If True, Does This Surprise You?
By admin | August 6th, 2010 | Category: Past Articles | 22 commentsWe were recently contacted by a contractor of Solitaire / Peverel who gave us information, which was enlightening to say the least.
The contractor in question advised that they have been working for Peverel / Solitaire for the last five years and are on their approved contractor list.
Many times they have advised Solitaire’s / Peverel’s (+ associated companies) Property Managers that they can do the same job, in the same time and of equal quality / standard for a lot cheaper than they are being charged at present and when they say cheaper – they referred to being up to 60% less!
As they pointed out to us, this 60% saving would be embarassing for Peverel / Solitaire if the job had previously cost £10k and is now costing only £4k – we’re sure many of us would have questions to ask of PPMG if that was the case, so it’s unlikely that they’ll ever change their practices.
However, ‘allegedly’ – Peverel Property Managers also prefer contractors when tendering for projects to quote high, so that a certain large company (naming no names) is allowed to tender late (after all other tenders have been submitted) so that they can under cut the competition.
The ‘alledged’ company in question apparently spends an extortionate amount of money on a Christmas party for all the PMCs, where they get free hotel rooms and a free bar at some of the top locations in Central London – each year.
They also ‘allegedly’ entertain the property managers during the year with days at the horse racing and other sporting / social events.
If the above is true, it certainly explains why our requests for justification of cost increases are ignored, if the PMC’s know only too well that if they burn the bridges of their ‘favourite’ contractor – they won’t get all those free jollys!
We have been told that to counter this type of activity, when residents receive notices advising that work is going to be carried out – you have the opportunity to put forward your own contacts!
In addition to this, residents can also ask for a copy of all tenders that have been submitted / received by Solitaire / Peverel for any previous jobs that have been carried out.
We’re confident that Solitaire / Peverel wouldn’t allow us to see copies of tenders, afterall – we’d see just how much we are getting ripped off!
We wait with interest for Andy’s comments on the above.
“residents can also ask for a copy of all tenders that have been submitted / received by Solitaire / Peverel for any previous jobs that have been carried out.” – absolutely you can ask, we have done so, for everything from insurance to grass cutting – and guess what we got from Solitaire … we have a number of letters from everyone from CF up to AB, all giving us flannel but never actually answering any of our questions
The only contractors figures that we are aware of are the jobs carried out by a resident of the development – sweeping, painting, cleaning and garden maintenance.
David Miles,
I quote:
“jobs carried out by a resident of the the development – sweeping, painting, cleaning and garden maintenance.”
A timely comment I feel in light of the number of sites going RTM. The thought cannot have escaped others that to some leaseholders RTM may appear as a golden opportunity to “take charge” and benefit financially at the same time. Go “RTM” and the take over the management via another easy-going Managing Agent, and submit invoices for cleaning, general repairs, fixing this and fixing that…..
The one thing I would say on this is : LEGISLATION – for Health & Safety, with regard to cleaning and decorating, and for the payment of INCOME TAX (I believe that a Managing Agent is responsible in law for the deduction of income tax for any directly employed workers, contractors etc. unless they are a Ltd Company or VAT registered etc)….and what happens when your fellow leaseholders get wind of what you are doing…..
As already stated with regard to the “professionals” – there is no such thing as a free lunch.
If these allegations are true, at the very least it is extremely unethical. At worst – is it not illegal…???
If it does happen regularly, why hasn’t one (or more) of the main tendering contractors – who are (allegedly) encouraged to bid high – lodged a complaint with the relevant authorities, if they know they have no chance of winning the contracts, because a bigger player is (allegedly) being allowed to tender late & under-cut…???
If it does happen regularly, why do the main tendering contractors even bother to complete a tender, if they know that they are (allegedly) going to get stiffed on the contract…???
Whilst nothing would surprise me, this needs further investigation to substantiate the allegations being made. If they are true, a full investigation by ALL appropriate authorities needs to be carried out, with ALL guilty parties named & shamed, as appropriate.
Some readers may recall that in the past couple of years a large number of building contractors – including many well-known national firms, plus small “local” companies – were fined huge sums when a tendering scam was un-covered, which fixed contract sums & divvied-up works around the collective contractors. The excess contract sums for the clients ran into tens of millions, if I remember correctly. “Building” magazine covered the story extensively, as well as the mainstream national news media.
If these allegations are true, it sounds like a similar scenario, except the main player is (allegedly) one large company…..
If it is true, “Andy” will not confirm (admit) it. So let’s see what he has to say about it all….. Total silence will only add to the speculation.
It’s now been 7 days + the weekend since my judgement was set aside and I haven’t received the new claim from Linecroft yet about my ground rent issue so I have to comment that being late and being suspicious is certainly nothing to be surprised about. Their solicitor is also adept at playing the same game when submitting their summary of costs at 17:09 the evening before the court hearing.
In my humble opinion, silence is as good as an admission of guilt, as much as an answer that doesn’t address the questions asked and a statement that doesn’t relate to the issues of concern.
Quote: \We have been told that to counter this type of activity, when residents receive notices advising that work is going to be carried out – you have the opportunity to put fprward your own contracts!\
Please note – this is only the case with section 20 works i.e. works that will cost more than £250 per leaseholder, sadly in any other cases, you’ll still be at the mercy of the PPMG.
Archangel you misunderstood me – the resident I referred to does this as a business, he did so before taking on the contract for our development and will carry on if he was ever to cease that contract. As such everything is above board, it had just reached a point where we were able to prove that a) Peverel’s contractors were not attending the site b) the local property manager was blindly authorizing invoices and c) when work was tendered for it was going to “preferred” contractors and others were out of the loop – we were able to put our foot down and say that we wanted it out of that contractors hands
David Miles,
Thanks for that additional information.
I take the points you make.
May I also point that Peverel (now OM) contractors appear to attend site and carry out work completely unsupervised by the Site Manager or anyone else, but they appear to receive payment whether or not the work has been carried out to a satisfactory standard or not. This is clearly a weakness in the system.
Yes David Miles
I fully endorse that statement. Payment is made and no check whatever is made about the work or standard of the work deemed to have taken place.We asked a contractor to support an additional item they had invoiced for. They supplied two invoices that in our eyes were and are totally fictitious – we told them exactly what we thought and guess what no reply, perhaps they have attended the OM business school and obviously got top grades.
Dear Mr Peverel.
David Miles posted a comment on this site.
Archangel posted a comment, which David Miles said may have been misunderstood by Archangel.As a result all of 10 minutes later, Archangel put things right.
If a problem can be sorted so quickly amongst people who are not property managers, Why can’t you?
I was not surprised that things were never checked on our development to be honest – in three years we have had 5 people from Solitaire/OM supposedly being directly responsible for the development in the capacity of “manager” – amazingly only one of these lives anywhere within reach of the development – most lived the other side of London altogether – and he did an awful job of “managing” the development … of the five people who I mentioned above, one remains still as an employee of SM/OM and we are now onto another divisional manager as well – do I hold out any hope … not really, selected residents do have a meeting with our new Divisional Manager next week, but Solitaire still shy away from holding an “all residents meeting” apparently because they fear that the atmosphere will be “angry” …
Can anyone shed light on who the alleged company might be? I live in a Peverel, sorry ‘OM Property Management’ development and we have noticed that the same contractor is used for a wide variety of tasks, all of which are carried out to a poor standard.
A bit like the service we receive from Peverel I guess.
Hi Everyone,
Having read the allegations posted by Admin concerning an unsubstantiated discussion with a contractor claiming to work for Solitaire / Peverel, I wanted to let you know what actually happens when work is commissioned from a contractor on behalf of our customers.
Our aim in inviting tenders for any proposed major works is to achieve the best possible price for our leasehold customers.
All major works tenders are operated in accordance with Section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002 and The Service Charges (Consultation Requirements) Regulations 2003. When works are planned the law requires that the leaseholder must be consulted before the landlord carries out works above a certain value or enters into a long-term agreement for the provision of services.
All qualifying leaseholders are sent an initial Part 1 notice customer communication which details the works planned and offers the customer the right to nominate a contractor of their selection to be included in the tender list. The criteria for joining the tender list understandably follows that any nominated contractor must achieve some basic levels of Health and Safety qualification and insurance coverage. This is so the interests of both the leaseholders and that of the Landlord/ Manager are protected.
Once a tender list is drawn up, each of the contractors are sent a specification, a closing date for quotation submission and given clear guidance of the ‘sealed bid’ tender process. This explains that tenders can only be accepted if they are returned to a specified email address, which is only accessible by the Business Coordinator Manager. Failure to adhere to these requirements will affect future selection. The email inbox is then only accessed after the closing date, and the results published to all leaseholders within a Part 2 notice customer communication. This again gives customers the right to inspect the tender submissions and estimates as well as being able to question the proposed works in writing within a defined consultation period.
Peverel Group have a written Code of Practice for all employees who work with Suppliers and Contractors, including what is and what is not permissible in business relationships with external companies.
Hi Admin
We would welcome the opportunity to investigate the allegations made to you if you could let us have further details.
Our Group Managing Director has also asked me to repeat his invitation made on this site in early June that he has always been open to meet you, on behalf of all contributors to this site. This could be a good opportunity for you to visit us and see how the tender process is handled in practice as part of our work in improving our service for all Solitaire customers.
Hi Hammer
My aim, as always, is to help you get answers to any problems that our customers might have.
In order to investigate I do need to identify who you are and the development that your issues relate to.
If you can let me have as much information about the problems at your development (mentioning your customer reference number) I can quickly bring it to the attention of the OM senior property management team. They would be happy to call you or meet you on site to discuss your concerns with the work undertaken by the contractor you refer to.
My direct email address is andy.solitairepm@peverel.co.uk
As always, I welcome your feedback. I will continue to respond to constructive comments where I can.
Many thanks.
Andy
Solitaire Online Feedback Manager
Andy, that may be true for work eligible for Section 20 regulation, where there are strict rules governing what you must provide.
What happens on larger developments where there are so many flats that development wide work, once divided up between the number of flats, quite quickly becomes less than the Section 20 amount of £250.
Here is where I would imagine the “alleged” infringement of good managing practice is happening. If this is also not the case then why won’t your company provide me with proof of tender for those works?
Enjoy this link
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/article-1303362/Rotch-Vincent-Tchenguiz-rolls-losses-portfolio.html
Andy, does this mean that Peverel, Solitaire, Pemebertons, Consort, Stonedale, County Estates other parts of the family have have never breached Section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002 and The Service Charges (Consultation Requirements) Regulations 2003? Have your comapany never lost an LVT because of any breaches of these Acts?
No or yes will do………..
Admin and everyone else, I think that The MD still thinks that all these problems that are on this site only relate to Solitaire…………. head and sand I think!
Andy is that offer of a meeting like the offer that was made to us – one which never actually comes to fruition? The residents of our development are actively baying for blood now – the consistent refusal to meet them by FB for 6 months whilst she was in charge has merely infuriated people and made you seem arrogant, even the new chap has agreed to meet only two residents of the development – to quote FB, “I cannot commit to a meeting whilst there is an atmosphere of animosity” – wise up Andy, that feeling of animosity is not going away anytime soon and the refusal to meet up is only making things worse.
Dear Andy,
So everything is above board and complies with the law and you will reply when you can.
In that case it should have been so simple for you to reply to my query regarding the Ravenscroft ground rent valuation. As it dates back to December 2008 i will remind you that we still have not been shown a copy. Therefore i must conclude that comes into the Andy cannot reply section. Is this the conduct of an honest company? I think not. Unless of course Andy, you can tell me under what section of the law it is that you do not have to supply any evidence whatsoever of a survey having been done before demands for money were made?
If money is due to you for either groundrent or service charges it is your absolute duty to collect it by all means possible. This is to protect both the residents and your company.
You claimed David Miles owed you money.You surely must do everything to collect it.So why if you are owed the money did you drop the court case?
I presume a company of your standing would have complied with the law so what is the problem? Surely you cannot afford to write off all that money?
Of course, a less trusting person ie anyone who has ever had the misfortune to deal with Peverel might think you stopped the court action because your legal team advised you that you had acted outside the law. You may have also been advised that a judgement against you on this issue would be very damaging to Peverel.
So rather like an illegal parking ticket, rather than be challenged and have to refund them all, you would rather lose a few pounds( presuming you actually give the refunds!) and hope the problems go away.
Such a long time ago i challenged you to take me to court. I wrote that if a Judge decides you are in the right i will put my hands up say sorry and pay up. You have never taken me up on the challenge. You never took me up on the challenge to prove i was wrong about the survey.
However, now that you have dropped the case against David Miles i am pleased to say that you have now opened the floodgates. It is clear for all to see that only monies that are properly accounted for and are compliant with the law are due to you. Any monies that have been obtained any other way should be refunded.
Sometimes the best of companies gets it wrong. You are not the best of companies you are not even the best of the worst.
That said, if a company does get it badly wrong and has lost in court, a proper company would say to it’s staff ” we have done wrong we must make sure that we are not repeating our mistakes for anyone else” So why are so many Estates having exactly the same problems for which LVT’s have ruled against you?
It seems to me the only reason you have got away with what you have so far is that people are honest and they expect companies they deal with to be honest as well.
Once again bit by bit, the scams you have used are becoming more into the public domain. More and More people are getting angrier and Angrier. they are also getting far more skilled in persuing their complaints. At the same time Peverel are getting worse at telling lies. That is of course when they do not use the old tactic of ignoring everything.
The Peverel Ship is going DOWN! Don’t bother with the lifeboats, they can go down with the ship as well.
One day in the future, leaseholders will have a better deal. We will remember it took a titanic battle against Peverel to bring it about. “I HAVE A DREAM!”
I HAVE BEEN QUIET AS BROKE MY FOOT WHILE FACING VARIUOS CHALLENGES
IN EVERYDAY LIFE. I NEED TO CATCH UP WITH THE DREAM ADMIN AND
YOU ALL ARE STILL KEPPING IT ALIVE.
SOMEHOW WE NEED GOVT. TO TAKE NOTICE OF LEASHOLDERS NEEDS.
I WILL BE SELLING TO RETIRE SOON BUT WOULD LIKE
TO GIVE EVER LASTING GIFT. ANY IDEAS SO “DREAM” BECOMES A REALITY
AND A PART OF THE LEASEHOLD REFORM HISTORY. ANY IDEAS!!!!!
Michael Epstein – the case that was dropped was not against me – I think it was against Jason
We have a supposed meeting with our new property manager tonight – I will report back tomorrow – although, he does not want to meet all the residents due to the “atmosphere”
David
Nothing surprises me about CBG as it does not appear to be troubled with minor details such as ethical business practices. This has been proved to the LVT with regard to insurance practices.
My employers have always had a written policy that you have to disclose benefits received from any source and if it is worth more than £25 you have to forfeit it. Payment by suppliers of Christmas parties, which could well run into four figures, ought to be disclosed in our annual accounts if applicable.
With regard to S20 major items it is a legal requirement that leaseholders may nominate their own supplier. The problem is that the reason we live in a flat is so that these things can be taken care of professionally. None of us are likely to know either what the job really should cost or who we could nominate to do it. Let me share with you my experience.
2004-Exterior
Decorator C £100
Decorator B £96
Decorator J £90
After the work was done I complained about the exceptionally poor quality of work as paint peeled off within about two months due to lack of preparation.
2006-Interior
Decorator B £100
Decorator L £97
Decorator J £94
As part of S20 consultation I did not nominate a supplier but, fearing the worst, requested that J was not invited to tender considering that they did such a poor job the previous time. The PM ignored my request and surprise surprise you will note that J was the cheapest yet again. Possibly a co-incidence or possibly not. It is totally impossible to prove but certainly left me with a feeling of suspicion and dissatisfaction. Suppliers should know that when we eventually leave Peverel in an RTM they are likely to be automatically disqualified from consideration.
David / Michael
Yes it was my wife and me who Linecroft (a cohort of this so called business machine) decided to discontinue proceedings against.
In a way I am disappointed that they did because they did wriggle themselves out of a much larger counterclaim than the refund I am expecting, which hasn’t, as of yesterday, turned up. I fully believe they were advised to discontinue with the claim because they knew of the breaches of legislation and that the claim was totally indefensible.
If I don’t receive my cheque soon, I will be on the war path again!
Apologies to both Jason and David for my error.
David, you are quite correct my post should have referred to Jason.
However, that does not mean Peverel won’t chase you for jason’s money!
However, that does not mean Peverel won’t chase you for jason’s money!
Unfortunately, Many a true word said in jest!!!!!!!
Oh by the way, I haven’t seen this mentioned anywhere but it is also written into legislation that ground rent has to be demanded separately from a service charge. I’ll bet that isn’t happening either!!!!!