Communities Secretary Sajid Javid appeared on BBC R4 You and Yours yesterday to explain his lettings and leasehold regulator.
Sebastian O’Kelly, LKP trustee, was asked who should be the regulator:
“Somebody who is completely outside the leasehold system. So none of the terracotta army of lawyers and chartered surveyors who depend on the leasehold system and its inefficiencies for their livelihood. It needs a very independent and robust regulator who will kick this murky corner of residential property into line.”
Related posts:
Sajid Javid does not like regulation. What about micro management like Help To Buy?
Sajid Javid pledges Help To Buy clampdown on ‘feudal’ leasehold terms
Sajid Javid has thought about leasehold property management and does not like what he sees …
Sajid Javid vows to ‘stamp out abuses’ over leasehold that make homes unsellable
Labour MP Helen Hayes ‘disappointed’ by Sajid Javid’s response on leasehold scandal
Government announces regulator to protect leaseholders and their £4 billion in service charges
Excellent crucial point put to the Secretary of State by the You and Yours team: WHY NOT POLICE WHAT IS ALREADY THERE?
As I tried to explain on this website some months ago, ALL the present law, both civil and criminal, was on my side in my case: Law of contract, the Fraud Act, and the consumer Protection Regulations. I won the civil case, but none of the so-called ‘regulators’ that I contacted found themselves willing or able to act, then or now, however much I press for prosecution.
The reason I press is not to be vindictive, but because the same civil servants and untruthfully indifferent regulators are still in office, collecting and spending our tax monies, even though we know they cannot be trusted. Our local authority landlord bought two COMMERCIAL properties costing £11.5 million last year, as investments. They are no longer short of a few bob, it seems. ‘Lack of resources’? Only when it suits them to say so!
With no official investigation, we can only guess (from available evidence) at the mechanisms involved, – both in how the fraud plot was hatched. and in the ensuing regulatory inaction:- staff unions, law societies, local government association contacts, and routine ‘computer says no’ rules among ombudsmen, professional self-regulators and the like, designed to reduce their workload, ‘hitting targets’ within budget. Too many complaints for the Local government Ombudsman? Well, chuck out all leasehold complaints for a start! (As they do).
One remarkable aspect was that the Housing Ministry even changed the housing regulations (unlawfully in my view) JUST AFTER I wrote asking for statutory protection to be applied to our case (to prevent a repeat sale of our freehold). Through blanket ‘General Housing Regulations 2013’ they purportedly by-passed the statute that obliges the Secretary of State to exercise his or her DISCRETION in each case, for local authority Housing Land. Were the civil servants in cahoots with each other, at local and central level? Very odd.
THAT is why I advise: Please don’t call just for more ‘regulation’. The most striking lessons from my own case are that ‘regulatory’ authorities commit leasehold fraud THEMSELVES. No-one polices them, and central government helps them, not us. We need better access to Justice, above all, in my view. Our courts are barely functioning, civil or criminal. Our so-called democratic system also has some serious questions to answer, if no-one can be held accountable for concerted and protracted criminal behaviour among officials.
Correction: General Housing Consents 2013 – carte blanche for any local authority to sell any of its officially-adopted ‘Housing Land’ to anyone, anytime, anywhere; whether houses on it, or not.
In simple and few words, we are being stitched up, and not juts with leasehold.
Do you think a Royal Commission would help (LMAO)?
Sussex Said:-
April 5, 2018 at 2:17 pm
Excellent crucial point put to the Secretary of State by the You and Yours team: WHY NOT POLICE WHAT IS ALREADY THERE?
I heard the interview with You and Yours Team and found it to another member be it the
Secretary of State not promising anything but the same old same old.
SOK talked sense, but since when did sense change political thinking?
Surprised Javid didn’t call for more evidence because the consumer as always comes bottom of the pile. Can’t believe appointment of a Regulator is causing Javid so much concern.
Housing Associations and local authorities are as culpable of maladministration as any private managing agent and must not have exemption from accountability.
Joe I agree with your posting, no Managing Agent should be exempt.