• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Before Header

  • Home
  • What is LKP
  • Find everything …
  • Contact
Donate

Leasehold Knowledge Management Logo

Secretariat of the All Party Parliamentary Group on leasehold reform

Mobile Menu

  • Home
  • What is LKP
  • Find everything …
  • Contact
  • Advice
  • News
    • Find everything …
    • About Peverel group
    • APPG
    • ARMA
    • Bellway
    • Benjamin Mire
    • Brixton Hill Court
    • Canary Riverside
    • Charter Quay
    • Chelsea Bridge Wharf
    • Cladding scandal
    • Competition and Markets Authority / OFT
    • Commonhold
    • Communities Select Committee
    • Conveyancing Association
    • Countrywide
    • MHCLG
    • E&J Capital Partners
    • Exit fees
    • FirstPort
    • Fleecehold
    • Forfeiture
    • FPRA
    • Gleeson Homes
    • Ground rent scandal
    • Hanover
    • House managers flat
    • House of Lords
    • Housing associations
    • Informal lease extension
    • Insurance
    • IRPM
    • Jim Fitzpatrick MP
    • John Christodoulou
    • Justin Bates
    • Justin Madders MP
    • Law Commission
    • LEASE
    • Liam Spender
    • Local authority leasehold
    • London Assembly
    • Louie Burns
    • Martin Paine
    • McCarthy and Stone
    • Moskovitz / Gurvits
    • Mulberry Mews
    • National Leasehold Campaign
    • Oakland Court
    • Park Homes
    • Parliament
    • Persimmon
    • Peverel
    • Philip Rainey QC
    • Plantation Wharf
    • Press
    • Property tribunal
    • Prostitutes
    • Quadrangle House
    • Redrow
    • Retirement
    • Richard Davidoff
    • RICS
    • Right To Manage Federation
    • Roger Southam
    • Rooftop development
    • RTM
    • Sean Powell
    • SFO
    • Shared ownership
    • Sinclair Gardens Investments
    • Sir Ed Davey
    • Sir Peter Bottomley
    • St George’s Wharf
    • Subletting
    • Taylor Wimpey
    • Tchenguiz
    • Warwick Estates
    • West India Quay
    • William Waldorf Astor
    • Windrush Court
  • Parliament
  • Accreditation
  • [Custom]
Menu
  • Advice
  • News
      • Find everything …
      • About Peverel group
      • APPG
      • ARMA
      • Bellway
      • Benjamin Mire
      • Brixton Hill Court
      • Canary Riverside
      • Charter Quay
      • Chelsea Bridge Wharf
      • Cladding scandal
      • Competition and Markets Authority / OFT
      • Commonhold
      • Communities Select Committee
      • Conveyancing Association
      • Countrywide
      • MHCLG
      • E&J Capital Partners
      • Exit fees
      • FirstPort
      • Fleecehold
      • Forfeiture
      • FPRA
      • Gleeson Homes
      • Ground rent scandal
      • Hanover
      • House managers flat
      • House of Lords
      • Housing associations
      • Informal lease extension
      • Insurance
      • IRPM
      • Jim Fitzpatrick MP
      • John Christodoulou
      • Justin Bates
      • Justin Madders MP
      • Law Commission
      • LEASE
      • Liam Spender
      • Local authority leasehold
      • London Assembly
      • Louie Burns
      • Martin Paine
      • McCarthy and Stone
      • Moskovitz / Gurvits
      • Mulberry Mews
      • National Leasehold Campaign
      • Oakland Court
      • Park Homes
      • Parliament
      • Persimmon
      • Peverel
      • Philip Rainey QC
      • Plantation Wharf
      • Press
      • Property tribunal
      • Prostitutes
      • Quadrangle House
      • Redrow
      • Retirement
      • Richard Davidoff
      • RICS
      • Right To Manage Federation
      • Roger Southam
      • Rooftop development
      • RTM
      • Sean Powell
      • SFO
      • Shared ownership
      • Sinclair Gardens Investments
      • Sir Ed Davey
      • Sir Peter Bottomley
      • St George’s Wharf
      • Subletting
      • Taylor Wimpey
      • Tchenguiz
      • Warwick Estates
      • West India Quay
      • William Waldorf Astor
      • Windrush Court
  • Parliament
  • Accreditation
You are here: Home / News / ARMA / ARMA-Q solves ARMA’s problems, not those of leasehold

ARMA-Q solves ARMA’s problems, not those of leasehold

May 16, 2013 //  by Sebastian O'Kelly

KeithHillSliderARMA-Q, the scheme to give ethical credibility to the Association of Residential Managing Agents, was given the blessing of the government and the leasehold establishment yesterday with a House of Lords launch.

Already the new ARMA-Q regulator Keith Hill (above), a former New Labour housing minister, has six cases of complaint to deal with “which I am going to get started on right away”.

Baroness Hanham, Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government, gave a cordial endorsement, saying that self-regulation was the government’s favoured solution to leasehold.

Leasehold tenure is going to increase and she was aware that, owing to different demographics and culture, there could be one or two problems with it (which is an odd way of seeing £1 million law cases, or pensioners facing a £30,000 legal bill because their “right to manage” has been thwarted).

She sang her boss’s praises for his amendment to the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill that means managing agents will have to be members of an Ombudsman scheme.

This irrelevance was dreamed up to dump a crafty clause introduced by Baroness Gardner in the Lords, which would have paved the way to state regulation of managing agents – which has the unanimous support from all sides in the sector.

That is not to say that Mark Prisk, the housing minister, is deaf to leasehold issues – unlike his hapless predecessor – and another round-table of leaseholder insiders (with LKP in the naughty corner as an “observer”) will take place.

While it is difficult to be too enthusiastic about a trade body with such grisly members – who give repeated demonstrations of their priorities in one LVT case after another – ARMA-Q is a very good thing and must be welcomed.

The more thoughtful ARMA members know that it is long overdue, and the wily ARMA secretariat have half an eye on ARMA-Q being the statutory regulatory scheme in leasehold management (helped along by the two leasehold civil servants at the DCLG, who were present at the celebrations yesterday).

The appointment of Keith Hill as the regulator is also a very good choice.

Unfortunately, he overdid matters in his address saying “ARMA represents only half the country’s managing agents and these are the good guys.”

ARMA certainly does have a lot of “good guys”. But it also has some real stinkers and they have been calling the shots in this organization until very recently.

The problems with leasehold, as we repeatedly point out in our lobbying, are not confined to one or two Rachmans: it is large-scale, corporate cheating surrounding inter-company deals, loaded charges, insurance commissions and, as often as not, joint ownership of managing agent and freeholder – which is a bar to membership of LKP.

Many very good managing agents abhor ARMA and won’t have anything to do with it; some have resigned from the organisation. For years it colluded in covering up the abuses of leasehold while intoning hypocritical drivel about “transparency” and fairness towards stakeholders.

There is also the point that many managing agents are members RICS, or as “associates” are members of RICS lite, and have no need to join ARMA at all.

Hill certainly demonstrates a commendable zeal for his new role, which will involve 2-3 days a month. Although details are sketchy, his decisions will be made public: he says immediately after the case. Although there will also be an annual report.

For leaseholders, ARMA-Q is a useful additional source of redress, if it can be demonstrated that an ARMA member has failed to comply with the organisation’s ethical standards.

Many might be tempted to look to the regulator for low-cost, simplified justice, without the procedural complications and risk of costs involved in an LVT.

That would be to misunderstand ARMA-Q: it is there to sort ARMA’s problems, not those of leaseholders. It will not be Keith Hill ruling on whether you are paying too much in the service charges.

ARMA-Q gets a pat on the back from government and is going to be trumpeted by the vested interests in leasehold.

Leaseholders with serious disputes will know, from even a cursory read of this website, that there is no alternative to meticulously prepared litigation in the LVTs.

Related posts:

Michelle Banks: silent over abuses, but ‘ARMA-Q will be good for leaseholders’ ARMA-Q reformers get strong backing at annual conference What does LKP think of ARMA reforms, we were asked. As the annual conference begins in London today, here we go … ARMA ends four-month farce after finally saying who its members are … ARMA: prepare for a regulated leasehold management world

Category: ARMA, ARMA-Q, NewsTag: ARMA-Q

Latest Tweets

Tweets by @LKPleasehold

Mentions

Anthony Essien (34) APPG (37) ARMA (87) Bellway (30) Benjamin Mire (32) Cladding scandal (71) Clive Betts MP (31) CMA (44) Commonhold (52) Competition and Markets Authority (39) Countryside Properties plc (33) FirstPort (40) Grenfell cladding (56) Ground rents (54) Harry Scoffin (150) James Brokenshire MP (31) Jim Fitzpatrick (35) Jim Fitzpatrick MP (30) Justin Bates (40) Justin Madders MP (64) Katie Kendrick (37) Law Commission (60) LEASE (66) Leasehold Advisory Service (62) Leasehold houses (32) Long Harbour (48) Martin Boyd (80) McCarthy and Stone (39) National Leasehold Campaign (38) Persimmon (49) Peverel (61) Property tribunal (49) Redrow (30) Retirement (37) Robert Jenrick (33) Roger Southam (47) Sajid Javid (38) Sebastian O’Kelly (55) Sir Peter Bottomley (200) Taylor Wimpey (106) Tchenguiz (33) The Guardian (33) The Times (31) Vincent Tchenguiz (42) Waking watch contracts (40)
Previous Post: « Is Peverel gearing up for another sale?
Next Post: Many congratulations today to Mayor Bob! »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Paul

    June 4, 2013 at 6:07 am

    This is very concerning that RICS members will not have to join the ARMA-Q ombudsman scheme.
    I have written many letters to RICS complaining about a managing agent/freeholder,they don’t have a proper complaints procedure in place, they are more geared up on the construction side, so RICS membership will be a negative from the the point of view of leaseholders complaints.

    • Lesley Newnham

      June 4, 2013 at 1:36 pm

      Paul,

      A few years ago I tried to complain to RICS about our managing agent. I knew it was pointless complaining to ARMA because the service charge manager of our block at the time was not only chairman of ARMA but had also worked for RICS!! ( I considered this to be a conflict of interests )

      After much debate and finding out we were leaseholders and not ‘clients’ RICS very conveniently decided they could not help as they only dealt with chartered surveyor complaints.

      It was at this point I knew for certain they were all pals together and started in earnest looking into RTM which we have now achieved but there are still many unanswered questions.

Above Footer

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

We depend on individuals for the majority of our funding.

Support Us and Donate

LKP Managing Agents

Become an LKP Managing Agent

Common Ground
Adam Church
Blocnet property management2

Stay in Touch

To achieve victory in the leasehold game where you are playing against professionals and with rules that they know all too well - stay informed with the LKP newsletter.
Sign Up for Newsletter

Professional Directory

The following advertisements are from firms that seek business from leaseholders.
Click on the logos for company profiles.

Footer

About LKP

  • What is LKP
  • Privacy and data

Categories

  • News
  • Cladding scandal
  • Commonhold
  • Law Commission
  • Fleecehold
  • Parliament
  • Press
  • APPG

Contact

Leasehold Knowledge Partnership
Open Data Institute
5th Floor
Kings Place
London N1 9AG

sok@leaseholdknowledge.com

Copyright © 2023 Leasehold Knowledge Partnership | All rights reserved
Leasehold Knowledge Partnership Limited (company number: 08999652) is a company limited by guarantee that is a registered charity (number: 1162584) with the Charities Commission.
LKP website is hosted at www.34sp.com
Website by Callia Web