- Unhappiness at Chelsea Bridge Wharf
For anyone thinking about buying Peverel – and the administrators are now in serious talks with a buyer – it looks like yet another flagship Thames-side development is about to slip out of its clutches.
Chelsea Bridge Wharf, beside the old Battersea Power Station site, is in the process of going for RTM, has won at LVT but the issue is going to the Land Tribunal on appeal. It is the usual familiar story. The Tchenguiz’s Fairhold Artemis hoovered up the freehold and bought Peverel, the managing agent. Residents complained the fees started escalating.
“The residents here are all pretty well off, but they hate the idea that they are being ripped off,” said a property insider, based at the site. “Sales at Chelsea Bridge Wharf have certainly been affected by the bad reputation of the managing agent.
“I called up the MD of Berkeley Group – who built the landmark site – and asked him whether he had even heard about reputational risk. Problems with the management of retirement flats have absolutely trashed the reputation of McCarthy and Stone.
“All housebuilders need to be aware of the damage a bad managing agent does.”
In fact, Berkeley Group, Barratt and McCarthy and Stone have all ceased to use Peverel on their new schemes, although they are stuck with them on some.
Tchenguiz’s Fairhold Artemis bought the freehold of Chelsea Bridge Wharf off the Berkeley Group for around £8.7 million. The 1,156 leaseholders would have paid around £600 million.
Yet the freeholder, whose asset is worth only around 1.46 per cent of the complex, has the right to appoint … er … himself as the managing agent. The wishes of the owners of 98.54 per cent of the asset have had no say in this whatsoever, and are simply expected to pay whatever bill is put in front of them.
What’s that smell?
The smell of acrimony towards Tchenguiz/Peverel is not the only aroma at Chelsea Bridge Wharf.
Number one item on last month’s resident’s meeting at the Warwick Building in the complex was “smell of dope in corridors”. Two residents had complained about the strong smell of cannabis. It was decided to have a discreet word with the mellow offenders, otherwise police would be involved.
