Dear Ted Ayres … your company Bellway sold our family’s future

Ted Ayres, the CEO of Bellway, also received a wave of emails from his disgruntled customers this morning.

The initiative was organised by the Facebook group National Leasehold Campaign of leasehold house owners.

In common with all the others in on the leasehold house wheeze, Bellway has been creating an investment asset class at the expense of its customers.

These freeholds have been bought by shady companies such as Adriatic Land where the ultimate beneficial ownership is hidden behind nominee directors.

Here is some of Mr Ayres’s morning reading:

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Thanks. The landlord to our house is Adriatic Land. And just who are they?

Dear Mr Ayres

I am contacting you regarding the position we are in with our property which we bought from Bellway PLC. I am the owner, or so I thought of Spooner Avenue, Litherland, Liverpool or Plot 60 (Church Fields) as Bellway know it. We bought a new build 4 bedroom detached property from Bellway in December 2013.

We enquired to buy the freehold as part of the house purchase and we were informed that we could only purchase the freehold after 2 years, sadly Bellway has sold the freehold on to Adriatic Land 4 (GR1) Limited and this is managed by Homeground Management Ltd. Whilst we did receive notice following the sale, we had no prior warning or consultation regarding this. Had I been informed in advance and offered the opportunity to purchase the freehold at this time we would have done so. Doing so would have given us the ability to make an informed decision. I would like to ask why would Bellway PLC sell our freehold to such a company other than for their own shrewd tactics.

When looking into who Adriatic Land 4 (GR1) Ltd is on company house it is apparent that the company was previously known as Bellway and you were the Director of this company for several years? This is deceptive practice and totally unethical. On Company House Adriatic is listed as Dormant so therefore should not be carrying on any kind of business activity or receiving any form of income. How can this be when the whole estate, and indeed others across the north west are paying ground rent to this company via Homeground.

The current situation we are in is that the company you sold our future to is charging upwards of £13,500 for purchase of the Freehold, whereas you were charing a fraction of this price. Its scandalous, our houses are unsellable with the clauses your company have deeply embedded into the lease. As such no solicitor has picked up on this or perhaps the solicitors that were pushed on us by Bellway were paid to glance over this. If our solicitor (MSB) had of advised us about the implications of purchasing a leasehold property, we would NOT have purchased one.

I would be grateful if you could please forward me the sale transaction for the freehold of my house/estate that allegedly took place on 1st Feb 2016?

It appears it’s now becoming common practice that after an new build estate is completed the developer sell the Freehold on either prior to or very soon after completion of the development. As we appear to be the first generation of being “stung” by this trap it needs careful consideration and action at both a local and national level. So you will find that I have copied in members of parliament who I hope will help this national plight and unfair practice.

Buying a home should be an exciting prospect but we have had nothing but issues with Bellway and this now adds to the stress.

I would be grateful for personal response to the concerns raised.

Kind Regards

Kirsty Morgan

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Why did you let my Bellway home become someone else’s investment?

Dear Mr Ayres,

I emailed you on 6th February 2017 and I am still awaiting an acknowledgement let alone a response.

I have attached this letter once again.

It would appear the developer Bellway is washing your hands of homeowners who are caught up in the leasehold mess.

Bellway as our developer knew fully well that the intentions was always to sell our freeholds on. It is very clear by the amount of people that are effected by this that you failed to make these intentions known to your customers. I can not emphasis enough how important that information would have been in order for us to be able to make and informed decision in whether to proceed with the purchase or not.

When a patient gives consent for an operation they are given all the information, pro’s and con’s, and risks associated with the procedure in order to make an informed decision and give consent. This situation is no different. Purchasing a home is the biggest purchase most people will ever make, it’s the biggest decision for their family. However the developer held back key information that was vital in the decision making process.

Mr Scougall in previous correspondence mentioned if we are not happy with the advice our solicitor (that you recommended) gave then we should take it up with them directly. Can I please remind you I feel the blame here rests with the developer Bellway. I feel blaming the solicitors is a way for you to reflect blame. Developers need to take responsibility for this mess, you started selling leasehold houses instead of freehold for no reason other than greed.

You fail to acknowledge how by selling our freeholds on has financially impacted on us. The moment you did that my home became someone else’s investment, someone elses “gravy train”. I only ever gave permission for the purchase of my home and lease to be between myself and Bellway.

Purchasing my freehold after 2 yrs was always my intention and one that your sales representative said would be no problem. By selling my freehold before this point you took away the affordability of being able to do so. The affordability to actually own our home. Please do not explain to me yet again that “my legal position has not changed when you sold our freeholds”. Yes I am fully aware of my legal rights to purchase my freehold. I am more than aware of the Enfranchisement process, but this is an unnecessary and very stressful and expensive process that the developers are forcing homeowners to enter into just because of your greed.

Please could you respond to the issues I have raised. Bellway have shown absolutely no compassion over the upset and stress you have caused. Please take responsibility for the mess thousands of homeowners are in.

The leasehold campaigners will continue to fight this matter, and I will stand united with them. We will continue to use every media outlet possible to let people know what damage buying leasehold homes does to a family.

Please could you acknowledge receipt of this email and provide a full response within the next 14 days.

Regards

Katie Kendrick

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Bellway just refer me to its solicitors

Dear Mr Ayres,
I make reference to my previous correspondence sent 19th November 2016 and 3rd January 2017 to which I highlighted my dissatisfaction in the current situation your company has left myself and thousands of homeowners in.

In the last correspondence received from Mr Scougall (20th January 2017) I was informed that if I had any further points to make in relation to these issues to contact your solicitors.

I feel extremely aggrieved that you are now directing me to your solicitors and you don’t personally have the decency to respond to me directly.
I do not have the luxury of hiding behind solicitors.

Mr Ayres, you are building homes for people to live in, not investment vehicles for financial institutions.

We had no idea that Bellway were going to sell our freeholds on. This was crucial information that Bellway failed to inform us about at the time of purchase.

The Consumer Rights Act specifically mentions that complex future financial implications must be spelt out very clearly, and warn against confusing wording around these issues.

Mr Scougall informed me it was always your intention to sell on the Freeholds. Surely this key important information should have been explained to me in order to be able to make an informed decision.

This is our lives, our homes, and our future you have sold from beneath us. We had no idea our homes would be used as a “long term investment stream”.

Gavin Barwell MP (Housing Minister) summed this up nicely when he stated in the Parliamentary debate on 20th December 2016 “A Gulf between the letter of the law and what is right”. I also bring your attention to recent discussion in the LEASE Annual conference:

‘If I fail to offend anyone, I will do it next time,’ Bottomley tells appalled leasehold professionals at LEASE annual conference

Other MP’s refer to it as “Legal Extortion”.

Taylor Wimpey have agreed to stop selling Leasehold houses in 2017, why are Bellway not changing their practices? Or are you waiting to be legislated to do so?

Mr Ayres, whilst you continue to fail to participate in any dialogue regarding this issue with me directly or with the media and not acknowledging how your practices have miss lead not just me, but thousands of homeowners nationally.

The Government will be urging you to make good this mess we are all in.

I feel deeply regarding this injustice that we have been served by purchasing our Bellway homes. Bellway homes and other developers have exploited the use of leaseholds to supply yourselves with a lucrative income stream. It is evident you have found a loophole within outdated legislation that you have exploited in order to provide more profit and ultimately make a profit from our homes twice.

I strongly question your society and economy statement you state on your website:

“At Bellway we are committed to being a good corporate citizen. This means looking after and developing those who work with us ….. in providing high quality value for money homes. In summary, it is about ensuring we operate our business in a responsible and sustainable way”.

The situation you have forced homeowners to now be in by selling our freeholds from underneath us (literally) certainly is not “value for money homes”, well not for us anyway.

It doesn’t add value to the local community, in fact your actions have left our homes undervalued and in some cases unsellable. If anything, it further disempowers homeowners, and lines the pockets of many offshore investors who now own our freeholds with extortionate associated fees attached to buying back our freeholds and taking control of our own homes.

Your corporate responsibility report 2014/2015 states:

“At Bellway, corporate responsibility is part of how we conduct business. We define it as our approach to achieving business goals in an ethical manner, benefiting the people we work with, the environments we work in, the communities we develop and the stakeholder we serve”.

I personally feel very let down and misled by Bellway, as do many others. I question how ethical it was to sell our Freeholds in the way you did. Whilst the right of first refusal does not apply to houses, ethically this would have been the fairest way to proceed if you wanted to dispose of your freehold portfolios.

The fairest way to proceed; that is if you actually valued your customers at all?

My next door but one neighbour (55 Tryfan Way, CH66 1TS) was fortunate enough to buy his Freehold with the purchase of his house (on 25.11.14).

Why were some houses sold Freehold and some Leasehold on the same development?

Why wasn’t all home purchasers offered this option at the time of purchase?

If I had of been offered this I would have purchase the Freehold at the time of purchase yet this was never offered to me. This further raises the question of consistency and fair practice. It certainly highlights discrepancies.

Now you have sold our freeholds onto Adriatic land 4 (gr1) Ltd, a company you in fact used to be a shareholder of yourself.

They are asking £13,350 for my freehold in less than a year.
I urge you Mr Ayres, to respond to your customers, past, present and future. There is an awful lot of publicity around this issue. Nobody has so far been able to provide any justification to this practice.

Please could you answer my questions, I will summarize:
1. Why was my neighbour able to purchase his house with his Freehold?
2. Why did Bellway leave out the key important information that you intended to sell the Freeholds on?
3. Why did you not consider the in pact on the customer when employing such practices?

This situation you have forced upon us is causing an awful lot of stress, worry and anxiety. I always intended to buy my freehold back. The sales team always said this would not be a problem. If only I knew then what I know now. Never would I have purchased under such vulnerable terms.
Please could you respond to my concerns within 10 days.
Regards
Katie Kendrick

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A new garage? That’s £300 to Bellway, or now £2,000 to Adriatic Land

Dear Mr Ayres,

I am contacting you regarding the position we are in with our property which we bought from Bellway PLC.

I am the owner, or so I thought of Spooner Avenue, Litherland, Liverpool or Plot 63 as Bellway know it. We bought a new build 3 bedroom detached property from Bellway in April 2014.

I enquired to buy the freehold as part of the house purchase and was informed that we could only purchase the freehold after 2 years and this would be at a cost around £3000. Sadly before that two years had passed Bellway had sold the freehold on.

We were informed by a letter dated 11th February 2016 that our Freeholds had been sold to Adriatic Land 4 (GR1) Limited on the 1st February 2016 and this would be managed by Homeground Management Ltd. Whilst we did receive notice we had no prior warning or consultation regarding this. Had I been informed in advance and offered the opportunity to purchase the freehold at this time we would have done so.

Doing so would have given us the ability to make an informed decision.

The current situation we are in is Bellway quoted around £3000 for Freehold, now the company you sold our future to is charging upwards of £12,500 for purchase of Freehold. This is deceptive practice and totally unethical. Its scandalous. Our houses are unsellable. The clauses within the lease have been so deeply embedded within the lease no solicitor has picked up on this or perhaps the solicitors that were pushed on us by Bellway were paid to glance over this. If our solicitor (MSB) had of advised us about the implications of purchasing a leasehold property, we would NOT have purchased one.

It appears it’s now becoming common practice that after an estate is completed the developer (in this case Bellway) sell the Freehold within a year. As we appear to be the first generation of being “stung” by this trap it needs careful consideration.

I would like to ask why would Bellway plc sell our freehold to such company other than for their own shrewd tactics.
Could you please forward me the sale transaction for the freehold of my house/estate that allegedly took place on 1st February 2016?

I am somewhat confused as Adriatic Land 4 (GR1) LTD, company number 06869737 is owned by Bellway PLC and you were the Director of this company for several years?
I have raised the issue with our development and contacted my local MP for further guidance.

Buying a home should be an exciting prospect but we have had nothing but issues with Bellway and this now adds to the stress.

We are also in a situation where we want to convert our garage and are now going to get charged upwards of £2000 just for permission to do so, whereas with Bellway it would have been £300. This is atrocious.

I would like a personal response to my concerns and not something generic within 10 working days.

Kind Regards

Jenny English

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Dear Mr Ayres: you started selling leasehold houses instead of freehold for no reason other than greed

I emailed you on 6th February 2017 and I am still awaiting an acknowledgement let alone a response. See below for a copy of my email.

It would appear the developer Bellway are washing their hands of homeowners who are caught up in the leasehold mess.

Bellway, as our developer knew full well that their intentions were always to sell our freeholds on. It is very clear by the amount of people that are effected by this that you failed to make these intentions known to your customers. I can not emphasise enough how important that information would have been for us to make and informed decision on the purchase of our homes. Purchasing a home is the biggest purchase most people will ever make, it’s the biggest decision for their family. However the developer held back key information that was vital in the decision making process.

Can I please remind you the blame here rests with the developer – Bellway. Developers need to take responsibility for this mess, you started selling leasehold houses instead of freehold for no reason other than greed.

You fail to acknowledge the impact that selling our freeholds has financially on us. The moment you did that my home became someone else’s investment. Our contract was between ourselves and Bellway only. We were never informed that the lease would be sold on!

Purchasing my freehold after 2 yrs was always our intention and one that your sales representative said would be no problem. By selling my freehold before this point you took away the affordability of being able to do so. The affordability to actually own our home. Please do not explain to me yet again that “my legal position has not changed when you sold our freeholds”. Yes I am fully aware of my legal rights to purchase my freehold. I am more than aware of the Enfranchisement process, but this is an unnecessary and very stressful and expensive process that the developers are forcing homeowners to enter into just because of your greed.

Please could you respond to the issues I have raised. Bellway have shown absolutely no compassion over the upset and stress you have caused. Please take responsibility for the mess thousands of homeowners are in.

The leasehold campaigners will continue to fight this matter, and we will stand united with them. We will continue to use every media outlet possible to let people know what damage buying leasehold homes does to a family.

Please could you acknowledge receipt of this email and provide a full response within the next 14 days.

Regards,

Mike and Fay Garvey

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 Why are we now ‘tenants of the house’ when before you were selling us the dream of home ownership?

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my email, via an emailed letter of February 10 2017.

You state that ‘Your long-leasehold interest gives you security on tenure in your property and is entirely marketable for many generations to come’. Do you know what would give me and my family security? The freehold. The fact that Bellway has sold off the freehold does not give me any security. Can you tell me why I should have to pay £108 to get the cost of buying the freehold? I don’t even know who owns the freehold. I am assuming that it is Adriatic Land 1 (GR1), 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6? Can you confirm what Bellway’s relationship is to these companies please?

When we bought the house, your sales associate told me that the freehold would be available for us to buy for the fee of 30 x 1 years ground rent (£4500.00) I am still awaiting Bellway’s offer. Also, we were never told that the ground rent would increase on the 8th anniversary of the lease and every 5 years after that.

You also state that ‘We make clear throughout the sales process the nature of the interest that is being sold’. Unfortunately, that was not the case. It was not made clear to my wife and I, exactly what we were buying into. Your sales associate did not tell me that should I want to improve my home I would need to ask for permission and pay a fee. Crucially, she did not tell us that we will never own our home. In the lease, clause 3.11 states ‘at the end of the term to peaceably yield up the property to the landlord in a state of good and proper repair’. If this clause was explained to me and was explicitly pointed out I would never have bought the house. If I don’t pay to extend the lease or buy the freehold, my descendants simply hand the house back to the landlord? Please explain to me how this gives me ‘security for generations to come’?

Furthermore, you say ‘We note the price recently quoted to purchase your freehold reversion has increased’. I’m not sure what you mean by this? I have never been quoted a price nor am I aware of an increase. Could you please advise me what these two sets of figures are as obviously you have seem to have access to them. I would also like to know how you came about being in possession of them.

I have an email from Mr. George Howarth MP, in which he has had a reply from the Assistant Chief Executive of Knowsley Borough Council, I include a portion below:

In terms of Bellway, we have received some information from their Finance Director in respect of their development at Bank Lane as an example of the types of charges that buyers can expect which you might find helpful:

• Lease is 999 years
• Ground rent per annum is £175
• Freehold purchase is £7,000
• The lease is reviewed every 5 years in line with Retail Price Index

Why is it, that the lease on this development is for 999 years whilst mine is for only 150 years? (Now only 144 years). it would also seem that the Freehold purchase of £7000 is available to prospective tenants of your houses. I can’t find mention of this on your website or the sales brochure?

Why do you refer to us as ‘Tenants of houses’ now, but before we ‘bought’ the house, there was no mention whatsoever of Landlords and Tenants? I find that paying over three hundred thousand pounds for a house and yet still only being a tenant, a scandalous situation.

I am bitterly disappointed and upset that we have been mis-sold our family home and would like to be clear that at no stage throughout the buying process were we told about the Leasehold/Freehold situation until the point of signing contracts. At this point, myself and my wife had fallen in love with the house, the area and truly felt we were buying our dream home. Due to Bellway’s sales techniques and procedures, we were not able to make a truly informed decision.

I await your prompt response.

Yours sincerely,

Kevin Jackson