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You are here: Home / News / Some of our freehold clients are offshore, admits Will Astor’s HomeGround

Some of our freehold clients are offshore, admits Will Astor’s HomeGround

March 10, 2017 //  by Sebastian O'Kelly

Leasehold no longer just for bottom-feeders in the auctions: HomeGround has seen the opportunities of a widely expanded leasehold sector as flats, and now houses, are built with lucrative freeholds and legally enforceable income streams

Homeground, the ground rent gatherer that is part of Will Astor’s Long Harbour group, is gathering revenues for offshore owned freeholders, it admits.

In a leaflet circulated to leasehold homeowners who have contacted the company, it says:

“Some of our client Landlords are companies registered in England and Wales, with records available at Companies House, and others are registered in Guernsey with their records held by the Guernsey Companies Registry.”

These offshore assets join billions of pounds of other offshore-owned UK properties that have aroused the interest of transparency campaigners and Parliament.

From a boutique business in the 1990s, offshore ownership of UK residential property is now an epidemic. The scale of this scourge is revealed in Private Eye and other publications: It is difficult to understand how a democracy functions with this sort of industrial scale smart-arsery, which makes a mockery of the little people who pay taxes. And ground rents, for that matter.

It has reached £269 billion over the past 14 years, Property Week reported in 2015.

It is also unappetising that Mr Astor, the heir to the viscountcy, could not put his resources to a wealth-generating enterprise of some social merit.

Instead, he has been trained by Vincent Tchenguiz, for whom he worked for six years, in how to monetise residential freeholds – a sector that has long been notorious in property.

HomeGround makes the point: “For clarity we do not take any other forms of commission whatsoever, from third parties.”

So that’s a departure from Vincent’s model.

HomeGround’s explanation of the continues:

“These investors want to own the freeholds since they see them as secure long term investments, and are particularly interested in making sure the properties they own are well maintained and well looked after because of their long term interest in the property.”

Actually, there is plenty of evidence of freeholders being completely unconcerned about the physical state of the properties, which has no bearing on either ground rent or the reversionary value of the leases.

A monetising freeholder can make money by endlessly spending out leaseholders money on a block of flats, say, and, contrariwise, running the block down to the point where only he is the only likely purchaser of a lease in it.

LKP has examples of both enthusiasms.

HomeGround addresses the doubling ground rent scandal, as follows:

“Some housebuilders decided to sell leasehold homes with leases including doubling Ground Rent, which have had media attention recently.

“If you think you are affected you should check what you were told by the housebuilder (if you bought your home newly built), and in any event by the conveyancing solicitor you used when you bought your home.

“If you think you were not properly advised about this you should complain to them. All solicitors’ firms are independently regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (“SRA”). You can also take independent legal advice about your rights if this situation applies to you.”

Indeed, you should. You might also raise the issue with your MP, Sir Peter Bottomley and Jim Fitzpatrick, the patron MPs of LKP, and with LKP itself.

The issues are to be addressed again by the All Party Parliamentary Group on leasehold reform, of which LKP is secretariat, on March 22.

HomeGround continues:

“Aren’t Leases with doubling Ground Rents illegal? Why do your clients have such Leases?

“These Leases are legal, despite what you may have read or heard in the media. [We are not aware of any media outlet, or politician, suggesting that they are illegal.] They were sold on to our Landlord clients, who bought them in good faith, by the housebuilder who created them. The underlying lease terms have not changed.”

“I’ve heard about this – aren’t you overcharging Leaseholders and forcing us to pay an extortionate price for the freehold?

“The quotes we give to leaseholders of properties who want to buy their freehold are based on the value of that freehold to our Landlord client, plus an allowance for its costs of selling to you. Any leaseholder who gets a quote has the right to accept it, say no, or negotiate by offering a different price. There is no obligation on you to accept the price quoted if you don’t want to. We strongly urge any leaseholder who is unhappy with a quote to get advice from a surveyor about their rights, and their own valuation of the freehold

What if the housebuilder offered to sell me the freehold of my house for a fixed amount a short time ago? Don’t you have to do the same? Aren’t you just profiteering from owning these freehold houses?

“If you own a leasehold house your right to buy the freehold is the same no matter who owns it, and you can have the freehold price worked out under the same method in the legislation. If you bought from a housebuilder, they might have offered to sell you the freehold at a discounted price. That offer doesn’t bind your current Landlord , and may not reflect what your Landlord had paid the housebuilder for the freehold. However none of that changes your right to buy your freehold, and have the price decided independently, if you want to.”

The full HomeGround document is here: HomeGround-FAQs info on leasehold

Related posts:

Bellway offers young mother freehold for £3,750. But Adriatic Land demands £12,750 … then agrees to half the sum Will Astor‘Cameron’s brother-in-law Will Astor and the toxic leasehold scandal’, Daily Mail Default ThumbnailTchenguiz, Astor and offshore freeholders like Abacus Land 4 Limited should PUBLICLY meet over Grenfell cladding, MPs told Government to ask Will Astor: who is the offshore freeholder at Heysmoor Heights (where ordinary families face £18k Grenfell cladding bills)? Does Li Ka-shing own your Adriatic freehold, or Hutchison Whampoa, or billionaire Frank Sixt, or Astor? Only Long Harbour knows, and it’s not saying …

Category: Ground rent scandal, Latest News, News, William Waldorf AstorTag: Homeground Management Limited, Long Harbour, Property Week, Vincent Tchenguiz, Will Astor

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Leaseholder

    March 10, 2017 at 5:44 pm

    “A monetising freeholder can make money by endlessly spending out leaseholders money on a block of flats, say, and, contrariwise, running the block down to the point where only he is likely to a lease in it.”

    This is our current situation, running down the fabric of the building and charging service charges for endless substandard services that are quite superficial. The freeholder of our building is also a foreign entity with zero accountability
    I guess for them it’s a long term plan, and is working well, as a trust fund for their grandchildren to Inherit.

    Taking it to a tribunal to take over the management so we can improve the building we live in , is an expensive and difficult proposition.

  2. Paul Joseph

    March 10, 2017 at 9:09 pm

    Mr Tchenguiz routinely followed the urban decay model.

    Zero budget for any avoidable capital expenditure.
    Zero provision for reserves (which Peverel is known to have used in other developments for paying service charges of defaulters).

    Plus, of course, kickback, commissions, rebates, and endless other skims back to the freeholder.

  3. ollie

    March 12, 2017 at 12:33 am

    I think last year one of the sunday papers ( Mail on Sunday ) did a report on Mrs Cameron and her family connections and I noticed William Astor was mentioned as having worked in Vincent Tchenguiz’s offices .

    So we can see that he has learnt the trade in using off-shore companies to buy freeholds and become Tchenguiz ver. 2 .

    Anyone can search for the information on the company which owns the freehold of the block of flats from Companies House but the trail to identify the real beneficial owner in British Virgin Island is completely lost. These off-shore companies are completely on top of HMRC in being able to escape paying the normal taxes which leaseholders pay at 20 % , 40% and 45% rates on their earnings.

    UK companies claim loan interest as expenses against ground rent and pay little company tax at 20% and soon going down lower. Many ground rent investment companies are set up using little own capital and excessively huge bank loans to exploit the low tax situation .

    Make your complaint to your MP and make sure he/she knows the freeholder investment companies have the tax advantage over the leaseholders who are paying 20%, 40% and 45% on income. Its the leaseholder’ s taxes which pay for MPs Salaries , the running of the County Courts and even FTT and UTT , CMA and Leasehold Advisory System..

  4. Karen

    March 12, 2017 at 9:20 am

    Most of the new developments being build are being funded by government Help to Buy schemes.
    This money should be helping to fund the building of new homes in the U.K. But instead it is being used to build investments for off shore companies that pay little or no UK tax!
    Would anyone who agrees these deals, care to explain how all this can be happening and justify the flow of money being taken off shore and out out of this country!

    There is more red tape to open a casino than there is to invest in the U.K. Ground rents scandal!

    This has been going on for years now and is only getting worse.

    Someone in Government has to sit up to take control on this issue now, as it really could be an election losing issue!

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