6 April 24, 2022The Sunday Times
Home
S
ix months after moving into her
new home, Carolyn Bellers
received a bill for more than
£800 that she didn’t understand.
It was from Solitaire, a property
management company she had never
heard of, and it was for the maintenance
of communal carpets and lifts — but she
lived in a mews house.
“I just thought it was a mistake,” says
Bellers, a 46-year-old general manager for
a builder’s merchant. “At the end of the
road was a big block of apartments. When
I rang up they said, ‘Oh, yes, there’s a
mistake, that’s for the apartments.’ And we
sort of laughed about it and it went away.
Then they sent me an amended bill. And I
said, ‘You’ve sent me an amended bill’, and
they said, ‘Oh yeah, you still have a service
charge’.” That was when Bellers realised
she had bought a leasehold house. “I’ve
bought properties before. I’m not stupid or
a gullible person,” she says. “Sometimes I
look back and think, where did I go wrong?
But ultimately, I just wasn’t told.”
Bellers is one of 47 homeowners at
Steinbeck Grange, in Cheshire, who have
been interviewed by the Competition and
Markets Authority (CMA) after the
watchdog’s announcement that it was
investigating mis-selling by Barratt
Developments, Britain’s largest
housebuilder. The housing estate in
Chapelford, a suburb of Warrington, was
completed in 2010 and it was built by
David Wilson Homes (DWH), a brand
owned by Barratt. The CMA cannot
comment on an ongoing investigation but
it is due to report on its findings in the
next few months.
When Bellers was about to instruct her
usual legal firm to carry out her
conveyancing, she got a call from a
member of DWH’s sales team. “And he
said, ‘No, no, no, that’s not possible. If
you want to reserve this house you have
to use one of our five recommended
solicitors’,” to complete by the three-
month deadline. She assumed this was
simply how buying new-build property
worked and instructed one of the
recommended firms.
When Bellers drove down to the office
to exchange contracts “it was absolutely
in disarray. It was covered in boxes. I said,
‘What’s going on?’ And they said, ‘Oh,
we’re ceasing trading, but don’t worry,
your stuff is going to be dealt with.’ ”
Twelve years later, Bellers is struggling
to sell her house so lets it out and rents inSTITCHED UP BY THE
SMALL PRINT
Homeowners on a
new-build estate
thought they were
buying freeholds —
until hefty service
charges rolled in
MELISSA
YORK
@melyorkLORNE CAMPBELL/GUZELIAN