February 5, 2025

Archives for 2013

Help! Is a second satellite dish one dish too many?

Can anyone assist this Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation reader? We are aware that satellite dishes can be a fraught subject – possibly even an income stream for the freeholder – but don’t have details. All assistance would be gratefully received. “I live in a block of 34 leasehold retirement apartments. By our own request […]

Is Peverel quietly up for sale again?

It’s a question worth asking, as its current owners venture capitalists Electra and Chamonix will get shot of it at the propitious moment. In February 2012 they bought Peverel, which had been part of the Tchenguiz empire from 2007 until it went into administration in March 2011. The deal involved a £62 million transaction supported […]

Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation / LKP visitors hit 29,000 in April

Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation / LKP websites hit fractionally under 29,000 visitors last month – the highest readership ever recorded by the sites. April 16 also saw the Leasehold Knowledge Partnerhip being named in the House of Commons by Sir Peter Bottomley. He also named and praised Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation’s Sebastian O’Kelly […]

The epic £67,000 victory at Oakland Court

The Oakland Court case demonstrates what pensioner leasehold residents can achieve if they can get organised, involve their MP (very important for free legal representation) … and have a bit of luck. Here John Fenwick, 65, who had worked in a legal practice, head the litigation to have returned £137,000 of notional rent paid for […]

The ‘rent’ for house manager’s flat scam

If you have a resident house manager, the rent on his/her flat is typically the largest single item in the service charge.  It is also the item on which the landlord is likely to make the most profit since, very often, the rent he charges is well in excess of the local market rents for […]

How a wartime squadron leader, 94, downed Peverel

  Eric Matthews, dealing with irritants aged 94 Interview with Eric Matthews on the Channel Four website During the Second World War, when Eric Matthews, 94, was an RAF squadron leader, he was used to chalking up downed enemy aircraft. Now he is celebrating another victory over a lesser adversary: Peverel, which has had to […]

Should Peverel customers pay up using Premium Credit?

Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation readers have been in touch saying that if they wish to pay their Peverel service charges monthly by direct debit they must now enter a loan agreement with Premium Credit. Details are sketchy and Peverel says the payment system has been in place for more than 10 years and there […]

Prisk to Bottomley: what’s the evidence that the Leasehold Advisory Service is not ‘balanced’? Well, how about this for starters …

Housing Minister Mark Prisk has rounded on Sir Peter Bottomley to demand why he believes that the Leasehold Advisory Service in not ‘balanced’. Sir Peter, the Tory MP for Worthing West, made his comments in the Commons on April 16: “To have clever lawyers, some of whom will appear at LEASE—the Government-approved agency for giving […]

After scandalous delays of 14 months, Regent Court has its RTM appealed against today

Fourteen months of winning right to manage, Regent Court leasehold residents were at the Land Tribunal today fighting off their freeholder’s appeal. In – yet another – example of how the leasehold system lets down those who pay for it, the Plymouth pensioners have had their inaccurately described “right to manage” frustrated through the legal […]

Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation activists praised in Commons: clean up ‘muck’ of leasehold and stop ‘ripping off leaseholders left, right and centre’

Sir Peter Bottomley (left) yesterday made his strongest Commons intervention yet on the scandals in leasehold. He named and praised the two keys figures in the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership, named and criticised Tchenguiz and urged a full debate on leasehold under the cover of parliamentary privilege. He attacked the role of LEASE, the Leasehold Advisory […]

Been ripped off over leasehold insurance? Take your complaint to the secret ombudsman, says Peverel

UPDATE April 18, 15.55 Peverel statement at the end of the article A retirement leasehold resident disputing Kingsborough insurance commissions with Peverel has been told she must take her dispute to an ombudsman, whose rulings are not published. Joan Wade, who has lived at Grasmere Court in Worthing since 2003, was appalled to receive a […]

Mark Prisk’s department sabotages attempt to license leasehold managing agents

A clever Lords amendment by Baroness Gardner that would see leasehold managing agents required to have a licence will be sabotaged in the Commons tomorrow. Instead, the Department of Communities and Local Government wants to insist managing agents belong to an ombudsman scheme. Ombudsmen are widely popular among the vested interests in the status quo […]