DCLG stakeholders hear of ‘calamitous’ Law Commission report on exit fees – Better Retirement Housing
The DCLG leasehold stakeholders’ group was told yesterday that the Law Commission report into exit and other fees published earlier this month was ‘calamitous’. The study had come about following the Office of Fair Trading investigations into the retirement housing sector. One concerned the systematic cheating of pensioners over the Peverel / Cirrus collusive tendering …
ARCO conference offers a different vision to retirement housing, but … – Better Retirement Housing
There will be – and there are already – issues with big event fees The conference of the Association Retirement Community Operators in central London last week offered a fascinating alternative vision for the retirement housing sector to the one that we have. The organisation represents providers who build and manage their own sites, as …
Australia and New Zealand have been held up as the exemplar for event fees, but they proved highly controversial last year:
Bleed them dry until they die: the Aveo residents who suffer cruelty and neglect
“The reason they had me forcibly admitted to the Biala Unit, which is a psychiatric department … was to punish me, was to shut me up, was to silence me with drugs.” It was June 23, 2009, when Gwyneth Jones was admitted to a psychiatric ward after complaints about her behaviour at Aveo retirement village The George in one of Melbourne’s bayside suburbs.
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The OFT, Study into Exit Fees, was in my opinion, a political decision, made by politicians who oversee these Non-Governmental Organisations because of Conflict of Interest. This can be seen in the light of the OFTS Investigation into Systematic Fraudulent Cheating of thousands of Pensioners out of £1.4 million pounds. Due to the lack of proper Regulation by Government and the failure of organisations set up by Peverel Retirement now Firstport Retirement.
The Association of Residential Managing Agents (ARMA) set up to oversee MA has proved to be a total whitewash, even now it has Firstport directors in place marking their own homework.
Chas, was Tchenquiz the owner of Peveral Retirement when the fraud took place?
We have had the OFT report back in 2012. It basically rubber stamped event fees in retirement blocks, though it did make Fairhold Homes Ltd make a “pledge” regarding sub-let fees. The w****** were charging fees of 1%, even if the home was passed on to family by inheritance.
https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/fairhold-leasehold-retirement-properties-transfer-fee-terms
If the government does not legislate then we stumble from scam to scam, as we have seen.
Deja Vu anybody?
Chris, Peverel was part of The Tchenguiz Family Trust Group of Companies at the time of the price fixing. Vincent Tchenguiz forced a retraction for a statement made that he owned Firstport on the basis that it was the Tchenguiz Family Trust that owned it.
The directors at the time eventually formed their own property management company Freemont Property Management (which is currently up for sale)
Andy Davey who at the time of the price fixing headed up Cirrus was subsequently promoted within the Peverel group and when he left he re-joined the former CEO Janet Entwistle at Ainsclough.
About 20 years ago , the Tchenguiz Brothers traded as “Consensus Business Group” ( CBG) and controlled by Tchenguiz Family Trust ( TFT ) based in the British Virgin Islands ..
Their entry into ground rent investment business was by taking over Fairhold Group which included E& M acting as managing agent to collect ground rent for other subsidiary companies of Fairhold Group. In Feb 2002 , during speech in Parliament , Barry Gardiner identified E&M and Simarc as ground rent grazers which invested not to collect ground rent but to claim hefty recovery charges from leaseholders who were in arrears for a few pounds.
After the New Labour Government passed the C & LRA Act 2002 for Commonhold system, the Housing Minister refused to replace leasehold property system by commonhold and showed little interest in supporting the leaseholders side, despite Commonhold was part of the New Labour election manifesto in 1997..,
In late 2004, Barry Sheerman MP ( Huddersfield ? ) want the CBG investigated but Keith Hill, then Housing Minister declined to investigate saying that since Housing Department had been split from DETR , they had no powers to investigate companies. This seems to have been the green light for CBG to expand.
In 2006, CBG took over Solitaire Group and MacCarthy & Stone Group in 2007 took over Peverel group ( purchased from a USA listed company. The CBG claimed to have “superior management” and CBG made many purchases of other ground rent property companies, financed with bank loans from Merryl Lynch ( USA ) , Kaupthing Bank ( Iceland ) and HBOS . CBG website even claimed to have taken over the listed Erinacious Group of Companies but Erinacious shares crashed to Nil value
However in 2008, the Great Financial Crash occurred and it seems these banks suffered the kiss of death from lending to Tchenguiz Bros. . Kaupthing Bank failed due to excessive lending to Tchenguiz Bros, HBOS failed due to becoming insolvent and had to be taken over by Lloyds Bank Group and similarly Merryl Lynch had to be taken over by Bank of America.
The fraud relating to “fire Alarms in retirement home” occurred in late 2008 , was reported by the Times Newspaper . If you study the directors of the companies involved in the fraud .you will find one of the directors of Peverel is William Proctor . So you can conclude William Proctor as a director of every Peverel subsidiary company, was probably aware and probably given consent to the fraud.