Islington Leaseholders AssociationA legitimate arrangement between the council and building firm Kier, which ran from 2000 to 2010, saw each party receive £12.1million of taxpayers’ money over the ten-year period.
The council confirm that the share they received will be spent on building new homes, but many leaseholders, who are charged for repair work, feel they are entitled to some kind of rebate because they believe they paid their share of the full estimate, not the actual cost.
Full Islington Gazette article articles here
From The Islington Gazette 16.08.2012
Days before a TV expose about leaseholder overcharging featuring Islington Council, a group of Islington Residents hope that their battle is at an end after the council was refused permission to appeal a ruling that it blew £1 million on housing improvements.
Mondays edition of investigative channel 4 show Dispatches features the Tremlett Grove Estate in Archway which was the subject of a leaseholder valuation tribunal ( LVT) in April. It found that the council paid over the odds for work on two blocks.
The ruling meant the council will have to refund around £16000 to each of the 14 leaseholders affected. more council lose appeal again
Dispatches TV pgm c4 -Monday 20 August 8pm – The truth about leaseholds
(set your video recorders)
Thursday, 17th November 2011 from newsontheblock.com
In a landmark case that will undoubtedly be a gamechanger for the property management industry, the Upper Tribunal has decided that managing agents must consider the financial impact of major works on lessees and whether to phase works so they become more affordable. More
Upper Tribunal Decision
LVT Decision link
A report from the Smith Institute last week (quoted by Jules Birch in “Inside Housing”) concluded that over 60 per cent of new homes in central London are currently being bought by overseas investors and that a large proportion of them are being kept empty.
If there is extra overseas demand for limited supply that is already inadequate to meet domestic demand then that must be increasing (or propping up) prices and making the overall affordability situation worse. That has to be a cause of concern for the UK government, especially when overseas governments are taking action in their own markets. Full Story Here