The incoherence of freeholders’ applying sublet fees of leaseholders who let their properties out has been revealed in the latest nonsense from Pier Management.
Nadja Severa has a leasehold property where the lease says she must “pay to the Landlord’s solicitor s a registration fee of Two Guineas in respect of each such assignment assent transfer under lease or devolution”.
That’s £2.10.
Pier Management has demanded £48.
Dan Harrison, Pier Management head of portfolio management, told Miss Severa in correspondence copied to then MPs Sir Peter Bottomley and Jim Fitzpatrick, who are LKP’s patrons:
“Each enquiry that we receive is dealt with individually and considered on its own merits.
“Given that each lease is different it would not be appropriate for us to apply a blanket approach on such matters.
“In this particular instance we considered the facts to be similar to the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) case of Holding & Management (Solitaire) Ltd v Norton [2012] UKUT 1 in which a fee of £48 was deemed reasonable.”
This is rather different to other cases, where Pier Management believes far higher fees would be “appropriate”.
Such as this case, where Pier Management attempted to extract £120 from the dead:
In further correspondence, Mr Harrison said:
“There is no section within your lease that specifies the amount payable for the underletting licence, the lease only refers to the amount chargeable for registering a document.
“The amount must be reasonable for the work involved. Our fee of £48.00 (including VAT) is a fair reflection of current industry norms … “
Given the risks of tripping up in the property tribunal, and its unfair cost regime that allows freeholders to pursue cases without risk of legal costs, the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership’s advice was that Miss Severa pay up.
Pier Management is owned by the Regis Group plc, which is owned by Peter Edward Gould and his brother Nicholas Charles Gould, who have built it up over the past 30 years and are reportedly worth £355 million.
Details of the Gould brothers’ directorships can be read here:
http://companycheck.co.uk/director/908315670/MR-NICHOLAS-CHARLES-GOULD
http://companycheck.co.uk/director/908537726/MR-PETER-EDWARD-GOULD
Some other links:
http://www.essexchronicle.co.uk/richest-moneybags-Essex-revealed/story-21133347-detail/story.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-20446533
http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/nick-gould/8/9aa/770
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3aa84d12-a9c2-11dc-aa8b-0000779fd2ac.html#axzz3VP4n1zyQ
Related posts:
Pier Management issues £120 sublet demand on the dead
£2,000 sublet demand to frail pensioner needing care from freeholder Silhill Investments Limited (plus £375 to Pennycuik Collins)
Challenge to £100 leasehold subletting demand reveals nothing at all is owed
Law Commission likely to end the exit and sublet fee payola
Freehold Managers demands £210 to sublet, with an extra £120 for each new tenancy …
Ratner moment for UK housebuilders, says Chris Blythe, CEO of Chartered Institute of Building
Pier Management are part of Regis Group based in Southend and have a long record of making excessive charges not in the lease against leaseholders.
http://parkviewcourt.myfastforum.org/viewtopic.php?t=104&start=0
Pier Management took over the management of a maisonette in Surbiton from Affinity Property Management after RG Securities purchased the freehold.
A few weeks previously Affinity had issued a service charge demand which had been paid.
Pier Management sent another service charge demand, and following complaints by the leaseholders that they had already paid, were told by Pier Management that they had to pay the new service charge demand and that they should contact the previous freeholder to obtain a refund.
Naturally the leaseholders declined to do this.
Costs and administration charges were added to the leaseholders accounts.
This matter ended up in the tribunal, where Pier Management comprehensively lost their case.
And on And on it goes.. Flat Leaseholders MUST “Rise like lions after slumber, in un- vanquishable number! Shake your chains to earth like dew: Which in sleep had fallen on you: Ye are many – they are few!” Until and unless Leaseholders are prepared to put their boots on the ground and protest ,then NOTHING meaningful will occur. I sincerely hope that Katie Kendrick and Cath are receiving the necessary support from the 4000 plus campaigners when organising demos outside the offending developers showhomes……….. I should have expected to see at least 2000 of the 4000 plus protestors pictured at Bellway. Where were they?? Incidentally I am not a leftie but hate injustice.These spies need to be dealt with and soon!
Re: previous post. Of course I meant SPIVS!
You and your local MPs should all be making complaints to Rothesay Life Ltd ( 2007 Offspring by Goldman Sachs ) which is financing Regis Group Group and the William Astors Acquisitions .
Ollie if Leaseholders want change they must take direct action. E.G. Picket / Protest in their many thousands. Letters upon letters have been written to various relevant organisations to no avail. Managing Agents must be strictly regulated and prosecuted if found to have committed fraud/ obtaining money by deception or using threatening and intimidating behaviour. Their background should be investigated to reveal or otherwise previous convictions of theft and if they have a criminal must be disallowed to act as an agent. History shows that real change comes about by the people taking to the streets – peacefully of course but vast number and with one goal… “YE ARE MANY- THEY ARE FEW!”
Surely if this is a Democratic country the correct way to do it is to make sure in a General Election that you vote for a candidate who supports reform. And make sure you do not vote for one you know will not help.
There are now a considerable number of candidates from all parties who are supporting us, so for a start lets get them all elected..
Taking to the streets on issues like this is only going to pressurise our overworked police force
MH you contradict yourself! I refer you to a previous post of yours which gave the clear implication that “7 yrs of lobbying the our MP et al didnt amount to a hill of beans. Why is the situation still so febrile? I don’t know what you mean by the sentence – Taking to the streets on issues like his”? Is it not an important issue? Was the poll tax not an important issue? Apartheid was NOT an important issue for lots of people… I could go on. Your “overworked police’ concern is plain silly as far as I’m concerned and before you comment further, YES, I do appreciate our men and women In blue. Peaceful direct action is the way forward, trouble is it takes too much effort for some!! ( once again I refer you to your contradictory post)
This is the one and only chance we have to elect the MPs who will help us, so let’s give it a try. If enough of them get elected we will not even have to lobby.
Failing that then some peaceful direct action.
Unfortunately there are going to be so many important issues and grievances on the horizon requiring direct action the police are going to find it hard to cope.
And with the Government concentrating solely on Brexit they will be ignoring other issues especially ours as they have managed to do since 2010.
So I think the answer is to elect the MPs who support us and encourage more to join us.
You are never going to get the hundreds of thousands of elderly in Retirement complexes out on the streets.
MH I refer you to your post 20th May 8.59pm. I am interested to read your explanation for your ‘ U Turn’ regarding direct action.
My idea of direct action was to withhold paying GR to the Freeholders on mass.. But pay it in full to an honest fair minded organisation who would hold it until a fair resolution was reached on this issue.
I feel that demos the size of the Poll Tax ones would not get public support at the present time.
And there are so many other issues in the pipeline warranting demos and with the present terror situation the police will become overwhelmed.
I hope all the sympathetic MPs get re-elected, and more join the APPG. It’s very frustrating after campaigning non stop for seven years, but I think we will have to give the new government a few more months to act.
If they fail to do this then direct action.
In the meantime continue to demonstrate on the Developers sites to see if they will act without Government pressure. And spread the campaign via the web and publications to as many as possible.
The Regis Group, with wholly owned subsidiaries masquerading “as agents” (including Pier Management), continues seemingly unimpeded in the forefront of a Ground Rent portfolio trade involving the freehold title purchase of Old and New blocks of residential leasehold flats,
This base and squalid industry succeeds only through the simple expedient of keeping qualifying leaseholders in ignorance of any title transaction until such time as it has been completed.
And thereafter descending unremittingly on gullible and vulnerable leaseholders with a torrent of bogus and extortionate fee demands, backed by threat of forfeiture..
And thence to the racket of the “informal” lease extension, in breach of the individual leaseholder statutory right to a 90 year extension of an existing lease with Ground Rent reducing to zero.
Welcome to the business world of leasehold abuse.! It is a multi million pound fraud.
Under existing provisions of part 1 of the Landlord & Tenant Act 1987 (as amended by the Housing Act 1996) {“the LTA 1987”} a majority of qualifying long leaseholders in residential blocks of flats possess the right of first refusal in the event the existing landlord wishes to sell the freehold title to the premises in which they reside..
Following the amendments introduced by the Housing Act 1996, it is a criminal offence for a landlord to make a relevant disposal affecting premises to which part 1 of the LTA 1987 applies without first serving notice (s5) on the qualifying leaseholders informing them of their right of first refusal. And it is a criminal offence for the buyer to complete the transaction without similar notice (s3A) to qualifying leaseholders.
There is widespread abuse by sellers and buyers of this existing legislation, which relates especially to freehold residential blocks of flats constructed during the 1970/80/90s. Here the majority of individual flats are on 99 year leases with the number of years remaining approaching 80 years; paving the way for the lucrative and fraudulent business of the “informal” lease extension..
Any arrangement whereby a seller and a buyer agree payment of consideration for the freehold title of premises to which section 4 of the LTA 1987 applies, requires to be brought to the prior attention of qualifying leaseholders so they may be made aware of their statutory right of first refusal. And any letter served on behalf of the seller or the buyer purporting to persuade or infer to qualifying leaseholders that right of first refusal is not required and which fails to provide express details of the terms of the transaction is in criminal breach of part 1 of the LTA 1987.
It is a relatively small group of predatory individuals and companies that are active in this criminal business, and aided by lack of enforcement or adequate regulation do so with open contempt for the law. Moreover, it is of no relevance where such predatory persons or companies reside or are registered; whether they be off-shore or not. Qualifying leaseholders resident in England can enforce their statutory rights in English courts.
Known property companies that have already acquired ground rent portfolios through this illegal process must be forced to issue s3A notices forthwith so as to enable majority qualifying leaseholders to acquire the freehold interest on like terms to the original disposal.
And qualifying leaseholders should be permitted to make application for enforcement to the First Tier Tribunal-Property for this purpose and not be restricted to seeking redress at prohibitive cost through the Courts as at present.
The existing law must be enforced with increased punitive penalties for criminal breach to enable qualifying leaseholders to obtain the true value of their investment and not have it stolen from them underfoot as at present.
Until this is accomplished, qualifying leaseholders will remain hostage to the unscrupulous and criminal practices of villains.
The conduct of such predatory individuals and companies constitutes conduct designed specifically to prevent qualifying leaseholders from exercising their statutory rights. and specifically, the conduct of any solicitor/counsel involved in the withholding of documents in such transactions is both improper and negligent as no member of the legal profession reasonably well informed and competent would have given or done or omitted to do..
I do trust the Law Commission in the Thirteenth Programme of Law Reform will now address these issues comprehensively..
For the avoidance of doubt, the above was posted by moi! I had a covfete moment!
Oh Alec, we are on the same page! I have got a story.
Oh Alec, we are on the same page! I meant ” Boy have I got a story’!