By Harry Scoffin
The National Leasehold Campaign has received a boost with today’s news that Justin Madders MP, co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Leasehold and Commonhold Reform, has recommended that its three leaders be recognised at the upcoming Women in Housing Awards.
Organised by Inside Housing, the ceremony will be held at Emirates Old Trafford in Manchester on Thursday October 10.
In comments to Leasehold Knowledge Partnership, Mr Madders encourages leaseholders to sign up to www.womeninhousingawards.co.uk and nominate the NLC’s Katie Kendrick, Jo Darbyshire and Cath Williams for Team of the Year.
Leaseholders have until Thursday June 6 to submit their nominations.
The Labour MP paid special tribute to constituent Katie Kendrick, who established the social movement in January 2017 after discovering that the cost of buying her freehold had skyrocketed through no fault of her own. Her campaigning efforts have been commended by Daily Mail business editor Ruth Sunderland.
Ms Kendrick has helped turn the NLC into a 14,000-strong bloc of “leasehold freedom fighters”. She has managed to achieve this whilst being a full-time mother and undertaking 13-hour shifts as a paediatric nurse.
Mr Madders has proposed Ms Kendrick for Woman of the Year category. He said:
“Without the people power provided by the National Leasehold Campaign, there would not have been the momentous Communities Select Committee report nor the recent announcement of an investigation into leasehold mis-selling by the Competition and Markets Authority.
“By recruiting the talented Jo Darbyshire and Cath Williams to join her, Katie Kendrick scaled up the organisation and created a new buzz around the work Leasehold Knowledge Partnership and the APPG started.
“While developers and third-party freeholders may have ample financial resources to defend the status quo, Katie, Jo and Cath consistently demonstrate that the NLC has the organisational and symbolic power to end an exploitative system that has operated in this country for nearly a 1,000 years. Harnessing the internet, which past generations of leaseholders never had, they have given voice to homeowners caught in the leasehold property trap. Consumers are finally understanding what leasehold really means: glorified tenancy.
“I urge readers of the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership to vote for Katie Kendrick as Women in Housing’s Woman of the Year. But the NLC’s success also reflects a phenomenal team effort – so please nominate accordingly for the Team of the Year category.”
Leasehold Knowledge Partnership thought retirement housing would crack leasehold. How wrong we were.
“It was good fortune that the big housebuilders chose to shaft Katie, Cath and Jo by selling them toxic income-generating leases. It is to their credit that they refused to accept the ‘divide-and-rule’ tactics of the industry, who originally sought to separate the leaseholders of houses from those in flats.”
Voting advice
In your application, be sure to include your name and personal email address before selecting “I am nominating someone else for this category”. For nominee’s contact details, use nationalleaseholdcampaign@gmail.com
For both Team of the Year and Women of the Year categories, select ‘Policy’ as ‘job function’.
Written statements are optional but recommended given the judges will make their decisions based on the evidence that has been submitted. Unless you are self-nominating, which will only affect the NLC leadership, there is no need to attach image files.
Related posts:
National Leasehold Campaign activists hit the awards circuit
National Leasehold Campaign tops 10,000 members on its first anniversary
The creation of the National Leasehold Campaign
Here’s the National Leasehold Campaign pledge, after the government panders to the sector over its PR piffle emitted last month
Justin Madders MP asks why Redrow is selling freeholds at Ledsham Garden Village for £4,000 when they were £6,500. And what about those who paid too much?
Videos on LKP YouTube channel
Justin madders has chosen wisely and will be supported not only by me but many others who would say they are fabulous choices for Woman in Housing Awards.
For Sebastian to say Leasehold Knowledge Partnership thought Retirement Housing would crack leasehold. and he was wrong, may be correct but it was Retirement Housing that set up the platforms before LKP and Carlex and continue to post in a difficult period for Leasehold Flats who also see the values falling and difficult to sell.
Posters like Michael Epstein (although not a woman) should be put forward for an award as long as it is not a Firstport Retirement WOW Award.
Chas, thankyou so much for your continued support.
LOVE Michael Epsteins posts, but i agree he won’t be winning a WOW award anytime soon sponsored by First Port. Maybe we could get him wig and nominate for Women in Housing too (haha).
Jokes aside if it wasn’t for LKP the National Leasehold Campaign would never of been given the opportunities we have to ensure our voices are heard.
How wonderful if Katie received an award?
I say this not for her dedication to the cause, not for her integrity, nor for her motivational powers, but for a much more important reason?
If Katie wins this will be yet another Liverpool win at Old Trafford!.
YNWA xxx
Hear Hear … and Hear
Hear, Hear, and Hear and HEAR ! ,
There are 1.2 million persons working in the NHS system and Katie can get every nurse in the NHS on her side to promote ” Commonhold ” and get every nurse to persuade every sick patient in a hospital bed and their visiting family members to sign the petition.
Just talk to the sick patients about katie’s campaign and they will recover more quickly if they help rather than spend all their time thinking about their own illness.
Or perhaps if one of our favourite developers/freeholders/managing agents has a case of tonsillitis, the insertion of an enema in an unusual place may be warranted?
Or maybe medical notes stating “Nil by Leasehold” could be the order of the day?
Admin – is it possible to screen out Michael and Chas? My husband and I have a genuine interest in this website and the comments but it’s very tiresome having to scroll through their inevitable boorish comments on absolutely everything. I know others I’ve spoken to in our block hold similar views and it’s ruining your good work. We are keen for change but cannot see how their incessant moaning, random theorising and poor attempts at humour are conductive to progress
Admin, I will take that as a compliment!
Michael do you think we have upset Firstport Retirements senior management as we have uncovered another of their scams in Apprenticeship Levy along with the Employment Tribunal they lost for Unfair Dismissal as they moved on yet another DM so the Residential House Managers Flat becomes empty and can then be sold?
Could Geordie Lass be one of the directors, Samantha Gibson, after it was posted on About Firstport, her attitude to Retirement Residents?
It seems Geordie Lass and Lad have a genuine interest in this website and our comments have been very tiresome, simples – don’t read them?
Further to Apprenticeship Levy being charged to Retirement Developments by Firrstport Retirement.
Gov.Uk website, clearly explains the £15,000 annual allowance, and how it is applied. Furthermore, receipt of this allowance was acknowledged by Firstport`s Customer Services Manager, Mr Chris Owens in his Stage 2 Complaint response, Firstport Retirement is wholly committed to using the Apprenticeship Levy allowance, alongside their traditional training budget, to upskill our teams for the future.
This comment implies an improper use of both the fund and the offset allowance. Upskilling teams is not employing apprentices, or managing apprenticeships.
Posted by Black Watch on 01 June 2019
If a smaller company was contracted to manage a development they would not be part of the Apprenticeship Levy Scheme.
How do Retirement Leaseholders end up having the levy added to their Service Charges?
The levy is between the Government and Firstport and has nothing to do with us Retirement Leaseholders.
Geordie Lass ,
LKP website is a unique organisation campaigning to replace the leasehold tenure system by commonhold tenure . This will result in property buyers getting what they have paid for which is true ownership of their property and for buyers not to be deceived by a lease which is only a rental agreement .
Michael and Chas are star players for leasehold reform and they are giving their free time to LKP . You cannot screen them out like actors in a TV show. LKP website is greater than any TV show. LPK represents the interests of 4 million leaseholders and LKP is like a modern David pitched against Goliath ( Leasehold system backed by Developers and Ground Rent Freeholders ).
If you are a leaseholder; then volunteer your free time to participate by forming an activist group in your block , in your town or city, and as voters push your local MP into declaring total support for the APPG and for Commonhold to replace Leasehold system.
Geordie Lass,
It’s about freedom of choice. You do not have to read Chas or my posts, neither Chas or I, need to campaign?
But clearly you have issues, otherwise you would not be going on to the LKP site?
But who would you rather have fighting for your interests? Chas and me or:
ARHM or ARMA? Both of these bodies under the influence of Firstport senior members of staff?
Both of whom gave only the mildest of admonishments over the admitted price fixing scandal?
ARHM for who a former vice chair has decided there is no merit in her property management company becoming members?
ARMA, who have appointed as their Health and Fire Safety director a member of the Firstport team as Firstport were receiving a record fine for breaches of Health & Safety legislation that resulted in a fatal fire and at a time when Rip Off Britain featured a Firstport managed development with flat that had water coming through light sockets for several years?
ARMA who when Baroness sally Greengross was involved said of leaseholders who dared to demand better service that ” It’s difficult, not least for the providers of schemes, who are dealing with people who are often prepared to spend 12 hours or more a day focusing on those issues and who can be amazing barrack-room lawyers”
Perhaps you would be better represented by a former director of your freeholding company who on being asked about leaseholders complaining about poor service on national TV replied
” I cannot be held responsible for the ravings of a few dribbling geriatrics”
Or maybe a senior member of Firstport staff who training junior staff advised them that if they were to be asked an awkward question by a resident they should delay giving the answer. If they delayed long enough the resident will have “either died or have got dementia”.
So yes, Chas and I will continue (even if you don’t like our posts)
We both hate injustice. We both hate bullies. We both believe that people are entitled to feel safe and secure in their own homes, that they are entitled to receive services that they have paid for and at a genuine cost of those services.
Whilst those that leaseholders should be able to put their trust in are holding meetings as to how to “maximise revenues” from leaseholders and whilst the totally ineffective and biased “trade”organisations continue to offer little more than a veneer of respectability that some companies hide under, both Chas and I will continue the fight.