Rob Plumb, CEO of HML Holdings, explains the dangers that lie within the Right to Manage process Normally a written contract works well to keep an agreement in place because both parties to the contract want the same outcome. “Right to Manage” isn’t a normal contract. It sounds, initially, so straight forward. RTM enables leaseholders to […]
Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation activist told OFT exit fee deal with Tchenguiz also includes Proxima
September 14, 2012 By
OFT website outlining the agreement is here http://www.oft.gov.uk/news-and-updates/press/2012/77-12 Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation’s concerns that the Office of Fair Trading’s deal with the Tchenguiz Family Trust over exit and sub-letting fees would be restricted to Fairhold, as indicated on the OFT’s press release of September 6 (see below) appear to be unfounded. Campaign against retirement leasehold […]
Channel Four documentary on retirement leasehold on September 24
September 13, 2012 By
Channel Four’s Dispatches is to broadcast its documentary on retirement leasehold on September 24. Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation activists have given full assistance to the programme and Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation chairman Sebastian O’Kelly has been interviewed. Dispatches aired a documentary on residential leasehold on August 26 – Property Nightmare: The Truth About […]
Mechanised plagiarism and psycho-babble are Grant Shapps’ little earners outside politics
September 10, 2012 By
Michael Heseltine it isn’t … but ex-Housing Minister and Tory chairman Grant Shapps has a flourishing little publishing business to fall back upon in the event that his political career comes to a grinding halt. Run out of squalid little offices in Enfield, north London, the Shapps family offer codswollop Freudian analysis of dreams and […]
Grant Shapps cuts Wikipedia references to property tycoons’ donations to his private office
September 10, 2012 By
The Observer revealed yesterday that the former Housing Minister and new Tory party chairman Grant Shapps deleted Wikipedia references to donations from property interests to his private office. He did so secretly, breaking the online encyclopedia’s code of practice which urges that those changing information in personal entries first identify themselves. The original entry, the […]
OFT does deal with Tchenguiz to cut sub-letting fees to £85 at retirement developments – but exit fees on sale still stand
September 6, 2012 By
OFT website outlining the agreement is here http://www.oft.gov.uk/news-and-updates/press/2012/77-12 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, which are […]
OFT announcement on exit fees not as “substantive” as we all hoped … oh, and the timing has “slipped”
September 5, 2012 By
OFT website outlining the agreement is here http://www.oft.gov.uk/news-and-updates/press/2012/77-12 When the Office of Fair Trading finally says something about the issue of exit fees, it won’t be concerning the whole leasehold sector but only one single company. This information has been given to a Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation / LKP activist in an email from one […]
‘Legal torture’ Oakland Court residents settle for £68,500 … but two of the original applicants have since died
August 24, 2012 By
Residents at the Oakland Court retirement development in Worthing today accepted a £68,500 settlement of their dispute with their landlord over the notional rent of the house warden’s flat. Sadly, two of the original applicants have died and three have moved to full-time nursing care since the application to the LVT was made in April […]
The Dear Leader of Peverel addresses her adoring supporters with a frank and informative statement
August 21, 2012 By
The Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation chairman draws on his experience of North Korea to translate the latest pronouncement from Peverel HQ Not since I was a young reporter sent to North Korea, and had to sit through hours of bum-numbing adoration of the Great Leader Kim Il Sung, have I read anything quite as […]
Dispatches reveals a host of leasehold fiddles on TV
August 21, 2012 By
The long awaited Dispatches documentary last night, Property Nightmare: The Truth About Leasehold, was an excellent and welcome overview on the issues facing leaseholders. The best part of it was the report on the plight of those leaseholders who have bought ex-local authority properties but where the block is still run by the council. Profligate, […]
The Guardian money editor wades into leasehold
August 20, 2012 By
The Guardian is the latest media group to write about leasehold today, with an online article by Patrick Collinson, the personal finance editor. Collinson, who has written on leasehold issues several times in the past, says The Dispatches documentary tonight will feature the case of Rona Buretto, who bought her one-bed flat in Hounslow, London, […]
Think tank urges £2 per flat owner to regulate leasehold
August 20, 2012 By
The leasehold sector “is not fit for purpose” and requires immediate regulation that could be paid for by a charge of £2 per leaseholder, according to the CentreForum report published today. An independent regulator – that is, not one originating from the compromised existing trade bodies in the sector – would ensure all managing agents […]
