Both Long Harbour and debt collectors JB Leitch hit reverse gear after a forfeiture threat to an £800,000 flat over a late £400 ground rent bill was raised publicly by the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership. And JB Leitch has now halved its £2,000 legal costs demand to £1,000. Millie Li, a Chinese citizen, visited China in […]
A second backbench debate on leasehold issues
An application for a backbench debate on leasehold issues is due to be heard on Tuesday 21st November 2017 http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/backbench-business-committee/ The application asks the committee to consider: The APPG on leasehold and commonhold reform continues to grow and to date has 127 members. Government recently issued both a consultation and a call for evidence on […]
MPs tell government consultation: End leasehold houses. Scrap new ground rents. Ignore pleas for self-regulation. Ban Help To Buy on rip-off leaseholds
Self-regulation and codes of conduct have failed. Bring in commonhold and end the leasehold rip-offs. APPG pays “public tribute” to the work of LKP in revealing these abuses “LKP have helped hundreds of leaseholders keep their homes and continue to do so with very limited resources,” it says. Leasehold Sector ‘cannot be trusted’ All Party […]
Peter Bottomley MP calls for a debate on leasehold reform
Today in the House of Commons Sir Peter Bottomley MP called for a debate on leasehold issues. He mentions the need to reform the leasehold advisory service and the need examine the cost of lease extensions. Sr Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con) I am intervening, at the suggestion earlier of the Leader of the House, […]
Commons leasehold debate. December 20 2016
The Commons debate on leasehold reform took place after the intervention of LKP patrons Jim Fitzpatrick and Sir Peter Bottomley. The debate can be seen here: http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/fc53bd87-8abf-4986-b7ce-6a7a488b8cfc The debate can be read here: https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2016-12-20/debates/4F15110B-F6D5-4FA1-9154-536BD848130E/LeaseholdAndCommonholdReform The catalyst was the scandal of Taylor Wimpey selling homes between 2007-2011 with doubling ground rents and then selling the freeholds […]
70 attend APPG on leasehold after ground rent scandal grabs media attention
… and Taylor Wimpey backs down on building more leasehold houses More than 70 stakeholders, MPs and peers attended last night’s meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group on leasehold reform. The meeting, chaired by Jim Fitzpatrick (Labour, Poplar and Limehouse), was called at short notice following the upsurge of anger at Taylor Wimpey. The […]
Commons to debate leasehold reform next Tuesday. And Bottomley intends to name leasehold game-players …
LKP’s patron MPs Jim Fitzpatrick and Sir Peter Bottomley have secured a three-hour Commons debate next Tuesday (December 20) to discuss reforming leasehold tenure. It is the first full-on debate over leasehold issues since the debates that led to the 2002 Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act. The MPs made the announcement to the All Party […]
Taylor Wimpey CEO to meet MPs over ‘cancer’ of doubling ground rents (which were deterring astute buyers in 2007!)
Survey on onerous ground rent data. Please fill this in if you have a leasehold house with exploitative ground rent terms Next week Taylor Wimpey CEO Pete Redfern is to meet Sir Peter Bottomley and Jim Fitzpatrick, joint chairs of the All Party Parliamentary Group on leasehold reform. The meeting is private before the full […]
LKP poised to mine information on leasehold, after being admitted to Open Data Institute
LKP is delighted to announce that it has been accepted onto the Open Data Institute’s start-up accelerator scheme. This is a very prestigious accolade. Of the 83 applications for the scheme, four were accepted The ODI was co-founded in 2012 by the inventor of the web Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Sir Nigel Shadbolt, an authority […]
Bottomley tells Taylor Wimpey to explain ‘sharp practice’ ground rents – and asks for names of directors who approved them
Sir Peter Bottomley (right) has demanded that Taylor Wimpey explain its “unfair ground rent” provisions to the All Party Parliamentary Group on leasehold reform. Yesterday he told fellow MPs at the APPG meeting chaired by Jim Fitzpatrick, Labour MP for Poplar and Limehouse: “The ground rent increase may have been legal. It is clearly undesirable. […]
Barnard Marcus withdraws Blythe Court flat from auction
Barnard Marcus Auctioneers, part of the Sequence Auctions group, has suspended the sale of 1 Blythe Court. It has a ground rent of £8,000 a year, and the deed of variation outlining this condition does not appear to be in the legal documentation accompanying the sale. The flat belongs to Margaret Anne Kirmond, wife of […]
Housing Bill omits necessary ‘changes to leasehold and commonhold’
… and forfeiture needs changing, too Housing minister Brandon Lewis is facing trouble over his Housing Bill with Sir Peter Bottomley today telling the commons: “The Bill totally misses out the necessary changes to leasehold and commonhold. “Some years ago, the House passed a Bill to allow commonhold to come in. It has defects and […]
BBC told Charity Commission should stop dawdling over recognition of LKP
In a wide ranging BBC 5 Live Investigates programme on leasehold scandals – which can be heard here – Sir Peter Bottomley said the Charity Commission should recognise LKP’s application without further delays. He told interviewer Adrian Goldberg on May 24 (for which LKP reproduces the transcript below): “The Charity Commission need to register Leasehold […]
LKP at Number 10
LKP were invited to 10 Downing Street for a meeting yesterday to discuss the leasehold sector and the need for reform. Every area of the sector was discussed – including, at length, retirement housing – at a meeting that was held at the request of Sir Peter Bottomley, who was accompanied by Sebastian O’Kelly and Martin […]
No change over Cirrus retirement scam, says Entwistle, although Peverel leaves an open goal for compo claims
Janet Entwistle, the chief executive of Peverel (soon to be reborn as FirstPort), has ruled out mediation with retirement residents scammed in the Cirrus collusive tendering scandal. Any “unhappy individuals” should make a complaint directly to her, she says in minutes of a meeting with Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation on October 10. Having orchestrated […]
Council of Mortgage Lenders urged to help LKP end forfeiture
Forfeiture and how to bring it to an end was the subject of a LKP meeting with the Council of Mortgage Lenders and the Building Societies Association in London this afternoon. LKP is trying to push the subject of forfeiture up the political agenda: for all leaseholder readers new to this site, forfeiture means you […]
