Management Companies | Peverel OM

blowstar

Dire, direr and direst ... there are no adjectives severe enough to condemn this awful company which appears to operate hand-in-glove with Barratt, and cloaks its activities in obsfuscation and secrecy.

I phoned their Luton office yesterday to complain about our porter/parcels service, and the Estate Manager for my property sent a message via a secretary to say she would not be available by telephone for ten days.

Our service charges seem to rise by about 20% a year, without the slightest improvement to the service. The porters are universally lazy and inefficient, and we are also clobbered for ludicrous costs like several thousand light bulbs a year.

Our interior hallways need redecorating but, despite paying my service charges diligently since 2000, apparently there's no sinking fund to cover an of it.

Rubbish people, rubbish service. We have no opportunity to change managing agents because they are not appointed by residents' associations but by the Head Leaseholder (to whom we pay our ground rents) and we can't even find out who that it.

blowstar

footballcrazy wrote: »

Please take a look at our Forum, http://centurycourtwoking.forumup.com as you can see, we have issues with boilers and the inspection of flue pipes, which according to the latest Health&Safety Executive, TB200, should be inspected. However, there is no means to inspect the flue pipes, as Barratts never installed any accesses and Peverel's are refusing to do anything about it.
Does anyone else have this problem? It appears that gas boiler maintenance companies are starting to use this TB as a means to not service boilers and try to sell you a new one.

At our development, built in 2000/2001, we have a similar problem in that Barratt installed sealed-unit central heating systems from Powermax (now a Potterton-Baxi company) with internal flues so they could be put in the airing cupboards and not on an external wall. With only seven pipework connections, this is a cheap and easy solution for developers.

It's a notoriously tricky product, whose design has changed over the last few years, and some people died from Carbon Monoxide poisoning.

Now some of the boilers need replacement, the flue size requirement has changed for newer models, and we also have no means to access or inspect the flues.

Your (and our) best hope is probably a class action against Barratt under the NHBC guarantee, since they should have created access for flue inspections, but you have to do it within 10 years of construction.

Needless to say, Peverel OM will have nothing to do with it, referring us to our 'invisible' headlease holder, despite the fact they work for him/it.

One unfortunate neighbour was quoted £9,000 by British Gas to rip out the old flue and install a new larger diameter one to pass the current regulations - and including the removal of all her ceilings.

good luck!

carljackson

I "Googled" Peverel problems today, and cannot believe how many people are in the same boat.

I have already posted in another thread about this organisation.

In short, I have a detached coachhouse in Swindon, and have been charged for services and things I neither need nor use. I cannot believe how damn useless this firm is at sorting problems and how they are getting away with charging what they do.

I'm struggling to know what to do next, but am kind of glad I'm not the only one but really feel for everyone else in this frustrating situation.

Onwards with my journey to find out more!!!

MrLondon

Peverel are without doubt the worst company I've ever dealt with.

You know how there are a lot of awful companies out there, but they hide behind "have a nice day" customer services and feigned efficency? Not Peverel.

They are actually very aggressive in avoiding helping clients. They really don't care and they don't try and hide it. Their customer services will shout down the telephone (yes, really) to anyone even politely trying to pin them down to doing some work (like, for example, wanting a water leak fixed that is soaking 4 flats).

Our estate manager will not return calls from anyone, not even the head of the residents committee.

It's shameful Barrett are still dealing with them, this has been going on for decades.

MrLondon

bl001 wrote: »

I need some advise on a reposessed property i am close to exchange, managed by who know who(above).

There is an issue settling almost 8 months of rent/service charges which the seller is quite reluctant to settle.

I had this same problem when I bought a place run by Peverel. The seller was behind on the service charge and was reluctant to settle.

Peverel demanded the full amount for that payment period plus the outstanding payments on completion but "would not get involved in the allocation of who owed what". I very politely asked the woman who ran their customer services if she could give me a breakdown of what was owed and she immediately threatened to take me to court! (this was my first experience of their aggresion when you query or bother them).

I laughed and said "So you're going to take me to court over a property I don't own yet, over an unknown amount of money, and you won't even tell me who owes it? Do you think you have a case?"

She put the phone down!

Pollydolly_4

Dear Mr London - and all Peverel customers.

A specially dedicated website for people experiencing problems with Peverel, has been set up under the name Peverel Action. It is run by homeowners across the country in an attempt to unite estates and push for national action. The people running the site are working closely with a number of MPs to address this problem, and we would urge everyone experiencing problems to make contact with us via the site as soon as possible.
http://www.spanglefish.com/peverelaction/
In particular we are working with Jim Devine MP and Gordon Banks MPs, who are running an All Parliamentary Working Group into land maintenance and factoring companies - evidence about Peverel has been submitted to the APPG already - but we need more. The owners of the site are also in touch with customers experinecing problems with numerous other providers including Greenbelt Group, Solitiare, CPM Asset Management, Ethical Maintenance, Scottish Woodlands Limited, etc....
These companies can only continue to exploit us while we are all divided...
THE BIG MESSAGE ALSO IS CONTACT YOUR MP AND DEMAND THAT THEY JOIN THE ALL PARTY PARLIAMENTARY GROUP RUN BY JIM DEVINE. The group delivers its findings in April 2009, so we don't have much time to get them involved. Again, please contact us via Peverel Action - we look forward to hearing from you

lindesay_2

Does anyone have anything good to say about their management company? i.e. if you are with Peverel and get agreement to move to someone else, who should you move to?

zcacmxi

I've heard of Peverel. I once viewed a place and made an offer. I then found out the managment company was Solitaire Management (http://www.solitairepm.co.uk/).

A quick search showed they are a "Peverel Group Company", and disgruntled customers had set up: https://www.thetruthaboutsolitaire.co.uk

I found out that Leaseholders can all get together and take over management from the company. In this case the property was freehold, so I stayed away.

mrwrighton

I too own a flat in Swindon managed by Peverel and have had a shocking experience - ended up in a legal battle with them going on for over a year. If there was any possibility of replacing them with another firm I'd be happy to get involved with other residents.

carljackson wrote: »

I "Googled" Peverel problems today, and cannot believe how many people are in the same boat.

I have already posted in another thread about this organisation.

In short, I have a detached coachhouse in Swindon, and have been charged for services and things I neither need nor use. I cannot believe how damn useless this firm is at sorting problems and how they are getting away with charging what they do.

I'm struggling to know what to do next, but am kind of glad I'm not the only one but really feel for everyone else in this frustrating situation.

Onwards with my journey to find out more!!!

rob.hawthorn

I feel so strongly about Solitaire Property Management they are a terrible company. I couldn't even get through to anyone to pay a bill, you'd think they'd want to receive money but no.

Terrible service and bloated bills.

We requested the accounts from them and they couldn't provide any, we're in 2009 and they haven't even had the 2007 and 2008 accounts audited yet.

Avoid them at all costs. I think they should be on Watchdog.

Try the following:
allagents.co.uk/solitaire-property-management-ltd/ - 100% negative reviews, now that's an achievement
gopetition.co.uk/petitions/the-truth-about-solitaire-property-management.html
thetruthaboutsolitaire.co.uk/