… Or help perpetuate what is already wrong with it? – Government should underwrite retirement flat purchases like Help To Buy scheme – There should not be any stamp duty when downsizing – Schemes where some service charges are deferred until a property is sold should be ‘made available more widely’ – Retirement accommodation offers huge savings over maintaining […]
Seven months after buying our retirement flat, we have put it up for sale
September 1, 2014 By
– Couple deeply regret hasty decision – Why did they not RENT instead? – Churchill satisfied with sales procedures A couple who bought a one-bedroom retirement flat deeply regret making the hasty decision and were desperate to sell up – only seven months later. Evelyn Matthews, 78, and her husband Stan, 94, bought the one-bedroom […]
Family ‘horrified’ at £30,000 price difference between new and resale Churchill Retirement flats
July 18, 2014 By
Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation has received an anguished communication from a family considering a purchase of a flat from Churchill Retirement at Elgar Lodge in Malvern. It is priced at £172,000, but the family says it is “horrified” to discover a very similar resale flat in the same block, advertised by Churchill’s own […]
Campaign for Housing in Later Life traced to … McCarthy and Stone HQ!
April 9, 2014 By
(But what on earth are Esther Rantzen and Shelter doing with this lot?) UPDATE June 8: McCarthy and Stone points out that over the credit crunch period (the five years between 2007/8 to 2011/12) it sold 7,170 properties. The company takes issue with Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation’s view that there has been “almost NO […]
Contact Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation before buying a leasehold retirement flat, says Daily Mail
January 21, 2014 By
By Sebastian O’Kelly Advice from the Daily Mail last week on buying a leasehold retirement property: contact Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation first! Well, at least you will get the downside of this property transaction. Any purchaser must understand – as an experienced property investor put it to me last week – McCarthy and Stone […]
Crisis in retirement housing is all down to planners, says ARCO (not greedy operators drawing up sneaky revenue-earning leases or management companies on the fiddle)
November 27, 2013 By
Here we go again! The apologists for property developers are blaming planners again – this time for the crisis in retirement housing. Something called Associated Retirement Community Operators (ARCO), which represents retirement village operators such as Anchor, Hanover, Retirement Villages etc, says the current provision of specialist retirement housing is “woefully inadequate”.
Retirement leasehold flat falls £119,000 in two years
June 3, 2013 By
Never, EVER buy property like this! Never use part-exchange schemes Don’t use a developer’s solicitor – that in itself is a disqualification If you absolutely insist on buying retirement leasehold – as opposed to renting first – then buy a re-sale property, not a new one with a “value” that’s just a salesman’s try-on Campaign […]
Poisoned chalice of a retirement leasehold inheritance
May 31, 2013 By
The inheritance of a retirement leasehold flat has proved a mixed blessing for one Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation reader: who now faces demands for £10,000 in unpaid service charges to Peverel with the dreaded F-word – forfeiture – also being mentioned. In March last year retired academic Michael Welch, 64, inherited his father’s one-bedroom […]
Heirs of empty retirement leasehold flat now face doubled council taxes … on top of plummeting re-sale value, on-going service charges and an exit fee if it ever does sell
March 8, 2013 By
A son trying to sell his deceased mother’s retirement leasehold flat has been told that he will have to pay double the council tax on the empty property. The flat has fallen foul of Chester’s efforts to penalise owners of empty properties so that they are brought back into use – and increase revenues for […]
Pensioner blames Peverel for loss of value to her flat
November 22, 2012 By
A pensioner who blames Peverel for reducing the value of her leasehold flat is having the case heard by mediators on December 11. And head of Peverel Retirement Keith Edgar – who leaves Peverel in December – is attending the hearing himself. For five years, Muriel McNally, 75, has been fighting the action, involving local […]
