By Keith Phillips, OBE

We, the residents, of Elim Court read with great interest Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation’ reportage  of recent meetings involving Sir Peter Bottomley MP, Israel Moskovitz, Joseph Gurvits et al and Oliver Colvile MP with the residents of Elim Court on Saturday  2^nd February. May we say that we very much welcome the spotlight provide by Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation on our case and, in particular, are most heartened by both the reported comments by Sir Peter Bottomley and the direct involvement of our constituency MP Oliver Colvile.

We are also fortunate in having on board the Right to Manage Federation, led by Dudley Joiner, in whom, despite what is claimed by Messrs Moskovitz and Gurvits, we are indebted for their positive approach in this battle of attrition.

Let us be quite clear, the appointment of the Right to Manage Federation was solely instigated by the residents. In short, Mr Moskovitz and his business partner Mr Gurvits, appear to have got it wrong.

As regards what RTMF get out of this financially, frankly it’s minimal and certainly a great deal less than the LVT costs Mr Moskovitz claims he is owed to date. In support of this residents have considered donating their original joining fee to RTMF, but this has been politely refused. Hardly the action of a profiteering commercial rival.

We note with interest that Mr Moskovitz appears to have two opposing points of view on Right to Manage. On the one hand, he appears to be saying he opposes it and then says he has “no objection in principle to the pensioners obtaining right to manage”.  Something about coming or going comes to mind!

As regards wanting £300,000 for the freehold, we don’t know if Mr Moskovitz has read the papers lately, but while values in London may have risen slightly he may not have noticed that elsewhere in this Sceptred Isle things are a tad flat!

It seems to us that Mr Moskovitz might be a little out of date on a number of issues and, in particular, the regard in which Y&Y and its Property Manager are held by residents at Elim Court.

All we can tell him is that when this issue was raised during Oliver Colvile MP’s reportage of the meeting with Mr Moskovitz, it was greeted by loud hoots of collective derision, ironic laughter and exclamations that I dare not repeat here.

As regards claims that residents had been harassed into signing up for right to manage, let us be quite clear, this is absolute nonsense, crude propaganda and is rejected out of hand.

Why would anyone need to over emphasise the advantages of right to manage when the only withdrawal from the action relates to the sad passing of a resident last month and membership actually approaches 100 per cent?

When, following the acquisition of RTM, residents commence the democratic selection of a new managing agent, I understand it is routine practice for the RTMF to ask for a vote on whether residents want to include the current agent in the short list of companies invited to tender. I don’t want to pre-empt that vote, but I think we can presume that the result will serve as the final definitive statement on the quality of service Y&Y has provided.

Related posts:

Should the RTMF take Elim Court’s flawed right to manage application on to the Court of Appeal? Elim Court fails to win epic right to manage on appeal Oliver Colvile pledges support for right to manage pensioners Bottomley meets Joseph Gurvits and Israel Moskovitz over disputes at Plymouth retirement developments – but leaseholders are determined to fight it out