You will be aware from the Spring Newsletter that Woodhill Properties Limited has offered to sell all of its freeholds to the Residents’ Association (failing which, they will sell to a commercial company). There have been a variety of adverse reports of such commercial organisations exploiting the position by making unreasonable and expensive demands of homeowners, threatening court proceedings etc. While some of us will have the freehold, there will have been covenants imposed which could be exploited (e.g excessive demands for approvals – such as a percentage of the increase in property value resulting from alterations).
The HCERA Committee has set up a small working party to look at the feasibility of acquiring the estate from Woodhill Properties Ltd and to make recommendations on how this should be managed.
All residents we have spoken to, say that the HCERA should acquire the freeholds. If we go ahead and create a company to do this, we would like to have a seamless transition from Woodhill Properties. But once we get down to practicalities, we encounter problems. The price is well within our reach, so we could invite donations from all residents to make the purchase. Alternatively, one or more residents could loan the money and then the income from the ground rents would initially be committed to repaying the money loaned. We could run the company at very little cost if there were residents willing and able to do this. Woodhill Properties Ltd has the expense of employing a firm of accountants and an agent. Glebe Court in Highfield is owned by a company limited by guarantee and the house owners are members. They employ a management company to be the company secretary, but the cost dwarfs the income from their ground rents. They like this arrangement because it is impersonal.
Please email us, or talk to your street rep to contribute your thinking. It will be on the agenda at the AGM.