Leasehold Knowledge Partnership

The registered charity for leaseholders

Menu
  • Home
    • Site map
    • Archive of posts by category
  • What is LKP
    • Privacy and Data Protection Statement
    • Site map
  • HELP FORM
  • News
      • APPG
      • ARMA
      • Bellway
      • Benjamin Mire
      • Brixton Hill Court
      • Canary Riverside
      • Charter Quay
      • Chelsea Bridge Wharf
      • Commonhold
      • Communities Select Committee
      • Conveyancing Association
      • Countrywide
      • DCLG
      • E&J Capital Partners
      • Exit fees
      • Fleecehold
      • Forfeiture
      • FPRA
      • Gleeson Homes
      • Ground rent scandal
      • Cladding crisis
      • Hanover
      • House managers flat
      • House of Lords
      • Housing associations
      • Informal lease extension
      • Insurance scams
      • IRPM
      • Jim Fitzpatrick MP
      • John Christodoulou
      • Justin Bates
      • Justin Madders MP
      • Law Commission
      • LEASE
      • Leasehold Valuation Tribunal
      • Local authority leasehold
      • London Assembly
      • Louie Burns
      • Martin Paine
      • McCarthy and Stone
      • Moskovitz / Gurvits
      • Mulberry Mews
      • National Leasehold Campaign
      • Oakland Court
      • OFT / CMA
      • Park Homes
      • Persimmon
      • Peverel
      • Philip Rainey QC
      • Plantation Wharf
      • Prostitutes
      • Quadrangle House
      • Recognised Tenants’ Association
      • Redrow
      • Retirement
      • RICS
      • Right To Manage Federation
      • Roger Southam
      • RTM
      • Sean Powell
      • SFO
      • Sinclair Gardens Investments
      • Sir Ed Davey
      • Sir Peter Bottomley
      • St George’s Wharf
      • Taylor Wimpey
      • Tchenguiz
      • West India Quay
      • William Waldorf Astor
      • Windrush Court
  • Accreditation
    • Accredited Companies
        • Block Managers Limited
        • Clear Building Management
        • Diamond Managing Agents
        • Dixon Emerald Associates
        • HML Group
        • Home from Home
        • Home Management Group
        • JFM Block & Estate Management
        • Jones Associates Letting & Management
        • Norwich Residential Management
        • Premier Block Management
        • Red Rock Property Management
        • Sapphire Property Management
        • Town & City Management
        • Urang Property Management
        • Vestra Property Management
  • Fighting back
      • Lease Extension
      • Q&As
      • Right to buy freehold
      • Commonhold
      • Bottomley blasts leasehold crimes on video
      • LVT/Property Chamber Survival
      • Tribunal triumphs … and defeats
      • Recognised Tenants’ Association
      • Right To Manage
      • Video
      • Find MP … and see how many leasehold voters
      • LEASE: what’s the point?
      • Pensioners win £68,500
      • Most damning LVT ruling ever made
      • Insurance racket
      • Local authority leasehold
      • Remember to extend your lease
      • St George’s wins £1 million
      • Leasehold law: the reforms
  • Sub-letting
  • Press
  • Contact
  • Parliament
      • Communities Select Committee
      • APPG
      • APPG December 14 2016
      • Commons Debate 20/12/16
      • APPG April 19 2017
      • APPG July 5 2017
      • APPG December 14 2016
  • Right To Manage
  • Lease Extension
  • National Leasehold Campaign
    • Louie Burns
    • Ground rent scandal
    • Michael Epstein
  • Donate
You are here: Home / News / Guardian report pours scorn on OFT price-fixing investigation – and Peverel’s contemptible £100,000 ‘goodwill’ offer

Guardian report pours scorn on OFT price-fixing investigation – and Peverel’s contemptible £100,000 ‘goodwill’ offer

December 15, 2013 By admin

GuardianpaperYesterday the Guardian published a devastating report of the Peverel / Cirrus price-fixing scandal.

It poured scorn on Peverel for systematically cheating residents of retirement leasehold, on the Office of Fair Trading for its scandalous feeble report and being suckered into granting Peverel leniency.

It also rightly derided Peverel’s £100,000 offer of a “goodwill gesture” – which should prompt a gesture of an altogether more vulgar variety in reply.

The article was written by Patrick Collinson, the personal finance editor, who has written about Peverel in the past.

Please comment on the article here in order to prompt a follow-up.

It would be useful if the Guardian reports the compensation proposals put forward by Sir Peter Bottomley, which are supported by Jim Fitzpatrick, Labour MP for Limehouse and Poplar, and Ed Davey, the LibDem Energy Secretary and Cabinet minister.

Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation has received a number of other examples where Cirrus has carried out works at sites for disputable amounts of money.

Please keep us informed: if your site has been ripped off and is not on the OFT list, we will look into it.

If Peverel has not reported all the sites where the scams operated, then the OFT’s pathetic leniency deal will not apply.

Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation is also keen to discover what the ARHM has to say about this disgrace. Or the Elderly Accommodation Council, which seems to spend its time doling out awards and linking to a retirement housing estate agency.

The ARHM, funded mainly by Peverel, pontificates about standards, transparency, decency and the rest … now it can comment on an OFT report which, even in its diluted form, is a devastating critique of those managing retirement housing.

It would also be an occasion for Sally (Baroness) Greengross, ARHM president and former head of Age Concern, to address this issue.

She appears to have spent the last 25 years downplaying issues in retirement leasehold and was – according to John McCarthy – the first port of call when McCarthy and Stone disastrously attempted to sue the Daily Telegraph.

She famously said complainers in retirement leasehold were “barrack-room lawyers”, and joked with ARHM members about the indignation caused by the remark.

If nothing else, the OFT report into the corporate plundering of pensioners by Peverel / Cirrus has shown her to be partial and foolish on this subject.


Related posts:

Guardian examines the Peverel / Cirrus price-fixing scandal tomorrow Guardian covers more fall out from Peverel’s price-fixing scam with Cirrus Communications OFT will report on the Peverel / Cirrus price-fixing scandal on Friday Peverel Cirrus price-fixing stooge says sorry … Default ThumbnailCampaign against Residential Leasehold Exploitation meets lawyers over Peverel price-fixing scandal

Filed Under: News, Peverel, Peverel Cirrus story so far, Sir Peter Bottomley

Contact LKP

Need help?

LKPhelp2The leasehold game is weighted against ordinary home-owning leaseholders, who aren’t professional players. LKP was set up to redress the balance, to help you win your disputes or at least avoid disasters.

If you have a leasehold problem, you can email sok@leaseholdknowledge or take a chance on calling 07808 328 230.

Or fill out this form, which ensures that you provide the essential information.

LKPnewsletter3

Professional services

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

Law

Right to manage

Lease extension / enfranchisement


capitalleasehold6-9ins

Insurance

Landscaping

limetree

LKP Managing Agents

Big managing agents are big because they have got business from developers or large-scale freehold owing companies. Doubtless they are very obliging.

Not a single one is big through consumer choice.

Managing agents accredited to LKP want business from leaseholders. Many are former leaseholders.

All have signed undertakings of good practice and have provided extensive references … from leaseholders.

They can also hand-hold leaseholders through right to manage at minimal cost.

Contact Sebastian O’Kelly at LKP for further details: sok@leaseholdknowledge.com, 07808 328 230

Please click on logos for link and details

Comments

  1. simin Eftekhari says

    December 15, 2013 at 9:59 pm

    I am shocked knowing about Baroness sally Greengross , president and former of age concern appeared to have spent 25 years downplaying retirement housing issues. I have worked voluntarily for age concern ; they are most vulnerable and fragile people. Where these greedy people are taking the world to? They have to be stopped.

  2. Chas says

    December 16, 2013 at 12:19 am

    Simin,
    I have seen her apology and read her comments, she has let down the people she was supposed to represent. Let us name the party she also represents and look for any good she ever carried out.
    Check out Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation and About Peverel as they also are aware of this lady!!!!

  3. AM says

    December 16, 2013 at 9:35 am

    It would be far more useful if the OFT admitted that while the goodwill gesture is within their remit, the facts and breadth of overspecification and the collusion are such that they should report the matter to the Police for criminal investigation. Even if they do not, presented with such a future question ” why did you not refer it to the Police” might force them to up the ante on Peveral.

    • simin Eftekhari says

      December 16, 2013 at 1:29 pm

      I agree with AM. These matters should be taken seriously. Should be reported to the police. Criminals in this field know the system well, before victim realises the damages, they have made fortunes.
      My other concern is why Baroness Sally kept in a position for 25 years. How her position was extended? Was it by voting, feed back of elderly client, or by people above them. Surly she has had support from people around her. The apology is not enough and her apology should not stop further detailed investigation.

  4. AM says

    December 16, 2013 at 9:38 am

    I have some sympathy for Baroness Greengross as on many occassions her (third hand) generalisation would be correct. In this case it was woefully wrong.

LKPnewsletter3

Political action CAN help

Full list of Peverel retirement sites and the constituency MPs

LKP  / Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation has published a very nearly full list of Peverel’s 1,467 retirement sites with links to contacting the constituency MP.

One feature that is immediately noticeable is that 73 per cent of retirement leasehold sites are in constituencies with Conservative MPs.

Click here for sites with the relevant MP:

PeverelMPsColorSync

Click on link for the full unimaginative list of retirement site names:

PeverelsitenameColorSyncUtility

MPpiechart3

Tweets by @LKPleasehold

News stories: Peverel

Britain’s biggest managing agent FirstPort sold on – again

By Michael Epstein (who has been critical of FirstPort in the past) Firstport the controversial property management company, have recently negotiated a major re-financing package with Lucid Trustee Services and investors Equistone. This follows the failure by Firstport’s previous investors to sell the company and their subsequent decision to withdraw from their involvement with Firstport. […]

FirstPort named twice in Commons today

  A few hours after FirstPort – aka Peverel – was named in prime minister’s questions, it was named again – for not fixing a broken lift. First, Conservative MP Huw Merriman, for Bexhill and Battle, raised issues of “fleecehold” charges and high retirement service charges – “thanks to the dominant influence of FirstPort”. Later, […]

FirstPort Retirement is allowed into ARMA

The controversial FirstPort Retirement managing agent has been admitted into the Association of Residential Managing Agents FirstPort, formerly Peverel, was responsible for systematically cheating pensioners in retirement sites which resulted in an Office of Fair Trading ruling of bid rigging in December 2014. The scandal involved its subsidiary Cirrus competing for expensive electronic door entry […]

Terrys Mews right to manage fails for not knowing Peverel OM is now FirstPort

A right to manage application for Terrys Mews, a block of 20 flats in York failed earlier this month owing to an error over the name of Peverel OM. The leaseholders, who were represented by Canonbury Management to handle the RTM, did not appear to know that Peverel OM is now called FirstPort. Proxima GR […]

99% of FirstPort’s 3,800 service charge accounts are up to date

LKP  has not been backward in criticising Peverel / FirstPort over the years. However, it is reasonable and fair that the company’s achievement in getting on top of the service charge accounts is recognised. Here FirstPort CEO Nigel Howell (below right) explains that more than 99% of its service charge accounts are completed on time The […]

Pensioners ‘turn to old Peverel politburo at Freemont Property Managers for right to manage’

Pensioners at two Stonewater housing association retirement sites are said to be seeking right to manage using Freemont Property Managers – the company founded by ex-Peverel politburo members. Some held senior positions in the company when Peverel’s subsidiary Cirrus was systematically cheating pensioners in a price fixing racket that was busted by the Office of […]

ARMA regulator’s sanctions against FirstPort ‘did not address seriousness of what took place’

The admonition delivered to FirstPort for attempting to sell off house managers’ flats has not satisfied complainant Alex Ellison. “I am, of course, pleased that you upheld my complaint and that you have imposed disciplinary sanctions on FirstPort,” she has written to the ARMA regulator Keith Hill. “… However, disciplinary sanctions alone do not seem to adequately […]

ARMA rules against FirstPort Retirement …

Humiliating criticism of the troubled property manager, but the path is now clear for it to apply for membership of the trade body The regulator of the Association of Residential Managing Agents (ARMA) has admonished on two counts Peverel / FirstPort Retirement, which was applying to join the organisation. But the decision means the controversial […]

ARMA to rule on admitting scandal-hit FirstPort Retirement

FirstPort Retirement, formerly Peverel, should not be admitted to ARMA because it has an unaccounted-for portfolio of house managers’ flats and has a track record of misleading residents when trying to sell them. These were the arguments put on Monday to Keith Hill, a former New Labour housing minister, who is the regulator of ARMA […]

A gift from Tchenguiz is one to decline

A tactic to undermine residents’ right to manage ambitions by Estates and Management – which manages the various freehold vehicles of the Tchenguiz Family Trust, based in the British Virgin Islands – is to offer to dump FirstPort and replace it with another management company. And here they are: CPBigwood, Inspired Property Management, Warwick Estates […]

80% of Londoners like living in a flat, even ones run by FirstPort

FirstPort / Peverel, the country’s largest and most controversial apartment manager, has interviewed 738 Londoners and found that they quite like living in a flat. As they bought a flat or chose to rent in the first place, this is encouraging news and they don’t feel that they have made a mistake. It did not […]

From Tokyo, leaseholder wins back £100 ground rent at Maltings Court

A leaseholder of a property at Maltings Court, Stratford-upon-Avon, has settled an action to regain wrongly demanded ground rent and his court costs … corresponding with E&M and Peverel / FirstPort from Tokyo. In spring 2011, Geoffrey Powell, and a number of other leaseholders at the 21-flat Maltings Court, received ground rent demands dating back […]

FirstPort backs down over demanding £10,808 from leaseholder … and she is not staying silent either

A leaseholder at Phoenix House in Leicester has fought off demands for £10,808.60 from Peverel / FirstPort, represented by the debt-collecting solicitors JB Leitch. Jacqueline Henderson has been in dispute over service charges since 2010, which she claims are erroneous. After attempting to obtain the money for some time, FirstPort then threw in the towel and […]

ARMA ends four-month farce after finally saying who its members are …

But don’t feel any obligation to join on our account! ARMA has finally published a list of its full members – more than four months after making the more rigorous ARMA-Q the criteria for membership. Until today, the only clue as to who was a member of ARMA was the stream of congratulations posted on […]

Peverel / FirstPort pays back £39,377 wrongly taken from Hillside Court, but the pensioners say another £3,498 is missing

Just over a week after being contacted by LKP, Peverel / FirstPort has had to pay back £39,377 to Hillside Court, in Ormskirk. The money was wrongly paid to the freeholder over the past 15 years after flats were sold, rather than transferred to the retirement site’s contingency fund. Residents spotted the extraordinary error in […]

More Posts from this Category

DIrection

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Find Everything

Essential reads …

  • Ground rent scandal
  • Parliament
  • MPs’ APPG on leasehold
  • Benjamin Mire
  • Moskovitz / Gurvits
  • Oakland Court
  • McCarthy and Stone
  • Persimmon
  • Recognised Tenants’ Association
  • Cladding crisis
  • Canary Riverside
  • John Christodoulou
  • Peverel
  • Peverel Cirrus story so far
  • Charter Quay
  • Forfeiture
  • Plantation Wharf
  • Law Commission
  • Plantation Wharf
  • West India Quay
  • LEASE: what’s the point?
  • Tchenguiz
  • Sean Powell
  • Press
  • Exit fees
  • William Waldorf Astor
  • Martin Paine
  • LKP anthem
  • LVT/Property Chamber Survival
  • Most damning LVT ruling ever made
  • Pensioners win £68,500
  • Park Homes
  • Redrow
  • Retirement

Copyright © 2019 Leasehold Knowledge Partnership