Housing association leasehold featured on the BBC Radio 4 consumer show You and Yours today … and LKP managed to make a case for commonhold as an alternative. Click here to listen at 18.20 minutes in The programme concerned Pam Pearson, a leaseholder whose flat was left cold and damp after a cavity wall outfit […]
Archives for March 2016
BBC Radio 4 on housing association leasehold … and a German asks: is it safe to buy a flat in London?
March 31, 2016 By
20 MPs sign up to All-Party Parliamentary Group on leasehold and commonhold
March 29, 2016 By
Just before Easter it was decided to form an All-Party Parliamentary Group on residential leasehold and commonhold. It is proposed that the chairmen will be jointly Sir Peter Bottomley and Jim Fitzpatrick, both patrons of LKP, and LKP will provide the secretariat. So far 20 MPs and Lords have signed up to join the group, […]
Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation tells Parliament: ‘feeling in retirement leasehold is that the bad guys always win’
March 25, 2016 By
Last Wednesday saw a session of Lord Best’s All Party Parliamentary Group on retirement housing and care. Sebastian O’Kelly, trustee of Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation / LKP, made the following points about private leasehold retirement housing to the APPG: In part, the elderly are not downsizing to retirement housing because they think they will […]
Housing and Care 21: We’ve made a mess at Ashfield, so manage the site yourselves
March 25, 2016 By
Housing and Care 21 handed over the management to residents at Ashfield, a retirement site in Telford in Shropshire, after admitting that it had been badly run. For the past three months, the complex of 26 semi and detached bungalows with a community centre and flat above has been self-managed by the residents through a […]
LKP / Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation suggestions prompt amendments to Housing Bill
March 17, 2016 By
The House of Lords today discussed LKP suggested amendments to the Housing Bill to increase fairness for leaseholders. Proposed by Lord Young of Cookham – better known as the former Conservative MP Sir George Young – the first of his two amendments aimed to “level the playing field—which is currently tilted in favour of freeholders—for […]
Spot the difference: questions to LEASE, questions to Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation / LKP
March 17, 2016 By
The Leasehold Advisory Service has produced its top 20 list of most frequently asked questions. They seem to be more anodyne and uncontroversial than the sort that we routinely receive, so we have decided to do our own list below. Unlike LEASE, we have no interest in trying to square a circle and demonstrate that […]
Average non-retirement service charges are £1,863, but rise to £2,777 for new builds
March 9, 2016 By
The average annual property service charge in Britain is £1,863The service charges for new builds are 96 per cent higher than older properties and average £2,777 Ground rents are on average £371 a year for new build and £327 for pre-2016 properties. A third (33 per cent) of management companies have increased service charges in […]
The Homestead next on FirstPort’s list to flog the house manager’s flat
March 5, 2016 By
Residents at The Homestead, a complex of 31 flats in Lytham St Anne’s, is the latest retirement site where FirstPort is angling for the sale of the house manager’s flat. The site was built in 1986, but almost certainly a lease was issued on the house manager’s flat in 2009, when Tchenguiz was stripping value […]
Regulator to rule on whether scandal-hit Peverel / FirstPort Retirement is fit to be a member of ARMA
March 3, 2016 By
FirstPort Retirement, formerly Peverel, should not be admitted to ARMA because it has an unaccounted-for portfolio of house managers’ flats and has a track record of misleading residents when trying to sell them. These were the arguments put on Monday to Keith Hill, a former New Labour housing minister, who is the regulator of ARMA […]
