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

If we have helped or been useful, please contribute:

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News

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

Lawyers to Communities Select Committee: Stop ‘sticking plaster reforms’. End ‘draconian’ forfeiture. £10 ground rents a ‘mistake’. Make legal costs fair to leaseholders. Commonhold failed because developers make money out of leasehold …

Latest

Professor Susan Bright

Making the polluter pay

Richard Davidoff

Property tribunal tightens up how it appoints section 24 court-appointed managers after the Richard Davidoff debacle

Norges Bank Investment Management

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

Settlers Court: for the first time the Supreme Court considers right to manage. The result? Leaseholders get a battering over communal area management

Time for leaseholders in mixed-use sites to take control

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

IRPM Ricahrd Davidoff

Richard Davidoff of ABC Estates expelled from IRPM

Two ex-employees of ABC Estates fail to stop Richard Davidoff defamation action over critical Google reviews with fake names (and ‘face £36,000 costs so far’)

Vicky Pollard property tribunal: yes, but … no, but … Yes, you have been ripped off over insurance. But no, we can’t do anything about it

Sir Keith Lindblom

Well, can Sir Keith Lindblom do anything about Richard Davidoff’s continuing role as an officer of the property tribunal?

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

Mike Amesbury Matthew Pennycook

Shadow housing brief passes from Mike Amesbury to Matthew Pennycook

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

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

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

LKP accredited managing agent Premier Block Management ‘opens Pandora’s box’ by inviting critical social media reviews

St David's Square

FirstPort faces leasehold rebellion over service charges at St David’s Square

EDM Richard Davidoff

Sir Peter Bottomley calls on ministers to listen to ‘whistleblower’ ex-employees of Richard Davidoff (of ABC Estates)

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£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

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’

Chris Pincher

Fire Safety Bill ricochets around Parliament as 31 Conservative MPs again vote against the government

Lord Greenhalgh

Lords push government’s Fire Safety Bill to the edge as parliamentary session nears end …

Should the buyer beware? Leaseholders and fire safety remediation costs

Liam Spender

Government’s use of extra-statutory powers has made the cladding crisis far worse than in Australia (or possibly Scotland), writes LKP trustee

New Capital Quay

New Capital Quay Litigation continues, with concern that repairs may still not meet Building Regulations

Ted Baillieu, ex-pm of Victoria, tells London cladding leaseholders that Australians identified flats most at risk and sorted them out first (but there were loans to flat owners)

Chris Pincher

Bottomley leads Tory rebellion of 32 MPs, but government defeats amendment to Fire Safety Bill

NHBC

NHBC controls up to 90% of new build warranties: law professors raise concerns …

Housing crisis. Possible banking crisis. And lease forfeitures ‘very, very soon’, Communities Select Committee is warned

See more cladding scandal

Ground rent scandal

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 …

Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Bill

Make sure ground rents are dead and buried by improving the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Bill

Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Bill

Analysis of where next with the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Bill

offshore freeholders

Freeholders and housebuilders have plucked the leasehold golden goose, and now the path is clear for commonhold

Lord Blencathra

House of Lords turns into the House of Serfs to attack the iniquity of leasehold ground rents

The Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Bill: opportunities and challenges

If government’s is tempted to dither over banning new ground rents, then this woman’s £1m a year for a small flat should clinch it …

BovisHomesGateway

Bovis Homes leaseholder in Bristol cannot sell as ground rents reviewed every five years

See more ground rent scandal