The Sunday Times April 24, 2022 7London. She and other residents on the
estate insist they did not know they were
buying leasehold houses. They strongly
believe that they should have been told
about the terms, such as time-limited
leases, maintenance charges and ground
rents, before they paid a reservation fee
in the sales suite. When the leaseholders
tried to contact their solicitor, three out
of the five firms nominated by DWH had
ceased trading within 12 months of the
completion of the estate.
Mike Carroll, who moved to Steinbeck
Grange in December 2008, said he also
instructed one of the recommended legal
firms after a sales manager told him he
would lose out on his home if he did not.
Carroll only realised he was signed into a
leasehold contract when he received a red
letter from the management company for
a bounced cheque he knew nothing about
12 months after moving in. He has
surveyed, petitioned and campaigned for
justice for the leaseholders ever since.
“This has been a living nightmare for so
many of the victims concerned and has
been like a second occupation to myself,
causing me both stress and anxiety and
time away from my family, which I won’t
get back,” he says.
Carroll bought his house on a 125-year
lease, but his neighbours just streets away
It was in the contract,
but it was written as
LH in tiny print, and
I only know that
because the CMA
told me
Main: residents
of Steinbeck
Grange, top.
Above left:
resident Barry
Dykes. Above
right: Mike
Carroll, centre,
with Dykes, left,
and Anthony
Spibey, another
residentwere sold the freehold to their houses.
Ian Kevitt, a 52-year-old retail buyer, said
he was on a waiting list for one of the
freehold houses, but he was offered a
discount and carpets if he went with
another four-bedroom house. Kevitt
instructed Halifax’s conveyancing
team, who offered to waive legal fees as
he had banked with them for years, but
the sales manager “was constantly
ringing me, saying [Halifax] weren’t
getting back to him and we were going
to lose the house”.
Kevitt was persuaded to switch to one
of the nominated firms and DWH offered
to cover the costs of him doing so. He
remembers the legal pack stated the
property was leasehold “but we were too
far down the line at that point and we had
already sold our other house. But I had
expected it to be freehold and I thought
they would have had an obligation to tell
you at the point of sale.” His conveyancing
took only five weeks.
Now he is stuck paying service charges
and he needs to ask for permission to
renovate his house. “It was a great house
and a good deal,” he says, “but they put
time pressure on us and we didn’t feel we
had time to get into it properly.”
Sharon Quinn-Saunders reserved a
house at Steinbeck Grange for her parents
and told them to use the same legal firm
they had instructed to sell their house in
Bedfordshire. Their lease term lasts for
999 years and their solicitor told them it
was a leasehold property. “But my
parents had already picked the kitchen
and paid £15,000 for an orangery by this
time,” says Quinn-Saunders, 52. “We had
been into the sales suite so many times
and no one mentioned it. It was in the
contract, but it was written as LH in tiny
print, and I only know that because the
CMA told me.”
told the developers Taylor Wimpey and
Countryside in March to scrap contract
terms that double ground rents every 10
or 15 years.
Ministers have pledged to ban
leasehold houses, but any new legislation
is likely to focus on new-builds so will not
help homeowners who have already
bought their homes.
The situation at Steinbeck Grange has
been brought before the House of
Commons by Warrington South MPs. The
latest is Conservative MP Andy Carter,
who was liaising with Barratt before the
CMA stepped in. He says: “Some of the
practices feel to me very dodgy after
speaking to solicitors in the town. We
have to clean this up. We can’t have this
for the most expensive purchase anyone
will make.
“Leasehold reform is important and
we have to look at what we can do
retrospectively to help people who are
living in places like Steinbeck Grange.”
A DWH spokesman said: “All of
David Wilson Homes’ leases are
designed and intended to be clear and
transparent, and all customers were
made aware of the leasehold nature of
the properties and any management
contracts prior to sale.
“We aim to provide all relevant
information to our customers at first
point of sale and through solicitors prior
to exchange of contracts. All customers
have access to independent legal advice
throughout the purchase process.”Her father died two years ago and
now her mum is “stressed” about
paying the charges on her own. “We
don’t know how we’re going to sell
because they know it’s leasehold now.”
Her father tried to buy the freehold to the
house, but “he kept getting battered
back” over six months, she says, and
DWH sold the land to “ground rent
specialists” Simarc.
When Carroll wrote to Natalie
Chambers, a director of Simarc, to ask
whether she knew that the residents were
in dispute with DWH when the company
bought the asset, she said she didn’t.
Chambers also wrote that, in December
2019, a lawyer representing DWH “asked
if we would be willing to sell back the
freehold reversion of Steinbeck Grange”
to “resolve the issue with residents”. She
said she would but “it appears DWH have
decided they no longer wish to pursue
this avenue”.
DWH disputes that it offered to buy
back the freehold from Simarc, but
confirmed that it had contacted the
company to discuss various options to
resolve issues that residents were raising,
including setting up a residents’
management company and varying the
leases. The ground rents are not
increasing and are set below 0.1 per cent
of open market value.
In February the government banned
housebuilders from selling new homes
with ground rents, but this is not set to
come into effect until June 30. The CMASETTING
OUT THE
RULES
lThe Solicitors
Regulation Authority
(SRA) accepts that
companies can be
recommended by
housing developers, but it
expects them to give
independent advice.l If a buyer is pressured
to instruct a certain
company, the solicitor is
expected to raise the
issue with the developer
and tell the buyer that
they are free to choose
another solicitor, then
take mitigating steps to
ensure they understand
what they are buying.lIf the legal company
has closed down, the
buyer can still make a
negligence claim because
legal firms should have six
years of professional
indemnity insurance.