Who’s Supporting Who?
By admin | September 6th, 2010 | Category: Past Articles | 12 commentsIn 2009, Victor Tchenquiz (MD of Consensus Business Group) is alleged to have donated £50,000 to the Conservative party. Yet, in 2010 apparently no further donation was made.
Was this because due to the Conservatives winning the majority in the May Elections, that his donation was no longer required or, he didn’t have sufficient funds to make this donation?
Bearing this donation in mind and we stress that we are not making any allegations here, was it a surprise that the new housing minister, Grant Shapps announced that the government would not be proceeding with Labour’s plans to regulate landlords and managing agents?
What could have influenced Mr Shapps to make this decision, bearing in mind that the No.10 Downing Street Petition that was setup for regulation of the service industry was certainly gathering support, prior to the election – calling for this, in addition to publicity and awareness that CARLEX raised in regards to retirement homeowners being ripped off, plus TheTruthAboutSolitaire’s campaign to reveal the truth behind the inter-link companies, associations and suppliers / contractors.
We’d like to hear from anyone that is aware of similar donations to any of the parliamentary parties from any companies that may have links to the housing sector, beit – Property Management Companies, Developers.
CARL
Linking nicely with the above, we received CARL’s Summer Newsletter that also focused on Grant Shapps decision and includes further insight into the on-goings of the leasehold sector.
If you haven’t had the opportunity to read this newsletter, please click here to download a copy.
Stories of Woe
As we posted on the 4 September, we need more stories of woe from residents that have problems with property management companies. We need the sort of ‘doom and gloom’ stories that will shock readers.
Therefore, once again – if you haven’t done so already – please e-mail research@thetruthaboutsolitaire.co.uk with your experiences.
Obviously, we know that many residents that have problems may not have access to the Internet and that is why we’ll also be putting together a poster / flyer for TTAS contributors, to print off and distribute to developments / put up on noticeboards .
Don’t forget to ask PPMG for permission though! Why not email them first, then put the poster up and by the time they reply or respond – it’ll be Christmas and the poster won’t be needed.
Again, our address for case studies to be sent too is: research@thetruthaboutsolitaire.co.uk, where your message will be responded to by our publicist.
Admin. Now that you are moderating me please delete my earlier entry.
Admin,
You’ve been on then bottle again! It’s Grant Shapps not Schnapps.
Why not have a look at:
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/regmem/?d=2008-06-16#11917
to see who funded his shadow office of housing
and
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/may/16/conservatives
for a description of these organizations. It is possible to see he has been bought by vested interests. The very idea that he might be interested in those in need of housing or poor leaseholders is ridiculous.
I contacted the Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP / his Office both before and after the General Election…
Before: I received the usual sort of acknowledgement, with the promise of a follow-up. Shortly after (very shortly I might add!) I received a follow-up from Grant’s Office saying that they took the matters that I had raised very seriously and would of course look into them further!
After: Don’t think I even received an acknowledgement,…tell a lie, I just checked and I did! But alas there has been no follow-up (and this was about a month ago – I will chase them today!)!
Hmmm, does the latter remind anyone of the type of service you can expact from any particular company?!?
Tried to see when our redecoration would start, not looking good. It seems that the staff at Peverels technical department have been made redundant so it has been put on hold. I wonder if Andy can shed any light on this?
Neil, That Guardian article is VERY interesting! Particularly when you take it in the context of what’s written on Mr. Shapps website’s home page:
http://www.welwynhatfieldconservatives.com/
Particularly: “Grant lives in Welwyn Hatfield…, He’s never had a second home in London or elsewhere.”
…and the Telegraph article that Mr. Shapps then refers to:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/5339978/MPs-expenses-The-MPs-who-refused-to-milk-the-system.html
“…Grant Shapps, the shadow housing minister, commutes from Hatfield, Herts and stays in hotels in London when necessary.”
Of course press articles and recent controversy has focussed on second home allowances and expenses of MPs but the Guardian piece raises a more and possibly worse problem of “potential conflict of interest” – particularly when “…Shapps’s office declined to comment on why five of his six backers were connected with his brief”!
It’s a great political trick to steer peoples focus onto how YOU may have done something right when other’s have not (second homes) and taking the holier-than-thou approach but if you then mislead people on other ‘possible’ wrongdoings (or perhaps unethical-doings with potential conflict of interest!) then in my opinion that’s much worse than being ‘caught with your hand in the till’ in the first place!
Neil,
Thanks for the links.
I did take a look at “They work for you…”, and…(maybe it’s my ‘audit’ background.., I checked out the entries before Mr Shnapps, sorry Shapps – a certain Mr L.S. MP for Ilford North – and there is a direct connection here to the owner (VT) of CBG.
Check it out
Archangel,
But let’s not beat around the bush any longer…
Thanks for the heads-up (…and well spotted! You Auditors’!)
MPs are our elected representatives and as such have a duty to be fully transparent in all their dealings affecting their work for us. And if Vincent Tchenguiz (and his brother) want to be portrayed as ‘international playboys’ in the national media then I’m sure they can take the heat of being named on a little forum based website!
From: http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/lee_scott/ilford_north
Lee Scott Conservative MP for Ilford North
“Register of Members’ Interests
2. Remunerated employment, office, profession etc
Consultant on regeneration and planning to Vincos, 150 Park Lane, London, W1.
3 August 2009, received payment of £2,000. Hours: 8hrs. (Registered 25 August 2009)
1 September 2009, received payment of £2,000. Hours: 12 hrs. (Registered 21 September 2009)
2 October 2009, received payment of £2,000. Hours: 12 hrs. (Registered 29 October 2009)
2 November 2009, received payment of £2,000. Hours: 12 hrs. (Registered 24 November 2009)
1 March 2010, received payment of £2,000. Hours: 12 hrs. (Registered 26 March 2010)”
And just to confirm that ‘Vincos, [is] the management company that runs Vincent Tchenguiz’s global empire’
So Mr. Scott earned an average of £178.57 per hour from Vincos from Aug 2009 to March this year. theyworkforyou.com also states that they only include records online that “we have managed to parse. Please be aware that changes in typography/styling at the source might mean something is marked as changed (ie. removed and added) when it hasn’t; sorry about that, but we do our best with the source material” so the above might not be a fully accurate description of Mr. Scott’s ‘employment’ by Vincos but it gives us a fair idea (…about 2 grand per month for 12 hrs ‘work’!) What was that about ‘conflicts of interests’ again??!
Also just to avoid any doubt:
VINCOS LIMITED (a “7415 – Holding companies including head offices”) registered Office is at
4TH FLOOR
LECONFIELD HOUSE
CURZON STREET
LONDON W1J 5JA
Company No. 04285055
Date of Incorporation: 11/09/2001
Which is the same as:
CONSENSUS BUSINESS GROUP LIMITED
4TH FLOOR
LECONFIELD HOUSE
CURZON STREET
LONDON W1J 5JA
Company No. 04890494
Date of Incorporation: 08/09/2003
Hey here’s another one!
CONSENSUS BUSINESS GROUP (GROUND RENTS) LIMITED
MOLTENO HOUSE
302 REGENTS PARK ROAD
FINCHLEY
LONDON N3 2JX
Company No. 06420517
Date of Incorporation: 07/11/2007
Previous Name LAYBROOK LIMITED (Date of change 28/11/2007)
Which has the same registered address as our old friends at:
ESTATES & MANAGEMENT LIMITED
MOLTENO HOUSE 302 REGENTS PARK ROAD
FINCHLEY
LONDON N3 2JX
Company No. 03244100
Date of Incorporation: 30/08/1996
Previous Name REGALDALE LIMITED (Date of change 30/05/1997)
Nirmal,
The thanks are due to Neil for putting the original link in his comment above.
Admin,
I hope that the “publisher” / “journalist(s)” can add this very ‘interesting’ information alongside the case studies that are currenetly being written.
It would be interesting to know if any visitors to this site who live in a leasehold property managed by a CBG / Peverel company locates in Ilford North have written to their MP?!
Slightly off the point of both this thread and this site:
Have just heard the breaking news that a compnay called CONNAUGHT is about to go into administration. This is a plc (founded in 1982) that looked after public sector buildings – in particular SOCIAL HOUSING (not covered by the legislation that applies to private residential leaseholders, but it does involve property management).
http://www.business-sale.com/news/article/connaught-close-to-administration-33399.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/2010/09/connaught_to_go_into_administr.html
Archangel.
I too was thinking about a post about Connaught.
I must stress i have no connection or ever had any dealings with them. i have never seen a site named he truth about Connaught either.
As far as i am aware from reports they were a decent company caught up with paying many loans at too high an interest rate, collapsing property markets and council contract cutbacks.
I have no reason to hope for all those involved with Connaught that they survive their problems.
What should be noted is that as they started to slide into trouble their customer service suffered, complaints about work increased and contracts were taken away, thus increasing the pressure on the company.
To my way of thinking they are in a viscious downward spiral.
It will take very good management and customer goodwill to prevent this spiral becoming terminal. As i said i hope they do.
The difference between Connaught and Peverel is clearly one is in the public sector, the other private. Also i have not seen much evidence that Peverel has good management. i also believe their staff are rather downhearted at the prospect of having to fight against people who they know to be in the right.
Their is absolutely no customer goodwill at all. Infact all the Peverel victims are looking foward to the demise of Peverel.
it is my opinion that Peverel has airports disease. I don’t know exactly what airports disease is but i do know IT IS TERMINAL!
Archangel.
I too was thinking about a post about Connaught.
I must stress i have no connection or ever had any dealings with them. i have never seen a site named \the truth about Connaught\ either.
As far as i am aware from reports they were a decent company caught up with paying many loans at too high an interest rate, collapsing property markets and council contract cutbacks.
I have no reason to hope for all those involved with Connaught that they survive their problems.
What should be noted is that as they started to slide into trouble their customer service suffered, complaints about work increased and contracts were taken away, thus increasing the pressure on the company.
To my way of thinking they are in a viscious downward spiral.
It will take very good management and customer goodwill to prevent this spiral becoming terminal. As i said i hope they do.
The difference between Connaught and Peverel is clearly one is in the public sector, the other private. Also i have not seen much evidence that Peverel has good management. i also believe their staff are rather downhearted at the prospect of having to fight against people who they know to be in the right.
Their is absolutely no customer goodwill at all. Infact all the Peverel victims are looking foward to the demise of Peverel.
it is my opinion that Peverel has \airports disease\. I don’t know exactly what \airports disease\ is but i do know IT IS TERMINAL!