For the Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation readership We recently sold my fathers McCarthy and Stone flat. One of the problems we came up against was we had to prove that the Ground Rent was paid to Estates & Management so we requested a receipt for the last payment we made. They sent a letter […]
Archives for 2013
Should ARMA replace the ARHM?
October 11, 2013 By
This question is prompted by yesterday’s annual conference of ARMA – the Association of Residential Managing Agents. It has begun the process of self-purification by introducing a tough regulatory scheme called ARMA-Q, which comes into force in January 2015. Its core message is this:
Just how much can a freeholder charge on a flat sale?
October 11, 2013 By
Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation applies to the wisdom of crowds on this one, being clueless on the issue. What is a reasonable fee for a freeholder to charge in processing a flat sale? In this housing association there may be procedures to confirm suitability of a purchaser for this type of housing. £250 all […]
Pickles to stop councils charging leasehold owners more than £10,000 for major block repairs
October 9, 2013 By
DCLG Secretary Eric Pickles has stepped in to protect leasehold owners from staggering repair costs where local authorities are the freeholder. Full details here If central government money is being spent on improving local authority housing stock then leaseholders should not have to pay more than £10,000 … or, £15,000 in London. Many of these […]
New housing minister Kris Hopkins will not be a real minister …
October 9, 2013 By
… and he is one of Parliament’s ‘slimiest, nastiest MPs’, according to Nadine Dorries New housing minister Kris Hopkins will not be a full minister of state like his predecessor Mark Prisk, but an undersecretary of state. That means he is two steps down from his boss, DCLG Secretary Eric Pickles, not one. The former […]
How can we avoid paying one per cent on renting out our retirement leasehold flat?
October 9, 2013 By
My father has now moved into care. We are hoping to let his leasehold flat out as selling is very hard! It seems there is a clause in the contract which says that we have to pay Peverel 1% of whatever they value it as if we want to let to another tenant. This seems […]
Five ways retirement leaseholders can fight back
October 7, 2013 By
Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation and LKP have pushed leasehold abuses up the political agenda. There are serious retirement leasehold disputes now being addressed in the constituencies of several members of the Cabinet. Sir Peter Bottomley, Tory MP for Worthing West, is determined to see these issues through and there will be a Commons debate […]
Sacking of Mark Prisk is bad news for retirement leasehold owners
October 7, 2013 By
Mark Prisk who was sacked as housing minister this afternoon had the undoubted benefit of knowing something about housing, having been a chartered surveyor. He was also sympathetic to the problems faced by leaseholders and was beginning to appreciate the massive sums of money wrongly taken from them by monetising freeholders and the managing […]
Office of Fair Trading deal over exit and sub-letting fees with Tchenguiz
October 6, 2013 By
OFT website outlining the agreement is here http://www.oft.gov.uk/news-and-updates/press/2012/77-12 August 2012: The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has secured undertakings from Fairhold Homes Ltd and associated companies (Fairhold) owned by the Tchenguiz Family Trust to change how they charge and enforce transfer fee terms in their 53,000 retirement home leases. The OFT has been investigating exit fees, […]
Retirement leasehold is the worst property investment bar none!
October 5, 2013 By
Even one-bedroom flats in the centre of Leeds, which plummeted after the boom, hold value better than retirement leasehold. The explanation? Greed, simply. Retirement housebuilders, speculators who buy the freeholds when developers sell them off and management companies have proved unable to resist exploiting the weak and elderly. Leasehold law (which is unique to England […]
Our management fees have gone up 21 per cent. What can we do?
October 5, 2013 By
I am the chair of a residents association at a Peverel site that is 43 flats and 20 years old next year. We have a long running battle over Peverel’s management fees which for this financial year 2013/14 is £16,468 on top of all other costs in the service charge. Our research indicates that the fee […]
Private Eye covers the Peverel price-fixing scandal
October 2, 2013 By
Today’s issue of the satirical magazine Private Eye carries a report on the Peverel / Cirrus price fixing scandal, which is the subject of an Office of Fair Trading investigation. Peverel is co-operating with the inquiry and has been granted “leniency” from court action as a result. The OFT says Peverel turned itself in in […]
