Dear LKP and all the wonderful people who have helped me, Your amazing gestures of kindness have raised £14.682 pounds and I can not adequately say how grateful I am to you all. However, I hope you will all know how much it helps when a vital part of your life is stolen and you […]
Anchor and Hanover in talks to merge
June 8, 2018 By
Two housing associations which also build and sell private leasehold retirement properties are planning to merge. It is claimed that the proposed merger would make both organisations more efficient and allow economies of scale in employing contractors. A leaflet sent to residents of the associations says of the merger: “A new bigger organisation would be […]
Tchenguiz brothers fall out among themselves, says The Times
May 17, 2018 By
The Tchenguiz brothers – who before the crash were among the most powerful corporate players in the UK – are litigating again: this time among themselves, according to today’s Times. The dispute centres on the Tchenguiz Family Trust, based in the British Virgin Islands, which at one point claimed to own one per cent of […]
Please exempt retirement housebuilders from ground rent ban, pleads Sir Desmond Swayne
May 17, 2018 By
Senior Tory MP Sir Desmond Swaine has pleaded with the Communities Secretary to consider exempting volume retirement housebuilders from the ban on new ground rents. The MP for New Forest West – coincidentally not far from McCarthy and Stone’s Trump-style HQ in Bournemouth – asked in the Tuesday housing debate: “On new build leaseholds, is […]
Complain to Advertising Standards Authority about misleading ‘home ownership’ when applied to retirement leasehold tenancies
April 19, 2018 By
A veteran leasehold campaigner from Carlex earliest days, Susan Wood, has just repeated a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority about leasehold tenancies being described as “home ownership” that she first made in 2012. Her first complaint concerned Churchill Retirement. Now she complains about McCarthy and Stone describing their flats in an advert in Saga […]
Love over 50: something we can agree about with McCarthy and Stone
April 19, 2018 By
Respect where it is due. Well done McCarthy and Stone for promoting love over 50. Here is the link to the full article: Dating for over 50s: how to find love in later life – McCarthy & Stone Love in later life can seem daunting. If you’ve been married for some years and are recently […]
Dear Mr Fenton: I don’t regret my purchase at Rosewood Court, but ‘leasehold is a rip-off’
April 18, 2018 By
All re-sales at Rosewood Court should falls in value from new, with several down £50-£60,000. The highest fall is flat 21 showing a fall from February 2004 to May 2017 of £81,500 Clive Fenton, CEO, McCarthy & Stone Dear Mr Fenton, My late wife and I purchased a McCarthy & Stone retirement flat at Rosewood […]
McCarthy and Stone: we want you to succeed, but you don’t need ground rents
April 16, 2018 By
By Sebastian O’Kelly Trustee, Leasehold Knowledge Partnership The retirement house builder McCarthy and Stone says that it is struggling, the newspapers are reporting. Profits are down more than 50 per cent for the first half of this year. And it is worried about the long-term implications of the government’s undertaking to reform ground rents, setting […]
Park home pensioners demand MPs dump the British Holiday and Home Parks Association from its All Party Parliamentary Group
February 4, 2018 By
Pensioners in park homes are demanding that MPs dump the British Holiday and Home Parks Association trade body be dumped as secretariat of the All Party Parliamentary Group that was set up to protect residents. The British Holiday and Home Parks Association is the organisation of the site owners! The APPG on park homes is […]
FirstPort Retirement is admitted to ARMA – finally
February 2, 2018 By
The controversial FirstPort Retirement managing agent has been admitted into the Association of Residential Managing Agents FirstPort, formerly Peverel, was responsible for systematically cheating pensioners in retirement sites which resulted in an Office of Fair Trading ruling of bid rigging in December 2014. The scandal involved its subsidiary Cirrus competing for expensive electronic door entry […]
ARCO snubs McCarthy and Stone / Churchill by saying there is no need for ground rents
January 31, 2018 By
The trade body the Association of Retirement Community Operators announced yesterday that ground rents are “not essential” in retirement housing and it backs the government in ending them. The announcement directly contradicts McCarthy and Stone and Churchill. Both have argued that they need ground rents for the viability of retirement housing projects and without them […]
£4,000 sublet fee at Butler’s Place
January 30, 2018 By
The highest sublet fees LKP has encountered exist at the retirement site Butler’s Place, in Milford, in Surrey. In some retirement leases subletting fees of 1 per cent of the purchase price or value of a flat are charged at each subletting. In theory this means that if you have, say, three tenancies in a […]
