The Leasehold Roadshow, which has made several tours of the North West, is heading for Leeds on February 27.
The Leasehold Roadshow will be held at the Mercure Leeds Parkway Hotel, Otley Road, Leeds LS16 8AG from 10am to 6pm on Tuesday, February 27.
To register:
Leeds 2018 | The Leasehold Roadshow | Free info event
The Leasehold Roadshow is coming to Leeds! Due to popular demand, we will be running free drop-in sessions with our experts throughout the day, as well as offering the opportunity to attend presentations by our leasehold experts on a range of issues that, as the owner of a flat or leasehold house, you might well be facing or may face in the future.
The show is an invaluable explanation of the real workings of leasehold – and how to get the better of a system heavily weighted against you.
The speaker is Louie Burns, of Leasehold Solutions, who is the only leasehold sector insider who publicly says it is a racket.
LKP routinely refers leaseholders to Mr Burns, and the associated legal company Leasehold Law, headed by Mari Knowles.
Although a host of commercial interests have sought to leap on board the leasehold reform bandwagon, Louie has been articulating the scams in leasehold for a long time.
It was a comfort to LKP that we were not entirely alone.
Louie tells the Yorkshire Evening Post:
“Leasehold is a complex area and it can be very difficult for owners of flats and leasehold houses to get access to the information they need to defend themselves.
“That’s why we’re bringing the Leasehold Roadshow to Leeds, to provide these property owners with free, impartial legal and valuation advice to help them take back control of their property.”
“We see many cases where flat owners get exploited by unscrupulous freeholders, who raise their ground rent and service charges, or offer them informal lease extensions, where flat owners end up with no legal protection whatsoever,”
Property owners warned not to fall into leasehold trap
UK’s leading enfranchisement specialist decries government action as ‘incredibly weak’ and urges leaseholders to know their rights Leaseholders are being urged to know their rights and defend themselves against ‘underhand tactics’. In the wake of the leasehold scandal, Leasehold Solutions is holding a public information event in Leeds on February 27 to allow homeowners to ‘take back control’.
Newcastle leasehold house owners stuff attempt by Barratt and Keepmoat to sell their freeholds
Would you please supply details of venue and timing for the meeting in Leeds – 27th February 2018
Many thanks
Hello, specific times and details also on their website: http://www.theleaseholdroadshow.co.uk
Here you go, taken from the top of the page.
The Leasehold Roadshow will be held at the Mercure Leeds Parkway Hotel, Otley Road, Leeds LS16 8AG from 10am to 6pm on Tuesday, February 27.
Louie Burns of Leasehold Solutions is absolutely right. Leasehold is a racket. But I’ll eat my hat if any roadshow will do anything at all to help to resolve the entrenched problems that, IMO, have little if anything to do with what kind of tenure a flat owner enjoys – whether it be Freehold (least regulated and as yet non-existent status, thankfully); Commonhold (in theory, gives greater control to flat owners along with greater responsibility and the ‘big ask’ of getting along with all the disparate interests to be found in flat ownership whilst making it all work, noting that most flat owners are not leasehold experts and still have to rely on typically dodgy managing agents); or Leasehold, this being the most government regulated as well as the most abused form of tenure.
Why? Because too many of those with the power to do so, at best pay lip service, but otherwise abuse the law, the lease contract and codes of good practice quite simply to fill their own pockets. The abuse takes many forms and includes some devious practices, notably infiltrating flat management boards or otherwise coercing leasehold directors, ensuring for the most part that those directors are not your typical resident leaseholder but rather non resident, buy-to-let landlords who come from all corners of the globe, with little or no knowledge of leasehold matters, only too happy to take their queue from their own appointed managing agent.
Meanwhile, government argues that self-regulation of the sector works. This is either delusion on a grand scale, or another example of ministers cosying up to big business, not wanting to upset the applecart because big money talks.
Take a look at the arrangements at Century Wharf, Cardiff praised for wresting its management from Peverel in a right-to-manage which was organised by the misleadingly titled Right To Manage Federation headed by Mr Dudley Joiner whose past and recent activities have been aired by LKP. It should be noted that Mr Joiner and his RTMF is no longer an officer of the Century Wharf RTMs.
Aired here, too, have been the activities of CW’s managing agent Warwick Estates Property Management whose contract at CW has been ongoing since the RTM in April 2013. Under LTA 1985, leaseholders should be consulted over contracts longer than 12 months where the cost of fees and services exceeds £100 per lessee. A common dodge is for such contracts to be issued for no more than 12 months, renewable annually.
For background, the Century Wharf website (About Us) lists the RTM directors as Marks James, Chair (also CEO of Camarthen Council), Steve Corner, Pamela Voisey, Elize Ferner and Stephen Kass. One hopes they are all leaseholders of qualifying flats.
Companies House webcheck beta site is helpful in piecing things together and so, too. is the blog by Jack O’ The North titled Baywatch 2; his interest in local matters appears to be well researched.
Surely leasehold, with all its faults, remains the best organised, best regulated, most tried and best tested system of muti-occupancy tenure. It’s not the lack of regulations but lack of enforcement that jeopardises the system; and the lives and investments of those of us leaseholders caught up in it? If I was a speaker at the roadshow, that’s what I’d be saying.
As as leaseholder, I find it less than reassuring when there is an overlap of control between legal/regulatory and commercial aspects of leasehold management. For example, Anna Bailey and her brother Alex Greenslade are, according to Companies House, not only the founding and current sole directors of Leasehold Solutions Ltd (organisers of the upcoming roadshow) and directors of the associated company Leasehold Law LLP, but also directors of perhaps another misleadingly named Association of Leasehold Enfranchisement Practitioners (ALEP).
Can ALEP provide leaseholders with a truly independent service?
Mrs Bailey is also a director of Drive Marketing and, together with her brother and with Louis Burns of Leasehold Solutions, a director of Leasehold Valuers LLP. She is also sole director of management consultancy LL&F Limited whilst Alex is sole director BP & C Limited, both registered in Exeter. CH shows Louis Burns’ directorships as Leasehold Law LLP, Leasehold Valuers LLP and Vissa Limited (First Gazette Notice of voluntary strike-off dated 20.2.18). Though press reports say Louis is managing director of Leasehold Solutions, his name isn’t included in the list of the company’s officers registered with CH.
Maybe I’m rubbish when it comes to reading the annual accounts, but none of these companies seem to be making money and I wonder how that might reflect on the advice to leaseholders?
BTW, is the LOUIE Burns who has lobbied Her Majesty on referred to as managing director of Leasehold Solutions on numerous websites including LKP, Leasehold Solutions itself, flat-living, whathouse, buildingconstructiondesign, propertyindustryeye, newsontheblock, insidehouside housing and indeed LinkedIn – not to mention newspapers including Yorkshire Post and the Daily Telegraph – the very same person as the LOUIS Burns referred to by Companies House – not as managing director of anything but as a director of 3 companies excluding any reference to him in the context of Leasehold Solutions?
I find it all rather puzzling.
Further when checking on regulatory compliance, I find the sister organisation Leasehold Law LLP has entries on both the Law Society and Solicitors Regulation Authority websites, the latter effective 1 June 2015; the Law Society entry is undated. The two entries show signification differences as to personnel, the SLA entry referring only to Anna Bailey, Head of Finance and to Rachel Ashton, Head of Legal Practice.
Can anyone please enlighten me as to these various discrepancies?