I try to keep this blog tightly on the subjects of Pimlico, Renting, and Flats. It’s not too difficult because I can use the Forum to ramble about other subjects, and this keeps the blog focussed.

I thought that I would stray a little to talk about this blog, and blogging, as a way of thanking my many sources of information, and I have broken the story into three parts.

Pimlico

Renting

Property

Pimlico

Blogging about Pimlico is probably the easiest of my 3 core subjects, particularly since I define “Pimlico” as being anywhere within walking distance of Pimlico Flats – so that covers Central London, and makes:

• Victoria & Belgravia “North Pimlico”,
• Kensington and Chelsea “West Pimlico”,
• Battersea, Vauxhall, Stockwell, Clapham “South Pimlico”
• Westminster, Soho “East Pimlico”

I try to focus on free and little published events and attractions, as the bigger professional things are generally commercially advertised and known about. My biggest source of information is the weekly publication The Pimlico News and Journal which is something that I publish myself and is automatically curated from various feeds. It has been sufficiently successful that I now carry it as a page on this website which can be accessed from the menu on the left.

It’s a great Newspaper but I must give thanks to some of the contributors. There are of course the usual traditional sources of information, BBC, Newspapers, but the purpose of niche blogging is to uncover the real story, and here are the local blogs and websites which I follow in order to reach the news other blogs can’t reach:

London Blogs

• Foremost has to be the Westminster Chronicle  just because we need professional journalists and local newspapers in our lives, and if you don’t use them and pay for them we will lose them, and be all the poorer. I don’t know how the power of the internet will pan out, but printed news is under pressure from free blogs like this, and the free “Pimlico News and Journal” that I just promoted. In spite of my competition with the Chronicle all I can say is that we need our local shops, and newspapers, so please buy a copy from your local newsagent.
• Londonist  a website about London and everything that happens in it – it’s a professional publication set up in 2004 as The Big Smoker. I like it because, although it is a comprehensive London-wide reference resource, it carries this off with humour and is in touch with it’s community roots (e.g. the Hand Drawn Maps initiative). They provide everything you need to know about the capital, as well as celebrating the quirks, eccentricities, hidden and surprising bits that make up the alternative side of the city.
• Discovering London - which I juxtapose alongside Londonist because Peter’s blog is small, if not tiny, yet it is brimming over with personality, quality, and originality. Peter has yet to reach his 1st anniversary of blogging, but already his website is one of my favourites.
• Tired of London, Tired of Life began in October 2008 as a place to document those moments of inspiration for making living in London exciting & different. Doing the same thing day after day can get anyone down, but our city has an almost infinite number of things to see and do. If you’re not getting the most out of London, it is a sad truth that you have no one to blame but yourself. This site was part of a personal plan for the author to get the most out of the greatest city on earth, and it has worked.
• Going Underground Look at what the mainstream press has to say! The magic, mystery & sometimes maddening shortcomings of London’s Tube are documented with love, enthusiasm & sometimes despair by its unofficial social historian ……. The best blogs have a tinge of obsession about them … On some mornings it can feel like the only reason to be grateful that the Tube exists … one of London’s obsessives
• Young and Poor  Cheap/free events, gigs, food & drink, or sales —  never paid to mention things so it’s only things worth recommending.
• Ian Visits does NOT list the mainstream music/theatre/film events which are already so well supplied by the major newspapers and magazines – but DOES list the heritage open days, walking tours and mostly, the astonishing array of free (or cheap) lectures that the societies and universities of London provide. It’s a personal resource of remarkable usefulness.
• Boris Watch An act of frustration, at the loss to apparent personality politics, and the accusation that somehow young people are to blame …… but also a great tap into the stories that THEY don’t want you to read about.
• Laura Porter London-based travel writer & VisitBritain Super Blogger, mum, copywriter, tea drinker, afternoon tea addict & all-round London obsessive. She is a professional travel writer for About but I have recommended her twitter feed as she is a model in how to use Social Media. She does so much more than just promote her own writing, and is very generous with the links and information that she publishes. Consequently I would say – if you want to keep your finger on the pulse of mainstream London – follow Laura.

Speaking as a Pimlico HMO I was somewhat amazed at the stupidity displayed by 4 of my Bristol Bretheren who seem to have just ignored their local authority, and their responsibilities to provide safe decent accommodation.

The knowledge and attitude of local authority Environmental Health Officers can be patchy – they can be helpful, skilled, trained, or sometimes they leave you shaking your head in disbelief. You have to take the rough with the smooth, and in general things will turn out all right. What you cannot do is ignore them, or believe that the regulations apply to everyone else, but not you.

Housing Officers from Bristol City Council, found a series of problems at an HMO including:

• Failure to provide adequate fire safety at the property.
• Failure to ensure the shared areas of the property were maintained in a good and clean decorative order.
• Failure to ensure the property was kept in good repair.
• Failure to provide lighting in many of the shared areas of the property.
• Keeping a property whose structure was a danger to the health of the occupiers.
• Failure to provide information about the property when required to do so.

Bristol  can offer a range of advice and support to help landlords comply with legislation, however, where landlords refuse to co-operate and where there are serious breaches of the Housing Act (as in this case) local authorities can and will take legal action to compel them to bring improvements.

On December 21, the landlords were summonsed before Bristol Magistrates Court in relation to alleged offences under the Housing Act 2004 and the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976. They, failed to attend Court or have representation – talk about committing suicide! The defendants were found guilty on all charges, and the combined fines totalled £30,036.30 and combined costs totalled £5,199.60.

Private landlord prosecuted by council for Housing Act failures

It’s not normally my place to blog about legal precedents, but this case is so relevant to Pimlico, Property, and Flats (the themes of this blog) that I couldn’t resist reporting an unusual legal judgement about one of the most contentious property estates in the country – Pimlico’s Dolphin Square.

Dolphin Square, Pimlico (Westminster London SW1)

Dolphin Square is a massive central London complex of 1250 luxury flats that is home to dozens of MPs, peers, judges, lawyers, QCs and senior military officers, and where Oswald Mosley, Harold Wilson, Christine Keeler, Charles de Gaulle, CP Snow, Donald Campbell, and Princess Anne once lived.

For decades it was one of the biggest scandals in the UK’s housing history – the block, paid for with public money, was run for the benefit of a few wealthy individuals. Social Housing for Millionaires in a borough with thousands of homeless and overcrowded families.

In order to rid itself of it’s political embarrassment in 2004 Westminster City Council sold its 27-year head lease of Dolphin Square to US private equity investor Westbrook Associates for a BMV of £176.5 million. I wonder whether even then Westbrook had it’s Machiavellian plan to acquire the freehold in mind?

Leasehold Flats Can Buy their Freehold

Westbrook has been publically aiming to buy the freehold since 2007.  The Leasehold Reform Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 (as amended by the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002) gives tenants the right upon qualification to compel the sale of the freehold of the building or part of the building. Description of the process of buying the freehold of leasehold flats. The intention of this legislation was to enable individual flat owners to club together and break free from aggressive landlords.

The law was never intended to allow predatory head lessees to acquire freeholds for less than their market value, however Westbrook has taken advantage of the oddity that Dolphin Square has always been entirely let, either on decades-old regulated tenancies or assured shorthold tenancies but not on long leases so there are no leaseholders. The company was able to create 612 Jersey-listed companies, and sell each of them one or two Dolphin Square flats on 26-year leases, and then serve the Freeholder with a notice to enfranchise those leases. The owners of leases of more than 21 years have the right to buy the freehold, subject to no one leaseholder owning more than two flats. Changes in the 2002 act that were intended to help big London blocks enfranchise, even if many owners were subletting, abolished the ‘residency test’, which required occupation of a flat to qualify for enfranchisement.

The Freeholder is the life assurance company Friends Provident, who are not happy at this ruse.

‘We do not believe that the law was intended to allow foreign private equity investors to compulsorily acquire on the cheap a major asset of a British life assurance company that has held the property as one of its core investments for more than 70 years, the price offered to us in the legal notice compares unfavourably with the average £250,000 for which Westbrook sold the 1,200 flats held on 27-year leases to its 612 Jersey-based associated companies.’

Leaseholder Freeholder Legal Battle

Westbrook and Friends Provident are fighting  it out at the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal, the Lands Tribunal, the Court of Appeal, and most likely the House of Lords as well.  In 2009 the company brought a claim, but a week before the trial it pulled out, claiming it was because of “unfavourable market conditions”. In a second attempt, the company served a new notice in 2010, valuing the freehold at £111.6m – a £13.8m increase on the 2007 valuation. Friends Provident, which currently owns the freehold, has argued that the claim should be struck out given that Westbrook already abandoned its earlier claim. Giving his judgment last month, Mr Justice Arnold said that although enfranchisement laws allow the bringing of successive claims for enfranchisement, they do not allow the bringing of successive claims to be entitled to exercise the right to collective enfranchisement.

“I recognise that it is a strong thing to prevent a party from obtaining the court’s determination of what is accepted to be a reasonably arguable claim. However, Westbrook had a full opportunity to obtain the court’s determination in the previous proceedings, by bringing the previous claim, Westbrook caused Friends Provident and the courts to expend time and resources to deal with the claim. It chose to discontinue that claim shortly before trial. In my view, it both could and should have pursued that claim to trial to establish the entitlement of special purpose vehicles to exercise the right of collective enfranchisement if it wanted to maintain that entitlement.”

The High Court ruling is that the claim to use enfranchisement laws in relation to the 1,250-flat block “amounts to an abuse of process” and must be “struck out”, however on Monday afternoon, Mr Justice Arnold granted Westbrook permission to appeal the decision because the case raised an “issue of principle” that should be determined by the Court of Appeal.

Further Reading:

Who are the winners at dolphin square?

Westbrook given leave to appeal for Pimlico’s Dolphin Square freehold

Pimlico Estate Agent Douglas Gordon has sparked controversy, and gone viral with a controversial video about estate agents which has featured in the Daily Mail. It is a grossly unflattering film that shows estate agents as their many detractors would imagine them – as obnoxious, sleazy, unprincipled louts.

 

Douglas Gordon are one of the top agents in London, so the film is unlikely to damage their reputation, nevertheless the reaction to the film hasn’t been to recognise it’s intention – as a spoof – but to recognise the stereotyped characteristics as being a genuine documentary. Who knows how this will play? Nevertheless the Property Industry should be alarmed at the number of people who look at what is intended to be a spoof & say “that’s just like my agent!”.

London Armageddon

I avidly follow Property Journalist Graham Norwood (click picture for his blog) and yesterday he examined what it would take for the London Property Bubble to burst. I thought that I would take his premise and apply it to Pimlico.

The top end of the housing market is where it is currently at with developers & agents vying to beat the benchmark £6000/sq ft set by Candy & Candy.  Pimlico has never been in that market – for reasons unknown. Pimlico’s location is second to none – as close or closer to any Central London destination as Mayfair, Chelsea, Kensington Pimlico only suffers from having a film about it by Ealing Studios instead of Julia Roberts. The properties tend to be Victorian terraces rather than Georgian or pre-war Mansion Blocks but the fact is that Pimlico is a secret bargain hidden from the Savills’  ”ubiquitous billionaires”. Knight Frank’s Private View magazine, described by the firm on Twitter as “full of the best properties available worldwide” actually has details of 32 London homes on sale…and only 24 from the entire rest of the planet, and none from Pimlico ………. Yay!

But what – in the darkest hours of the night when they might find themselves awake – do agents, developers and analysts fear might just possibly cause London to go belly-up? Graham Norwood asked 20 individuals from international and UK sales and letting agencies, what if…just what if…something was to happen.

The industry’s worries are simple, and three fold – Graham reports:

• Euro Crisis: “Frankly no one’s worried about Greece defaulting. But if that happens and leads to Italy and then Spain, that’s Armageddon. British exposure is so great, no one from overseas will want to invest here, and no one from here will be able to afford to invest” says one UK sales agency;
• Another 9/11: “So much of the London rental market is dependent on American corporate executives, a lot of harm would be done if they stopped flying” says one leading London lettings agency;
• More Civil Unrest: “I was in the US when pictures were shown of the London riots. Suddenly the UK became a no-go zone. If that happens again, on a larger scale, where is central London’s buyers and investors?” is the question of a leading developer.

In 1881, 2,000 people were living in Peabody Avenue, a mind-boggling density of three people per room. Today, the residents number 500. Space is not the only improvement. In the common areas of the block, there are some lovely moments. The two entrances are double-height, adding a note of grandeur. The staircases are in fair-faced concrete, and well-lit. Each flat is accessed from a communal deck, and there are great views across the train tracks to the west from these circulation areas. Large balconies face west, and are beautifully designed, with a warehousey, industrial aesthetic that feels appropriate to the building’s position next to a railway siding.at most of the mean ones tacked on to new apartment buildings today.

Laudable as the new development is, the fact remains that no one is making new land. If population density has reduced four fold then crude economics says that housing costs multiply by 4.

New Peabody Development

SafeAgent Logo

Both landlords and tenants are at risk from lettings agents and estate agents who disappear with rent and deposit money. A kitemark-style scheme has been launched to reassure tenants and landlords worried about losing money handed over.

Agents displaying the SAFEagent mark will already belong to a client money protection scheme operated by the National Approved Letting Scheme, the Association of Residential Letting Agents, the National Association of Estate Agents and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. These pay out in the event of the agent going bust or misappropriating money that has been handed over as a deposit or rent.

The scheme is backed by organisations including housing charity Shelter, the NUS,  the Trading Standards Institute, the Residential Landlords Association and the British Property Federation.

In practice landlords are more at risk from rogue agents than tenants – tenants need to ensure their money goes to the genuine owner of the property that they are going to live in, Landlords need to ensure that the business handling their money is protecting it in a client account rather than using it to fund their own activities.

Sue Bailey

Sue Bailey.

Look around you, and you see her footprint – she built this blog.  Admittedly doing a theme for a blog wasn’t stretching her talents, doing something that others don’t really understand wasn’t terribly difficult for a girl of her ability and achievements.

Girl – isn’t a derogatory term, it implies youth, vitality, enthusiasm, enjoyment, speed, fun, laughter. If you look around at the many eulogies being paid to Sue you’ll see that she was a bit of a girl, and she will laugh at that double entendre.

She did a first rate job for me, and I reflected this in the recommendation which I did for her on LinkedIn she really was an absolute pleasure to work with, and I found it difficult to write something that complimented her enough.

Sue is best known through the leading Website about eBay – Tamebay which she founded and was the technical whizz behind. You can see the depth of feeling about her on Tamebay - the professional sellers on eBay are a massive online community with annual conferences, “University Courses”, consultants, support firms, and Sue was a big cheese in these circles – respected, influential, and loved. Three characteristics that rarely settle in one person.

Property people will know her as the Marketing Manager for Upad, a job that she adored, in a company that she loved. She was a clever girl, but also had the rare ability to roll up her sleeves, get things done, and had a complete mastery of technology. She wasn’t at Upad long, less than 2 years, but as Upad say themselves they wouldn’t be where they are today without Sue’s huge contribution – they miss her intelligence, humour and killer heels! The true test of any boss, is what their staff say about them when they aren’t listening ……

To describe Sue as passionate would be doing her an injustice. She put her heart and soul into everything she did and would make it her personal mission to see it done.

She proclaimed herself to be my London mother and took me, as a scruffy shire-ling fresh on the plains of the big smoke, and turned me into a competent marketing professional, capable of stringing a paragraph together without her violating it with red pen. Her wicked sense of humour and insistence that gin was the lifeblood of the world propelled me through each day.

She was a fantastic boss and friend and will be sorely missed. I can only hope to make her proud in what I do from this point on.

It’s a shame that Sue wasn’t in the Property World longer as I believe that in 5 years she would be as famous and loved in Property as she is in eBay circles. I would like to end by quoting some words about Sue from the finest guest blogger that I have had the pleasure to host:

 

WHAT DO YOU MOST LIKE ABOUT YOUR JOB?
It’s hard to pick “most like” because there are days when I feel like my to-do list looks like this. I work with an utterly amazing team of people who are not only brilliant at their jobs, but are inspiring on a personal level too. Plus I get paid to play on the internet.

DESCRIBE YOUR PERFECT DAY OFF.
After grapefruit and champagne for breakfast, me and my camera go out to play round some old bits of London. I spend the afternoon in the park with my two-year-old nephew (his mum sends us outside because we both have trouble remembering to use our indoor voices). In the evening, I meet friends for a few beers by the river.

Written by Sue @ Upad 

Image via Wikipedia

An article in Property Week reports that the officer responsible for Westminster City Council’s investment properties has been suspended pending an internal investigation – for legal reasons the details of the allegations are not reported, although the officer is named as Alistair Rudd, one of the council’s most senior employees.

Rudd has been responsible for several significant property and lease disposals for the council:

• The sale process for North Wharf Gardens, the former site of North Westminster Community School, under offer to Zog Group for around £120m.
• Westminster council’s car parks disposals, which included the sale of Chiltern Street Car Park in Marylebone.
• Deciding on an occupier for Old Marylebone Town Hall.

Image via Wikipedia

Affordable Housing in Westminster – a brilliant way to start a Pimlico Blog, does it mean Westminster, the local authority, or Westminster that remote fiefdom where decisions are made and passed down? Well on this occasion it’s both.

The Slow Motion Train Crash – an allusion to transport, the thousands who will be leaving Central London for other places. In an earlier, and maybe greener, age Norman Tebbit famously told the unemployed to get on their bikes and find work, Grant Shapps has been wise enough not to utter the words “get on the train”, but that’s what 5000 from Westminster have to do (Westminster City Council May 2011). The Shapps-Pickles plan hasn’t been uniformly supported – referred to as “Kosovo-style social cleansing” by Mayor of London, and David Cameron’s likely successor as leader of the Conservative party, Boris Johnson.

Now whilst there were arguments on the table that the country could not afford our burgeoning Housing Benefit budget (now known as LHA)  it was difficult to resist the argument that cuts had to to be made regardless of the social consequences.  Hopes have been put forward that the Private Rented Sector (that’s private Landlords to you and me) would trim their rents to match the new LHA rates, however all the indications are that this particular straw is not to be clutched. Nevertheless the government has driven forward their policy, in the face of arguments that:

• the social cost to families uprooted from the areas where they had been born & bred would be enormous.
• the financial cost to local government in relocating services such as schools and health care wasn’t being factored in to the decision.

Over the weekend, and most extraordinarily, a leaked letter has emerged, sent from the DCLG to the office of the Prime Minister, setting out the concerns at the effects of the Government policy to cap total welfare benefit payments to any one household at £500 per week.  The letter confirms what critics of government policy have been saying:

• 20,000 families will become homeless from private sector accommodation.
• An additional 20,000 families will become homeless from the separate limits on housing benefit.
• The £270 million pa from 2013/4 savings in welfare benefits that the policy is projected to save will be exceeded by a substantial amount by the extra welfare costs that local authorities will have to bear.
• The stated aim of 56,000 new homes to be built for ‘affordable housing’ would fall short by 50% because of the welfare cuts.

Image via Wikipedia

Whilst it isn’t unusual for government policy to get things wrong, what seems unprecedented is the fact that the letter was written 6 months ago and made no difference to policy. The government is deliberately imposing a policy that it knows will be socially divisive, and of major cost to the public purse. What exactly is the purpose of this policy?

I can’t help wondering whether there are any parallels with the 1980s policies of Dame Shirley Porter who while leader of Westminster City Council oversaw the “Building Stable Communities” policy, later described as the “homes for votes” scandal. The thing is – what is Nick Clegg going to say when he realises that 40,000 Labour Party voters are being moved from Conservative to Liberal-Democrat Constituencies?

Full text of letter from the office of Eric Pickles
Unintended clarity from the DCLG