A report on the conveyancing of rip-off leasehold properties, often with doubling ground rents and a host of management fees, featured on the influential BBC R4 You and Yours programme today.
You and Yours – Book tax, Leasehold confusion, Sales of Insects for food – BBC Sounds
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Author of the report is National Leasehold Campaign co-founder Cath Williams, a university lecturer who bought a leasehold house in Ellesmere Port – the constituency of leasehold activist Justin Madders MP.
Beth Rudolf, of the Conveyancing Association, also featured in the programme.
But her stance on the leasehold scandal has changed: inviting sympathy for the conveyancing solicitors two years ago on the BBC Victoria Derbyshire Show to now expressing concern.
Developers have throughout the scandal tried to shift the blame on to the solicitors that they recommended for not spotting the leasehold traps that they introduced to the leases.
This codswallop needs to be called out firmly.
Sebastian O’Kelly, LKP director, told the Times last week:
“Any solicitor unwise enough to have made a fuss about these toxic leases would almost certainly have been removed from the panel,” he says.
“A recommended solicitor, whether from developer or estate agent, is one to avoid.
“Throughout the ground-rent scandal the recommended conveyancing solicitors have proved to be little more than the developers’ stooge.”
Related posts:
Taylor Wimpey recommended conveyancing solicitors go bust after one is jailed for stealing £280,000
Conveyancing Association’s Beth Rudolf attacks the HomeOwners Alliance for ‘scaremongering’ over leasehold
Bannister Preston and Cohen Filippini Solicitors ‘errors’ over ground rents, says BBC
BBC R4 MoneyBox hears that a CMA mis-selling ruling could see leaseholders suing plc house builders. Hope so!
Housebuilders and stooge conveyancing solicitors face legal action, reports The Times
Gary Streeter MP: Hand over the freeholds at Saltram Meadows, Persimmon, or else lose Help To Buy …
We had the misfortune to appear on a ‘You and Yours’ programme regarding the leasehold scandal last year: hardly any time was given to our slot, they didn’t dare to mention the name of the ‘management company’ we were complaining about – RMG (Residential Management Group) – and anything negative we said about them was edited out. Our conclusion: this wasted hours of our time, ‘You and Yours’ is too scared of being sued to mention names. and although its heart is perhaps in the right place its head is in the clouds, daydreaming about the good it is in fact not doing at all. We asked for a transcript of a previous BBC TV programme on RMG and they said they’d get back to us. They didn’t. ‘You and Yours’ is a waste of space.
This post on my blog should be read, and RMG (Residential Management Group) deserves a fully comprehensive investigation into its illegal activities, which Jonathan Reynolds MP has called ‘legalised extortion’: https://tonyshaw3.blogspot.com/2018/01/hattersley-hyde-tameside-greater.html