McCarthy and Stone has made a “goodwill” payment of £40,000 to Oak Court in Manchester which lacked fire compartmentation in the roof. But a leaseholder at the site, which featured in BBC TV’s Rip-Off Britain last year, withdrew a submitted article to LKP addressing the issue after receiving a phone call from the company’s senior […]
McCarthy and Stone makes ‘goodwill’ payment of £40,000 to Oak Court, but leaseholder drops article for LKP after phone call from the company’s lawyer
December 8, 2023 By
Platinum Skies: £63,000 loss on £130,000 shared ownership retirement flat after new owner died 25 days after moving in
October 13, 2023 By
LKP wins reprieve for family as Platinum Skies makes £28,237 ‘gesture of goodwill’ Executive chairman Julian Shaffer references ‘truly exceptional’ case of pensioner’s death at the start of Covid lockdown in April 2020 and the market disruption that followed Exit and other fees are reduced ‘as a compassionate gesture of goodwill given the particular and […]
Shared ownership: Immensely complex; nothing shared when it comes to costs; clever ‘investors’ scent a revenue source to replace ground rents
October 11, 2023 By
By Sebastian O’Kelly This is a longer version of an article I wrote for the i Newspaper last week: Why shared ownership is the most problematic form of housing The shared ownership leases have come with the usual nasties designed to ramp up the value of the freehold interest, whether to the benefit of housing […]
Park home owners demo against 10% sales commissions
October 5, 2023 By
Park home owners marched on 10 Downing Street on September 18 to protest against the 10% resale commissions levied on their properties at resale by site owners. Chanting “We pay 10%. What do we want? Zero!” a delegation headed by Sonia McColl OBE, the veteran park home leader, accompanied by Sir Peter Bottomley, delivered a […]
Three quarters of Churchill Retirement flats have lost money when resold, says The Times
October 5, 2023 By
An analysis of Land Registry data has shown that three-quarters of the flats built by Churchill Retirement – owned by the McCarthy family who founded McCarthy and Stone – have resold at a loss, according to The Times. The average fall in value has been 18%, or £43,000, the newspaper said, with one flat in […]
Your chance to say what you think about retirement housing before September 18
August 11, 2023 By
The government has launched a call for evidence in the retirement housing community, with responses in by a deadline of 18 September. Please respond here: oph@levellingup.gov.uk And please copy your responses in the All-Party Parliamentary Group on leasehold and commonhold reform, perhaps including your own MP: appg@leaseholdknowledge.com The task force, headed by Professor Julienne Meyer, […]
We need retirement ground rent gaming like a hole in the head, says ARCO
July 7, 2023 By
Gaming the new ground rents ban by introducing them at the last possible minute was damaging to the entire retirement housing sector and “we need this like a hole in the head”, said the Association of Retirement Community Operators at its annual conference yesterday. Michael Voges, ARCO chief executive, deplored bad practices in retirement housing […]
Investors see gold in retirement housing, but oldies have taken a look and remain wary … Brighter developers are pushing for change
May 8, 2023 By
Report of APPG on retirement housing 27 March 2023 We thought scandals in retirement housing would be the downfall of the leasehold system, but that was before doubling ground rents and the Grenfell disaster By Sebastian O’Kelly, trustee LKP and founder of BetterRetirementHousing.com When Martin Boyd (LKP chair) and I began this – he the […]
Retirement housing won’t grow until oldies are offered a product that they can trust, says head of ARCO
May 8, 2023 By
By Michael Voges, CEO of the Association of Retirement Community Operators The leasehold system in retirement housing is flawed and ensures that consumers taken on all the risk of future costs at a site, Michael Voges, the CEO of ARCO told the APPG on 27 March 2023. “ARCO commissioned a YouGov poll and found that […]
Why I took Woodlands Court to right to manage, why it works and why I want the authorities to intervene in this scandal hit sector
May 8, 2023 By
By Dan Healey, director of the Woodlands Court RTM, addressed the All Party Parliamentary Group on leasehold and commonhold reform on 27 March 2023. He made a passionate plea for retirement sites to opt for right to manage and so employ managing agents accountable to the leaseholders who do the paying Right to Manage – […]
Taking over from Bob Bessell as head of Retirement Security retirement community provider: What we offer and why
May 8, 2023 By
Melanie Gowers is the newly appointed chief executive of Retirement Security Limited, a retirement housebuilder founded by Bob Bessell, a trustee of the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership Bob Bessell, a former head of Warwickshire social services, became a retirement housebuilder and set up Retirement Security. He has undertaken to leave the freeholds to his sites in […]
Legal and General explains why it is investing in Inspired Villages, and wants reforms to the sector
May 8, 2023 By
Ben Rosewell, Legal and General, Head of Investment Later Living Business (Inspired Villages), addresses the All Party Parliamentary Group on leasehold and commonhold reform on 27 March 2023 and explains why Legal and General is investing in this sector, and why it wants to see changes We entered into the senior housing space in 2017 […]
