The Truth About Solitaire Property Management & Peverel Group Companies

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.

July has quickly passed by and it was a relatively quiet month in regards to postings from us, due to holidays and technical difficulties – but we hope to get back up to speed with things in August, especially as we remembered that TTAS had it’s 2nd birthday on the 21 July and we’re looking forward to our third one!

Firstly, those of you that supported the Downing Street Petition will likely have received a reply from No.10.

Admittedly, it wasn’t what we were looking for, but it did at least bring to our attention the RICS Code of Practice (which you have to pay for and also you need to be a member of RICS – but your local RICS member, maybe happy to allow you access to thiers?).

We do recommend that you obtain a copy of this Code of Practice as it does contain some very interesting points, that some of you have already raised and it’s definitely worth going through, so that you can use this information in any complaints to / against Solitaire / Peverel or any of their associated companies.

If your local RICS member won’t let you read their CoP, the following link to the transparency of fees document on the RICS website is of use: 

http://www.rics.org/site/download_feed.aspx?fileID=5979&fileExtension=PDF

Yet again, it was satisfying to receive correspondence from Solitaire in regards to IM’s issues that we highlighted on the 21 July 2010.

Once again, as soon as this story was published – Solitaire acted on IM’s complaint, but again why does it have to take TTAS to highlight these issues for them to be acted upon?

Andy was very keen for us to post his reply (which we will do soon) – but as always, it is us having to shame them into acting on the complaint.

That’s all for now, but more will be posted this month

[ADMIN EDIT - 02/08/10]
We were unaware that the CoP was not available for the public to purchase from RICS direct and apologise for any suggestion that it was or that we would distribute without premission (infringing copyright). 

We recommend that anyone interested in the RICS CoP, looks on their website for the “Service Charge Residential Management Code” or to view the link above in regards to transparency.

Solitaire’s Online Feedback Manager – “Andy”, sent us an e-mail directly because apparently he was having problems posting the following on the site.

Sounds like they’ve blocked access to TTAS! 

Anyway, as we always like to post comments from ‘both sides’ – here’s the e-mail Andy sent us with some ‘positive’ emails apparently!  Although, two emails out of 30,000 residents isn’t really something to shout about is it!

Hi Nirmal

Latest News

I was very pleased to see that you had visited the Customer Updates section of our website [REMOVED] and found the latest information on the improvements made to the Solitaire Property Management Customer Services telephony system. Thanks for bringing the news to this website as these updates are designed to be available online for everyone to view.

For those that haven’t seen them simply visit [WEBSITE REMOVED] and click on the ‘News Update’ links on the left hand side of the page – the latest update is dated July 2010.

Since I started posting here last year, I always said I would update people on our progress in improving the service Solitaire provides its customers. That’s why we have been open in letting customers have the facts about the percentage of abandoned calls. We believe that the high call volumes earlier this year were simply because people were putting the phone down and ringing again – January was the peak month for call volumes so we always knew that we had to improve our telephony system.

Our work to improve response times and the other changes we have made in our Customer Services team are having a very positive effect for our Solitaire customers. I thought I would share two recent email comments from customers to illustrate this. I have removed the customer’s names and references to their development:

Recent Email from a Solitaire Customer – 22 June
From: Dxxxxx Gxxxxxxxxx
Sent: 22 June 2010 17:39
To: Solitaire Customer Services

Subject: Ref bill query invoice 141107

To the Manager Customer Services.  This is the first time in 8 years that I am contacting you with good news about your service.  Matt dealt with my query yesterday while his computer was down but came back today on two occasions and has resolved the concern.  In the past any query was dealt with as a nuisance but Matt was very professional and shows there has been a big improvement in your company’s approach to customer care.  Good news needs to be passed on. I look forward to receiving an amended bill.
Thank you
Dxxxxx Gxxxxxxxxx

Recent Email from a Solitaire Customer – 9 July

From: Jxxx Wxxxxxx 
Sent: 09 July 2010 16:35
To: Solitaire Customer Services
Subject: Fw: xxxxx message for Kelly and Supervisor if she has one!

Good afternoon,
 
I have just listened to a voice message left for me at 4.15pm by Kelly with regard to the xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
 
I understand what you have told me Kelly and I would like to commend you on your clarity, precision and delivery of content. Your customer service to me today is excellent.
 
As someone who complains at poor service it is only right that I should commend you on good service.
 
I hope that Solitaire’s actions in this matter prove fruitful before xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx but in the meantime, thank you for your efforts on my behalf and for the excellent information.
 
Sincerely,
 
Jxxx  Wxxxxxx

—————————————————————————————————————–

These positive emails from customers are encouraging but we still know we still have a lot of work to do in further improving our service for our customers living on Solitaire managed developments.

I will continue to let you have updates in the coming months.

As always I welcome any constructive feedback. My direct email address is [REMOVED]

Hi Admin

It’s important to say that the comments made to you by an employee of an ‘independent company’ do not apply to Solitaire or any other Peverel Property Management company.

Many thanks.

Andy
Solitaire Online Feedback Manager

We were slightly confused by ‘Andys’ comment in regards to comments to us from employees of an independent company…. sounds like they don’t agree with some of the things being said by the ‘independent company’.

Why not post copies of your e-mails to Solitaire where you have complained and still waiting for replies on this thread, to show that two positives don’t sort a negative!

(Please remember that if you do post e-mails, can you edit the SPM employee name to be just their initial’s please e.g. AM (for Andy MissXXXX)

We’ve been approached by the media who are looking into issues with property management companies, in particular people who wouldn’t mind being interviewed about problems they have had selling their property due to the 1% exit fees and they have asked us to send contact details onto them, so that they can interview people about problems they have had.

If you are happy for your details to be forwarded, please e-mail the usual address stating your name, phone number and email address and we’ll forward them.

We will not reveal any further information on this approach, apart from this request and you can be assured that your details will only be forwarded on to the media who have contacted us.

[ADMIN EDIT @ 13.50 to detail 1% exit fee]

Many contributors have noted that ‘Andy’ (Solitaire / Peverel’s Online Feedback Manager) has been awfully quiet of late and we hope that this post will awaken him from his slumber!

Here’s a few of the latest e-mails we’ve received:-

Hi Admin

I wonder if you’d mind posting the following on your wonderful website please?

I own a freehold house on a site which includes leasehold flats and freehold houses, allegedly managed by Solitaire!  I’m reliably informed that the flats will be able to instigate the right to manage procedure but the houses won’t be able to as we are freehold.

Has anyone else come across this and if so could they let me know what they did?  It’s so frustrating that we own a freehold property and yet are being held to ransom by Solitaire and we don’t even have the right to get rid of them.  They can name their price and we are expected to pay!  I’m going to raise this with my MP but if anyone has any advice in the meantime then please let me know.

Many thanks
BM

 We were copied into the following e-mail sent to Solitaire’s Customer Service and Property Manager CL:-

Hello,

I’ve had no acknowledgement of the attached email which I sent on 1st July except for the auto-response which indicates that

‘Emails of a non-urgent nature will be responded to within the next 10 working days.’

Has anyone read my email? 
Has anyone decided that something should be done about the issues I have raised?
Has it been decided that nothing should be done about them?

These things are simple to fix.  The remaining low level of lighting has created a more threatening and less secure environment for The Dell’s residents and Solitaire have responsibility to fix this before any harm is done.

Regards,
IM
——– Original Message ——–
Subject:  Lack of grounds maintenance at The Dell
Date:  Thu, 01 Jul 2010 13:22:10 +0100
From:  IM
To:  customerservices@solitairepm.co.uk, CL <CL.propertymanager@solitairepm.co.uk>
Hello,

I’d like to bring to your attention that the grounds maintenance at The Dell, Southampton has been sorely neglected and request that you take action.

1.  around half of the lights in the garden area in the centre of the development are not working again. This represents a safety and security issue for the residents and their visitors.  Some of the light fittings are broken and this creates an extra hazard for children.  I assume that Solitaire would be liable if anyone was to come to harm because of these problems.

2. the general upkeep has been neglected. In addition to the ever worsening state of the lawns that I discussed with CL a year ago, weeds are growing in the paving and in the gravelled areas in the garden.  I attach some photographs in support of this.

I will gladly help point out the issues if the property manager was to visit the development.

Since the owners of the properties are paying Solitaire for the maintenance and upkeep, I seek your assurances that these issues will be addressed in the very near future.
Regards
IM

  
 

On a side note, some people may have encountered bounce messages when e-mailing us in the last few weeks.  This problem was brought to our attention yesterday and the problem has now been rectified, but only affected certain contributors.

If you did receive one of these messages, please resend your e-mail and we’ll act upon it.