Melanie Gowers is the newly appointed chief executive of Retirement Security Limited, a retirement housebuilder founded by Bob Bessell, a trustee of the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership Bob Bessell, a former head of Warwickshire social services, became a retirement housebuilder and set up Retirement Security. He has undertaken to leave the freeholds to his sites in […]
Search Results for: bob bessel
Taking over from Bob Bessell as head of Retirement Security retirement community provider: What we offer and why
May 8, 2023 By
Bob Bessell hands £7 million of retirement freeholds to the residents
April 29, 2016 By
… and the housebuilder wants an end to ‘feudal’ ground rents, too! Bob Bessell, founder of housebuilder Retirement Security, yesterday pledged to leave his freehold portfolio – worth £7 million – in a trust controlled by the pensioner residents at his sites. The undertaking was made at a Westminster roundtable organised by Campaign against retirement […]
Bob Bessell: Expelled from ARHM, but this is how retirement residents should be set free
April 30, 2014 By
Bob Bessell, the chairman of the developer Retirement Security, has issued a statement to Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation explaining why his company was expelled from the ARHM. The ARHM announced the decision to expel the Stratford Upon Avon company, but gave no details of the dispute.
We need retirement ground rent gaming like a hole in the head, says ARCO
July 7, 2023 By
Gaming the new ground rents ban by introducing them at the last possible minute was damaging to the entire retirement housing sector and “we need this like a hole in the head”, said the Association of Retirement Community Operators at its annual conference yesterday. Michael Voges, ARCO chief executive, deplored bad practices in retirement housing […]
ARCO conference offers a different vision to retirement housing, but …
July 7, 2018 By
There will be – and there are already – issues with big event fees The conference of the Association Retirement Community Operators in central London last week offered a fascinating alternative vision for the retirement housing sector to the one that we have. The organisation represents providers who build and manage their own sites, as […]
Sebastian O’Kelly addresses the retirement property managers. Were you lynched? No, they agreed: leasehold ‘granny flats’ have no future
November 21, 2017 By
Not a single voice was uttered in favour of the leasehold volume retirement flat model at the annual conference of the Association of Retirement Housing Managers. The keynote speaker was Sebastian O’Kelly, joint trustee of LKP and director of BetterRetirementHousing.com, who said: “The era of knocking out “granny flats”, loading the leases with sneaky fees […]
‘If I fail to offend anyone, I will do it next time,’ Bottomley tells appalled LEASE conference
February 6, 2017 By
Leasehold sector insiders were aghast at the address given by Sir Peter Bottomley on Wednesday at the Leasehold Advisory Service “annual conference”. The event was packed with surveyors, valuers, lawyers and property managing agents paying £350 a head to attend what has until now been the most important trade show of the sector. Earlier housing […]
Abysmal retirement housing values revealed on the Land Registry
September 5, 2016 By
Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation examines official re-sale prices for McCarthy and Stone, Churchill Retirement Living, Audley Retirement, Retirement Villages, Retirement Security, Anchor and Pegasus A dismal picture of retirement housing values on re-sales is revealed by Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation from figures in the Land Registry. For years we have been saying that […]
Let us into our dear mum’s flat … No, says Retirement Security. She did not want you in, and police have been notified
June 28, 2016 By
The two sons of 96-year-old Margaret Fenn, who had a stroke last Wednesday and is in hospital, have appealed to Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation after being barred from her flat by Retirement Security. This is the retirement housing firm headed by founder Bob Bessell. In a communication that was sent to the local MP […]
Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation welcomes Lord Best’s ‘flaws and all’ study of retirement housing
June 13, 2016 By
The controversial issues surrounding retirement housing have been addressed in an important parliamentary report written by Lord Best, the acknowledged expert on the subject in the Lords. “Leaseholders and their concerns have not been forgotten in this report,” Lord Best told guests at Parliament on Wednesday, who included senior figures in housebuilding, housing associations, the […]
Woodchester Valley Village: How we turned a disaster into the first mutually owned retirement village
April 29, 2016 By
MPs were told yesterday of how residents took control of a bankrupt retirement village, raised £2 million and turned it into the first mutually owned retirement site in the country. Professor Peter Wilson told the Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation / LKP roundtable, hosted by the charity’s MP patrons Jim Fitzpatrick and Sir Peter Bottomley, […]
Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation Westminster roundtable on retirement housing
April 18, 2016 By
On April 28 there will be a Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation roundtable on retirement housing at Westminster. The purpose is inform MPs of the issues in retirement housing, and to suggest how it could be further improved. There have already been shifts in position by retirement housebuilders: 999 year leases are becoming more widespread, […]
