The Truth About Solitaire Property Management & Peverel Group Companies

There’s been further bad publicity on Consensus Business Group /Peverel associated companies and this time, its aimed at Fairhold, because a group of elderly residents discovered they overpaid in fees by £13,300 and today they go to court, to reclaim these fees.

If you can’t access the Telegraph website, we’ve posted the reported below, with a link to it:-

An elderly couple who were overcharged for their retirement home for almost a decade are fighting for compensation against a firm which once dubbed its residents “dribbling geriatrics”.

Don Houston, 77, and his wife Norah, 81, were among residents who paid £13,300 too much in service charges over nine years to Fairhold, the firm which managed their retirement village and is one of the largest of its kind in the country.

The couple have spent the last six years attempting to force the firm to pay back the full amount it overcharged them on behalf of the two dozen residents and won a ruling against their landlord in May last year.
The Leasehold Valuation Tribunal, which solves property disputes, found the Houstons had been wrongly charged and ordered Fairhold to pay back the money.

The firm did not appeal against the decision but has repeatedly stalled the process.

It decided it was responsible for only six years of malpractice – overriding the tribunal’s decision – and repaid Mr and Mrs Houston just £8,000.

It then added its £11,186 legal fees from the tribunal to the couple’s service charges for the following year and sent them the bill which they were forced to pay.

Fairhold is one of the UK’s largest freehold owners of retirement properties. It is owned by Peverel Group, which claims to offer “a worry-free life for residents and their families” and owns 1,500 retirement developments.

Peverel, in turn, is owned by Consensus Group, a property and finance firm, established by the billionaire Vincent Tchenguiz.

On Monday the couple will appear before a judge at Central London County Court to try to get the rest of their money.

Mr Houston said: “It’s as much the principle as the money. They have little concern for the ability of the residents to meet the bills, we are just there to generate profit.”

In November Ian Rapley, a Peverel spokesman, told the BBC that complaints against the actions of his company came from a minority of “serial complainers” – and used the term “dribbling geriatrics” in describing residents living in the retirement villages Peverel manages.

Neither Fairhold or Peverel were available for comment.

You can view the whole article on the Telegraph website, by clicking ‘Elderly couple in court row with “residents dribbling geriatrics” firm‘

It wasn’t surprising to hear that Fairhold or Peverel we unavailable to comment, seems to be a common response to ‘bad publicity’.

We’re continually surprised by the fact that despite the publicity (online/in the press) about the shocking performance, fes  and service that Peverel / Solitaire / Consensus Business Group of property management companies provide, we receive very little communications / postings from existing or former employees of these companies.

The only ‘sniff’ of a Peverel / CBG employee possibly contributing to TTAS, was ‘Dalston Square‘ who posted:-

Having a little knowledge of this website for months now I have recently received an internal e-mail accusing us of helping “Phoenix” I have come to understand the full extent of how people feel about PPM.

I am appalled and embarrassed to work for them.

Over the last few years the ‘boys club’ who run this company have dragged us down. Profit and charges come 1st and long gone are the family orientated OM days when we cared.

We’re supposedly the leading PM company but how can that be if you lose all your developments as has been happening lately.

I am sorry even if my management isn’t, if it is any consolation we on the ground have to go through a restructure for their mistakes!

If the above insight were to be true, it would confirm all of our feelings of PPMG only seeing residents / property management as a ‘cash cow’ – continuing to milk it, until it’s all gone and then they’ll sell up / give up – when those developments are in a severe state of deterioration and no-one will want them, leaving only one thing – the local council to pick up the mess or for them to become dormant estates.

However, surely there must be more past employees out there that would like to enlighten us all - aren’t there?

We know for sure, that if we were no longer in the employment of PPMG – that we’d happily be contributing to TTAS to highlight their practices (whether it be good or bad)…… unless, when employee’s leave they are asked to sign Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) - to protect Peverel / CBG?

Who knows! 

TTAS would like to urge any past or current PPMG employees to get in touch with us to reveal what it is really like to work for Peverel and what employees are told do in regards to dealing with residents and sourcing contracts.  

Anyone that does get in contact can be assured of 100% anonymity and we will only publish information that you are happy for us to do so.

We look forward to hearing from you.

We always report messages that we receive from residents with Peverel / Solitaire problems, who have contacted us by e-mail, but we thought we’d also post a few comments that we receive via our Facebook page – that non ‘facebookers’ may not have read.

Here are a few messages:-

Hi – Solitaire are driving me crazy. I wrote a formal letter of compliant to them on 17th June about the disgusting state of this development here in Mountsorrel, Leics. To dtae I have had no written response. I had a site visit with a nice young lady who promised me she would get things sorted but its now August 18th and still no action. Surely there must be something we can do to stop this company taking money from us for services they are repeatedly failing to deliver? Its daylight robbery.

I’m paying trading standards a visit later today. I was advised by somebody the other day that if enough residents say they want to have another management company they we could actually “out” them.

When we moved into a brand new David Wilson built flat in 05 we had to pay 6 monthly exorbitant service charges to Solitaire which went up with every bill we had. A couple of years ago we had another company take over after the majority agreed. We get far better value for money now, the bills are half what they were and dont noticibly rise every time. We chose how we needed their services with things done ad hoc if necessary. So thats great except Solitaire wont leave us alone and keep billing us every 6 months for ‘Estate Service Charges’ which, so far we have refused to pay. I have no idea what they are providing for this. The management company we are with now takes care of everything within the flats and externally and after notifying them about this, have commented how unreasonble this is of Solitaire. I spoke to the council who look after the estate we live on (with new builds they take over after a year) and told them Solitaire are charging us for their work and they werent impressed by this. I have also been to citizens advice who also cant understand what theyre charging us for but I dont know how to get them off our backs. How can they expect us to pay council tax, managment service charges and them? Its just ridiculous.

I stumbled across your website when I googled Solitaire.  Scary!
 
The problem I have with them is that they are trying to charge me service fees for the period 1 Jan 08 to 31 Dec 08 – but I only took ownership at the end of November (and the month I did own it has already been paid!).  I have until now refused to pay it on those grounds – never mind the fact that up until the week before I moved it it was still under construction!  In fact, the first time I came to view the property I couldn’t because it was just a shell – that was in November.
 
I have repeatedly told Solitaire I will not pay it, but they continue to push and it is just not worth ruining my credit rating over.  Maybe you are aware of someone who has had the same problem.  Can you offer me any advice?

Here’s what people are also saying on our Facebook ‘Wall’:-

Right- what are we going to do about this dreadful company ? They are taking the wee wee out of us all big time. There must be some way we can get them into court.

ANYONE SUCCESSFULLY GOT LET OFF ADMIN CHARGES?

I had some financial problems and paid on time via cheque instead of direct debit and got charged two lots of £53 admin!! A joke!! We pay £1600 per year, and they hardly do anything!!

Don’t forget, if you are a Facebook user, feel free to join our Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/people/Thetruthabout-Solitaire/100000265876399

You can get in contact with us via Facebook or E-Mail – we’ll also shortly be joining Twitter for even quicker updates!!

Following the success of the CARLEX campaign from late last year until the election, their campaign took a bit of time off to focus where their efforts would be directed.

During this period the website was taken offline for redevelopment and TTAS are pleased to let you all know that once again they are back online.

The web link has changed and it is now http://www.carlexag.org due to domain registration problems.

Hopefully this will put a stop to rumours that CARLEX had ceased to exist and once again have Peverel worried!

We’ll shortly be updating all links that refer to CARLEX.

First things first, we need to warn you all that this post is going to be a rather lengthy one, because we have quite a lot of things to cover and they include:-

• The stresses that miscommunication within Peverel / Solitaire, cause residents.
• More messages from SPM / PPMG customers that don’t know what to do
• Reply to Andy following our ‘allegations’

So, first up is…

The Stresses of Miscommunication

We all know how frustrating it can be when one member of SPM / PPMG says one thing, yet their colleagues do something the complete opposite!

This time, we bring to ‘Andys’ attention the worry that un-necessary threats of debt collection have on customers, when they have been told by SPM / PPMG that their accounts are either on hold or they have actually paid their fees and are still being threatened with Debt collection.

Below are a couple of copies of correspondence that we have recently received that relate to this:-

Dear TheTruthAboutSolitaire.co.uk,

I am in a dispute with Solitaire and came about your site and would like to share my situation.  Hopefully you may be offer some advice or if not point me in the right direction

I am the owner and live in a flat with Solitaire as the management company.  I have owned the property from new (3+ years) and always paid my service charge.  The building operates a communal mailbox system with no cameras watching.  A number of addresses had the locks of their mailboxes broken off in a short period (mine being one).  It became apparent  mail suddenly started to go missing and when I did intercept the mail before anyone else did I started to get mail in other peoples names.  It became apparent my address was being targeted for fraud.

I contacted Solitaire to report this and ask them to repair the mailbox.  I was told it was not their responsibility and would need to fix it myself.  I went on to ask if they could tell me or find out for me by asking Barrats (builder of the property) what type and size of lock to get and fit.  They said no and suggested me waiting by the mailboxes for someone to open theirs and ask to look at their lock.  Also around that time I lost my door entry fob so arranged for a new one to be sent.  This never arrived and I had to call Solitaire to get them to send another.  Whilst calling the representative I spoke to even said they were aware of mail delivery problems in the block and that’s why they never charged me for a second replacement fob to be sent out.  Shortly after I was visited by police in their investigation into organised fraud at my address.  I had to make a statement and was told I may be asked to attend court as a witness.

It was not long after that on one of the instances I intercepted my mail that I saw a debt recovery letter for £466 service charge plus over £500 fees added by a debt recovery firm.  I called Solitaire, explaining the situation with the police and how my mail was stolen so that’s why I never got the service charge bill but they said it was out of their hands and wouldn’t talk to me.  However when I spoke to the debt recovery company they were more sympathetic and told me not to do anything till they got back to me.  This went back and forth till I suddenly received another letter with further charges. from another debt recovery company.  When I spoke to Solitaire over the phone they said they sympathise with me but I know service charges have to be paid and the onus was on me.  They were not interested in contacting the police officer in charge of the case who said he would explain the situation to them.  They said I should have been in contact with them and when I pointed out I had but nobody bothered to mention the service charge they said it wasn’t their fault.

I am the victim of a crime here so do not think I should be penalised for it.  Am I right or wrong?

Please give your thoughts.  Thanks in advance.

AK

Here’s another:-

hi.

my partner and i live in a block of 6 flats managed by solitaire.  i have been trying to raise the following issues with them and have withheld £195 as i have not had any response from  them:

1. leaking outside roof (we live on top floor) which has caused water to leak through the loft     onto our living room floor. this was first reported november last year.

2. trying to get a breakdown of charges as ‘service charge’ does not tell us exactly what we are paying for. they are legally required to provide this.

there are other issues such as rising maintainence costs and an added ‘estate charge’ 0f £111, nobody seems to know what this is for.

we have had a hard time getting a response from solitaire and in fact the only way i know they have read my letters is if they cash the cheque that i enclose. email responses stopped in december and phoning them is a waste of time.

i have written to them several times explaining my reasons for withholding payment but have had no response other than further demands even after being told by them verbally that our account is on hold until issues are resolved.

last week we had a letter from property debt collection ltd demanding £941 including the £195 i withheld, £600 new bill and costs of £146. my patrner phoned solitaire and was told that the debt collection is to be put on hold until somebody can call us back monday(its now thursday-no call yet). when she asked how they were able to put the debt collection on hold she was told that pdc ltd is part of solitaire. as we have no written proof that this is to be put on hold we are expecting another letter from debt collectors. where do we stand if we do get further letters?  we are going around in circles with them and getting nowhere.

as well as these issues as a block of 6 flats we are currently at stage 1 of official complaints procedure because of rising bills and failure to fix roof and respond to other issues. a rep came out 2 weeks ago and promised us the world but it was a waste of time.he hasnt kept any of his promises to us.

Thanks

P

In addition to these, we were also copied into correspondence from a resident that despite having a credit note from SPM / PPMG, which meant they deducted this figure from their yearly service charge and then paid SPM – they received a legal letter from SPM demanding payment in full!

Does this suggest that the ‘new system’ implemented in 2008/2009 is still not up and running properly?

Moving on to…

Customers Not Knowing What to Do

The ‘guises’ of PPMG certainly appear to be doing what PPMG wanted and that is to confuse residents as to who they are dealing with, despite the management company remaining as a guise of PPMG.

The following message was received from a frustrated resident with a story of familiar woe…

Good Afternoon,

I have a flat (mortgaged) in Cardiff and I have rented this out since owning it in 2007.

It is getting increasingly difficult just to cover costs and a big factor is the extortionate service charges, my latest bill from Consort Property Management being £943.15 for the next 6 months!

Peveral (is this the same company?) Property Management’s rule or policy that I have to pay another £100.00 plus vat when I have a new tenant move in to the property and another £25.00 plus vat if they extend the let beyond six months (but not exceeding 3 years) is something that I have not experienced with “management” companies
before.

Is this legal?

My letting agent suggests that this company has lost a number of contracts in the Cardiff area and I am hoping that they will be replaced at Cardiff Bay as soon as possible!

Please advise if there is anything that I can sign, attend or support to assist with this.

Although it doesn’t help my situation, it is reassuring to know that I am not alone in thinking that I am getting fleeced.

My confusion though is who is the worst company or are they one of the same?

Consort Property Management or Peveral Property Management?

Any thoughts or advice would be hugely appreciated.

Kind Regards
LH

Those of you that are landlords will be aware of this ‘money making policy’ by PPMG – to charge for amendments to tenants and others will probably say that they live there, just to get out of paying these fees.

It is apparent that whichever way you turn (and we aim this at all PMCs and not necessarily just PPMG) – that we must pay for the privilege to live in our homes, even when we come to sale, they will have us over a barrel, because they demand payment to issue paperwork to your solicitors (two lots of fees one to PPMG and one to E&M / Freeholder)!

PPMG must love customers that aren’t aware of their guises and will continue to ‘palm’ customers off with the excuse that all of us have heard

“oh sorry, but that was when <ENTER PPMG GUISE>, were responsible and it’s not our fault.  You need to speak with them”

It’s a continual excuse when it comes to PPMG and they’ll never admit that they are in the wrong, which then leads on nicely onto our reply to Andy in regards to our ‘allegations’ from a contractor of theirs.

Response to Andy

You requested further information in regards to our allegations so that you can investigate further. 

Without wanting to sound rude, but I’m sure that the BBC (when they investigated PPMG / SPM) didn’t reveal their sources / whistleblowers to you, therefore, why do you expect us to do that for you?

Having posted the ’allegations’ (which we’d like to point out, was allegedly the case) – other contractors have contacted us to give their views of this process and many share the same opinion.

The kind offer from Lee Middleburgh to meet is very welcoming and in fact, there is no need to visit your offices, because on Thursday I saw them for myself and was turned away when I asked to speak with someone in regards to our development. 

I suppose I should have said I was from TTAS and I’m sure I’d have been given the VIP treatment!

It’s been widely reported in the national press that the government are to encourage councils to build more homes, by promising to pay the council the same amount of money, as each of the new homes pay in council tax per year for two years after completion.

Fair enough, this is a way of encouraging the council to build new homes and meet targets, but as we are already too familiar with, councils ‘appear to currently be being encouraged’ by developers to allow the approval of new developments, with assurances that they won’t be responsible for their upkeep, by the appointment of PMCs.

If the government do proceed to pay these ‘Brucey Bonuses’ on every new home, the councils will be quids in if they continue to also be encouraged by developers!

So let’s not feel sorry for those poor councils who say they don’t have the budgets to do this and that, the money is there, they just don’t want to spend it!!!

The government must act and have assurances that these monies will only be paid, providing it is the councils responsibility to maintain these developments and stop allowing developers to appoint property management companies that rip residents off!

On a slightly different note, When it comes to leasehold properties why doesn’t the local council buy those parts of the land, so that they are paid the ground-rent and benefit from it, rather than those fees go into the profit margins of the CBG / PPMG?

Who knows what the future holds, but we will soon find out when residents of these new properties discover these pitfalls!

We have some very interesting stories to post in the next few days, that may spur a reaction from the ever so quiet ‘Andy’!

We 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.

A lot of questions have been asked as to where Freehold Homeowners stand in regards to how they can go about removing their property management company.  Can they go RTM?

Fortunately for TTAS, ‘Anon’ has kindly replied to this question that was raised on an old post – which we thought would be of interest to everyone so we have highlighted these facts below:-

Freeholders are not entitled to participate in the RTM process – and if an RTM claim succeeds, then the houses are bound to pay thier service charges to the new property management company.  In theory the charges should go down – one reason for invoking the RTM in the first place.

So as a householder what can you do?  Well you could take the lead in setting up a Residents’ Association and having it recognised by the freeholder – this is often the first step to establishing interest in the RTM process.

We have about 20 flats, and four houses, two of the houses are residents’ assoc members, but all benefit from the reduced charges we are now paying.  So you can agitate, campaign, generate support and help your neighbours in the RTM process, you just can’t be a director or member of the fledgling RTM company.

I know that PPMG companies, are trying to use shared roads, houses as part of a leasehold develpoment etc as grounds to oppose an RTM claim.  I also know from our counsel, having successfully challenged a counter notice, and without having to resort to the LVT that there is a lack of case law in this particular area, but not surprising because in legal terms the Commonhold & Leasehold Reform Act is still very new.

As I always say here – pay for the best legal advice your RA/RTM company can afford to make sure the RTM process is followed correctly.

Anon also raised some good points in regards to RICS and their charter:-

RICS publish a book called:  Service Charge Residential Management Code and Additional Advice to Landlords, Tenants and Agents.

You don’t have to be a RICS member to buy one, our RTM company has just dones so: it’s £20.  I’m sure it mirrors the code discussed in posts above.   Also, if you’re searching for a new PMC, ask the company to send you a copy of the code, with their standard contract.

See:  http://www.ricsbooks.com/productInfo.asp?product_id=7552

As for buildings insurance, the RTM company is at liberty to change provider, I believe this is a legal entitlement.  We did so when we invoked our right and got a £5k refund from the old company and the new policy (like-for-like) was exactly half what Solitaire were charging through their broker.  The refund was also sent direct from the broker to the new PMC.  You have to go through a broker as neither a PMC or RTM co can be FSA regualated, so cannot buy a block policy.  By the way, we also took out directors liability insurance too.

And a final point on RICS… it’s a big plus to look for a RICS company to take over as your new PMC – especially as RICS has a scheme for bonding your service charge funds.  But beware of PMCs that employ RICS qualified surveyors, but are NOT an accredited RICS practice.  We nearly got caught with this, and a simple call to RICS or a search on its web will identify those companies duly accredited.

Incidentally, on a recent search for a new PMC, we discovered one RICS accredited practice that was fined £4k by RICS for a disciplinary breach, subsequently upheld on appeal.  Anyone ever seen ARMA fine a shoddy property management company?  I bet not.

Some truly useful information here and once again we express our thanks to ‘Anon’ for posting this on TheTruthAboutSolitaire.

The CARLEX website is still under construction and to assist any visitors that were hoping to contact CARLEX, please feel free to e-mail admin@thetruthaboutsolitaire.co.uk and ensure that CARLEX ENQUIRY is in the subject field.

We’ll then forward your enquiry onto our contact at CARLEX.

TTAS has clearly established itself within the Property Management sector, as we continue to receive hits from many PMC’s and are regularly being approached by them to advertise on TTAS.

One of the companies that has recently contacted us is ‘BlocNet Ltd’ who are now also listed within the TTAS Directory Page.

What encouraged us to approve BlocNet’s request to be added to TTAS was because, prior to the company being established – they had also suffered the pain of unethical management companies and wanted to provide a service to customers, that we all expect.

You can find out more about BlocNet by viewing the TTAS Directory.

If you are visiting from a PMC and would be interested in being listed within the TTAS Directory, please contact us for a media pack.