BBC Watchdog – 20 April 2009
By admin | April 20th, 2009 | Category: Past Articles | 6 commentsI’m sure many of you have watched this evening’s BBC Watchdog program that focused on the failures of Property Management Companies, who are happy to take our money, but don’t appear to want to provide a service for it!
It was certainly an enlightening piece and it was good to see so many people at the get together, who all shared the same view that we are all fed up with things.
Right to Manage seems the only way to go, but it can be a long and lengthy process, which unless you can have someone dedicated to the project many will decide against it.
Who agree’s that the interview with Andrew McKeer’s from ARMA, went to show that ARMA are as much to blame as the Management Agents and simply palmed the problem off on to the government failing to act and regulate the industry.
If only Jim Devine could have been available to be in the studio to fight our cause!
I’m disappointed that they didn’t name and shame the companies in question (in particular the company failing to clean the bin stores and blamed residents on not desposing of their rubbish correctly) – although the excuse they gave seemed very familiar… Solitaire possibly?
So it would seem we have to be patient and maybe see if ARMA get their act together (very doubtful), but I honestly hope that this broadcast increases the awareness of the failings of property management agents, so that even more people contact them, which may possibly lead to them naming and shaming the companies in question.
At least now Solitaire Property Management know that we haven’t been making it up about Watchdog investigating and that it’s finally being taken seriously.
TheTruthAboutSolitaire apologises for the performance of the website, since the BBC Watchdog program our site was inundated with hits and has caused the server that our site is hosted on to go slow.
Those that are interested in commenting or missed the broadcast can view it at Watchdogs blog page. Those of you interested in seeing if Solitaire were a culprit, have a look at 5.41 and look at the ‘S’ logo on the paperwork of the lady in pinks folder!!
See my comment as posted at 9.20pm this evening on the other “BBC Watchdog” article. A mass complaint exercise to ARMA might get Solitaire thrown out, but won’t actually achieve much else – they’ll still keep on trading, and frustrating us all even more.
Jim Devine and his All-Party Parliamentary Group seem to be the people to contact, but also our own local MP’s, and perhaps the party leaders as well. If we all write to numerous MP’s, they will realise they need to do something, as ARMA are toothless.
Whilst Solitaire weren’t directly identified by Watchdog, it was clear that the woman sat next to Nicky Campbell at the get-together had a pile of letters with the Solitaire logo on the top-right corner. And we all know that the majority of people involved in the programme are residents of Solitaire-managed (or rather, not managed….) developments.
I feel some letter writing coming on…..
Matt
I think that this broadcast was just the tip of the iceberg if I’m honest.
They didn’t specifically name or shame anyone, but they have done exactly what we as residents have tried – gone to ARMA.
Nicky Campbell played a resident and got palmed off by ARMA who blamed everyone else bar themselves.
Reading into things I think that they could be sowing the seeds for another broadcast at some point with more stories. After all, why would they have said “I’m sure we’ll be receive even more letters from residents”….
Lets be positive, I think there is more to come from this story and this is just to put the ‘frighteners’ on Solitaire. After all, we all saw the paperwork with the Solitaire logo on, it’s a subtle way of letting the people at Solitaire know…. “were on to you”
I was present at the filming & talked to all the people highlighted in the program, including the ladies who had to clean out their own bins. They are defintely Solitaire “customers”, as were 90% of the attendees at the filming. It was the same story from people all over the country – very little maintenance being done & escalating fees that bear no relation to reality. It was worth taking a day off work to get to the fliming & I would urge other people to do this if there is another one.
I didnt really understand the reasons why Solitaire couldnt be named – they had lots of legal bods there from the BBC so they must have had good reason to be cautious. Jim Devine was due to be present but he’d had a bereavement in the family; I’m sure he’ll be back on this in due time. One good thing about having the legal experts there is we all got some top-class legal advice on our specific issues for free.
It’s very important that people now contact Watchdog if they havent already – look at how the Mini story has run & run – we need to keep this in the public eye in the same way.
So let’s all lobby Watchdog again to do a follow-up investigation (sooner rather than later), specifically on Solitaire Property Management. As shown in last night’s show with the follow-up story on the faults with the Mini, they do keep an eye on an issue after they’ve reported about it, and no doubt the Watchdog researchers who were (I assume) present at the get-together will have gained even more material from the Solitaire residents…
The fact that their logo (headed paper) was “shown” during the article last night should be a big enough signal to Solitaire that we are indeed collectively onto them, and that Watchdog now know the score as well.
It’s a shame Jim Devine couldn’t attend the get-together, but the circumstances as noted by Cath explain this. I still think we need to step up the pressure on the Politicians to try and get some real legislation and then regulation in place, so Mr. Devine seems to be the MP we should be writing to, particularly as ARMA seem to be of little real use.
The residents here felt that the programme was very disappointing.No mention of the actual fees that increase year by year to the extent that in nine years its gone up by 150% at our estate.It should have been explained that the right to manage does cost money – its not a free service. The man from ARMA why have him on the programme if they had researched they would have found out that they are of little use. We tried ARMA without mentioning
who we were complaining about they sent us a “complaints procedure”
a dreadful document. When we did complain stating who they never acknowledged. No mention as well about there is no dialog when it comes to a query on an invoice. Pay up within half an hour or we get the debt company onto you! By the way has anyone got an answer to the words on the bottom of their letters………..
“and using 100% renewable energy”
RTM is not the only way to get rid of them.
I have just been successful in a LVT hearing to appoint a new manager and have removes Solitaire/Peverel from our building, despite them also being the freeholders.
I would urge everyone to do this. Go to the RPTS website for more information.