Secretariat of the All Party Parliamentary Group on leasehold reform

Leasehold Knowledge Partnership

Advising leaseholders. Avoiding disasters.
Stopping forfeiture. Exposing abuses.
Urging reform …

Advice

We advise leaseholders on the perils and pitfalls of the leasehold system, and on how to succeed in a system that is rigged against them by commercial interests

News

The Leasehold Knowledge Partnership seeks to report the news from the leasehold sector that affects those who pay for the whole edifice: leaseholders

Parliament

LKP is secretariat of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on leasehold and commonhold reform, which in the last Parliament had 177 MPs and front bencher ‘friends’

Accreditation

Our accredited block managing agents support the self-governance by flat owners that is standard across the world, except in England and Wales

Trying to prevent the disempowered from losing in the leasehold game

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News

The Building Safety Bill: what do the government’s amendments mean for leaseholders?

Michael Gove cladding

In Gove we trust, but developers can pay cash

Sun shines on the leaseholders’ demo at Parliament: after Jenrick, is this a new dawn?

Do NOT buy a new property with ground rents

Keep freeholders

Report from Tchenguiz Family Trust, Long Harbour and Wallace Estates seeks to side-line leasehold reforms by fear-mongering over fire safety

Radius scandal Taylor Wimpey

Radius leaseholders rumble Taylor Wimpey for trying to flog off freehold to property punters …

Robert Jenrick Richard Desmond

Has Jenrick been saved by the Cummings furore for rushing through approval of 1,500 home Docklands scheme that would have handed £40m to former publisher Richard Desmond?

Sir Bob Neill Grenfeel cladding

Sir Bob Neill becomes cladding chair at APPG

Get commonhold done, London Assembly tells government

LKP vindicated by devastating CMA report into mis-selling of leasehold homes

cladding scandal demo

Cladding scandal Westminster demo, February 25: three mayors, 27 MPs, 300 leaseholders, a swarm of media …

fatcat freeholders

Fatcat freeholders SHAMED by MHCLG for having no plan to remove Grenfell cladding from their buildings include Long Harbour and James Tuttiett

Roy Wilshire

Getting Cayman Islands freeholders to help with cladding crisis is an additional difficulty, says UK’s top fire chief

Alison Thewliss MP

Special thanks to SNP Alison Thewliss MP for joining APPG to end leasehold unfairness (as Scottish system is so much better)

The Times Spread

The Times reports that families ‘lost £3 billion’ on resale of leasehold retirement flats, while developers and freehold speculators made millions

Ruling blasts Israel Moskovitz’s lawyers for ‘wasting tribunal time’ in legal warfare that is ‘part of a pattern’, as RTM gains control of £69,000 funds

Long Harbour hits reverse on forfeiture to £800,000 flat over £400 ground rent … and JB Leitch halves its legal bill

Freehold for Elan Homes leasehold house doubles in price to £15,900 four months after being sold to Landmark Investments

Ground Rent Addicts Anonymous sign Brokenshire’s pledge (three years after the scandal they created and denied existed)

Taxpayer boost for offshore speculators as Help To Buy lands 17,000 home buyers in leasehold

Latest

ABC Estates

Richard Davidoff ex-employees apologise for libel, meanwhile fines against ABC Estates pile up

Conservatives and RICS kicked back at insurance kickbacks in 2006. Unfortunately, they did nothing about it – and here we are

ABC Estates

Two former employees of ABC Estates ‘face £60,000 each in costs after libel claim, and must apologise in open court’

Poltair Homes

Nothing to do with us, says Poltair Homes CEO, over 80 blighted shared ownership houses in Cornwall

Note to Mr Gove: FSA was warning of ‘reputational risk’ in not cracking down on secret leasehold insurance commissions 17 years ago!

MPs join leaseholders at protest to ensure no one is left facing building safety cash calls

Lendlease

Michael Gove gets the cartel of taxpayer subsidised housebuilders to pay up £5bn towards the building safety scandal … but not Lendlease or Galliard

JB Leitch

Leasehold debt collector JB Leitch received £470,000 furlough, and paid out a £500,000 dividend to owners

Michael Gove: Is this the robust inquiry into leasehold insurance fiddles that you wanted from the FCA?

Platinum Skies

Retirement housebuilder Platinum Skies breached shared ownership rules with onerous ‘staircasing’ charges in the lease

Building Safety Bill

Government dumps Dame Judith Hackitt’s ‘building safety managers’, but what do the latest amendments to the Building Safety Bill mean for leaseholders?

Insurance insiders call for an end to secretive leasehold insurance commissions following Canary Riverside ruling

CMA slaps down doubling ground rents of 15 punters who bought cheating freeholds from Countryside Properties plc

JB Leitch

Blunder forces Pier Management and debt collector JB Leitch to scrap £3,265 late ground rent bill (and forfeiture threat that accompanied it)

Will government dump Dame Judith Hackitt’s £60,000 a year building safety managers job creation scheme?

Leaseholders helped over building safety crisis is now a ‘bizarre lucky dip’, say MPs

Israel Moskovitz fails to get £30 each from leaseholders for his ground rent demands (as barrister Rebecca Cattermole, acting pro bono, sees off Justin Bates in the Upper Tribunal)

L&Q rip-off ground rents

Housing association L&Q abandons rip-off doubling ground rents after CMA prodding

John Christodoulou fails to dump £355,000 gym debt onto the Canary Riverside leaseholders. Insurance commissions to be disclosed. And judge criticises his ‘extremely unattractive’ approach to tribunal

Ted Baillieu: Your misconceived Twitter thread over the ‘polluter pays’ amendment should be removed

See more Latest News

£100,000

Peverel / FirstPort pays compo – ‘goodwill gesture’ – after collusive tendering racket for electronic door entry systems at retirement sites.

£12 million

Legal and General prompted to pick up the full Grenfell cladding removal cost at Blenheim Centre / Reflexion in Hounslow.

£130 million

Taylor Wimpey puts aside £130 million to re-write the doubling ground rent leases which it dumped on its customers.

£5 billion

After nearly four years of indecision and then piecemeal measures – and still no help from freehold ‘building owners’ – government sets up a cladding removal fund. But …

Would any of this have happened without the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership?

Building safety scandal

After cladding leaseholders issue damning report into housing associations’ response, housing minister Lord Greenhalgh lashes out at ‘sanctity of social housing providers that have built rubbish’

Fletcher Court

Hallmark Property Group seeks to put 44 flats worth £15m on top of a block with ACM cladding, waking watch, a B2 rating after EWS1 … and 75 utterly stressed out leaseholders

Not waiting for Gove: Kelly Tolhurst MP urges freeholder Israel Moskovitz to halt court action against leaseholders over £2m cladding and building safety costs

Morello Quarter

Morello Quarter leaseholders stall ruinous cost of waking watch, but how useful is court decision for others?

Building Safety Bill

The Building Safety Bill: what’s next and what can leaseholders do?

Taylor Wimpey cladding

Taylor Wimpey to pay fire safety works on sites built over past 20 years. (But what’s the catch, as with their tricksy doubling ground plan?)

Norges Bank Investment Management

Gove backs cladding leaseholders in urging investor Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) to make UK housebuilders pay for build defects

Data tells us sprinklers work, waking watch doesn’t, and freehold punters aren’t picking up the tab, Martin Boyd tells ODI

Hackitt and Knight back dumping unregulated sector-insider ‘building safety managers’ onto leaseholders at £60,000 a year, MPs told

Dame Judith Hackitt

Dame Judith Hackitt says cladding leaseholders risk ruin with rip-off charges. She wants to help. But is still at sea over leasehold law …

St David's Square

Fees come first for FirstPort: leaseholders billed at least £39,000 for applications to the Building Safety Fund … And so it begins

EWS1 debacle

EWS1 on under 18m high buildings … is still an utter mess

Building Safety Bill

Curiouser and curiouser: the Building Safety Bill has Second Reading in the Commons

Division as London Assembly opposition urges Sadiq Khan to be tougher on housebuilders over cladding

Tower Hamlets leaseholders find their voice, host free building safety conference with LKP on June 15

Saturday 5 June: Cladding leaseholders to demonstrate outside sales suites of house builders

Enough is enough! Ballymore must pay!

LKP to monitor bank exposure as cladding flats sell to cash buyers in auctions

Fire Safety Bill clears Parliament. So, what’s next?

Communities Select Committee calls on government to scrap cladding loan scheme and establish a ‘Comprehensive Building Safety Fund’

See more cladding scandal

Ground rent scandal

Sucking a lemon, the Leasehold Advisory Service notes the ground rent Act – which it did absolutely nothing to assist

Open letter to Taylor Wimpey: If you cared about sorting out your ground rent mess, you can pay back the money your own ex-customers have wasted over this scandal

Taylor Wimpey CMA

Reverse ferret: Taylor Wimpey NOW agrees to sort out re-sale buyers of its rip-off ground rent leasehold properties

Taylor Wimpey ground rents

CMA forces Taylor Wimpey to sort out rip-off ten-year doubling ground rents

Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Bill

Time to tell MPs what you think about the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Bill – and why it must not be nobbled

Sir Desmond Swayne

Few disagreements over banning ground rents, but last minute effort to keep them for retirement properties by Theresa Villiers and Sir Desmond Swayne

Lobbying alert: Theresa Villiers MP speaks up for ground rents, freehold owners and making sure marriage value still pays off for freehold investors

Countryside Properties plc

CMA forces Countryside Properties plc to strike out doubling ground rents: it was selling them as late as May 2017!

Blatant pro-landlord loophole left in the Ground Rent Bill. Is this the way leasehold ‘reforms’ will go?

Justin Madders MP

Justin Madders MP asks why Redrow is selling freeholds at Ledsham Garden Village for £4,000 when they were £6,500. And what about those who paid too much?

Countryside Properties plc

National Leasehold Campaign email dump urges developers to settle up like Aviva and Persimmon have done with CMA

CMA ground rents

CMA forces Aviva to re-set rip-off doubling ground rents to what they were when homes were first bought …

See more ground rent scandal