March 19, 2024

ARCO conference offers a different vision to retirement housing, but …

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 […]

McCarthy and Stone and Churchill: are you blackmailing government over the ground rent ban and is your business model broken? Asks BBC R4 MoneyBox

Brilliant interview with outgoing McCarthy and Stone CEO Clive Fenton ‘Problem’ that retirement housebuilders have not been spoonfed profits, like others through Help To Buy Anyway, aren’t retirement housebuilders insignificant given the numbers of pensioners who are downsizing today, asks BBC? Radio 4’s MoneyBox quizzed retirement housebuilders McCarthy and Stone and Churchill Retirement Living on […]

McCarthy and Stone: we want you to succeed, but you don’t need ground rents

By Sebastian O’Kelly Trustee, Leasehold Knowledge Partnership The retirement house builder McCarthy and Stone says that it is struggling, the newspapers are reporting. Profits are down more than 50 per cent for the first half of this year. And it is worried about the long-term implications of the government’s undertaking to reform ground rents, setting […]

Pensioners hammered with 88% rise in ground rents

… Often in sites with dismal resale values Thousands of pensioners living in older retirement properties are facing a massive hike in ground rents: 88 per cent is not unusual. The older leases of mass retirement housing builder McCarthy and Stone are kicking in with huge hikes in ground rents. Ground rents at Churchill sites […]

Elim Court: If you want right to manage, this is how NOT to go about it

Elim Court in Plymouth has escaped from its right to manage debacle by the skin of its teeth, having been led to near ruin by right to manage facilitators. After having had its right to manage application turned down in the lower tribunal (freeholder’s costs: £10,000) and then thrown out by the upper tribunal (freeholder’s […]

My granny’s Audley Retirement home ‘was a money pit’ costing £48,000 in exit fees

The Sunday Times yesterday published a powerful article by Harriet Meyer revealing how her family spent £48,160 in fees on selling at Audley Retirement flat. Audley Retirement is one of the upmarket providers in the sector, which Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation has long argued has even greater exploitative practices at the higher end than […]

Abysmal retirement housing values revealed on the Land Registry

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 […]

ARMA humiliates FirstPort over house manager flat sales

Humiliating criticism for the trouble property manager, but the path is now clear for it to apply for membership of the trade body The regulator of the Association of Residential Managing Agents (ARMA) has admonished on two counts Peverel / FirstPort Retirement, which was applying to join the organisation. But the decision means the controversial […]

Unreasonable service charges, undeclared conflict of interests, jobs for the boys: here is where to complain

The ARHM code is very good – and often completely ignored. Read it. Make your complaint to enquiries@arhm.org. Copy to your MP, to Sir Peter Bottomley peter.bottomley.mp@parliament.uk and to Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation sok@leaseholdknowledge.com. It may make a difference. And it costs nothing. (Please no frivolous complaints or grudges against property management staff) The Association […]

We save money living at Woodchester Valley Village … but then we do all own it ourselves

When his retirement village outside Stroud, in Gloucestershire, went bust – with many of the leasehold properties unsold – Peter Wilson and the other residents decided to buy the site off the administrators, raised £2 million and now run the site themselves. The result is Woodchester Valley Village, a mutual ‘not for profit’ retirement village. What the elderly residents […]

Metcalfe Court: how a retirement site has benefited from RTM (including 20% savings compared with FirstPort)

The road to RTM After an embittered struggle with the Tchenguiz organisation – which also saw the involvement of two MPs – Metcalfe Court, in Romiley, in Cheshire, broke free and took over its right to manage last February. Below the RTM directors write to Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation / LKP to share their […]

Dudley Joiner: It is not relevant that I was disqualified from being a company director for 7 years

Dudley Joiner, the businessman offering services to leaseholders, has told LKP / Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation that being disqualified as a company director for seven years has “no relevance to my current activity”. The ban was imposed between 1993 and 2000 in the Chancery Division of the High Court following an action by the […]