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 […]
Three quarters of Churchill Retirement flats have lost money when resold, says The Times
October 5, 2023 By
Bottomley to raise with Churchill Retirement its decision to continue charging ground rents
April 28, 2023 By
Sir Peter Bottomley is to raise with Churchill Retirement – a private company owned by the McCarthy family – its decision to continue to charge ground rents on sites that have not yet opened. New ground rents were banned under the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act 2022, which came into force at the end of […]
The Times says families ‘lost £3 billion’ on resales of leasehold retirement flats, while developers and freehold speculators made millions
November 23, 2019 By
The Times today suggests that families have lost £3 billion on the resale of leasehold retirement flats between 2001 and 2015 in a series of articles that add up to a devastating investigation of the sector. Some 80 per cent of the properties sold had fallen in value, with an average loss of £38,846, the […]
Churchill Retirement donates £150,000 to Conservatives. To retain ground rents, by any chance?
November 22, 2019 By
Churchill Retirement, which belongs to the McCarthy family who founded McCarthy and Stone, yesterday gave £150,000 to the Conservative party. Churchill Retirement has led the rear-guard action to exempt retirement housing from the government’s three-times repeated promise to reduce new ground rents to zero. McCarthy and Stone, on the other hand, more or less conceded […]
Government will cave in to retirement house builders over ground rents, says Times
May 11, 2019 By
What does this say about setting new in wider market to zero? The government is poised to exclude retirement house builders from the much delayed ban on ground rents. Headed by leading retirement builder McCarthy and Stone and Churchill Retirement (which is privately owned by the McCarthy family), have been lobbying hard for an exclusion. […]
APPG July 11: Robust debate over retirement ground rents and event fees
July 13, 2018 By
By Sebastian OKelly, LKP trustee The controversial issues of ground rents and exit fees in retirement housing were discussed at this week’s meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group on leasehold and commonhold reform. These were the main event in a meeting which also had an insider’s examination of leasehold insurance commissions, and why developers […]
McCarthy and Stone and Churchill: are you blackmailing government over the ground rent ban and is your business model broken? Asks BBC R4 MoneyBox
June 25, 2018 By
Brilliant interview with outgoing McCarthy and Stone CEO Clive Fenton ‘Problem’ that retirement housebuilders have not been spoonfed profits, like others through Help To Buy Anyway, aren’t retirement housebuilders insignificant given the numbers of pensioners who are downsizing today, asks BBC? Radio 4’s MoneyBox quizzed retirement housebuilders McCarthy and Stone and Churchill Retirement Living on […]
Anti-ground rent trade body ARCO snubbed at retirement housing conference … (along with us, less surprisingly)
June 15, 2018 By
The anti-ground rent trade body ARCO has been snubbed and left uninvited by retirement housing insiders at a City law firm conference next Wednesday to discuss whether a Retirement Housing Act is needed. The Association of Retirement Community Operators, whose members build and manage their retirement housing and care sites for the long term, has […]
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 […]
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 […]
ARHM cannot see a future in traditional ‘granny flat’ volume retirement sales
November 21, 2017 By
Annual conference hears why renting, mutuals or guaranteed buy-back schemes are more attractive than leasehold flat sales Not one attempt was made to defend the volume retirement housing business model as it came under sustained attack at the annual conference of the Association of Retirement Housing Managers last week. The keynote speaker Sebastian O’Kelly, of […]
Pensioners hammered with 88% rise in ground rents
August 4, 2017 By
… Often in sites with dismal resale values Thousands of pensioners living in older retirement properties are facing a massive hike in ground rents: 88 per cent is not unusual. The older leases of mass retirement housing builder McCarthy and Stone are kicking in with huge hikes in ground rents. Ground rents at Churchill sites […]
