Norman Greed, of Eddington Court in Weston-super-Mare, writes his personal account of how he and his neighbours disputed charges at LVT – where they had £12,000 of costs awarded against them – but eventually broke free with right to manage

In August 2004 we purchased a two-bedroom McCarthy and Stone retirement leasehold flat from a fast-talking salesman who more or least told us that we could have all the little extras we wanted at a price once we signed and paid a deposit, and use their appointed solicitor.

Once we paid the deposit we were told we had a week to complete as there was another party ready to sign.

Once all the formalities were completed and we moved in, then the problems started.

 First, we wanted to form a residents’ association, which four residents and me tried without success. The resident house manager discouraged the majority of the residents, by saying it would cost them money and they would have a lot of their freedom of choice taken from them.

 The four other residents and I tried to tackle a few of the items: we thought we were paying too much for i.e. the Rent for the house managers flat, the building’s insurance and Careline.

  We tried to form a dialogue with the area manager; we were told by her that we should write to the freeholder.

 A meeting was held in the Eddington Court Lounge on May 31 2007, it was agreed that a resident should write to the freeholder and suggest that the house manager’s flat rent should be reduced to between £6,300-£7,150 per year a rent suggested by a local letting agent in place of the £14,848 (with a projected figure of £15,295 for the year 2007/8.

 On August 27 2007 we received an offer from Louise Smith, property manager at Fairhold to reduce the rent to £13,500, which she considered reasonable considering all the added benefits that we enjoyed. But there was no reference to the £2,000 per year that we were paying for these added benefits.

 It was at this point that we found that we had a new Landlord and that all our freehold at Eddington Court had been transferred to Fairhold Homes (No9).

 A further meeting was held on September 13 2007 when it was agreed that the above offer was not acceptable, and a letter would be written explaining why!

 This letter was answered by Kevin Barr, director of estates accounts (Peverel), upholding Louise Smith’s offer. He confirmed that Fairhold Homes would exercise the right to retain the income from the guest room.

 A meeting was arranged between Louise Smith, Kevin Barr and the four residence of Eddington Court. No further compromises were forth coming. We agreed at a meeting on November 14 2007 to file a case with Leasehold Valuation Tribunal…

 A public Leasehold Valuation Tribunal hearing was arranged for the four Eddington Court on April 2 2008 in front of a chairman and a surveyor.

 Present for the freeholder were barrister Paul Letman, Ian Rapley, Kevin Barr, Jane Canham (Seddon Solicitors) and Louise Smith.

 It was obvious from the start of the hearing that these legal professionals had presented this sort of defence many times before and knew exactly how to persuade the tribunal.

 We won some points, but the LVT awarded £3,000 towards the respondent’s legal costs, which Peverel paid from the Eddington Court contingency fund.

 In the chairman’s summing up, he said that should we be unable to agree as to the amount the landlord should repay, we should return to the LVT.

 We went through the formalities of appealing to the LVT and the Lands Tribunal, only to be told by both parties that they stood by the decision of the LVT.

 We tried appealing to the landlord over a period, and on the July 14 2008 a cheque was sent out to each residence of Eddington Court, and in the words of Ian Rapley, “We have looked at the ruling and interpreted it in the way we think is correct”, and went on to say “I was once told that, a compromise, by its nature, is a decision acceptable to neither side”.

 Over the next several months letters were exchanged and meetings were arranged.

 At a meeting requested by Keith Edgar, head of Peverel Retirement, I asked why he wanted to speak with me in particular. He replied: “To listen to your venomous comments.”

 It was at this point we realised that that we could not negotiate any longer with Peverel and requested a meeting with Ian Rapley (Fairhold Homes).

 A meeting was arranged between four residents of Eddington Court and Ian Rapley. At this meeting we explained in detail our concerns, only to be told that if we pursued our concerns by returning to the LVT, he would make sure that we would be made an example of.

 In September 2009, under reference no. CHI/00HC/LIS/2009/030, various leaseholders of Eddington Court, including myself, asked the LVT to determine various matters.

 The LVT found against us in what was, in my opinion, a gross miscarriage of justice.

 However, the process by which these determinations were reached was, in my view, also flawed and totally inadequate to ensure that justice was done.

 In particular:-

 The respondent, Fairhold Homes (No 9) Limited, through its solicitor and barrister, submitted its final case and arguments to us and the tribunal the night before the hearing.

 This was notwithstanding the Chairman’s clear instructions at the pre-trial hearing fifteen weeks previously (May 28) that all evidence and submissions should be with the tribunal at least five weeks (July 30) before the hearing.

 We complied fully with this requirement, but the respondent willfully failed to comply, in our opinion as a deliberate act of legal “gamesmanship”.

 This same respondent has done the same thing on more than one occasion at other tribunals; in our view is a deliberate strategy to take advantage of the inexperience of lay applicants.

 As a consequence, we were presented with complex legal arguments and precedents to which it was impossible to form any reasoned answer within the limited time available.

 We could have asked for an adjournment, but this would have meant rescheduling the hearing and the incurring by all parties of additional costs.

 We wanted the matters dealt with without further delay after six months in preparation.

 To avoid this, we decided to continue with the hearing. The chairman mildly rebuked the respondent’s barrister for his failure to comply with his earlier directions (it was all very chummy, from one legal man to another). Notwithstanding his powers to reject the respondents’ late submissions, the chairman allowed them.

 If there are rules for the timely submission of evidence to a tribunal then the Chairman should ensure these are complied with, failing which they should be rejected as out of time.

 Why have rules if they can be flouted with impunity? The chairman was, in our opinion, excessively lenient to the respondent.

 The respondent’s case was that the matters we had raised had already been determined at an earlier hearing. The entire hearing thereafter dealt with the respondent’s lengthy legal arguments in support of this assertion.

 We were never given an adequate opportunity to present our case that the matters we were raising were totally new; we were always on the defensive and the panel, in our opinion, decided in favour of the respondent prematurely.

 We were left with the impression that the chairman preferred to deal with legal professionals and rather looked down upon those who try, to the best of their ability, to represent themselves.

 The LVT process is presented to the world as accessible, affordable justice available to the man in the street who is entitled to represent himself in a non-confrontational environment.

  The reality is that it favours the wealthy landlord who can afford legal representation, creating an intimidating environment for the inexperienced.

 Where the elderly are concerned, I am sure that the vast majority of applicants are leaseholders with the landlord as respondent (not many elderly leaseholders are likely to give the landlord cause to take them to a tribunal).

 It is usually the case, therefore, that a handful of pensioners are representing themselves, as in our case, against legal professionals.

 The costs structure favours the freeholder who, if he is successful, can claim all his legal costs against the leaseholders.

 But leaseholders costs are limited to £500.

 This has been changed with the new rules for the First Tier Tribunal, which replaces the LVT.

 Many potential applicants, especially the retired, are deterred from taking matters to an LVT due to the risk, even if slight in some cases, of having substantial costs awarded against them – in our case £12,000 to date.

  In our case, in his award of costs against us, the chairman made no allowance whatsoever for the fact that we had expressed our willingness from the outset to have the matters determined in writing and that it was the respondent who insisted on having a hearing.

 Our case had been clearly put in our written submission. Since the freeholder’s contention was that these matters had already been determined by an earlier hearing, his case (which was essentially a legal case, not a matter of the facts) could quite easily have been presented in writing also and there was no need for a hearing.

 In addition, the freeholder had earlier, in as many words, stated to us that he would insist on a hearing “to make an example” of us with his costs.

 We informed the chairman of this threat but he made no allowance whatsoever for it.

 A tribunal would not normally expect to award costs against an applicant unless the case he had brought was trivial or vexatious. The case we brought was neither of these and the chairman made no suggestion that it was; it was sincere, well researched and presented.

 The Lands Tribunal upheld the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal, preventing us from taking any further action.

 In 2009 we managed to rid ourselves of Peverel, and to date we have had good service from a new management company.

 As a RTM development we have continued to pursue concerns that still exist: guest room income, house managers flat rent, exit fees and a refund of the excess Insurance commision we were charged by Kingsbrough/ Peverel prior to 2009 when we achieved RTM.

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