This week’s issue of Private Eye, the satirical magazine, has reported the Dennis Jackson forfeiture case, in which Leasehold Knowledge Partnership has been involved for the past six months.
Headed “Grabbit and grab some more”, the article compares Jackson’s travails through the courts with the never-ending Jarndyce v. Jarndyce in Bleak House.
The main point is that a relatively minor dispute escalated into one where Jackson came within a hair’s breadth of losing everything he has as a result of forfeiture. This was granted on January 30 and lifted in a session of Wandsworth County Court, from which the public were excluded, on February 26 – the day before the forfeiture order became absolute.
The article quoted Sir Peter Bottomley, MP for Worthing West, who has an interest in leaseholder injustices, saying: “Who in this case showed restraint or basic decency? It was injustice to apply the letter of the law to take everything from a pensioner who rightly challenged charges.
“English leasehold law is revealed in its ancient cruelty, expense and ghastliness.”
Related posts:
Dispute over £9,000 in service charges results in leasehold pensioner, 73, receiving forfeit order on his £800,000 flat
Pensioner, 73, given last minute reprieve over forfeiture of his home
Sir Peter Bottomley condemns criminal behaviour in leasehold, price-fixing cartels, cheating freeholders, exit fee fiddles, opportunist lawyers playing the system and feeble judicial intervention … in a speech that ALL leaseholders have been waiting to hear
Plantation Wharf pensioner wins 28-day reprieve on forfeiture of £800k flat
I think Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation should send a copy to all 650 MPs in Westminster and ask each if they are willing to support :
(1) abolishing the leasehold tenure system for sale of new property from 2014. The lease is a business weapon of developers to extract more money for “selling new property accommodation” and is basically an unfair legal contract for the consumer and the local constituency.
( 2) abolishing the forfeiture rights under the existing lease contracts and make all Landlords use the “small claims court” to claim back ground rent & service charge arrears.
Can we have more viewers comments posted here to support the proposal to “abolish forfeiture”.?
No change can come if everyone stays silent.