By a pretty wide margin, Esther Rantzen has been the country’s most outstanding campaigning journalist … so why is someone with her acute antennae speaking at this summer’s ARHM annual meeting? It is wrong to believe that the Association of Retirement Housing Managers is filled with cold-hearted cynics seeking to profit from the elderly. It […]
How you get scammed on insurance
June 22, 2012 By
Buying a freehold and then adding to the ground-rent income by loading the insurance is such a well known money-making opportunity it even appeared in the Sunday Times personal finance section as a “good thing to do”. The absolutely brilliant bit about it is that leaseholders do not have to be told what the commission […]
TV journalist seeking information on the retirement industry
June 19, 2012 By
A TV production company is working on a story about the retirement home industry and would like to hear from people that have bought a leasehold retirement apartment built after 2009. All information will be dealt with in strict confidence, please get in touch with Sebastian O’Kelly: sok@leaseholdknowledge.com or 07808 328 230
Sub-letting fees should not be more than £40, landlords are told (four times by the Land Tribunal)
June 15, 2012 By
Inevitably retirement flats are going to fall empty at some point, as the residents go into care or die, which leaves the owners’ heirs will the problem of what to do with them. Selling up is often difficult, as values of retirement properties have crumbled as badly as small inner city flats. Sometimes even more […]
Sign up for a date with Janet Entwistle
June 8, 2012 By
A “Customer Research Meeting” organised by Peverel is to take place next Monday (June 11) in Westminster, with one earlier in the day in Solihul. The move is the initiative of chief executive Janet Entwistle, who joined the company three months ago after it was bought for £60 million by venture capitalists. Entwistle is eager […]
Stop this ‘legal torture’ of pensioners, says Sir Peter Bottomley
May 19, 2012 By
A senior Tory MP has today placed a post on the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership website to express his utter disgust at the delaying tactics used by the freeholder – whose legal team included Laceys, who proclaim themselves the “honorary solicitors” of ARMA – at the Oakland Court LVT earlier this month. Sir Peter Bottomley, MP […]
Pensioners win epic £137,000 victory over warden’s flat rental
May 17, 2012 By
In a landmark case, 40 elderly leaseholders have won an epic battle against paying for the notional rent of their warden’s flat through the service charge. Since 1986 this has cost the residents in Worthing, Sussex, £137,000. The battle was fought in the face of repeated delaying tactics by their landlord, the Oakland Pension Fund, […]
Leasehold Advisory Service: ‘Lawyers here won’t even speak to me because I cannot afford their fees’
May 16, 2012 By
An emotional Julian Shersby tells the Leasehold Advisory Service annual conference it is failing ordinary leaseholders. In the last ten minutes the Leasehold Advisory Service annual conference burst into life this afternoon when a furious delegate grabbed the microphone and said the quango was failing to represent the interests of ordinary leaseholders. “I see around me […]
April news headlines
April 30, 2012 By
24.04.2012 Peverel and Tchenguiz named in Parliament Both Peverel and Tchenguiz were named in a wide-ranging debate about leasehold service charges in the House of Lords yesterday. Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation was also praised for its activities in highlighting exploitaton of residents in retirement developments. 23.04.2012 Lords debate on leasehold reform today Read our […]
HSBC faces £40m bill for mis-selling to elderly in care
April 30, 2012 By
This particular scandal unfolded between 2005 & 2010, during which period NHFA (an HSBC subsidiary) sold completely unsuitable investments to 87 per cent of their customers – 2,485 people in total – in order to fund their care costs. NHFA was the leading supplier of financial advice on products to help pay for long-term care, […]
