Tomorrow night (Monday) at 8pm Channel Four’s Dispatches carries out a special investigation into the fraught world of retirement leasehold with much of the material provided by an undercover pensioner ‘spy’.
LKP activists have been interviewed for the progamme, and LKP has given the filmmakers, October, full assistance over the past few months – although what they have unearthed is entirely their own achievement.
It is understood that the focus is on the retirement leasehold developers, their honeyed sales techniques and the fact that it is they who drew up the deeply disadvantageous leases that have blighted the retirement of so many pensioners.
It is also the developers who then flogged the freeholds off to whoever would cough up the most for them. Some freeholds have ended up in the hands of large and very small-scale predators. It is understood that the filmmakers have interviewed leasehold retirement pioneers, McCarthy & Stone.
LKP has long urged pensioners not to buy retirement leasehold property: it makes you prey to unending service charges and other fees, and they have been the worst residential property assets that you can buy, down 40-50 per cent on peak prices.
The programme follows Dispatches’ earlier expose of residential leasehold broadcast on August 26. This documentary is also presented by reporter Morland Saunders.
Channel Four, Dispatches: Undercover Retirement Home 8pm Monday September 24.
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Channel Four documentary on retirement leasehold on September 24
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Huw Merriman calls for zero ground rents for retirement leasehold at prime minister’s questions
Should you buy a leasehold retirement flat, asks Telegraph
The Times: ‘Exit fees and poor resale values: the uncomfortable truth about retirement homes’
Having just watched this programme, I am saddened that not only are ordinary leaseholders being taken to the cleaners by unscruplious managing agents and landlords but they are also preying on our elderly population.
The elderly gent (Eric Matthews) who is 94 years old and has fought for the freedom of this country, has had to fight for another type of freedom, freedom from untrust worthy managing agents.
It is a disgrace that this government are still turning a blind eye to it.
I wish every leasehold block in England would apply for the Right To Manage their own properties, as that would deter the get rich quick merchants that are operating in this industry.
It would send a very clear message to ‘clear off’………
I absolutely agree. This was a very powerful programme, and utterly humiliating for McCarthy and Stone and Peverel.