• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Before Header

  • Home
  • What is LKP
  • Contact
Donate

Leasehold Knowledge Management Logo

Secretariat of the All Party Parliamentary Group on leasehold reform

Mobile Menu

  • Home
  • What is LKP
  • Contact
  • Advice
  • News
    • APPG
    • ARMA
    • Bellway
    • Benjamin Mire
    • Brixton Hill Court
    • Canary Riverside
    • Charter Quay
    • Chelsea Bridge Wharf
    • Commonhold
    • Communities Select Committee
    • Conveyancing Association
    • Countrywide
    • DCLG
    • E&J Capital Partners
    • Exit fees
    • Fleecehold
    • FPRA
    • Gleeson Homes
    • Ground rent scandal
    • Grenfell cladding
    • Hanover
    • House managers flat
    • House of Lords
    • Informal lease extension
    • Insurance scams
    • IRPM
    • Jim Fitzpatrick MP
    • John Christodoulou
    • Justin Bates
    • Justin Madders MP
    • Law Commission
    • LEASE
    • Local authority leasehold
    • London Assembly
    • Louie Burns
    • Martin Paine
    • McCarthy and Stone
    • Moskovitz / Gurvits
    • Mulberry Mews
    • National Leasehold Campaign
    • Oakland Court
    • OFT / CMA
    • Park Homes
    • Persimmon
    • Philip Rainey QC
    • Plantation Wharf
    • Peverel
    • Prostitutes
    • Quadrangle House
    • Redrow
    • Retirement
    • RICS
    • Right To Manage Federation
    • Roger Southam
    • Sean Powell
    • RTM
    • SFO
    • Sinclair Gardens Investments
    • Sir Ed Davey
    • Sir Peter Bottomley
    • St George’s Wharf
    • Taylor Wimpey
    • Tchenguiz
    • West India Quay
    • William Waldorf Astor
    • Windrush Court
  • Parliament
  • Accreditation
Menu
  • Advice
  • News
      • APPG
      • ARMA
      • Bellway
      • Benjamin Mire
      • Brixton Hill Court
      • Canary Riverside
      • Charter Quay
      • Chelsea Bridge Wharf
      • Commonhold
      • Communities Select Committee
      • Conveyancing Association
      • Countrywide
      • DCLG
      • E&J Capital Partners
      • Exit fees
      • Fleecehold
      • FPRA
      • Gleeson Homes
      • Ground rent scandal
      • Grenfell cladding
      • Hanover
      • House managers flat
      • House of Lords
      • Informal lease extension
      • Insurance scams
      • IRPM
      • Jim Fitzpatrick MP
      • John Christodoulou
      • Justin Bates
      • Justin Madders MP
      • Law Commission
      • LEASE
      • Local authority leasehold
      • London Assembly
      • Louie Burns
      • Martin Paine
      • McCarthy and Stone
      • Moskovitz / Gurvits
      • Mulberry Mews
      • National Leasehold Campaign
      • Oakland Court
      • OFT / CMA
      • Park Homes
      • Persimmon
      • Philip Rainey QC
      • Plantation Wharf
      • Peverel
      • Prostitutes
      • Quadrangle House
      • Redrow
      • Retirement
      • RICS
      • Right To Manage Federation
      • Roger Southam
      • Sean Powell
      • RTM
      • SFO
      • Sinclair Gardens Investments
      • Sir Ed Davey
      • Sir Peter Bottomley
      • St George’s Wharf
      • Taylor Wimpey
      • Tchenguiz
      • West India Quay
      • William Waldorf Astor
      • Windrush Court
  • Parliament
  • Accreditation
You are here: Home / News / Free leaseholders’ conference in Worthing on July 25

Free leaseholders’ conference in Worthing on July 25

July 4, 2012 //  by Sebastian O'Kelly

John Fenwick, who led the residents at Oakland Court

John Fenwick, who won the £137,000 LVT action at Oakland Court in Worthing, is to address a free conference for leaseholders in the town on July 25.

He is to be joined by Sebastian O’Kelly, director of the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership, who is also chairman of the Campaign Against Retirement Leasehold Exploitation.

Fenwick, 65, will discuss how he managed to mobilise the other residents and fight this action against his landlord, the Oakland Pension Fund, which concerned the notional rent paid for the house-manager’s flat going back to 1986. Full reports on this and the other cases mentioned can be found on this website.

“It is a fantastic victory,” said Fenwick, a former law firm employee. “Eight of our members are in their 90s, 13 in their eighties, 12 in their seventies and six in their sixties.”

Three times the landlord’s legal team appealed against the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal’s decision even to hear the case, a procedure impossible in civil courts.

Sir Peter Bottomley, MP for Worthing West, condemned the delaying tactics to the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership as amounting to “legal torture”, referring to “the series of actions and expensive stratagems faced by elderly frail constituents without the financial resources to play unending tribunal games with a relentless money grabbing opponent”.

Sebastian O’Kelly says: “The Oakland Court case was a game-changer: it shows what people can achieve if they co-operate and fight back.

“It was marvellous that this result was followed by the £11,500 victory at Strand Court, in Rye, where Eric Matthews, aged 94, and Archie White, 87, made a stand.

“These results are far preferable to mediation, which are what landlords and their agents prefer.

“Mediation has at its heart this complicit deal: that you have found out that a company has been cheating you, but it will stop if you keep quiet about it. It helps no one else.

“But LVT actions must be properly prepared. It is thoroughly depressing that Kingsmere, in Brighton, has been hit with a £30,000 legal bill after a ‘right to manage’ failed.”

The evening event, called “Everything you wanted to know about owning your flat but were afraid to ask!” is being organised by the publication News on the Block.

Bob Smytherman, of the Federation of Private Residents Associations will be chairing the event.

“Regulation of leasehold relies heavily on the vested interests of trade associations who put the interests of their members before that of flat owners that they are supposed to serve,” says Smytherman.

“Equally there are some property managers who see little or no value in being a member of a trade association, choosing instead to concentrate on excellent customer service.”

Also in attendance will be ‘leasehold professionals’ – solicitors, managing agents – touting for business.

Wednesday 25 July 2012, at 6.15pm – 8pm, The Chatsworth Hotel, Steyne, Worthing. Arrive 15 minutes early. The event is free but you can book a place by contacting events@newsontheblock.com

Related posts:

Pensioners in £137,000 victory Bottomley tells BBC he will fight on for leaseholders Default ThumbnailLeaseholders’ meeting in Worthing this evening (July 25) Default Thumbnail‘Legal torture’ pensioners settle for £68,500 … but two of the original leasehold applicants have since died Flush with money: how Kier Homes leaseholders pay for a public toilet in Worthing

Category: NewsTag: Bob Smytherman, John Fenwick, Sebastian O’Kelly

Latest Tweets

Tweets by @LKPleasehold
Previous Post: « Wartime squadron leader, aged 94, chalks up £11,500 victory over Peverel
Next Post: Cameron wades into retirement row in his own backyard … but what about those who don’t live in his constituency? »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Karen

    July 6, 2012 at 11:16 am

    What a fantastic idea, I hope it is well attended. I would go myself but it is 4.5 hours away. I have blogged it on our forum. Are you recording it for Youtube or a podcast so we can watch it?

Above Footer

Advising leaseholders. Avoiding disasters.
Stopping forfeiture. Exposing abuses. Urging reform.

We depend on individuals for the majority of our funding.

Support Us and Donate

LKP Managing Agents

Become an LKP Managing Agent

Stay in Touch

To achieve victory in the leasehold game where you are playing against professionals and with rules that they know all too well - stay informed with the LKP newsletter.
Sign Up for Newsletter

Professional Directory

The following advertisements are from firms that seek business from leaseholders.
Click on the logos for company profiles.

Leasehold Law logo

Footer

About LKP

  • What is LKP
  • Privacy and data
  • LKP Site Map

Categories

  • News
  • Grenfell cladding
  • Commonhold
  • Law Commission
  • Fleecehold
  • Parliament
  • Press

Contact

Leasehold Knowledge Partnership
Open Data Institute
3rd Floor
65 Clifton Street
London EC2A 4JE

sok@leaseholdknowledge.com

martin.boyd@leaseholdknowledge.com

Copyright © 2022 Leasehold Knowledge Partnership | All rights reserved
Leasehold Knowledge Partnership Limited (company number: 08999652) is a company limited by guarantee that is a registered charity (number: 1162584) with the Charities Commission.
Website by Callia Web