Oh Dear, Recently Publicity Hasn’t Helped!
By admin | August 24th, 2010 | Category: Past Articles | 6 commentsFollowing the publication of the Telegraph report yesterday, it would appear that this provoked readers to have a ‘google’ of Peverel, because we have been inundated with messages from people with problems!
Not only that, this coverage has also put Peverel back on the media companies radar, as we have also had many enquiries from members of the press – so watch this space for more details!
Here are a select few of the messages that we have received to demonstrate to Peverel that it isn’t a ‘small minority of serial complainers’ – it is rife throughout their customers:-
Good Morning,
I have come across your site after searching for Solitaire Property Maintenance online. We moved into our lovely new home 3 and a half years ago, and Solitaire Property Maintenance have now decided to send everybody on the estate a bill for nearly £10,000 every year to maintain the estate.
Now let me tell you that the estate is small and only consist of 50 properties, now within these 50 properties there are 3 communal area’s of grass that are roughly around 6ft x 12ft in size and 3 lamp posts.
Solitaire is taking the proverbial. Is there any way to get them removed from our estate? Can we petition or complain to a governing body?
Any assistance would be great
Best Regards
NB
Good afternoon, I am after a little advice and its looks like you can help or point me the right direction.
I live in a 3 bed flat managed by Solitaire and E&M with my wife and 2 dogs and have lived there since it was first built with as normal, all the problems that seem to come with dealing with these idiots.
I recently received a letter stating that I have not had consent for my pets the live at the flat and they need to be re-homed immediately. Obviously I was dumb struck and contacted them straight away, I was unaware that consent was needed as I have had them for near on 5 years with no issues but never the less I made this statement and they said that they would be in contact.
Over a month later I receive a letter confirming that consent will be granted and that all I need to do is to forward the consent charge and admin fee to them ……………. £460.00 !!!
As you can imagine I was stunned to get a bill for this amount, I am in the process of contacting them but was wondering if you have any prior knowledge of others being fleeced for this reason. I just can’t understand where they get this figure from….what are they having to do that cost this amount, maybe a ~£25 admin fee but not £460.
Your advice / comments would be greatly appreciated.
Kind regards
KP
Hello.
I have been having issues with Solitaire for many years and so have my neighbours. We seem to go through account managers who never respond back or leave.
We are a set of 5 houses, all freehold. We currently pay just under £2000 which is split between the 5 houses and pay every 6 months.
I live in a semi-detached house. Running parallel to my house is a 3 car parking bay which has a few shrubs and bushes in it.
This car park is for use for the 5 houses above. Three of the houses are nowhere near the parking bays and so do not use it.
We have a garage and driveway so we do not need it.
There are no out buildings, no need for the fences to be looked after only a few bushes.
When we moved in, we were informed about the property management, but in 1998 the cost where about £20 (£100 for the 5) which was reasonable.
They after a few years, the costs rose to £170 (£860) per year. This was just management fees. We then had liability insurance (which I understand being a private parking area).
On this, it had terrorism charges on it, in which I asked them and they told me it was compulsory but speaking to the Insurance company they took the policy with stated that if there was no buildings then terrorism charges need not apply.
On many occasions we have spoken to Solitaire and never ever got any answers. In fact, an old lady over the road was told that if she did not pay, they would come around and take things to that value which shook her up considerable.I have been told, if you do not like it, buy the land off us!.
I am not opposed to paying costs, but the costs I feel need to be on a level which it is fair.
One other point, my wife complained that she had not seen anyone cut the bushes and within 24 hours a man was there and took all of 3 minutes to tidy up, in which 2 minutes was having a drink and something to eat before starting (wife was watching from window).
Is there anything I can do, as If I call Solitaire, our “costs” seem to rise the next year.
One other thing, that if we owe Solitaire property management monies, then until they are paid we cannot sell our property,
I am very nervous, as the charges have been moving up and basically in the position of someone being pressed by heavies to pay protection fees which we cannot control
I do have more details, but not on me at the moment as I write this
Many Thanks
A
We, a group of 30 retired leasehold flat owners have struggled through nearly three years of dispute with our Management Company and have found the going very difficult and at times depressing.
It is a complete maze even trying to find out where you stand as leaseholders.
The whole sector has and is growing in a random way. It always requires solicitors and organisations such as Lease have difficulty giving help because of this.
Our Residents Association have managed to recover between £10.000 and £20.000, with a further £10.000 to £20.000 to be returned to us when the company’s audit is complete in the autumn. You might say that we have done a good job bu there are problems still outstanding.
Even if we have a satisfactory result with those, the major problem will still exist. That is, of course, how to ensure that the inadequate accounting procedures, together with poor management practices bordering on the unethical are not continued.
Our Landlord/Management Company(ies) are listed as ‘Social’. This means that we cannot change them. How then can we bring this to a satisfactory conclusion?
There seems to be no ‘body’ we can approach who will look at our case and take it up with the companies concerned. We have contacted M.P’s, ARHM, The Housing Ombudsman, Lease, etc., etc. With little or no success.
Apart from all the hard work in detailing all of our disputes and all the correspondence and meetings, we feel a little happy with the results we have achieved but still very alone.
We can well imagine that there are many groups of Retired Leaseholders scattered around the country who are completely unaware that they have problems and even if they do, are without the expertise and stamina to go through what we have done.
This problem is one of lack of regulation and compounded by the unethical behaviour of Management Companies which becomes more apparent as time goes on
N
There is a common theme hear, whereby everyone is asking for regulation of this type of ‘malpractice’, but it is left to the residents to fight their corner, because the Government / local MPs appear to not have the courage to stand up to these rogues…..
If it was anyone else, they’d be up before the Magistrate having to justify this type of behaviour – but when you have lots of money and the backing of a ‘billionaire’ (who’s also being chased for his assets), they can carry on trading this way!
If there are any members of the press reading TheTruthAboutSolitaire – more coverage is needed, because the Government have already palmed us off by saying that RICS are responsible for Regulating the Industry, but that isn’t good enough, we need someone to fight on our behalves, rather than having to fight ourselves!
If there was a body that would take up all the legal wrangling, residents wouldn’t be scared of fighting Peverel / Consensus Business Group – but because the responsibility falls at the residents door, it’s intimidating and disheartening to continue the fight.
TheTruthAboutSolitaire has found that those developments that have managed to be rid of Peverel / Consensus Business Group of property management companies, have had certain individuals who have been determined to take up the fight on behalf of their neighbours and not give in.
WANT RID OF PEVEREL ASSOCIATED COMPANIES?
YOUR DEVELOPMENT NEEDS YOUR HELP
CANVAS YOUR NEIGHBOURS
SETUP A RESIDENTS ASSOCIATION
PETITION YOUR FREEHOLDER
FIGHT BACK IN NUMBERS, NOT AS INDIVIDUALS – YOU’LL THEN SUCCEED
Of course, the problem with petitioning our freeholders is that in the majority of cases, the freeholder is effectively the same as the management company. Different name yes, but ultimately all part of the same parent company.
Meaning that requests / appeals to the freeholder to remove the management co. fall on deaf ears.
The only way this situation will change is for legislation to be brought in to prevent such a cosy relationship between freeholder and appointed management company. But we all know that such legislation is just a pipe dream, even more so since the No. 10 petition was effectively binned by the new(ish) administration.
Dear NB (and anyone else seriously interested in instigating a change in your managing agent), first take the advise of this site and organize and petition.
Blocnet has lived through the pain of poor management on the part of Peverel. We understand better than any other managing agent the problems you are experiencing, the process to win and finally how to make lasting positive change at your development.
Give us a call and we would be pleased to provide more detail about your options. We are listed in this site’s directory (click on TTAS Directory tab above). There is hope!
Kind regards,
-B
My story:
I live in a devleopment of 130 flats in Essex. County Estate Management were our managing agents until we ousted them via RTM in July this year.
In 2006/2007, residents received notice that an ‘Internal Redecorations’ project was due to take place within our development, namely new carpets in communal hallways and stairwells and a fresh coat of paint on the walls. In accordance with the Section 20 regultions regarding these kinds of works (any work which will cost over £250 per flat has to go through the Section 20 process), CEM obtained a number of quotes for the work. After receiving no objections from leaseholders, CEM selected the best value quote and duly invoiced residents for the work. The total cost of these works was approx. £103,000 and the cost per flat was calculated at £805.76.
It was originally stated that the works would take place over a 17 week period, beginning in January 2007, however, the work paid for failed to commence. As the months went by, residents began to query with CEM the status of the works. We were told that the works had not commenced because some leaseholders had failed to pay their share. CEM promised they were chasing up these leaseholders and legal action would be taken if necessary. However, months turned into years and those of us that had paid grew more and more disgruntled. I requested a refund of the monies I had paid as it had been sitting in CEM’s account for over a year, earning interest that could have been mine, and no work at all had taken place! CEM refused to refund any money. They promised that the works would start as soon as they received the outstanding funds (note, everything mentioned here is in writing, I have literally hundreds of emails and letters from various residents supporting these facts).
Sometime in 2009, work began to take place. some of the blocks had their carpet replaced and walls painted. This work ceased a short time later leavng around half the development untouched (note, these areas remain untouched to this day despite the residents having paid their share of the costs back in 2007). It has now transpired (and I have documents from CEM supporting this), that to avoid further complaints from disgruntled residents, CEM instructed one of their contractors to begin the works. This contractor was NOT the one named on the original Section 20 notce in 2006/2007- they were not even invited to tender for the work at all at the time. This is a clear breach and makes a mockery of the Section 20 process. Furthermore, I have since learned that the contractor used quoted £70,000 for the work – a saving of over £30,000 on the original quote – but those of us who had paid our share of the works based on the original quote were offered no refund.
The lease states that each leaseholder is liable to pay costs of 0.7752% of any major works, which is how the original invoces of £805.76 were worked out. I told CEM that if the work had been done for £70,000 as stated in an email from them, then my liability was reduced to around £540 and I would like the difference refunded. This plea was ignored. I then went one step further and told them that as they had breached the Section 20 regulations, the law states I am only liable for a maximum of £250 and would like the remaining £555.76 refunded to me. This also went ignored.
It is also worth noting that the work that WAS carried out is of such a shocking standard that it requires remedial work in any case.
We are now rid of CEM but are trying to recover funds to hand to our new managing agents. It will come as no surprise to anyone that not a penny has been handed over.
CEM’s excuse has always been that they couldn’t commence the works due to non payment by some leaseholders. That may well be true, but the law gives them the power to recover those funds via legal avenues, but they chose not to. Instead, those that have paid up have subsidised the work for those who haven’t. Any if you ask anyone who hasn’t paid why they never handed over the funds, they will tell you that CEM had provided little or no service in the previous years and they knew that they’d be better off throwing their money into a black hole than hand it over to them.
There’s only one word for it……
CRIMINAL
smacks of obtaining money by deception to me
Criminal it is, and if you can get your police to take action that would be the best course of exposure.
As police action is unlikely, each person that has paid (a joint action is not possible and they know it) should commence proceedings in your local County Court to recover the £555.76 plus interest from the date paid by you until your claim is lodged and then at the statutory rate of 8% until paid. Ensure your local newspaper knows what you all are doing. It’s the sort of publicity they abhor.
Don Heady
Dear Doctor,
Worth a chat with your RTM Directors
Kind regards,
James Butler Esq – Director