Campaign to improve housing in later life
This is the first of two documentaries about leasehold to be shown on Channel Four. Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation gave extensive support and encouragement to the documentary. The views expressed are those of the Dispatches filmmakers.
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/episode-guide/series-111/episode-3
Big managing agents, which manage flats, are big because they have got business from developers or large-scale freehold owing companies.
Such as Proxima or Fairhold, which are administered through Estates and Management and are ultimately controlled by a trust in the British Virgin Islands.
Doubtless they are very obliging.
Not a single one is big through consumer choice.
Managing agents accredited to the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership, on the other hand, want business from leaseholders. Many are former leaseholders. Many have spoken at our Parliamentary meetings urging politicians to clean up the sector.
All have signed undertakings of good practice and have provided extensive references … from leaseholders.
They can also hand-hold leaseholders through right to manage at minimal cost.
Contact Sebastian O’Kelly at LKP for further details: sok@leaseholdknowledge.com, 07808 328 230
Please click on logos for link and details
London
Darlington
Fulham
Essex / Middlesex
Norwich
Croydon
North London
Pimlico
Richmond, Surrey
Epsom, Surrey
Macclesfield
The following advertisements are from firms that seek business from leaseholders. Click on the logos for company profiles.
Chartered surveyors
Better Retirement Housing, formerly the Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation, exists to promote good practice in the retirement housing sector.
The elderly should be able to downsize, enjoy the benefits of stress-free homes, and live communally.
The advantages of this form of living to achieve mutual reliance and combat loneliness are obvious.
Sadly, the UK’s retirement housing sector has been beset with poor practice and has an appalling reputation. It has been the subject of critical tribunal rulings, two investigations by the Office of Fair Trading, and one Law Commission report.
It has also been debated in Parliament, and at the All Party Parliamentary Group meetings organised by the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership.
That there is a problem is not disputed by impartial observers, although retirement housebuilders’ do their best to minimise the issues.
It is scandalous that the most vulnerable in our society have been beset by sneaky and dishonest fees widespread in leasehold, or systematically cheated, as the OFT found in the Peverel / Cirrus collusive tendering scandal.
However, we acknowledge that the retirement housing sector is varied and there are good operators within it. Better Retirement Housing is delighted that new overseas companies are moving into the market, and that care providers are producing housing solutions. This has introduced a welcome change of culture.
Nonetheless, the standard retirement leasehold flat remains a dubious proposition. It is absurd that it can be the single worst residential property investment one can make, with plummeting re-sale values bearing no resemblance to the local housing market.
The worst practices are made possible by leasehold tenure, and is widely acknowledged that in Scotland, where leasehold does not exist, retirement housing is more harmonious.
Better Retirement Housing aims to improve this sector and, with the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership, seeks to make reforms to residential leasehold law.
We assist with individual problems and provide an editorial service of the sector, which aims to be accurate and fair.
Sebastian O’Kelly
sok@leaseholdknowledge.com
Martin Boyd
martin.boyd@leaseholdknowledge.com
Press / admin / urgent 07808 328230
Latest news from Leasehold Knowledge PartnershipTonight’s Dispatches programme (September 24 2012) on retirement leasehold was a brilliant example of television journalism that was extremely critical of both McCarthy and Stone and Peverel. Peverel’s LVT defeat at the hands of
