UPDATE August 12 Yesterday evening Susan Earnshaw returned Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation’s phone call and we discussed the issues of Tatton Court and Willow Court and the services provided by her company. We publish her full response below, but make a number of points: 1/ We tried but were unable to contact Mrs Earnshaw […]
Ex-Peverel employee thwarted over right to manage for Tatton Court and Willow Court
August 10, 2016 By
To stop being pushed around, go for right to manage or buy the freehold, says Mail on Sunday
August 8, 2016 By
The Mail on Sunday personal finance section went over the issue of leaseholders exercising right to manage and buying the freehold yesterday. The article can be read here It referenced the LEASE survey that found that 57 per cent of leaseholders regretted buying their property. This is a figure quite unprecedented in other jurisdictions where […]
Downy Court seeks sale of house manager’s flat as residents vote on live-out service
August 5, 2016 By
Residents at Downy Court in Poole are voting to end their live-in house manager service at the end of the month as a way of cutting service charges.
The flat is one of hundreds owned by FirstPort that was granted a lease in 2009, when Vincent Tchenguiz, who owns the freehold, also owned Peverel, which became FirstPort last year.
The residents have already received £6,200 in LED lighting and FirstPort will put £5,000 into the contingency fund.
A two-bedroom flat at Downy Court is offered for sale at £118,000, so if the residents vote to end the in-house manager’s service they will also be making an extremely generous gift to FirstPort.
Warner Court, in Berkshire, breaks free of Tchenguiz and FirstPort with right to manage
August 5, 2016 By
Another day, another retirement site – Warner Court – decides to break free of the Vincent Tchenguiz organisation and FirstPort to appoint its own management through right to manage. The RTM at Warner Court, in Sandhurst, Berkshire, takes over on September 15, which means another retirement site will almost certainly slip from FirstPort’s grasp. The […]
Brexit hits retirement housing sales
August 4, 2016 By
Just about every marketing department in the country has come up with Brexit “research” to grab headlines, and FirstPort’s Retirement Homesearch estate agency has joined in. It says that in the second quarter of 2016, new buyer registrations for retirement properties slipped by more than 20% from the first quarter to 4,744. This figure is […]
Leasehold sales are bedevilled by ‘extortionate’ charges and game-playing, says the Conveyancing Association
August 3, 2016 By
… Conveyancing Association calls for enforcement of reasonable fees, and it wants Land Registry to register ‘lease administrators’ who handle sales … It claims there is ‘an imbalance of bargaining power between the lease administrator and the leaseholder’ … 34 per cent of estate agents say leasehold sales are a ‘nightmare’ … LKP tells the […]
Leasehold is a feudal, wasting asset with opportunities for exploitation, says the Financial Times in a devastating article
July 31, 2016 By
Leasehold properties make up 43 per cent of all new-build registrations with the Land Registry for England and Wales, and 3,000 of those were for leasehold houses. That is one of the findings in the Financial Times’s three-page cover story in its FTMoney section, published this weekend. The article, written by personal finance veteran Lindsay […]
Man the lifeboats! Grace Darling House votes for Freemont
July 30, 2016 By
Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation has received a report that Freemont Property Managers have been appointed to take Grace Darling House to right to manage. It will then manage the site, we are informed. The site is at present run by Stonewater housing association. Freemont Property Managers is run by former senior executives of Peverel. […]
ARMA humiliates FirstPort over house manager flat sales
July 30, 2016 By
Humiliating criticism for the trouble property manager, but the path is now clear for it to apply for membership of the trade body The regulator of the Association of Residential Managing Agents (ARMA) has admonished on two counts Peverel / FirstPort Retirement, which was applying to join the organisation. But the decision means the controversial […]
No porkies at Sandbanks, but is ending the in-house manager going to save money?
July 30, 2016 By
UPDATED August 1 2016. 20:17 Residents at Sandbanks at Hoylake, in the Wirral, are pondering the issue of whether to continue to have an in-house manager. It is a later McCarthy and Stone retirement site, completed in 2008 and one of the last freeholds to be sold off to Vincent Tchenguiz’s interests, in this case, Fairhold […]
Warner Court sky-high sublet costs when a relative goes into care
July 30, 2016 By
This is a recent inquiry to Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation from Warner Court, in Sandhurst, Berkshire: “My mother-in-law owns a flat and may have to go into a care home. “We were considering renting out the property but have been told by E & M [the Tchenguiz interests based in the British Virgin islands], […]
Unreasonable service charges, undeclared conflict of interests, jobs for the boys: here is where to complain
July 29, 2016 By
The ARHM code is very good – and often completely ignored. Read it. Make your complaint to enquiries@arhm.org. Copy to your MP, to Sir Peter Bottomley peter.bottomley.mp@parliament.uk and to Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation sok@leaseholdknowledge.com. It may make a difference. And it costs nothing. (Please no frivolous complaints or grudges against property management staff) The Association […]
