Ground rent speculators don’t get more brazen than the advertising of The Ground Rent Firm, which has just put out this ad through the property industry’s Bible, Estates Gazette.
“Sell us your ground rents – £150m to deploy”.
Just call Iain if you want to flog off the freehold to your PRS scheme – Carillion administrators might be on to that – flats, conversions, headleases, student flats etc.
“WE BUY IT ALL!”
But what is The Ground Rent Firm Limited and what – apart from its unappetising advertising – distinguishes it from loads of other bottom-feeders buying up resi freeholds?
Er … well, it isn’t exactly Long Harbour (£1.7 billion), the Wellcome Trust or even the Ground Rents Income Fund plc (£114 million).
The Ground Rent Firm has one director and one employee Iain Avi Benjamin, 37, who appears to operate out of a semi in unfashionable Hendon, in north London.
He paid himself £20,000 in 2016 and £24,000 last year, and the company has assets of under £8,000.
All of which is rather a distance from the £150 million the ad boasts about.
Actually, the oddest thing about this is that Estates Gazette is happy to run an advert like this, given the current climate over ground rents.
Related posts:
Ground rents to be allowed in retirement housing, says government
Our ground rents are fair, says McCarthy and Stone (even though they go up to £600 and are for no service whatsoever)
£19,200 a year ground rents at Crawford Building are not our problem, says Redrow
Countryside Properties plc cracks over ground rents scandal …
Scandal makes Ground Rents Income Fund plc fall £6m since March but … it has paid out 40.6% in three years
Mundy case in Court of Appeal showdown over valuation racket
we don’t know who funds Iain Avi Benjamin or who is the ‘legal team’ behind him. Because there has to be a legal team.
Oh dear………
In addition to the brevity of my previous comment.
I find the advertising Image depicting a syringe about to be depressed deeply distasteful and the type of image I should imagine a drug dealer would use to sell or buy toxic substances that cause untold misery to individuals and their families.
Oh wait a minute………..!, The advertisement should be pulled from the Estate Gazette forwith. Shocking!
Reference is made to unnamed “Venture Capitalists” The Hendon address appears to be no more than a correspondence address?
I am almost tempted to call Iain with a freehold to sell and see where that takes me,,,
The National Leasehold campaigners are not impressed at all with this very distasteful advertisement. I work for the nhs and find this use of imagery disgusting. NLC have contacted this man and let their thoughts known. So when he gets into the office in the morning ( oh yes he doesn’t have one does he ? ) …..
Katie
I was so incensed with this ad I just could not resist contacting Iain:
Dear Iain
I am one of the organisers of the National Leasehold Campaign set up twelve months ago to highlight the injustices linked to Leasehold new build properties.
We currently have nearly 10000 members in the campaign whom we represent at Westminster through the APPG on Leasehold reform.
One of our members has recently shared an image (attached) that your company used to advertise ground rent investments and it is fair to say it has caused great offence.
We understand the business model is lucrative to investors however the use of a medical syringe to illustrate an “injection of wealth” is distasteful.
Many of our members work in health including myself and the idea that all the ground rent money exhorted from leaseholders is injected like a drug for the sole gratification of investors is abhorrent.
We are considering reporting the image to the Advertising Standards Authority however we would like to give you the opportunity to voluntarily remove it.
If we do not receive a reply from you in seven days time we will make a formal complaint.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Regards
Cath Williams
National Leasehold Campaign
Well done but I still think we should have contacted Iain Avi Benjamin with ground rents to sell. I’d love to get to the lawyers behind this. It’s highly unlikely that Iain dreamed this little scheme up all by himself.
Dear Fleecehold,
I believe that the NLC have indeed contacted Master Avi,from “ Unfashionable Hendon”. I think it would be prudent to wait and see if the grossly offensive advertising material has been removed by 25th January 2018 before further action is considered.