Campaign to improve housing in later life
What we want
Better Retirement Housing, formerly the Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation, exists to promote good practice in the retirement housing sector.
The elderly should be able to downsize, enjoy the benefits of stress-free homes, and live communally.
The advantages of this form of living to achieve mutual reliance and combat loneliness are obvious.
Sadly, the UK’s retirement housing sector has been beset with poor practice and has an appalling reputation. It has been the subject of critical tribunal rulings, two investigations by the Office of Fair Trading, and one Law Commission report.
It has also been debated in Parliament, and at the All Party Parliamentary Group meetings organised by the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership.
That there is a problem is not disputed by impartial observers, although retirement housebuilders’ do their best to minimise the issues.
It is scandalous that the most vulnerable in our society have been beset by sneaky and dishonest fees widespread in leasehold, or systematically cheated, as the OFT found in the Peverel / Cirrus collusive tendering scandal.
However, we acknowledge that the retirement housing sector is varied and there are good operators within it. Better Retirement Housing is delighted that new overseas companies are moving into the market, and that care providers are producing housing solutions. This has introduced a welcome change of culture.
Nonetheless, the standard retirement leasehold flat remains a dubious proposition. It is absurd that it can be the single worst residential property investment one can make, with plummeting re-sale values bearing no resemblance to the local housing market.
The worst practices are made possible by leasehold tenure, and is widely acknowledged that in Scotland, where leasehold does not exist, retirement housing is more harmonious.
Better Retirement Housing aims to improve this sector and, with the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership, seeks to make reforms to residential leasehold law.
We assist with individual problems and provide an editorial service of the sector, which aims to be accurate and fair.
Sebastian O’Kelly
sok@leaseholdknowledge.com
Martin Boyd
martin.boyd@leaseholdknowledge.com
020 8050 2602
Press / admin / urgent 07808 328230
Find everything
Latest news from Leasehold Knowledge Partnership
- “Severe dissatisfaction” with the leasehold crisis says Liverpool Council November 17, 2018
- Unhappy doubling ground rent customers deluge TrustPilot and TripAdvisor November 16, 2018
- Is Law Commission wobbly over 25% commercial exclusion to collective enfranchisement? (Let’s hope so) November 15, 2018
- VAT on house managers’ wages will cost leaseholders £50m a year, says Rendall and Rittner November 15, 2018
- Property manager who champions leaseholders resigns from Tory party over ‘watered down’ reforms November 14, 2018
- Welsh Assembly evidence over Grenfell cladding costs by FPRA ‘consultant’ Cassandra Zanelli is called into question November 14, 2018
On TV
Channel Four Dispatches exposes retirement leasehold
Tonight’s Dispatches programme (September 24 2012) on retirement leasehold was a brilliant example of television journalism that was extremely critical of both McCarthy and Stone and Peverel. Peverel’s LVT defeat at the hands of