Residents to take flat management company to a tribunal
Friday, March 05, 2010, 07:00
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RESIDENTS of a Lace Market development are taking their freeholder to a tribunal, claiming the books have been left unbalanced following “historic mismanagement”.

Last month, 126 families from a block of flats in Mapperley won £180,000 after taking freeholder Holding and Management (Solitaire) Limited and property management firm Solitaire Property Management Ltd to a tribunal.

Now, the Evening Post has been contacted by other people in Notts complaining they are paying increasing service charges to the same company without any explanations.

In April last year, Stephen Holden, who owns two apartments in the Weekday Cross development in the Lace Market, took their case to a tribunal, which ordered new management for the building.

The respondent, Holding and Management (Solitaire) Limited, was forced to accept new management of the premises under Central Management Holding and Management (Solitaire) Limited (UK) Limited.

The decision report of the Midland Leasehold Valuation Tribunal stated: “It is perfectly clear to this tribunal that serious and multiple failures of management had gone uncorrected for a long period of time.”

Dr Holden said things were not being repaired but his service charge had jumped from £900 to more than £2,000 in 2008/09.

He said: “The building became a really severe crime hotspot after the entrance system and security systems weren’t maintained. We had four arson attacks in two months.”

But now Dr Holden says the accounts books do not make sense and residents have been told they owe money. So next month he will be taking Holding and Management (Solitaire) Limited and Solitaire Property Management to a further tribunal, with the support of more than 40 residents.

But it is no easy feat trying to get to the bottom of it all.

“This has been going on since 2008 and it’s really tested my patience to the limit,” said Dr Holden, a consultant at the QMC.

“It’s been a huge amount of work, I’ve had to take days of annual leave, it’s become almost like a second job trying to deal with this.”

He is not alone. Dino Romano, who lives at Riddles Court in Watnall, also managed by Solitaire Property Management Ltd, says they have been given bills back-dated to 2006.

Mr Romano, who said the situation has been complicated by the sale of the freehold and a previous change in management, added: “[We want] to sit down with them and actually agree what needs paying. We have at no time ever refused to pay, we just feel that the works in which they are trying to charge us have not been undertaken.”

The company said it was willing to meet Mr Romano and explain its position. A spokeswoman for Solitaire Property Management said she could not comment on the situation at Weekday Cross.

She said: “The LVT (Leasehold Valuation Tribunal) is due to take place in April. Until this time we cannot provide any further comment on the case.”

Philip Bazin, who runs the Leasehold Advice Centre in Surrey, receives phone calls from residents across the county experiencing similar problems. He says people looking to buy leases in such buildings should do their homework.

“What does surprise me slightly is that with the power of the internet why people don’t do a bit of research about who their future landlord might be and look at service charge bills from previous owners,” he said.

delia.monk@nottinghameveningpost.co.uk

It may be of interest to those TTAS contributors that live in the East Midlands to contact Delia and bring SPM yet again into the spotlight. 

The ‘thisis’ range of websites are part of the Northcliffe Media Group, which is one of the largest newspaper publishers throughout the UK and covers the South West, Midlands & North and South East. 

Why not logon to their website to find details of your local paper and refer them to other stories that their other publishers have produced.

Therefore, the good news is – WE’RE BACK and have quite a lot to comment on.

CARL Newsletter

We’ve been provided with a copy of CARL’s new Spring 2010 Leaseholder Issue 29 newsletter that highlights how the political world, seem unwilling to help owners of leasehold properties – despite the forthcoming general election.

Nigel Wilkins (Chair of CARL), mentions within the newsletter that.

He anticipated that the government would eventually introduce legislation to regulate managing agents in the leasehold sector, along with similar measures to regulate the wider private rented sector. However, Nigel took the view that regulation in itself this would be insufficient to address the problems faced by leaseholders. He emphasised that what we need are measures to free leaseholders from all aspects of leasehold abuses, and not just those arising from management abuse.

In response to a question about setting up a ‘blacklist’ of incompetent and negligent managing agents, Nigel said that this would be difficult to produce because of the unduly harsh libel laws in this country. He also said that a list of ‘good’ managing agents would be much shorter and easier to compile.

What a cracking idea to setup a ‘good’ list of managing agents, that homeowners were happy to recommend.  TheTruthAboutSolitaire has previously attempted to compile this information, however not many people were forthcoming with the recommendations.

Surely there are some good PMC’s out there?

The good news is that at the time of writing this post, the Number 10 Downing Street Petition had gathered almost 1200 signatures!  Keep on supporting and promoting this to your neighbours!!!

The Peverel OM Name Change

Well, what can we say… this has already taken place and Peverel are trading as OM Property Management and they’ve advised that the name change hasn’t had anything to do with distancing themselves from the damage to the Peverel reputation.

However, one eagle eyed contributor did contact us to say that, on their invoice from OM Property Management, in the small print there was an important notice:-

Important Note: Due to operational and legislative requirements, you may occasionally receive documentation from Peverel OM LTD. This is perfectly normal and all queries can be handled by the OM Property Management team. …….. However, cheques will still be acceptable in the name of Peverel Om Limited or OM Property.”

If this isn’t a cope out to cover for any future ‘admin’ cock-ups, whereby residents may accidently still receive a bill from Peverel in the Peverel name, when their property is apparently now managed by OM Property Management!

Nothing like trying to confuse residents even more! 

What would happen if as a resident you received two service charge invoices for the same amount from Peverel and OM Property Management – and you paid both!!  What would the chances be of getting money back!

Andy mentioned recently that Consort Property Management is targetted at maintaining the bigger developments. 

Okay Andy, that maybe the case, however, a resident from a development in Portishead, Bristol  contacted us to say that Consort (despite as you claim, being responsible for less developments / yet they are larger) are just as bad as Peverel / Solitaire used to be, prior to being told that Consort would be replacing Peverel / Solitaire!

Unfortunately, it would appear that every single company, that is associated to or part of Peverel Group / Consensus Business Group – do not know how to maintain developments and just want to take money from us!

Withholding Management Fees

The words that Andy has written in regards to why you shouldn’t withhold payment of your management fees is astonishingly similar to a post that we published, based on the experience of one of the TTAS Admins who has been lucky enough to be rid of Solitaire.

We will agree that by withholding payment of Management Fee’s, will contribute to a vicious circle happening.

If you don’t pay Solitaire, they can’t pay contractors to undertake repairs / provide services, which in turn leads to your development / estate deteriorating.

However, residents arguments are simple.  If Solitaire / Peverel / Consort / County Estate Management, actually provided a service that was value for money in the first place, responded to residents issues and didn’t just ignore them, so that residents felt that they were ‘cash cows’ – they wouldn’t feel the need to with hold payment.

Our solution to the predicament is simple and is one that the admins have previously undertaken.

First of all, put your concerns in writing to Soltiaire by recorded delivery (which we have all done and it’ll get ignored) – ensure you copy ARMA into this correspondence, because at the moment ARMA are monitoring Solitaire rather seriously.

If you then fail to get an answer, lodge a Complaint via Solitaire’s complaints procedure – again, copy ARMA into it.

Then, if that still gets ignored, speak with your neighbours and ask them to collectively withhold payment, until the issues are addressed.  Afterall, Solitaire / Peverel cannot threaten you with legal action if you have strength in numbers.

Please note, that if you do opt to with hold payment, ensure that you deposit these funds into a savings account / separate account, to allow you to demonstrate to Solitaire / Peverel that – when they start performing, you’ll pay your account.

An admin has recently experienced this issue, whereby Solitaire transferred funds to the new PMC and the amount was no more than £300.  However, there was £13,000 in debtors – whom had refused to pay SPM, for fear that those funds would never have been transferred in full to the new PMC.

Don’t forget, if you have the support of your neighbours and you all collectively withhold payment, you can request that the freeholder (in many cases E&M) appoint an alternative PMC and they will request you provide them with your chosen company, whilst they will source two additional quotes in the tender process.

If that is the case, stress to E&M that you do not want any other company, apart from the one you have selected to be responsible.  E&M will then ask you to provide evidence that all residents are in favour of this and we recommend you produce a standard template letter and go door-to-door and get signatures on each letter.

This saves the risk of some neighbours not replying to E&M, which gives them the option to appoint their chosen PMC.

We hope that this’ll help and feel free to ask questions, because this is an area where our admins have good knowledge of.

Please do not think that we have stopped updating the site, we are simply trying to fix issues that have been ongoing for the last two weeks.

Apologises for any inconvenience caused and we hope to be back online as soon as possible!

Comments / Contributions are still working on previous posts.

Cue, the shock of new homeowners when they see the increases in their charges, the lack of services that have been provided!

The best thing about this is, now that TheTruthAboutSolitaire is firmly established amongst the internet search engines, everyone will logon and see that they are not alone!

We’ve already started to receive e-mails from concerned residents and the only way to reduce these charges is by invoking an LVT or RTM. 

Peverel will be very quick to put people off of RTM and tell you that even after RTM, homeowners have come back to Peverel!  Trust us, that isn’t the case!

In the meantime, we welcome any new sufferer of Solitaire Property Management, Consort Property Management, OM Property Management, Peverel (any of the Peverel Group), County Estate Management to TheTruthABoutSolitaire.

This demonstrates that our cause is a worthy one and we’d like to thank Darren Rossiter for having the idea of setting it up.

NewsOnTheBlock also features an interesting interview with Melissa Briggs – one of the founders of CARLEX, that is worth having a read of to get an insight into CARLEX.

The Digital Switchover

Many people today have been discussing the digital switchover and we thought we’d put publish some information to assist in your investigations.

Firstly, check what your aerial signal will be like with the Digital UK aerial checker on Ceefax / Teletext 284.

This test from Digital UK can only be done on analogue TV, not digital.  The ‘Which’ website recommends that you should wait until six months before your region is due to start the digital switch over before you carry out the test.  The Digital UK aerial checker will tell you what your Freeview signal will be like once your region has switched, not what it’s like currently.

When you might need a new TV aerial

There are no specific regions that will need a new TV aerial after digital switchover, and if your TV aerial is in good condition, it’s likely that it will be fine. But you may need a new TV aerial if:

• Your current TV aerial has suffered general wear and tear like rusting or weather damage. If you suspect this, contact an TV aerial installer registered to the Confederation of Aerial Industries (CAI) or the Registered Digital Installers Licensing Body (RDI-LB), or one recommended by Which? members on Which? Local.
• If channels switch frequency at switchover and your aerial doesn’t pick up that frequency. A minority of households may find the channels they receive now may switch frequency at digital switchover. If you don’t have a wide-band aerial that covers virtually all frequencies, then your aerial may not pick up those channels. Digital UK is advising which areas will be affected by this as each TV region approaches digital switchover. But Digital UK says to wait until digital switchover has happened before getting a new TV aerial, as chances are your current one will be fine.

Choosing a TV aerial installer

If you do need a new TV aerial to receive digital TV, follow these Which? tips to make sure you find a reputable TV aerial installer:

• Check Which? Local – a free service for Which? members to recommend local traders – for recommended TV aerial installers in your area.
• Look for installers approved by the CAI or the RDI-LB – they have lists of approved TV aerial installers on their websites.
• Be wary of TV aerial installers that tell you about ‘digital aerials’ and ‘analogue aerials’ – there is no such thing.
• Watch out for any TV aerial installer that tries to get you to agree to work before they have come out and viewed your home and your TV aerial.

When Which? mystery shopped aerial installers in the Granada TV region, they found that aerial installers recommended on Which? Local, or which were approved by the CAI or RDI-LB, all gave good advice on whether they would need a new aerial after digital switchover.

TV aerial costs

Digital UK says a new TV aerial can cost from £60 to £180, plus £45 for an additional socket, but don’t automatically take the first quote you can get.

In February 2009, Which? found prices varied across the country from £55 to £215 for a full installation when they called 24 aerial installers recommended on Which? Local, and in some cases prices within a single region varied by more than £100.

Which? recommends calling around and getting at least three quotes for aerial installation from installers in your local area to be sure of getting the best price.

Finally, don’t forget to have a look at the Digital UK website for information related to Shared Aerials and have a look at Digital UK’s Property Managers website.

There’s a very interesting fact on this page of the Digital UK website that states:-

It is likely that most communal TV aerial systems will need upgrading for switchover. Communal systems that are older than 30 years old will almost certainly need to be replaced, systems aged between 10-20 years old will need to be checked and systems under 10 years old should be fine. Read the Government report on the impact of switchover on communal aerials.

So if you property / system is under 10 years old, it’s likely Peverel or OM Property Management as they wish to be called now are trying to take advantage of the Digital Switchover.

We’ve checked the CAI and Rdi-LB websites and have no record of Interphone or Cirrus Communications being list as approved installers.  Now, who’s not doing their job properly and appointing the correct companies to do the job right?

We trust that this information will help you with your research into the ‘Peverel Aerial Charges’.

So if you have a question, that you’d like us to publish and have answered by the other contributors to TheTruthAboutSolitaire, feel free to e-mail us, but in the mean time, here are a couple of the questions we’ve been asked so far and would appreciate contributors helping to answer them, because us ‘admins’ don’t know it all!

What is the ‘Summary of Facts’, that we ask ask Oval for when contacting them about Insurances?

What is the s27A Proceedings?

We trust that those of you considering LVT action, will take note of this essential information in your LVT battle with Peverel / Solitaire.

Cue the alarm bells ringing in Peverel Towers….

You must get from Oval Insurance Brokers the full policy document, summary of facts, certificates and claim history for your block. Also get the revaluation documents relevant to your block from Zurich, via Oval revalue all Peverel’s 500+ estates.

Don’t take any excuses from Oval, they are legally required to give you this info. Threaten them with the FSA if required.

Then contact an Independent Insurance broker and have your block quoted for Buildings Insurance, requesting specifically NO COMMISSIONS except obviously the broker, as that is reasonable but speak frankly with the broker about the size of his/her commission.

Ask for these quotes in writing and then submit these as evidence in your LVT.

Enquire as to whether the Broker would be willing to attend the LVT to give evidence in person, most will if they think they are going to get the business after all is said and done.  (You need a good fishing rod with a carrot on the end)

You must then ensure the quotes you get match the exact valuations and the terms and cover of the existing Oval Policies or they are worthless!!!!!. It should all come together with a bit of work.

Take a witness statement from the Insurance broker too, producing his actual quotes as an exhibit – again, this is very important.

You will find that either prior to, or at the start of your LVT  Peverel OM will approach you offering to split the commissions they have received with your residents. They appear to do this in all cases where Applicants get expert Insurance witnesses.

They will offer you everything over 20%. Peverel receive 33.05% Commissions on all their policies. This has been the case from 2006 to present. Upto 2006 the rate was 26.4%. In the Respondents bundle Peverel will produce a list of tasks which they state they perform to justify their 33.05% commission kickbacks.

WHAT YOU MUST DO

Is  get your Insurance Witness to go through this list of tasks and comment, in his expert opinion which ones he would expect an Insurance Broker to do, not a Landlord.

Point out to the LVT that Oval are suppose to be the broker and therefore the role is being unneccessarily duplicated. This is the the only way to attack. You  should argue that when the commission was 33.05% it should be reduced to say 10% and when it was 26.4% you will accept 3.35%.

Peverel’s Barristers use good case law on Insurance commission issues to try and prove the policies are within a scale of reasonableness and the current law is, the policy inforce does not have to be the cheapest.

This is true but you can fight with specific caselaw which will save your bacon…….

First, the case of ‘Havenbridge Limited v Boston Dyers Limited 1994 WL 1060898′.

There is one section in there which is appropriate to the financial arrangement Peverel OM has with Oval and Zurich……’

*Roskill J…..’The safeguard for the tenant is that, if the rate [Insurance Premium] appears to be high in comparision with other rates that are available in the insurance market at the time, then the landlord can be called upon to prove that there was no special feature of the transaction which took it outside the normal course of business’.

READ THIS OUT DURING THE LVT and argue that Peverel’s commission / kickbacks from taking out this policy are clearly, for anyone to see, a special Feature in the transaction as Judge Roskill eluded too, and therefore the onus is on Peverel to prove the commissions were not a special feature. They will try and play down the special feature by again telling the Tribunal what extra work they actually do (from that list of tasks mentioned earlier they do to try and justify a commission) so attack them again with your expert  insurance witnesses statement.

Also mention the second paragraph in the case of Williams V. Southwark London Borough Council (2001) 33 H.L.R. 22……

Lightman J…….’As a general rule, a lease will not be construed so as to enable a landlord to make profit from service charges; the purpose of a service charge is to enable the landlord to recover from lessees the increased costs of services supplied’.

REMEMBER

The Insurance quotes you get must match exactly the cover Peverel OM have or it will be totally discounted in evidence. Also make sure your insurance witness makes reference to the claims history when he gives your quotes or again they are rubbish.

One last thing…. are you being charged a 3.25% direct debit fee on top of the insurance premiums? It was held in the City Heights LVT this was unlawful!

Feel free to contact us, if you wish for contact details of City Heights, who are more than willing to help others.

We are currently upto 988 signatures and are so close to hitting that magic 1000!

If you haven’t already done so, bring the petition to the attention of others, for it to gain their support.

A special thanks goes to CARLEX, for their publicity of the petition.

Over 200% more for a bollard system!

They told us that the company who installed the system were called ‘Fortress Security Systems’ and it is a former ‘Peverel Employee’ that is running the operations for them.

The former employee’s ‘LinkedIn’ profile can be found at: [Link removed as requested by the former employee]

They told us that the Virginia Quay’s development manager (NP) was only allowed to approve works up to £5,000 in value, with his manager (SR), being able to approve up to £20,000 and anything more than this would need to be approved by SR’s manager.

However, allegedly – the only signature on the invoice was from NP and to make matters worse, the bollard system they installed is apparently not fit for the purpose and is disfunctional!

The contributor has then advised us that apparently…

They overspent on the budget (£877K) by a massive 29% (£250k) meaning they had dip into reserves and everyone to pay approximately 25% over and above their service charge in the depths of recession.

One of our resident has lived there for 9 years and after 6 bouts of water damage to the communal carpets and was asking to have the carpets replaced, because of stains left (he been unfortunate enough to have had 5 lots of damage) NP’s response to the 5 occasions was ‘thats unfortunate but I cant do a lot about it’, hence Oval pay for all the costs, and our premiums go up – and Peverel are getting kick backs from the premiums.

Still the same carpet, lays there untouched for nearly 10 years!

They profit out of use for additional fobs, over and above the free issue, which were purchased by residents. These were charged out at £25 each whilst the actual cost was £11.69 (inc vat) – and no accounting of this income can be found.

We’ve been copied into numerous correspondences, between Virginia Quay and Peverel / Consort, yet still no answer from them!

As always, we hope that once again – by bringing this story to the public’s attention, that it will spur a response from our Peverel / Consort – or whoever!

[ADMIN EDIT]
We were contacted by the person who we had linked to their LinkedIn profile, who told us the following:

Just for clarification I had nothing to do with Virginia quay whilst at Peverel, i worked for an entirely different region and indeed a different company within the group when the works were carried out and joined fortress having been approached (head hunted) by the owner. The works had already been completed and indeed invoiced, when i joined fortress and therefore nothing to do with me at all.

We apologise for any inconvenience that the former employee has encountered.

It does though, go to show how risky the Internet and Social networking websites can be – by revealing details about people that can easily be misinterpretted.

To view his comments click here

TheTruthAboutSolitaire only report the facts that the residents in question advise us of and your response, sounds very much like the one which Peverel issued to CARLEX, when CARLEX reported that Peverel were taking down posters promoting RTM and CARLEX meetings – which was something along the lines of “we have not informed house managers to do this” – despite house managers, confirming they’d been told to do so.

As a previous contributor has mentioned – Holdings & Management (Solitaire) Ltd, have numerous companies registered to addresses at Ballards Land (same address as Estates & Management – whom Mr Tchenquiz is a Director of) and the former address of Solitaire in Barnet.  Therefore, your claim that the freeholder is not Solitaire Property Management Ltd is correct, however, as the appointed Property Management Company by the freeholder – which is a company that is part of the Consensus Business Group - of which Peverel are also part of, we feel that Peverel / Solitaire are in theory indirectly the freeholders. (“you say tam-a-to and I say tomato”)

Insurances, as we are discovering from other contributors, currently it appears that all are arranged by Oval via Zurich on behalf of Solitaire / Peverel.  We have received numerous policy certificates confirming this and therefore, if the insurances are the responsibility of the freeholder – why are they not responsible for insuring estates and why are their names not on the policies? Instead it is Peverel / Solitaire? 

So are you confident that insurance has absolutely nothing to do with Peverel / Solitaire then?  We’re pretty sure that Oval would disagree with that comment, judging by the replies we’ve had from contributors who have gone direct to them, following the lack of responses from Peverel / Solitaire’s customer services dept / property manager.

Your comments about the improvements and promises are almost identical to those that Lee Middleburgh wrote in his letter to ARMA on the 4 January 2010 (a copy is freely available for download on another post, should you not have read it). 

Your post has clearly been written in great depth, planned and contrived to try and protect the reputation of Peverel and to suggest that the facts we have published are incorrect – some maybe, however, the City Heights LVT  Determination say’s it all really and we tend to believe the residents that have suffered at the hands of Peverel / Solitaire over the comments of the company that lost the LVT, despite being defended by numerous professionals. 

TheTruthAboutSolitaire has gained enough evidence to suggest that things aren’t changing and you’re still overcharging residents.  Only when this site stops receiving complaints and we stop seeing people ‘googling’ for ‘Solitaire / Peverel Complaints’ we will believe that you have changed, because there won’t be a need for the website then!

Your comments are detrimental and more damaging to Peverel’s already poor reputation, than it is to try and protect it, because all contributors to TheTruthAboutSolitaire are aware of the real Peverel / Solitaire and is the reason why so many are now are finally starting to understand your accounts, know how to find out the facts and more importantly – know how to get rid of you via RTM or take you to LVT’s.

The excuses of new computer systems and information being incorrect cannot be used forever, how long has it been going on for now?  Emmm, since last March / April?  We think you may need to replace your IT / Systems provider, because they clearly ‘buggered it up’ and don’t know what they are doing. 

This aside though, many of the residents in question have found discrepancies in paperwork dating back to way before Peverel took over Solitaire – highlighting the fact that for many years, residents have been overcharged / charged incorrectly.

Surely, when Peverel took over Solitaire, you did an audit of their developments before taking over?? Or is the Peverel / Solitaire take over, similar to that of Lloyds and RBS – rushed into and then realised the consequences?

Our rant has gone on a bit and we apologise to the avid visitors of the site, but we feel we needed to stand up for ourselves and residents, against a company that are completely blind to FACTS.

Finally, before we finish this post, here are some of the points that we have identified where residents have been incorrectly charged or overcharged, that ‘Andy’ may like to investigate:-

1) Resident Percentage Contributions to Service Charges, are not the same as residents leases, resulting in residents paying more than they should be;

2) Insurance Premiums are excessive, our broker has already sourced one policy which resulted in a £1500 saving – what are your excuses to that? 

3) Failing to act / provide insufficient services for fees;

4) Excessive Admin Fee’s – £25-£50 for a photocopy of a document / name change;

These are just a few that we as Admin’s can think of, but I’m sure there are many more and we’re sure many of the other contributors to TheTruthAboutSolitaire will agree with the comments that have been made.