Daily Archives: 23 Nov 2019

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23 Nov 2019

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Accountability, General Election, General Election hustings, Sidmouth/ Sidford/ Sidbury

How to submit a question to Sidmouth hustings

From Vision Group for Sidmouth:

This is your ‘red button’ to leave a question:
https://visionforsidmouth.org/contact/
Otherwise questions can be submitted on the night at the door by 7.30pm.
Note: At the last general election hustings held by the Vision Group in Sidmouth, quite a few people turned up late to attend because there had been an important council meeting that same evening. In other words, it’ll be no problem to arrive after 7.30pm and after the Late Night Shopping, as candidates will be giving short presentations in the first half and taking questions in the second.
A seat cannot be guaranteed though!

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23 Nov 2019

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General Election, General Election hustings, Sidmouth/ Sidford/ Sidbury

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Sidmouth hustings 6 December slight delay to start time (now 7.30 pm)

“The General Election Hustings planned for Sidmouth on December 6 has been put back half an hour due to the town’s Late Night Shopping event.

The event will now run from 7.30pm to 9pm.

Peter Murphy, chair of the event, said, “We wanted to complement the shopping event in Sidmouth and not compete with it. And so we decided to move the start time from 7pm to 7.30pm, to allow people to take part in both events.”

The Vision Group for Sidmouth, which is hosting the hustings, says that the calling of the snap general election left little time for organization and there were limited dates for the use of halls to hold the event.

Friday, December 6, had already been chosen by the Chamber of Commerce for its annual Late Night Shopping – so in order to avoid a clash, the Vision Group has pushed its own event to start a little later.

As Peter commented: “This way, we hope that people will be attracted to the centre of town with a double bill that evening!”

The hustings will be attended by all six parliamentary candidates and will be held at All Saints’ Hall, All Saints’ Road, near the hospital in Sidmouth.

All are welcome to come along.

To put a question to the candidates, click the red button below and write to the group’s secretary.

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23 Nov 2019

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Accountability, Claire Wright, General Election

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Daily Telegraph sees Claire Wright as potential winner in East Devon

“East Devon doesn’t seem like a natural place for a revolution. Its gentle landscape, retirement communities and well-kept seaside towns don’t suggest a predilection for insurrection.

Indeed, in its various guises, the seat has been represented by a Conservative MP for 150 years. Yet next month, voters across Exmouth and its surroundings could be the first to elect an independent first-time MP in England for nearly two decades.

Claire Wright is standing in the seat for the third time, having come second at both previous attempts. Her share of the vote surged in 2017, leaving her with 21,000 votes to Sir Hugo Swire’s 29,000. …”

(Remainder of article behind paywall)

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23 Nov 2019

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Affordable and Social Housing, Developers/ Development, Housing (local)

Retirement flats – the big con

“Tens of thousands of families have seen their inheritances decimated after elderly relatives paid inflated prices for new retirement homes that have collapsed in value, an investigation by The Times has found. Prices of retirement flats in developments built by some of Britain’s biggest housebuilders have plummeted by up to 90 per cent in the face of costly annual management charges and ground rents.

Analysis of Land Registry data suggests that £3 billion could have been wiped from the value of retirement homes built between 2001 and 2015. In one case, a flat bought for £197,000 in 2009 from builder McCarthy & Stone, a FTSE 250 company, was sold for only £26,000six years later. The owner, Miriam Savage, was paying £8,200 a year in service charges and ground rent to the managing agent.

The losses often become apparent to families only when their loved ones die and they try to sell their home. There are 150,000 retirement flats in the UK. They don’t have full-time nurses but most have communal areas and features to help residents live independently. There is often 24-hour telephone support or wardens on site.

The properties are sold as leaseholds with the freeholds bought by the highest bidder. The freeholder collects an annual ground rent and appoints an agent to run the development. These companies have been accused of levying excessive fees and charges and leaving facilities to fall into disrepair.

Sebastian O’Kelly, of betterretirementhousing.com, said: “These flats routinely plummet in value and the reason is the leasehold system. The freeholder and property manager still get their ground rent and service fees irrespective of price. It’s deplorable that families are pouring money into these purchases, often in desperation, only to see their value evaporate.”

Retirement home builders say the value of the properties is not just financial. They say they reduce loneliness and the burden of maintenance and increase safety and security. McCarthy & Stone points out that since 2010 it has not allowed outside companies to manage its sites and this is protecting values.

Some families have concerns about how properties are sold. One complained that a 88-year-old relative was sold a flat while her daughter was on holiday. When the woman died, the flat wouldn’t sell. Land Registry data shows the average loss of value for flats in the block is £74,000.

The Times looked at nearly 500 retirement flats in 15 developments built between 2001 and 2015. Almost 80 per cent of the homes sold since their first purchase had fallen in value with an average loss of £38,846. The analysis suggests that flats built since 2010 have fared better with only 37 per cent experiencing losses. But one McCarthy & Stone flat built in 2015 lost £45,000 in value when it was sold this year. In the past four years McCarthy & Stone has made profits of £383 million.

Mr O’Kelly said: “The situation may be improving as builders move to being service providers but these companies successfully lobbied government to retain ground rents on retirement sites, which doesn’t encourage the belief they have a long-term interest.”

This week Churchill Retirement Homes donated £150,000 to the Tories. The company is run by Spencer and Clinton McCarthy, the sons of John McCarthy, the co-founder of McCarthy & Stone. There is no suggestion that the donation was linked to the decision to exempt retirement home providers from a ban on ground rents. Spencer and Clinton McCarthy have been Tory supporters for ten years.

The industry says the sale of freeholds funds communal areas and without this system flats would cost more.

Sources at McCarthy & Stone insist it is a different company to the one that developed homes pre-2010. FirstPort is responsible for maintaining the developments built before 2010. It said that nine out of 10 customers say its properties improve their quality of life. It added: “Independent research by the Elderly Accommodation Counsel in 2019 found that new retirement properties typically increase in value. The vast majority of our managed properties increase in price on resale and they are more than just places to live.”

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23 Nov 2019

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Accountability, Affordable and Social Housing, Developers/ Development, Housing (local), Planning System, Sleaze

“The billionaire and the 219 tiny flats: a new low for rabbit-hutch Britain?”

“Campaigners have piled in to criticise plans drawn up by a billionaire property tycoon to cram more than 200 tiny flats into an office building in north London. They describe it as a “human warehouse” that would be filled with people living in “cramped single-occupancy shoeboxes” like “rabbits in hutches”.

Amid claims that some of the planned flats would be as small as 15 sq metres – that’s less than 13ft by 13ft for residents’ entire living space – some locals say the proposal is one of the most shocking examples yet of the phenomenon known as office-to-residential conversion. A typical Premier Inn hotel room is 21 sq metres, while national space standards state that the minimum floor area for a new one-bedroom one-person home is 37 sq metres.

It was 10 years ago that, while London mayor, Boris Johnson pledged an end to “hobbit” homes in the capital, but examples of rabbit-hutch developments keep coming, and one leading architect told Guardian Money: “We’re heading towards the so-called ‘coffin homes’ in Hong Kong.” …”

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/nov/23/the-billionaire-and-the-219-tiny-flats-a-new-low-for-rabbit-hutch-britain?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

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23 Nov 2019

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Accountability, Education (local)

The plight of small rural primary schools

“Leaders of small, rural primary schools fear that funding constraints could see their school closed, a poll has revealed.

Primary schools in England with less than 150 pupils are being forced to cut back spending on things like equipment, teaching assistant hours and building maintenance, according to a survey by the National Association of Headteachers union.

The survey, which heard from 10% of 3,614 small schools, found that 42% of leaders were concerned about the possible closure of their school with a lack of funding given as the primary cause (84%).

Low or fluctuating pupil numbers was another key reason given for potential closures, with 73% citing this as the most likely cause.

The NAHT found that 70% had reduced investment in equipment, 67% have cut hours for teaching assistants and 60% have spent less on their building maintenance “in recent years”.

Speaking at the NAHT’s primary schools conference in London today, Paul Whiteman, general secretary of NAHT, said: “Small schools are at the heart of our local and rural communities. But as one of the groups hit hardest by budget cuts, for thousands of small schools the future remains uncertain.

“This is a terrible state of affairs when you think about how about vital these schools are. In many places, the school is the last public service left standing in their community. The post office, the police station, the library, the community centre have all gone.

“We cannot allow the school to be next. These schools may be small, but their loss would be incalculable.”

The poll found 41% of school leaders surveyed said they received additional funding through the National Funding Formula for being a small school, such as ‘sparsity funding’ – brought in to protect small schools.

But even those that did, 84% said it was not enough to provide “reasonable budget stability”.

James Bowen, NAHT director of policy, said: “All schools have suffered as a result of budget cuts, but small schools have been hit particularly hard. These schools play a vital role in their communities and they must be protected.”

Bowen added that current funding arrangements are “clearly” not working for small primary schools. …”

https://www.publicfinance.co.uk/news/2019/11/union-reveals-plight-rural-primary-schools

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23 Nov 2019

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Accountability, Cranbrook, Developers/ Development, Estate rentcharges

The reality of estate rentcharges – inability to sell a home

As in Cranbrook, and possibly other areas of East Devon. In Cranbrook, the town council is taking on these charges and includes it with the precept, so everyone in the town pays for them whether they are part of thse developer’s estates or not.

“‘Freehold charges cost us our dream home’

Peter Kirby and Jen Tweedle, with children Amelia and Zac, say they’ve been told their house could be unsellable
“To be honest we were absolutely devastated by it. You would never buy a house without being able to sell it again”.

Jen Tweedle is talking about the moment she and her fiancé Peter realised why their house sale fell through over the summer.

Their buyers couldn’t get a mortgage after discovering Jen and Peter’s new-build, freehold property was subject to an estate rentcharge.

Peter said: “We lost the sale and our dream house… and that was very disappointing.”

What is an estate rentcharge?

An estate rentcharge is imposed when private developers build housing estates that the local authority won’t “adopt”, meaning councils won’t pay for the upkeep of public spaces or roads on that estate, or pay for things such as street lighting.

When that’s the case developers – or once any building works are finished, residential management companies – establish the charge to pay those bills.

But some residents have criticised this process, saying they have very little control over the charges and that there’s not enough transparency about exactly what they’re paying for.

In addition to this, crucially, if homeowners fall 40 days behind on their payments, the law on estate rentcharges allows developers, or management companies, to take possession of a property to ensure they get the money they’re owed.

Although this is extremely rare, the fact that the legal right exists can put potential buyers off and leave mortgage providers unwilling to lend on properties subject to rentcharges.

However, the Home Builders Federation says rentcharges are the fairest way to make sure communal areas are paid for and maintained.

‘Unsellable’

In Peter and Jen’s case, their potential buyers couldn’t get a mortgage agreed because the home was subject to an estate rentcharge.

“We bought our house [in Oxfordshire] back in July 2016 and we were informed by the estate agent there’d be a service charge which, coming from London, we weren’t worried about,” Peter says.

“Basically we weren’t told by our solicitor or by our estate agents what an estate rentcharge actually meant in terms of the law”, Jen adds.

She’s also unhappy at how they were treated by the developers, their solicitors and estate agent, and how they didn’t even find out their rentcharge might be a problem until they tried to sell.

“The sudden surprise of it all, the fact that the term ‘your house is unsellable’ was thrown at us… you would never buy a house to not be able to sell it again.”

For now, Peter and Jen have taken their home off the market and will look again in the new year.

“We have to be resigned to the fact that this problem may reappear.

“Probably about £2,500 has already been paid out and we still need to pay solicitors another £1,500 hoping they will be able to sell our house, we don’t know.

“Maybe our house is unsellable.”

Beth Rudolph, a director of the Conveyancing Association, says the failure of house sales due to estate rentcharges is becoming more common.

“Just yesterday a developer refused to vary the terms of a rentcharge that the lender had confirmed was not acceptable to them because of the risks to themselves and the borrower,” she says.

“We need the government to intervene to change the law so that someone cannot effectively lose thousands of pounds because they forgot to pay a £6 rentcharge.

“We would absolutely expect that any rentcharge owner should be able to recover arrears of payments in the normal debt collection way, but not to be able to grant a long lease or possess the property.”

‘Fairest way’

Andrew Whitaker from the Home Builders Federation says because of cuts to local authority budgets many local councils just don’t have the money to adopt estates like they would have in the past.

“As part of a development we [developers] build places – not just homes. So things like parks, shared spaces, roads,” he says.

“In the past we used to hand all of this to the local authority and they’d maintain it in the future. Because of cuts and local authority budgets being strained they are less keen to do this.

“They still need maintaining and the fairest way to do this is to establish an estate rentcharge.”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-50519066