It is very sad to see it reported today that AgeUK has been pushing expensive energy tariffs to the elderly in exchange for £6 million a year from energy giant E.ON. The Sun reported this in an investigation this morning Age UK recommended a special rate from E.ON which saw pensioners typically pay £1,049 for […]
Law Commission outlines ‘event’ fee report, but still wants to hear from leaseholders
January 16, 2016 By
About 100 of those who have contributed to the Law Commission report into retirement housing “event” fees were invited to an evening get-together at Westminster last Thursday. There was wine and canapés and gossip, after attendees had digested the evening’s theme “Building Fairness: Growing a housing market older people can trust”. Esther Rantzen was the […]
AgeUK: Retirement leasehold IS NOT WORKING and needs urgent reform
September 24, 2014 By
– Self-regulation (by ARHM, ARMA, RICS) has failed – Leasehold tenure itself disempowers residents and makes them vulnerable – Commonhold should be explored – Right to manage needs to be made easier for the elderly – LEASE’s ‘problematic’ role serving all sides in leasehold – CMA’s skimpy Ipsos MORI poll ‘should not be used as the basis […]
McCarthy and Stone float: before we expand retirement housing, here are a few urgent reforms …
July 21, 2014 By
COMMENT So the sharper end of the City reckons its punt on retirement housing may pay off next year. The Sunday Times article on the possible float of McCarthy and Stone was preceded by one in the FT, here According to the FT a number of investment banks have been in contact with McCarthy and […]
Meeting with shadow housing minister Emma Reynolds
April 29, 2014 By
Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation / LKP met shadow housing minister Emma Reynolds yesterday to discuss problems in the leasehold sector. The meeting was organised by Jim Fitzpatrick, the Labour MP for Poplar and Limehouse, who has some of the richest and poorest leaseholders in the country in his constituency. He has become a firm […]
AgeUK would not get involved, Shelter has quit, Peverel has been expelled and Esther Rantzen is asking questions … the fiasco of the Campaign for Housing in Later Life
April 29, 2014 By
Last Friday, Peverel was expelled from the Home Builders’ Federation campaign to reinvigorate the retirement housing market. Its logo was removed from the campaign’s website, while earlier in the week the homeless charity Shelter also decided to jettison the campaign. AgeUK – which last year removed its logos from the Peverel Retirement site – had […]
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 […]
Should Esther Rantzen be a speaker at today’s ARHM jamboree?
June 22, 2012 By
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 […]
