UK Retirement Property Market, Q1 2017 | FirstPort FirstPort, the UK’s leading retirement property specialist releases its latest 2017 quarterly review of the UK market and beyond. Retirement Homesearch, the estate agency of FirstPort, claims it is seeing a very small rise on last year for new instructions and current stock levels. Nick Freeth, Managing […]
Elim Court: If you want right to manage, this is how NOT to go about it
July 28, 2017 By
Elim Court in Plymouth has escaped from its right to manage debacle by the skin of its teeth, having been led to near ruin by right to manage facilitators. After having had its right to manage application turned down in the lower tribunal (freeholder’s costs: £10,000) and then thrown out by the upper tribunal (freeholder’s […]
4% of McCarthy and Stone earnings come from ground rents
July 26, 2017 By
The announcement yesterday by Sajid Javid, Communities Secretary, that he is to ban the sale of leasehold houses and reduce ground rents on new properties to “as low as” zero resulted from months of work by the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership. It will have a marked effect on McCarthy and Stone, according to an article in […]
Goodbye, Carlex. Hello, Better Retirement Housing
July 22, 2017 By
Not without sadness, the trustees of the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership have decided to close the website of the Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation. It has been replaced with a new site called Better Retirement Housing, www.betterretirementhousing.com This site includes all the news archives and comments of the old website. We had been feeling for some […]
LKP patron Sir Ed Davey returns to Parliament
June 9, 2017 By
LKP’s LibDem patron Sir Ed Davey was returned to Parliament at the election for the Conservative held seat Kingston and Surbiton. He rejoins Sir Peter Bottomley, Conservative, Worthing West, and Jim Fitzpatrick, Labour, Poplar and Limehouse, after having lost his seat in the 2015 election. LKP warmly welcomes the return to public life of Sir […]
DCLG stakeholders hear of ‘calamitous’ Law Commission report on exit fees
April 13, 2017 By
The DCLG leasehold stakeholders’ group was told yesterday that the Law Commission report into exit and other fees published earlier this month was ‘calamitous’. The study had come about following the Office of Fair Trading investigations into the retirement housing sector. One concerned the systematic cheating of pensioners over the Peverel / Cirrus collusive tendering […]
FirstPort fined £360,000 over fatal fire at Gibson Court
April 11, 2017 By
The property management company FirstPort was fined £360,000 today over the fatal fire at Gibson Court on September 30 2011. More here The full sentence is not available at this time. The following statement has been provided to Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation / LKP by FirstPort chief executive Nigel Howell. “We are sincerely sorry […]
Law Commission: you will create an investment asset class, not protections for pensioners
April 7, 2017 By
Martin Boyd replies to Stephen Lewis, of the Law Commission, on his report into retirement housing event fees We are a tiny charity that you kindly credit as being one of the key drivers in initiating your work with event fee project. Unlike others we were not part of your advisory panel, but we have […]
My granny’s Audley Retirement home ‘was a money pit’ costing £48,000 in exit fees
April 3, 2017 By
The Sunday Times yesterday published a powerful article by Harriet Meyer revealing how her family spent £48,160 in fees on selling at Audley Retirement flat. Audley Retirement is one of the upmarket providers in the sector, which Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation has long argued has even greater exploitative practices at the higher end than […]
Law Commission’s tokenistic report helps retirement house builders and freehold investors, not families needing to house a relative
March 31, 2017 By
Only 2 per cent of UK over-65s live in specialist retirement housing – against 12 per cent in USA and 17 per cent in Australia – and there is no reason for more to do so because of today’s report from the Law Commission. It does not address the scandals of the retirement housing sector, […]
Israel Moskovitz humiliated as Elim Court wins right to manage in Court of Appeal
February 23, 2017 By
Elim Court, a retirement site in Plymouth, learned today that it had won its epic battle for right to manage in the Court of Appeal against its landlord Israel Moskovitz. His Avon Freeholds Limited managed the site through Y and Y Management, run by business associate Joseph Gurvits. Y and Y is a management company […]
Fryzer Property Services lifts ‘ban’ on relatives at major works meeting
February 17, 2017 By
Residents at Oakland Court, in Worthing, West Sussex, were told that “friends, relatives and carers” could not attend a meeting next week to discuss major works at the site. The ban came from Fryzer Property Services, but has now been rescinded after indignant residents contacted Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation. We in turn referred the […]
