Michelle Banks, the ARMA chief executive, is to step down in July.
The announcement to ARMA members comes from ARMA chairman Martin Perry.
“ … sadly I have to announce that Michelle Banks will not be joining us in this next phase [of ARMA-Q] having taken the decision to join her husband in retirement.
“Michelle will be standing down from her position as CEO of ARMA in July this year.”
Roger Southam, chairman of LEASE, issued a statement: “It was a surprise to see Michelle retiring and she will be missed.
“In her short tenure she has seen ARMA move forward and her successor has a well laid course to build on and grow. We wish her well in whatever she goes on to do.”
In fact, Banks had been looking increasingly uncomfortable in her role for some months.
The roll-out of ARMA-Q has weighed heavily, and LKP has reported the dissatisfaction of ARMA members.
For the first three months of this year, ARMA would not even confirm who its members were.
Dismayed at the uncertainties over ARMA-Q – which LKP has consistently praised – we criticised ARMA for an absence of coherent leadership.
Nonetheless, we regret the departure of Banks, a former DCLG civil servant, who we believe brought authority and integrity to this organisation.
Her appointment, and that of former Labour housing minister Keith Hill as the ARMA regulator, were indications that the property management industry was serious about sorting itself out.
That would not have been possible with the appointment of a property management insider, or one of the sector’s over abundant lawyers with no record of serving the greater good whatsoever.
Even the unfortunate delays with ARMA-Q – the admin of which has obviously taken far longer than Banks anticipated –had a positive narrative: it is being done slowly but thoroughly.
The loss of 20-30 per cent of the ARMA membership who either won’t or cannot satisfy the criteria of ARMA-Q is also no great loss.
Indeed, it should be seen as an endorsement of ARMA being serious and robust.
The fact that some of the largest property management companies in the country – not one large through leaseholder choice, of course – have decided that they cannot join ARMA-Q sends the strongest conceivable message to government.
The leasehold management sector is incapable of effective self-regulation.
Property managers and the freeholders who appoint them have too much power and control over other people’s money and are simply not going to let this go.
Frankly, those companies serious about seeing a cleaner leasehold sector should be delighted to see the back of bad apples even if revenues for their trade body plummet as a result.
On the other hand, sorting out a squabbling trade body made up of commercial rivals is perhaps a thankless task and life is short.
We have considerable sympathy with Banks for taking the decision to pack it in.
Dear Member
We are very pleased with the positive response to accreditation from the vast majority of members. Although there are still some cases to be completed, we can say now that we have a strong and healthy basis on which to take ARMA forward as an organisation.
We are considering the best strategy for staffing the Secretariat in this new era for ARMA but sadly I have to announce that Michelle Banks will not be joining us in this next phase having taken the decision to join her husband in retirement. Michelle will be standing down from her position as CEO of ARMA in July this year.
We have been very fortunate to have the benefit of Michelle’s skills, experience and intellect over the last three years. ARMA-Q has been successfully delivered and Michelle has led ARMA’s transition from a trade body to into a professional organisation taking an active lead on raising standards, and has done important work in raising our profile within the sector.
I am sure you will join me in extending our sincere thanks to Michelle for her commitment to ARMA, and our very best wishes to her and her husband for a long and happy retirement.
With kind regards
Martin Perry MA FIRPM
Chair
Related posts:
ARMA ends four-month farce after finally saying who its members are …
20% of ARMA members ‘walk out over new ethical scheme’
Cirrus isn’t an ARMA member so we have nothing to say about the price-fixing scandal, says Michelle Banks
Michelle Banks: silent over abuses, but ‘ARMA-Q will be good for leaseholders’
Peverel Retirement up before the ARMA regulator before it can join ARMA-Q
We save money living at Woodchester Valley Village … but then we do all own it ourselves
I think we all knew the writing was on the wall for Ms Banks, unfortunately she was very much out of her depth. I am waiting with bated breath to see who replaces her!
Karen,
I understand there are many Ex Peverel employees that might want to replace Ms Banks. How about Keith Edgar, Nigel Bannister or Vincent Tchenguiz?
Karen,
It was remiss of me in speculating as to whom might take the reigns at ARMA, not to mention Sue Petri, who holds a very senior position within Peverel/Firstport.
Miss Petri, not only serves on the ARMA governance committee , but what may well be less well known is actually an appointed director of ARMA.
Michael,
Is ARMA aware that the changes in name from Peverel to Firstport and Cirrus to Appello has I believe intended to fool the Leaseholders who are unaware of the trouble caused by the Peverel Group over the past 8 years?
Was it to much to expect that when an Area Manager turns up at a Budget Meeting circa February 2007 and states that the Warden Call System (WCS)that is working OK is now OBSOLETE and needs to be replaced very soon. The costs had already been priced by Cirrus Communications Services Ltd (a Peverel Company)who produced 2 OPTIONS.
The Area Manager should have received a report from Cirrus explaining why the WCS was OBSOLETE.
The 2 OPTIONS for the WCS were £15,000 and £20,000 so S20 CONSULTATION was necessary.
I first asked for all the documentation regarding the 2 OPTIONS IN 2009/10 be sent to us at Ashbrook Court, still waiting.
The WSC was hit by lightening in June 2007 (still waiting for the report documentation explaining the damage) and was considered an emergency. It was that urgent, it took 9 months before the work commenced taking 3 weeks to complete.
You guessed it, they waited for Cirrus to tender for the work. Then using a Price Rigged Tender, so Cirrus had the cheapest, (they gave Glyn Jackson the other tenderer the cost breakdown they had tendered ) and for them to add 20% on to each item so they would win the tendered work.
In 2009 Peverel Group admitted to the Office of Fair Trading (OFT)that Peverel/Cirrus had lied about the Tender and had gained the work at 65 other developments making £1.4 Million Pounds.
They were let off as the OFT allowed both the Peverel Companies to escape without a penalty. Both Peverel/Cirrus are still working on our development, having changed their names to hide the facts.
I wonder if ARMA would condone the cancelling of a meeting to resolve old issues/maters, then pull out, as the paper trail to show what happened, when it happened, how it happened as the Area Manager could not produce any written proof of what he claimed occurred.
Today I received an email from our Regional Manager stating that the meeting I had arranged and previously agreed by her, had been cancelled as my agenda was not to her liking.
She stated the agenda that was sent to her was not open for discussion, as all the items/matters had been checked by Peverel/Firstport previously by the Area Manager who had overlooked facts for fiction.
She is not prepared to reinvestigate the many complaints that were laid at his door.
Our development at the moment has been rendered rudderless as we have no House Manager, she resigned after 2 weeks in January 2015.
Our Senior Area Manager is on long term sick, since late March 2015.
Regional Manager is on leave.
In an effort to resolve some very serious issues a meeting had been proposed between Peverel/Firstport and myself at Ashbrook Court.
Regional Manager has decided that she is not prepared to discuss the items that created the problems in the first place.
Finally at the last meeting the Area Manager admitted that there was no Paper Trails that he could provide that would justify the spending since 2008 as he gave verbal instructions, not written ones.
The Regional Manager refuses to discuss:-
1.Historical Insurance Claims
2.Excessive Commissions
3.Excessive Premiums
4.Ownership of the Development after Administration
5.Excessive Service Charges
6.Historic Payments Made for other developments
7.Refunds not repaid
8.Interest charges denied
9.Door Entry Payments when no communal doors
10.Surveys charged not required
11.Price Fixing of Peverel/Cirrus on Ashbrook Court
12.Expense Files incomplete and missing invoices and reports
I can take the complaint to Stage 2 Complaints Procedure headed by Chris Owens, what a farce.
Karen,
Who ever it is that replace this lady will have to resolve the quandaries that are Peverel/Firstport and are they fit to be a member of an organisation that has taken over 9 months attempting to decide if they fit the bill. The fact that this period has been so long says that with the added Q for Quality it would not be in ARMA interest to add them if it did the name ARMA would seem to diminish in value.
Further to the ARMA-Q inviting Peverel/Firstport into membership. It could be seen as condoning the many issues regarding this Managing Agent who has since 2005 been seen as the company that saw the opportunity to increase its profits by cheating the elderly leasehold tenant who purchased in good faith, a flat to spend their final days in peace and quite.
Then Peverel in its many guises high jacked the developments where is was possible to use other companies under the umbrella of The Peverel Group, now Firstport Property Services Ltd and Appello who was Cirrus Communication Services Ltd.
Why would this ARMA-Q invite Firstport into their membership when Peverel Services Ltd and the retired CEO Janet Entwistle was aware of the Price Fixing and the Excessive Commissions that have yet to be resolved and proper compensation refunded.
65 Developments were Price Fixed and Peverel offered £100,000 compensation disguised as a Goodwill gesture, when it made £1.4 million pounds for the works undertaken.
Janet explained that as the Proper Tenders did not reflect the true cost of the works undertaken, then the £100,00 was a refund on an amount that she was unable to estimate?
Can you believe this story as true, should Firstport be allowed into membership with such a track record and the fact that ARMA have refused to reply to my concerns over the past 3 months?
Reply
Would ARMA be interested in the refusal of the new Regional Manager was refusing to discuss the historic failings that are Peverel/Firstport.
In an effort to resolve some very serious issues a meeting has been proposed between Peverel/Firstport and myself at Ashbrook Court.. Our RM, decided that she was not prepared to discuss the items that created the problems in the first place..
RM stated that ” All of these matters have been responded to several times in recent years and I therefore do not intend to discuss them again” Obviously she believed the untruths that were written by those who were in charge at the time that being our Area and Regional Manager. It is true that the AM and RM responded several times to these issues, but they were never able to produce the documentation to justify the spending of Thousands of Pounds of our money.
Eventually this year our Area Manager did state, he only gave verbal instructions for works to be carried out. This explains why he has been unable to produce the Reports, Contracts, Insurance Claims, that cost us many Thousand of Pounds?
The RM refuses to discuss, Insurance including
1.Historical Claims
2.Commissions
3.Premiums
4.Ownership of the Development
5.Service Charges
6.Historic Payments Made
7.Refunds
8.Interest
9.Door Entry Payments
10.Surveys
11.Price Fixing
12.Expense Files.
No doubt others will want to read this and add to it?
I wonder if ARMA would condone the cancelling of a meeting to resolve old issues/maters then pull out as the paper trail to show what happened when it happened and how the Area Manager could not produce any written proof of what he claimed had happened.
Today I received an email from our Regional Manager stating that the meeting I had arranged and previously agreed by her, had been cancelled as my agenda was not to her liking.
She stated that the agenda that was sent to her was not be open for discussion, as all the items/matters had been checked by Peverel/Firstport previously by the Area Manager and she is not prepared to reinvestigate the many complaints that were laid at his door.
Our development at the moment has been rendered rudderless as we have no House Manager, they resigned after 2 weeks in January 2015.
Our Senior Area Manager is on long term sick since late March 2015.
Regional Manager is on leave.
In an effort to resolve some very serious issues a meeting had been proposed between Peverel/Firstport and myself at Ashbrook Court.
Regional Manager has decided that she is not prepared to discuss the items that created the problems in the first place.
Finally at the last meeting the Area Manager admitted that there was no Paper Trails that he could provide that would justify the spending since 2008 as he gave verbal requests not written ones.
I can take the complaint to Stage 2 Complaints Procedure headed by Chris Owens, what a farce.
Karen, I wonder how MB would have felt at the latest situation with Peverel Services Ltd the parent company having taken JH the Defendant to court for arrears, this happened.
Do you believe that ARMA would be aware of the latest Court Case where Peverel Services Ltd were instructed to pay over £8,000.00 after Holdings and Management (Solitaire) Ltd took JH to the Courts for arrears and during mediation required a Tomlin Order to gag her
This brave woman refused to sign this Tomlin Order and Counterclaimed.
This lead to Peverel Services Ltd having to pay £8,237.06 into the Service Charge for the development.
I have been informed that the counterclaim should be paid within 14 days, which did not happen?
Karen/Michael,
I contacted the defendant and it seems that this is the way Peverel/Firstport continue to pay out counterclaims as a way of insisting that the leaseholder sign a Tomlin Order. This is the Gaging Order that prevents it being in the Public Domain.
They send letters from debt collectors, JB Leich or similar to intimidate and inform as in this case 4 days before the hearing, stating that their costs were to be £10,000.
This brave lady was not intimidated and refused forcing Peverel Services to withdraw the claim and instead pay-out a Counterclaim hopping this will have the same effect.
Is this possible?
It is believed that the contract that Peverel have is no longer valid with the changes in names and companies.
They refuse to provide proof of the contract stating that the Contract is Commercially Sensitive which possible means that it no longer holds water as Locus Standi?
Michael,/Karen
A Tomlin order is basically a means of legally settling a dispute without an admission of liability and settling the dispute in confidence.
Chas says:
Why would a company Peverel Services Ltd, pay barrister’s to take a leaseholder to court for not paying arrears and then settle on a counterclaim which they knew was being claimed, does not make sense?
Why did Peverel decided to chase up the payments in the first place via the courts (as is their right). When the brave leaseholder refused to back down, far from pursuing the claim Peverel from a position of claiming money from the leaseholders changed to a position of owing the leaseholder £8,000 and then trying to keep the whole matter secret and without an admission of liability.
What was gained by this action as Peverel was I believe claiming £10,000 in arrears and ended up paying over £8,000 into the Service Charge Contingency Fund?
That would show as a loss of £18,000 and they would still have to pay Mr Leich and others?
Reply
I first sent a complaint to ARMA on the 15/01/2015 regarding allowing Peverel/Firstport into ARMA-Q.
Since then I had to send other emails to ARMA, CEO, Personal Assistant, where no response has been give just an apology for taking so long to provide an answer, why Peverel/Firstport has been seen as possibly the worst Managing Agent in Leasehold.
They had been found responsible for Price Fixing 65 Retirement Developments that they owned up to and from 2005 to 2009 the OFT and the Peverel Group themselves admitted that they suspect nearly all developments during that period were Price Fixed.
This incudes Warden Call Systems and Fire Systems that were supposed to be obsolete, but were in fact working, but the sister companies needed the work?
They refuse to resolve problems and provide refunds where they have been caught cheating, forcing pensioners to waste time and eventually take them to court, where they have in a lot of cases paid out monies without accepting any blame.
They then attempt to use The Tomlin Order to gag what was agreed.
If this company is allowed to join before they refund the Millions of Pounds that they have set aside to refund monies they had received from being both deceitful and underhanded in the way they were creating work for the likes of Cirrus (now Appello) and Kingsborough (now Firstport Insurance) who were sister companies and subsidiaries of Peverel Services Ltd.
I wonder if ARMA is aware that at Ashbrook Court where Peverel/Firstport are Managing Agents and already a member of ARMA not ARMA- Q.
I wonder if they would be interested that our Managing Agents have sent demands for Ground Rent as follows:-
The Ground Rent is due on the 24/06/2015 and the demand notice is “given by Meridian Retirement Housing Services Ltd that as far as I have been informed is a Dormant Company?
They have in the past been our Landlord and a Subsidiary of Peverel Services Ltd.
Our Freehold was sold last year on 31/10/2014 to company whose director is Mark Hawthornwaite also known as Mark Hawthorn.
This company, as far as I have been informed by the selling company, is known as Greenmount Securities Ltd who are a Subsidiary of Landmark Investments Ltd and paid less than £34,000 for the 28/9 flats.
The House Managers House is empty and we pay the Council Tax for this house until sold?
Peverel have a 125 year lease on this house and require an even longer lease?
As it stands today we have NO:
House Manager: left after 14 days
Area Manager: on long term sick
Regional Manager: refuses to meet even though date and venue arranged,
She has pulled out refusing to resolve the long standing issues left by our Area Manager who will probably not return this year, or ever.
We had a visit by one of the long term companies that have worked for years and do a decent job, one of the work force informed me they had not been paid this year?
With the redundancy’s at Peverel Firstport, is this a sign?
Roger Southam of Lease writes “It was a surprise to see Michelle retiring”
If only Roger read About Peverel.? That she was about to quit was posted some two months ago in the news section on the website.
Good luck to Michelle Banks on her forthcoming retirement. I guess being CEO of ARMA was always going to be a thankless task because of the powerful vested interests amongst member companies.
Back in July 2012 I complained to ARMA about a prominent member who had been managing agent on the estate where I live and in due course I heard from Ms Banks that the matter had been referred to the ARMA-Q regulator. My complaint related mainly to the important matter of compliance with the lease and legislation over the way service charge should be accounted for – something I had campaigned for but to little or no avail.
The way service charge is accounted for is important not only because of the contractual issues but because, without proper accounting, the management is not empowered or entitled to collect service charge. That could have serious implications for the wellbeing of the management company, its members and the way the development is managed.
In February 2013 Ms Bank wrote to tell me that my complaint would be heard by the regulator. Since then I have sent intermittent emails asking her for an update but she didn’t reply. Now, following an email today and phone call to her office, I received the following email from her:
“This case was investigated by our regulator Keith Hill and the outcome was communicated to you in a letter at the time. However I have asked the clerk to our regulatory panel to write to you again, explaining the outcomes. She will be in touch with you shortly.”
I have replied expressing surprise at a letter from the regulator I never received, questioning why she didn’t pick this up in reply to one of my requests for an update – for example, an email and letter I sent on 2 November 2013, ‘signed for’ as I recall.
I wonder if anyone else as had a similar experience? Meanwhile, I await the regulator’s decision with interest.
Rendall and Rittner Ltd has announced that it achieved ARMA-Q accreditation with effect from 1 January 2015 becoming, they say, ‘one of the first managing agents in England and Wales to achieve accreditation’.
They are clearly pleased though surely unsurprised at this outcome, saying accreditation means they are bound by ARMA’s Customer Charter and are willing to be independently regulated. No doubt …
They say their application demonstrated compliance with over 160 standards meaning they are free from any ‘Improvement Plan’ meted out to some other ARMA members who fall short of R&R’s own impeccable performance.
Well, I’d be interested to know what these standards are that ARMA uses to accredit members. Can anyone enlighten me? R&R adds that at the time of ARMA accreditation it was already regulated by RICS.
Unfortunately, though ARMA and RICS both require their members to comply with contractual and statutory requirements when accounting for service charge (eg a proper accounting for money usually collected in advance of the expenditure) as well as compliance with the lease and other regulatory issues noted by the accountants bodies ACCA and ICAEW, managing agents generally ignore the rules. R&R is no exception.
What do other leaseholders think of R&R’s performance when it comes to accounting for service charge?
I have found that ARMA like the ARHM never answer complaints or difficult questions unless they really have to. Publicity, or the threat of publicity sometimes does the trick.
There is no way to complain about these organisations poor performance.
There is no regulator to control the regulator.
I have tried complaining about them to numerous Ombudsmen but am told they do not come under their duristriction.
ARMA’s attitude will have to change if the Q standards are going to make a difference.
Michael Hollands,
I asked ARMA how they could have a dissolved company as an accredited member of ARMA-Q? Does that count as a difficult question?
Am I correct in believing that Mr Simon Van Houten was jailed for 30 months after swindling Rendall & Rittner customers out of £122,000 by using fake invoices?
Is it also the case that it was not Rendall & Rittner, nor the development fund service charge auditors that picked up on the fraud?
Am i correct in believing it was an eagled eye resident that alerted Rendall & Rittner who initially denied anything was wrong?
Rendall & Rittner are a rapidly expanding company, with plans to enter the retirement development sector. (Watch out Peverel!) They recently launched Randall & Rittner Senior Living.
Michael, you are spot on.
I am the leaseholder famously credited with alerting R&R to the activities of their fraudster property manager. This happened quite late in the day not long before the property manager was arrested and is said to have been triggered by my objections to R&R’s appointment as managing agent – I was a director of the management company and their appointment had been less than transparent, totally lacking in any sense of due diligence even for leaseholder directors of flat management companies (as I suspect is the case with many such appointments).
I complained, inter alia, that R&R’s property manager was not a member if the institute of Residential Property Managers. R&R’s director Matt Rittner replied to say he was in fact IRPM qualified and, further, he was responsible for training junior property managers in the lead-up to their IRPM exams.
I knew this to be untrue not least because IRPM had told me so.
In fact, other leaseholders have certainly claimed to have alerted R&R to financial impropriety involving the same property manager but their concerns had fallen on deaf ears.
Now, as I say, I am waiting not with baited breath to hear from ARMA how it is that my complaint about their member made in July 2012 was brought, as they promised, before the ARMA-Q regulator who appears to have made a decision without me hearing about it until I chased them the other day – not for the first time. Meanwhile, ARMA had promised me an update as to the progress of my complaint – a progress report they never made. And when I wrote to them in November 2013 to ask for progress on a complaint that was, by now, some 18 months’ old, they didn’t reply to that either.
Meanwhile, LKP has been enquiring as to progress and I think they had given up on me – as indeed I had, more or less, given up on ARMA and the worth of its ARMA-Q regulatory regime.
I shall be interested not only to read Keith Hill’s deliberations on the detail of my complaint that involved management accusations of fraud on my part! but also for evidence of their paper trail.
OMG R&R Senior Living. Please tell me you aren’t serious.
Sue Stuckey,
If you have it in writing that Mr Matt Rittner claimed he was IRPM qualified when in fact he was not, that is an offence under Section 2 Fraud Act 2006. Specifically, Fraud By False Representation.
Made a false representation dishonestly knowing that the representation was or might be untrue or misleading with intent to make a gain a cause a loss..
Michael,
You make a very important point about fraud notably false representation. From memory I think Mr Rittner said that Mr Van Houten had misled R&R over his membership of IRPM. But when they discovered his duplicity, R&R looked more closely at Mr Houten’s activities and then reported him to the police. This led to the court action that out him in prison. Clearly R&R were guilty of false representation and I think the Act says that the false representation does not have to be deliberate for a fraud to have been committed (in this case by R&R). Having trained as a barrister, Mr Rendall could perhaps enlighten us? At the very least, R&R were negligent. To that I would add arrogant.
Sue
Mr Rittner’s assertion that R&R may have been misled by Mr Van Houten as to his membership of IRPM may well be true.
However, since all R&R had to do was simply check the published list of IRPM members, that explanation does not hold water.
Imagine Mr Van Houten was using an R&R company car. It would not be sufficient for Mr Van Houten to say he had a UK driving license. R&R would have a clear duty to see it.for themselves.
I take all that you say on board 🙂
ps In his summing up I got the impression that Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, the eminent judge on the case, went out of his way to tell us that R&R was having difficulty in recovering the losses they incurred when reimbursing leaseholder funds plundered by their property manager, Simon Van Houten.
It seems R&R’s insurers saw things the way you do and were reluctant to play ball.
Sue,
To be guilty of there is an easy basic determination of NEGLIGENCE:-:
DUTY
BREACH
DAMAGE
Was there a duty to you and your development?
Was this duty breached?
Was damage a result?
There has to be all three involved any one not such as no damage then not negligent?
Ask admin for my email is you choose.