UPDATE: Has Roger Southam resigned from Savills? His LinkedIn profile suggest his employment there discontinued at the end of last month. He is now associated with the Eighty Nine Consultancy, which has no website and may be self-employment.
The National Leasehold Campaign Facebook group today urged Roger Southam to resign as chairman of the Leasehold Advisory Service citing conflicts of interest.
The call echoes LKP when it declared no confidence in Mr Southam at a meeting of stakeholders in the leasehold sector at the DCLG where he was present in April 2017.
Both Justin Madders MP and Sir Peter Bottomley have expressed their lack of confidence in Mr Southam in the Commons.
Mr Southam in turn complained to the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner about Sir Peter and Jim Fitzpatrick MP and LKP, as secretariat of the All Party Parliamentary Group on leasehold reform – to whose meetings Mr Southam has long been uninvited.
Mr Southam’s complaint prompted a pained reaction from Sir Ed Davey, the third MP patron of LKP, to ask: “Why was I left out?”
Today April Fool emails have been sent to Mr Southam, copied to ministers, MPs, LKP and the chief executive of LEASE urging his resignation.
The following is from Catherine Williams, one of the three founders of the National Leasehold Campaign Facebook group, which has 10,500 members:
“I am a member of the National Leasehold Campaign and have been fighting leasehold abuses for the past twelve months. During that time I have looked for advice on the leasehold issues being experienced by myself and other members and obviously LEASE appears as one of the first organisations available to us.
“At first glance it appeared that LEASE was the most appropriate place to ask for help as it is government backed with funding presumably taken from UK tax payers? I also note that this funding has been recently increased in an attempt to improve support for leaseholders during this very difficult time.
“I was extremely shocked therefore to discover that you have personal links to and interests in investment companies …
“To compound this issue further it transpires that your wife Roberta Anderson works for Mainstay (yet another property management company) and has responsibility for the AVIVA realm fund that holds over 36,000 freehold portfolios.
[Ms Anderson’s LinkedIn profile has her described as head of acquisitions for both the Mainstay Group Ltd and the Wallace Group & Simarc Property. Missing from the LinkedIn profile is reference to previous employment with Dorchester Ground Rent Management headed by Julius Gottlieb, a ground rent fund that imploded after his criminal conviction in December 2016 for attempting to groom a 14-year-old girl, whom he arranged to meet at Guildford station:Paedophile property investor gets suspended jail term | News on the Block
One of the UK’s prominent residential ground rent investors who enjoyed a glittering career heading finance departments of some of the country’s top PLCs has admitted to grooming a teenage girl for sex. Julius Gottlieb resigned as managing director of Dorchester Ground Rent Management after he was arrested when he went to meet the 14-year-old, whom he believed he had been chatting with online.
Miss Williams continues:
“I am astounded that you are allowed to continue as chairman of LEASE with such clear conflicts of interest, unless of course the main remit of that organisation is to advise investors on how to maximise profits from freehold portfolios and leaseholders?
“If that is its remit then please disregard my email – if it’s remit is the exact opposite and LEASE has been created to support aggrieved leaseholders then I suggest that you are not the best person to head the organisation and as a tax payer I wish to object to my money being used in this way.
“In my opinion you cannot possibly represent both leaseholders and freeholders in the current climate of the Leasehold Scandal and request that you step down as Chair of LEASE with immediate effect.”
Related posts:
LEASE chair Roger Southam resigns
DCLG rejects second complaint about Roger Southam as LEASE chair. He was appointed on merit, it claims
‘Dump Roger Southam. Appoint Sebastian O’Kelly,’ National Leasehold Campaign tells housing minister
Not the job of LEASE to warn ministers of leasehold houses scandal, Roger Southam tells BBC
Roger Southam should not be LEASE chair, leaseholder tells housing minister
From Michael Hollands
To Roger Southam
Dear Roger
I can see from your websites that you have had and are having a very successful career as a Chartered Surveyor, Writer and Speaker. And from your Twitter a Facebook you are a promoter and supporter of good causes.
It must be very embarrassing for you to be receiving many requests/demands for you to withdraw from your position at LEASE..
I must say in the present situation I would agree with those making this request, I think it would be in everyone’s interests, including yours, if you were to resign your position.
Mainly because of your and wife’s other work which involves maximising profits for freehold investors, and the tone of some of your comments and speeches which suggest Leaseholders need educating.
Many very elderly in leasehold retirement complexes are past being educated in leasehold law, they are just looking for security, a peaceful existence and a fair deal. In many cases they do not get this, so when they come to LEASE with their problem they need direct help and their problem solving. Not education.
And again those who have purchased houses with shocking conditions and ground rent need assistance now. They have been completely duped by Developers and their devious Solicitors. This should not happen no matter whether the buyers were educated or not. LEASE should be taking their side and supporting them, not washing their hand of the problem.. Remember most of these victims are young families, or one parent families at risk of losing their homes.
This is where your other interests will cause a confliction, you cannot possibly support both sides, so in the interests of everyone I respectfully request that you stand down from your appointment. Hanging on can only damage the high reputation you have worked for in other fields in previous years.
Dear Mr Southam,
Resigning is akin to riding a bike. Once you get the hang of it it is very easy and you never forget how to do it? (though it helps to keep practicing)
So now you have mastered the resignation technique with Savilles, keep up the good work and resign from Lease.
A fellow campaigner received this email. I personally have not had any response when i asked Roger Southam to resign
“Thank you for your email.
I think the most helpful way that I can respond is to highlight that the Chairman’s leadership continues to focus LEASE on helping leaseholders. LEASE is completely aligned with reform and I attach two of our recent consultation responses which evidence that alignment.
Our Chairman also supports the reform agenda through his engagement, along with LEASE staff, on MHCLG working groups reforming consultation with leaseholders and fire safety respectively. The former is a current example of our Chairman’s wish for improvement, but his actions pre-date his appointment as Chair of LEASE, for example his participation in DCLG’s ‘Task and Finish group’ for the regulation of managing agents in 2009.
Most importantly though, our team at LEASE, and guided by the Board that Roger Southam leads, is working hard to assist leaseholders; and you can see some of the impact they have had here: https://www.lease-advice.org/about-us/the-wow-awards/wow-awards-recent-nominations/
Finally, in the interest of accuracy, I think it is important to clarify that Roger Southam and his wife are leaseholders and that they do not own any freehold properties and most certainly they do not own ground rents.
Yours sincerely
Anthony Essien
Chief Executive
Leasehold Advisory Service
Fleetbank House
2-6 Salisbury Square
London
Rogers reply
EC4Y 8JX
UK Parliament
I have just responded to Mr Essien’s letter on LEASE website –
“I have just read, on LKP website, your letter to a leasehold campaigner who demanded the resignation of your chairman, Roger Southam. Your letter was a defence of Mr Southam’s position and, indeed, of your organisation LEASE.
“Our Chairman also supports the reform agenda” (opening of your second paragraph). Which part of the following do you not understand – Of course your chairman, Mr Southam, supports a reform agenda, indeed I am certain you and all at LEASE, and the entire freehold industry, and all of the professionals involved in leasehold, support a reform agenda. Reforms (of leasehold) are as regular as Christmas, and are the device used by the many vested interests to avoid that which they most fear, abolition. There is but one right and proper action required of government now, and that is, indeed, ABOLITION of our leasehold laws (for domestic properties).
Have a nice day”.
Anthony Essien is completely missing the point we are trying to make.
I have just been reading the account of both Roger and his wife’s careers.
ROGER.
An Asset Manager, management of investment and development portfolios.
Maybe he has now resigned from this but from his blogs his views appear not to have altered much.
WIFE
Worked for Arcadia Management, Mainstay and Simarc Property.
Negotiatiating and securing long term investment streams.
By now I think we all know the meaning of these job descriptions.
“Extracting monies from uneducated, unsuspecting leaseholders, the very people who approach LEASE for help.”
I say “uneducated” as that is what Roger calls us.
Roger cannot serve two diametrically opposing causes at the same time.
It’s got to be RESIGNATION or divorce.
From Denise Clark
April 1st, 2018
The Chief Executive
Leasehold Advisory Service
Fleetbank House
2-6 Salisbury Square
London
EC4Y 8JX
Dear Sir,
My mother has lived in her leasehold maisonette since1983 for which she has always paid a peppercorn ground rent, which has been fine, and has taken on the responsibility for insuring and maintaining the building of course, (she believed she had purchased this property, but of course we recently discovered when trying to extend her lease that she only owns the lease for the time it has left to run, 48 years). I asked LEASE for guidance and did not get a helpful or the correct route to take re getting the lease extension. I have learned since, thank goodness with the help of Leasehold Knowledge Partnership and Facebook Group National Leasehold Campaign that, in our personal circumstances we needed to go the statutory route without question but was not given this vital advice! I still have the reply email from LEASE with the ‘SIT ON THE FENCE ADVICE’ which I am prevented from sharing publicly because of the small print on the LEASE website, which I must say I think is wrong, I should be able to share that reply publicly, is this LEASE covering their back? When contacting lease I believed that as a Government organisation I would get the best and correct help when I needed it most, I did not get it.
When needing help and information, I’m extremely concerned that 1000’s of other leaseholders and people paying ridiculous and crippling maintainence fees are not getting good and IMPARTIAL advice from LEASE. No one can deny that the website provides plenty of information (which I trawled through, and many others would not understand all the nuances re leasehold without extra help from LEASE via emails etc ), but sadly the man leading the charge to represent us is in a conflict of interest.
It is simply not good enough that Mr Roger Southam remains as the Non Executive Chairman of Lease despite having extensive previous business interests with freeholders and has even boasted of maximising ground rent opportunities for them ! In addition to this, Mr Southam’s wife has acquired ground rent opportunities through Mainstay.
I have written to my own MP Claire Perry and Tan Dhesi MP on this matter and specifically asked the Government to extract Roger Southam from his position at LEASE. His lifestyle and manner have allowed me to put 2 and 2 together and see the poor ‘advice’ I was given is lead by his views, and I am unimpressed as you can imagine Why is he still at LEASE? why is he not gone yet? please, he must go, this is totally unethical for him to be in this position at LEASE. I thought this kind of underhand secretive business did not happen in the UK today, but it does obviously!
As a member of the National Leasehold Campaign on Facebook which has seen membership of 10000+ be achieved, we believe that it’s quite apt on April Fools Day the 1st April that he steps down and stop treating innocent homeowners as fools!
Yours faithfully,
Denise Clark
“People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them”
The likes of Roger Southam and his position as the Non Executive Chairman of Lease despite extensive business interests with Freeholders and his boasting of maximising ground rent opportunities is typical of some of the people involved in Leasehold.
I have been looking at the information on the Staff/volunteers at LEASE on their website.
Several of them have had experience in maximising profits for freeholders, debt collecting, or work for companies who do this.
I just hope their career interests do not influence the advice they give to desperate leaseholders.
Michael thank you.
Does this surprise posters who like me have seen many professional as Solicitors, Estate Agents who we have no choice but to employ when purchasing a flat or house.
Then you have the Builder the Sales People and more Solicitors who rather than give true advise provide the spin they are trained to do.
So a people such as Roger Southam, does not surprise me at all.