or “retired” and his achievements forgotten.We have no insight into whether Mr Fenton is quitting or has been given the push nor, frankly, do we care that … [Read More...]
Anti-ground rent trade body ARCO snubbed at retirement housing conference … (along with us, less surprisingly)
The anti-ground rent trade body ARCO has been snubbed and left uninvited by retirement housing insiders at a City law firm conference next Wednesday to discuss whether a Retirement Housing Act is needed.The Association of Retirement Community Operators, whose members build and manage their retirement housing and care sites for the long term, has declared that ground rents are not essential to the viability of retirement housing projects.This opinion has put ARCO at odds with volume … [Read More...]
10,500 leaseholders demand select committee hauls in housebuilders over rip-off ground rents
... And 'leaseholder voices' video launched, in initiatives from the National Leasehold CampaignThe National Leasehold Campaign's (NLC) Petition to 'Abolish Leasehold & Introduce Regulation For Residential Managing Agents' has reached 10,500 signatures. It calls for the government to announce a Select Committee Inquiry into the leasehold scandal.https://www.change.org/p/theresa-may-mp-abolish-leasehold-strict-regulation-for-residential-managing-agents-be-introducedThis comes at a … [Read More...]
Use your super-complaint powers to help leaseholders, Sir Ed Davey tells Which?
Sir Ed Davey, chair of the APPG on leasehold reform and co-patron of LKP, today criticises the Consumers’ Association Which? for publishing a report (on Thursday) into the ground rent scandal that bears a striking resemblance to work already done by LKP.Sir Ed, LibDem MP for Kingston and Surbiton, also urges the generously funded organisation to join efforts to mount a legal challenge against the abuses.Sir Ed says:“I’m glad Which? has at last joined the long running campaign by … [Read More...]
Law Commission hears views on commonhold
On Monday the Law Commission held its first stakeholder meeting on commonhold - which it is tasked to review, along with lease extension and enfranchisement as part of the government’s initiative to reform the leasehold sector.Held in the Ministry of Justice, it was a miniature conference of around 70 invitees including the three MP patrons of LKP - Sir Peter Bottomley, Sir Ed Davey and Jim Fitzpatrick - civil servants, assorted landlord and tenant lawyers, developers, property managers, … [Read More...]
Taylor Wimpey’s snake oil ground rent review scheme makes toxic leases even worse: in my case, £25m worse!
Changing doubling ground rents to RPI allows a quick sale or enfranchisement but loads the freehold with revenues My 250-year lease with doubling ground rents add up to £1.9 million, but RPI ones add up to £25 million! Communities Select Committee needs to haul in the housebuilders By Joanne DarbyshireI bought my home from Taylor Wimpey in 2010 and it has one of the now infamous doubling ground rents. Please note that Taylor Wimpey are not the only developers to implement … [Read More...]
LKP helps raise £14,682 for park home champion Sonia McColl OBE
The following has been received by Sonia McColl OBE Dear LKP and all the wonderful people who have helped me,Your amazing gestures of kindness have raised £14,682 pounds and I can not adequately say how grateful I am to you all. However, I hope you will all know how much it helps when a vital part of your life is stolen and you feel very alone.Through my work for the Park Home Owners JUSTICE Campaign, I have met, heard from and experienced some of the pain, fear and forms of retribution … [Read More...]
Ground rent scandal
Leaseholders urge Clive Betts MP to quiz housebuilders over ground rent review schemes
Leaseholders trapped in unsellable homes owing to rip-off ground rents have deluged Clive Betts MP (above) to call in housebuilders to explain their haphazard ground rent review schemes. Mr Betts chairs the Communities Select Committee but declines to intervene in the leasehold scandal whereby 100,000 homeowners are trapped in unsellable properties, according to Nationwide. Mr […]
98% of rip-off lease sales broke consumer protection rules, says Conveyancing Association
The Conveyancing Association claims that 98% of sales of properties with onerous or doubling ground rents broke consumer protection rules. Only 2% of purchasers received information prior to viewing a property, according to a survey carried out with the help of the National Leasehold Campaign and the Home Owners’ Alliance. The Conveyancing Association has reported […]
Gleeson won’t sell leasehold houses, but freehold ones come with ‘fleasehold’ covenants, says Justin Madders
Gleeson, the housebuilder that publicly disapproved of rip-off leasehold houses, was identified in the Commons on Tuesday for introducing a raft of “fleasehold” covenants into its freehold ones. Justin Madders, Labour MP for Ellesmere Port and Neston, who is deputy chair of the APPG on leasehold reform, spoke out about how “rancid the whole business” […]
Housebuilders ground rent scandal compo schemes ‘must go further and faster’, says housing minister
… And they should include homeowners trapped in re-sales, too Housing minister Heather Wheeler has declared that housebuilders schemes to the doubling ground rent scandal – which has made 100,000 properties unsellable – “must go further and faster”. Buyers of second hand properties need to be included, and the housebuilders’ ex-customers need to be “proactively […]
£19,200 a year ground rents at Crawford Building are not our problem, says Redrow
… And we’re not going to do anything, either Eye-watering doubling ground rents at Redrow’s prime City tower block Crawford Building have been bluntly brushed aside as a concern by the developer that has profited from them. A leaseholder has contacted Sir Peter Bottomley and Labour MP for Bethnal Green & Bow Rushanara Ali stating […]
Telegraph reports case of Taylor Wimpey pensioner who has paid £38,000 for his freehold … and now won’t help him
‘Not brilliant entrepreneurialism and wealth creation to leg over a 79-year-old pensioner’ – LKP The case of Trevor Nowell, 79, the former head teacher, 79, who paid £38,000 to buy the freehold on his £320,000 Taylor Wimpey house was published in the Telegraph yesterday. ‘Our freehold cost £38,000 – now we’re being denied compensation’ Leaseholders […]
John Lewis Partnership Pensions Trust tells leaseholder it will ‘disinvest’ in doubling ground rents
Portfolio managed by the Tchenguiz interests The John Lewis Partnership Pensions Trust has told a leaseholder that it will ‘disinvest’ in doubling ground rents, which were brought to its attention by ‘a lobbying group’ – LKP. Sean Greenwood, whose wife bought a Taylor Wimpey flat in Dudley, West Midlands, with doubling ground rent raised the […]
E&J Capital Partners ‘compelled’ to sell freehold to Taylor Wimpey house to pensioner for £38,000 (plus £4,000 costs)
Ground rent speculators E&J Capital Partners were “compelled” to sell pensioner Trevor Nowell the freehold to his Taylor Wimpey leasehold house for £38,000. Once Mr Nowell, 79, began the enfranchisement process, the valuation of the property’s freehold was decided by the professional advisors employed for both sides (which Mr Nowell ended up paying for, as […]
Pensioner paid £38,000 for Taylor Wimpey freehold to ground rent speculators E&J Capital Partners
(… and he paid another £4,000 in fees) A 79-year-old pensioner in Clitheroe paid £38,000 to buy the freehold to his Taylor Wimpey leasehold house to ground rent speculators E&J Capital Partners. He also paid out another £4,000 in legal and other fees: his own, and E&J’s. Now he has been told by Taylor Wimpey […]
Has Taylor Wimpey done just enough to avoid being successfully sued?
Taylor Wimpey’s deal with Adriatic Land to vary doubling ground rents to those linked with RPI are the minimum it could do to prevent being sued. Extending the deal even to those who have bought these leases on resale – ie not directly from Taylor Wimpey – covers that issue as well. But one hitch […]
The games they play
Martin Paine sells on Blythe Court, where ground rents reach £8,000 a year
Martin Paine and his wife Anne Kirmond have spent years as landlord causing distress to the leaseholds at Blythe Court and many other sites. LKP first broke the story of the Panie’s ground rent exploits in January 2016 despite warning letters from solicitors Taylor Emmet LLP. https://www.leaseholdknowledge.com/martin-paine Since this story, we have covered the activities […]
Martin Paine resigns from IRPM after leaseholder complaint
Following a complaint to the Institute of Residential Property Management (IRPM) Martin Paine has chosen to resign his position as a member rather than face investigation. On several occasions in the last 18 months this site has reported on the exploits of Martin Paine, his FCA regulated wife, Ann Kirmond (Ref no MAK01110), and their […]
‘If I fail to offend anyone, I will do it next time,’ Bottomley tells appalled LEASE annual conference
Leasehold sector insiders were aghast at the address given by Sir Peter Bottomley on Wednesday at the Leasehold Advisory Service “annual conference”. The event was packed with surveyors, valuers, lawyers and property managing agents paying £350 a head to attend what has until now been the most important trade show of the sector. Earlier housing […]
Martin Paine ‘is a crook who is turning sleaze in leases into an art form’, MPs told
Sir Peter Bottomley (Conservative, Worthing West) named the leasehold-gameplayer Martin Paine as a “crook” in the Commons yesterday. “We should not have to rely on the chance action of a campaigning charity such as LKP [the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership] or the Campaign Against Retirement Leasehold Exploitation—or a passing Member of Parliament, to get things put […]
Guardian reports the Blythe Court ground rent scandal
The Guardian newspaper has today reported the Blythe Court ground rent scandal that has left leaseholders with bills of up to £8,000 a year. In 95 years the ground rents can reach £8 million a year for a one-bedroom flat bought for £58,000, says the article, written by Guardian staff reporter Rupert Jones. It quotes […]
ARMA MELTDOWN
Leaseholders are apathetic, apart from the Dad’s Army figures running RTMs and RMCs, says the sector
… But shouldn’t the paid professionals be more than Air Warden Hodges? There can be few industries where it would be felt appropriate to hold a private meeting to consider customer apathy. There can be fewer still that would seek to blame the consumer for that apathy. Yet this is exactly what we face today. […]
RICS fines Warwick Estates £20,000 over lift shaft fatality – after ARMA ‘blocked its regulator from hearing the case’
– Warwick Estates retaliates by resigning from RICS – It is unacceptable that ARMA ignores this issue – Case underlines need for statutory regulation By Sebastian O’Kelly, LKP trustee Property management company Warwick Estates was fined £20,000 last month in a disciplinary hearing of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) – on top of […]
Grenfell cladding crisis prompts the question: what are freeholders actually for?
Taxpayers will have to intervene over cladding, by issuing loans, to prevent hundreds of leaseholders losing their homes. But the crisis shows the pointlessness of current leasehold landlordism. What do they actually do, apart from having all the power over ordinary people’s homes and raising revenue for themselves? The Grenfell cladding crisis demonstrates to an […]
Fractures in ARMA’s efforts to regulate the leasehold property management sector
Last year we reported on weaknesses in the Ombudsman redress system and ARMA regulation. In the case of ARMA the changes introduced after their regulator, former Labour minister MP Sally Keeble, resigned. https://www.leaseholdknowledge.com/armas-self-regulation-disarray-member-sues-organisation-sally-keeble-resigns After the resignation, ARMA has decided to turn itself into a secondary regulator. Rather than allow leaseholders to initiate a complaint directly, […]
Telegraph reports rip-off leasehold sales packs
The Daily Telegraph has reported the issue of rip-off sale packs when leasehold properties are sold on. Personal finance reporter Sam Brodbeck writes: “The packs are required by housebuyers’ conveyancers, and because they can only be produced by freeholders, the seller is forced to pay whatever price is demanded – or risk the sale falling […]
DCLG shakes up leasehold team … but what about Southam, LEASE and the Mundy case, asks Bottomley
Oh … and there is YET ANOTHER review, this time on ombudsmen services The DCLG has shuffled the civil service leasehold team: perhaps ahead of making some important changes to the sector. Perhaps to steel themselves for the fallout if little or nothing is done. In any case, the current incumbent ¬– who demonstrated very […]
Companies like ARMA member SDL Bigwood are ripping off homeowners in private estates, Parliament is told
SDL Bigwood tried to dump its debts on ‘services that residents did not see being implemented’, claims MP Kelly Tolhurst Hyde Housing Association raised ‘service’ charges from £85 to £128 a month London and Quadrant Housing ‘tried to charge for street lamps and street cleaning provided by Medway Council’ Housing minister wants to ‘make it […]
The Property Ombudsman fines agent for selling house as ‘virtually freehold’. (Don’t worry ARMA members: it was only £200)
Annual Report: freehold vs. leasehold Whose responsibility is it anyway? This case summary looks at a tenure dispute – find out more about the complaint and the Ombudsman’s ruling after the agent claimed long leaseholds amounted to ‘the same thing’ as freehold. The buyer in this case explained that they told the agent that they […]
More farce than Blackadder’s court martial: ARMA claims its regulator ‘retired’
Self-regulation has failed at both ARMA and RICS ARMA has responded to Sally Keeble’s statement that she resigned owing to interference in her regulator’s role by declaring that the post was ‘retired’ instead. Further, ARMA says that the decision arose because ARMA only receives around eight complaints a year. It is astonishing that ARMA is […]
ARMA regulator Sally Keeble outlines five areas where statutory regulation is needed in leasehold
The former ARMA regulator Sally Keeble, who resigned her post last month claiming unacceptable interference in her independent role, outlines for LKP five areas where statutory regulation in leasehold is required. The full reasons for her resignation are given here In her article below, it is clear that Mrs Keeble – a Labour MP for […]
LEASE: Beyond repair?
Martin Boyd should be the chair of LEASE
By Sebastian O’Kelly, LKP trustee There is only one outstanding candidate to be chair of LEASE and that is Martin Boyd. He is the only person involved in leasehold activism with the knowledge and abilities that will hold credibility with the sector. He is respected on this subject by ministers, MPs and civil servants. As […]
LEASE chair Roger Southam resigns
The taxpayer-funded Leasehold Advisory Service, LEASE, has announced this evening that its non-executive chair, Roger Southam, has resigned with immediate effect. No explanation for the resignation is given, but it follows calls from the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership that he resign, questions in the Commons from MPs such as Justin Madders and LKP patron Sir Peter […]
National Leasehold Campaign tells Roger Southam to resign from LEASE
UPDATE: Has Roger Southam resigned from Savills? His LinkedIn profile suggest his employment there discontinued at the end of last month. He is now associated with the Eighty Nine Consultancy, which has no website and may be self-employment. The National Leasehold Campaign Facebook group today urged Roger Southam to resign as chairman of the […]
LEASE chair Roger Southam launched complaint to Parliamentary Standards Commissioner against Sir Peter Bottomley and Jim Fitzpatrick (and LKP, naturally enough)
‘Why was I left out?’ asks Sir Ed Davey Roger Southam, the chairman of the Leasehold Advisory Service, issued a complaint to the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner about Sir Peter Bottomley and Jim Fitzpatrick He added LKP in the official complaint, in its role as secretariat of the All Party Parliamentary Group. “I am disappointed not […]
Thanks LKP for raising Grenfell issues. Now we are giving yet more money to LEASE, says housing minister
The housing minister Alok Sharma has thanked LKP for raising Grenfell cladding issues in private apartment blocks. We have intervened in a number of these cases, and will continue to do so. Our intervention at Blenheim Centre / Reflexion on behalf of leaseholders resulted in freeholder Legal and General agreeing to pay the £165,000 a […]
News archive
Leaseholders in local authority and housing association blocks will have Grenfell cladding bill paid by government
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (145263): Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to his Department’s press release, Government announces it will fully fund unsafe cladding removal in social housing, published on 16 May […]
Advertising Standards Authority again rejects complaint that McCarthy and Stone is passing off leasehold tenancies as ‘property ownership’
The Advertising Standards Authority has again rejected leaseholders’ complaints that leasehold properties should not be marketed as “homeownership”. The complaint was raised separately by veteran leasehold activists Susan Wood and Michael Hollands. Both received replies from “a complaints executive” at the ASA on May 17. Both complaints concerned adverts by McCarthy and Stone, and both […]
National housebuilders ‘sold an illusion’ of home ownership, says Justin Madders MP
MP urges housebuilder CEOs to be hauled before the Communities Select Committee Do any of the plc housebuilder CEOs ACTUALLY live in their leasehold products? The government is talking tough about sorting out the leasehold scandal – which has put the lives of at 100,000 homeowners on hold – but those who introduced these toxic […]
The government wants to know if you have an onerous lease
The government would like to know if you have onerous lease terms as part of an information gathering exercise. You have until the 15th June to email your comments to onerouslease@communities.gsi.gov.uk The government will not be responding to each email but may contact you for further information. The purpose of asking for information is […]
Gleeson CEO Jolyon Harrison responds over ‘fleasehold’ row and asks Justin Madders for an apology
LKP raised questions earlier today with Gleeson Homes over the “fleasehold” row sparked by Justin Madders’s speech in the Commons on Tuesday. That article can be read in full below: Gleeson won’t sell leasehold houses, but freehold ones come with ‘fleasehold’ covenants, says Justin Madders The response comes from Gleeson Homes CEO Jolyon Harrison. LKP […]
Tchenguiz brothers fall out among themselves, says The Times
The Tchenguiz brothers – who before the crash were among the most powerful corporate players in the UK – are litigating again: this time among themselves, according to today’s Times. The dispute centres on the Tchenguiz Family Trust, based in the British Virgin Islands, which at one point claimed to own one per cent of […]
Please exempt retirement housebuilders from ground rent ban, pleads Sir Desmond Swayne
Senior Tory MP Sir Desmond Swaine has pleaded with the Communities Secretary to consider exempting volume retirement housebuilders from the ban on new ground rents. The MP for New Forest West – coincidentally not far from McCarthy and Stone’s Trump-style HQ in Bournemouth – asked in the Tuesday housing debate: “On new build leaseholds, is […]
69% of new houses in NW are leasehold. Many owners stuck in limbo. And ban fleasehold covenants, says Maria Eagle
The former Labour frontbencher Maria Eagle waded into the leasehold house scandal on Tuesday demanding justice for those stuck “in limbo” with unsellable homes. Addressing new Communities Secretary James Brokenshire, the Garston and Halewood MP said: “The Secretary of State talks about fairness. What will he do to ensure fairness for those who buy new […]
Government to ask Will Astor: who is the offshore freeholder at Heysmoor Heights (where ordinary families face £18k Grenfell cladding bills)?
The government said yesterday that it was going to haul in the agents for the Guernsey-based freeholders of Heysmoor Heights in Liverpool, which has Grenfell cladding, and demand to know who the freeholders are. LKP has highlighted the issue of Heysmoor Heights several times. Yesterday it was raised in the Commons by local Labour MP […]
