If you have strong view - we have! - over the 25% commercial exclusion to collective enfranchisement on mixed use site, the Law Commission wants to hear from you.This point could not have been more forcibly made by Law Commissioner Nicholas Hopkins at the LKP-organised meeting last Saturday at the Law Society, in central London.The 25% commercial property in a block stops leaseholders taking control of their sites, and is a major frustration in prime London blocks.Two prime sites in … [Read More...]
THE REASONS WHY …
Latest news
VAT on house managers’ wages will cost leaseholders £50m a year, says Rendall and Rittner
Changes to impose VAT on the salaries of house managers and concierges in blocks of flats will add £50 million to service charges, Rendall and Rittner tells LKP.Founder Duncan Rendall said: “This is a huge own goal by the Government given their stated objectives of trying to reduce the cost of leasehold.“The capitalised impact of the change is north of £0.5billion.”LKP has asked Rendall and Rittner for an analysis of its figures. We are also unsure what the capitalised impact is … [Read More...]
Property manager who champions leaseholders resigns from Tory party over ‘watered down’ reforms
Cherry Jones, a Swindon property manager and champion of leaseholders, has resigned from the Conservative Party over the government back-tracking over leasehold reform.In correspondence to local Swindon MPs Robert Buckland, also the Solicitor-General, and Justin Tomlinson, she says: “I have resigned my conservative membership. I am embarrassed by the party I have supported all my life. This was a golden opportunity for the Conservatives to do something great.” Ms Jones is a well known … [Read More...]
Welsh Assembly evidence over Grenfell cladding costs by FPRA ‘consultant’ Cassandra Zanelli is called into question
Solicitor Cassandra Zanelli has been challenged over evidence she presented to the Welsh Assembly over who will pay to remove Grenfell cladding at private blocks of flats.Miss Zanelli, who was representing the Federation of Private Residents Associations as an “honorary consultant” at a session on September 27, told a committee of the Assembly that leaseholders were taking out loans to pay for cladding removal.The evidence has been challenged by Martin Boyd, LKP chair, who is also an … [Read More...]
Let government know just what you think about property tribunal reform
By Harry ScoffinWant to make your views known about the property tribunal and the government’s proposed “specialist housing court”? Now’s your chance.The government launched yet another consultation relevant to leaseholders yesterday: into streamlining access to justice for tenants and landlords.It said:“Government will seek views on a specialist Housing Court which, if created, would provide a single path of redress for both landlords and tenants – meaning both have the security … [Read More...]
Did government cop-out on retirement ground rents stuff new thinking in the sector?
The new chief executive of McCarthy and Stone John Tonkiss is delighted the government has caved in over retirement housing ground rents, while announcing strategic changes that were prompted by the prospect of this reform.The company argued strongly in favour of ground rents because it was disadvantaged by having to provide communal areas at its sites, such as a lounge and kitchen.But at the same time it was considering a future without ground rent sales to speculators: sales that have … [Read More...]
Labour MP Helen Goodman fights ‘fleecehold’ rip-offs with Private Members’ Bill
Helen Goodman, Labour MP for Bishop Auckland, today launches her Private Members Bill to ban "fleecehold" charges on private estates.These are a where new estates have roads, lighting and communal spaces unadopted by the local council, which have to be maintained at the residents' expense.Inevitably in the property world, this has become another income generating asset which is now widely traded.Helen Goodman told fellow MPs today:Today, November 14, I will be presenting my … [Read More...]
Even if you only respond to one question, take part in the Law Commission consultation!
By Sebastian O'KellyLKP and the National Leasehold Campaign are organising a public meeting for leaseholders with the Law Commission tomorrow afternoon.Law Commissioner Professor Nicholas Hopkins and his team will explain their work on enfranchisement, lease extension and commonhold.Other speakers will include Professor Susan Bright, of Oxford University, and barrister Amanda Gourlay. There will also be officials from the DHCLG.Those interested can book here. LKP and the … [Read More...]
Ground rent scandal
Long Harbour lobby MP Kate Osamor bars leasehold activist from Twitter feed
Corbynite Labour MP Kate Osamor, who asked a series of parliamentary questions on behalf of residential freehold fund Long Harbour, has barred a prominent leasehold activist from her Twitter feed. Baz Jafar, a doubling ground rent leaseholder, found he was blocked from his Edmonton MP’s official Twitter feed yesterday after raising the issue of the […]
Brokenshire trashes Sajid Javid’s reforms of leasehold
October 14 2018 This week we should have been able to announce three very positive proposals for supporting leaseholders. This followed on from the excellent work by Secretary of State Sajid Javid and his radical commitment that the government had finally agreed to a “crackdown on unfair leasehold practices”. Unfortunately, Sajid Javid was promoted […]
Kate Osamor MP asks parliamentary questions for Long Harbour on ground rents, says Daily Telegraph
Labour frontbencher Kate Osamor asking a series of parliamentary questions on behalf of ground rent speculators lifts the lid on lobbying for the sector. Miss Osamor, the shadow international development secretary, submitted six questions drafted by lobbyists Pagefield acting for the £1.6 billion Long Harbour fund, the Daily Telegraph has claimed. LKP has contacted Labour’s […]
MPs turn out in force to welcome leaseholder demonstrators at Westminster
MPs turned out in force this morning to meet leasehold demonstrators organised by the National Leasehold Campaign, most of who arrived by coach from the North West. Sir Peter Bottomley and Jim Fitzpatrick, patrons of LKP and co-chairs of the APPG on leasehold reform, were on hand, as was Justin Madders, the deputy chair who […]
APPG July 11: Robust debate over retirement ground rents and event fees
By Sebastian OKelly, LKP trustee The controversial issues of ground rents and exit fees in retirement housing were discussed at this week’s meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group on leasehold and commonhold reform. These were the main event in a meeting which also had an insider’s examination of leasehold insurance commissions, and why developers […]
APPG July 11: Taylor Wimpey deserves no praise for its cheating RPI ground rent relief scheme, says leasehold house customer
… What I want what was promised: my freehold for £5,000 Freehold owners are desperate to nobble the ground rent capitalisation rate before reforms By Joanne Darbyshire Speech at APPG on July 11 2018 Jo was also on BBC R4 You and Yours yesterday, which can be heard here at 35 mins in: Treatments for […]
Ground rents are so valid … to pay out £300m bonuses to Persimmon cronies
Yet another example of cronyism at work as 130 Persimmon staff share out a £300 million bonus thanks to spreading leasehold houses around the country. The company’s hilariously mis-named “long-term incentive plan” – short-term fill-yer-boots, would be more accurate – has already seen CEO Jeffrey Fairburn being awarded a £112 million bonus. The company’s regional […]
Retirement housebuilders and speculators plead to be allowed ground rents in the Evening Standard
As government – and the Law Commission – reel from a barrage of special pleading by housebuilders over the government’s proposals to set ground rents as low as zero, their lobbying efforts were considered in London’s Evening Standard yesterday. It featured contributions from the soon-to-be-let-go CEO of McCarthy and Stone Clive Fenton and Spencer McCarthy, […]
McCarthy and Stone and Churchill: are you blackmailing government over the ground rent ban and is your business model broken? Asks BBC R4 MoneyBox
Brilliant interview with outgoing McCarthy and Stone CEO Clive Fenton ‘Problem’ that retirement housebuilders have not been spoonfed profits, like others through Help To Buy Anyway, aren’t retirement housebuilders insignificant given the numbers of pensioners who are downsizing today, asks BBC? Radio 4’s MoneyBox quizzed retirement housebuilders McCarthy and Stone and Churchill Retirement Living on […]
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 Darbyshire I bought my home from […]
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
ARMA pleads to be on Lord Best’s regulatory working group. It should be. And so should LKP …
And ARCO and ARHM ARMA has written to Communities Secretary James Brokenshire asking to be including on Lord Best’s working group looking at the regulation of estate agents, letting agents and block managing agents. It almost certainly should be, in LKP’s view, as should we, representing the interests of leaseholders who pay for the sector. […]
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 […]
LEASE: Beyond repair?
LKP’s essential leasehold guide in The Sunday Times … feel free to add
By Sebastian O’Kelly It was good to be able to use a small Q&A article in yesterday’s Sunday Times to offer a mini guide for leaseholders. This is the sort of thing the Leasehold Advisory Service should be putting out, if it were not in thrall to the commercialisers in the sector. Indeed, it was […]
Is LEASE an institutionally corrupted organisation?
“Institutional corruption is manifest when there is a systemic and strategic influence which is legal, or even currently ethical, that undermines the institution’s effectiveness by diverting it from its purpose or weakening its ability to achieve its purpose, including, to the extent relevant to its purpose, weakening either the public’s trust in that institution or […]
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 […]
News archive
Government action on leasehold scandal has been ‘too weak and too slow’, says John Healey
… And demands inquiry into mis-selling of leasehold homes Labour shadow communities secretary John Healey attacked government inaction over the leasehold scandal this week. He told the Commons that government action had been: “too weak and too slow and, critically, largely overlooks the plight of existing leaseholders. An industry survey shows that six in 10 […]
‘Uncharitable’ Mary Magdalene and Holy Jesus Trust and the issue of lease extensions
MP attacks ‘charity’ residential freehold owners gaming the leasehold system and cites the Mary Magdalene and Holy Jesus Trust Chi Onwurah addressed the issue of the the Mary Magdalene and Holy Jesus Trust in her Newcastle constituency again yesterday as a parliamentary question. “The Mary Magdalene and Holy Jesus Trust is a charity that is […]
Brokenshire wrongly says freeholders have paid for Grenfell cladding removal
Communities Secretary James Brokenshire told the Commons yesterday that freeholders had paid up to remove Grenfell cladding from private blocks. He was replying to a parliamentary question from Hilary Benn concerning astronomic Grenfell cladding costs at Saxton and Skyline Apartments in his Leeds constituency. Mr Brokenshire should understand that the developers who have paid up […]
Brokenshire to meet house builders and freehold investors … but no leaseholders
James Brokenshire is to meet house builders and freehold investors on Thursday … but not with the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership or any other leaseholder body, as Sir Peter Bottomley has recommended. These will include CEOs or senior executives of Taylor Wimpey, Bellway, Persimmon, Barratt, Countryside Properties plc, Redrow, Laing O’Rourke, Morris Homes, Miller Homes, First […]
Select Committee on leasehold, November 5 2018
The full Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee hearing on leasehold November 5 2018 Transcript is here
Google removes FS Legal’s advertisement ‘falsely implying affiliation’ with NLC
… but it was all a mistake, says law firm Google has removed an online advertisement by compo law firm FS Legal for “breaching our policies and falsely implying affiliation with NLC (National Leasehold Campaign)”. Google has informed LKP, its MP patrons and the co-founders of the NLC: “Our team has reviewed this ad and […]
Private Eye warns that Brokenshire’s £10 ground rents undermine reform of leasehold
Excellent article in the Eye:
Law Commission meets leaseholders in Manchester
But will its reforms help 100,000 trapped in unsellable homes? The Law Commissioner Professor Nicholas Hopkins and his five-strong team came to Manchester yesterday to address 120 leaseholders organised by LKP and the National Leasehold Campaign group. He was joined by Justin Madders, Labour MP for Ellesmere Port and Neston, an official from the DHCLG […]
Lawyers offer pro bono aid to leaseholder facing QC in £24,000 dispute in Upper Tribunal
Solicitor Mari Knowles and barrister Justin Bates have offered their services pro bono to leaseholder Michelle Baharier who is fighting a £24,000 Upper Tribunal case against a QC. The lawyers, who are both working on the leasehold reform agenda at the Law Commission, stepped in after reading the case on the LKP website today. Michelle […]
