Experience with Homeground Management Ltd

Juliem61

My daughter is buying an apartment. Sadly, Homeground collect the ground rent and the sale has completely stalled due to their complete lack of communication. It seems that there is no way of moving forward without telephone contact details.

How can this company be allowed to operate in this fashion? If anyone has contact details for this company please pass them on.

lsh1007

I can't post any contact info on here unfortunately but I can tell you what I did...

I Google searched a variety of different factors (it took hours!) including things like "name of Homeground Management Limited CEO".

Eventually I found a thread that published the email address of the CEO which gave me the prefix for all emails to actual people at Homeground which is @ home ground online .com (note it is actually all one word when you do email - I just can't publish full addresses on here for some reason!).

Then I went on to LinkedIn and searched Homeground Management Limited and a whole host of employees came up - account managers etc. Based on the format of the CEO's email address (which looked like initials followed by @ home ground online .com - all one word) I took a guess at as many email addresses as possible and emailed them all directly - including the CEO!

This was at 11pm on Monday night (24 September) and I had a response from a real person with the information I needed before 9am on Tuesday (25 September).

You can also get the CEO email and a telephone number if you go on to fsa.gov.uk and search under 'Financial Services Firm Search' and enter 621900 - Homeground Management Limited.

Unfortunately the site won't let me post full email addresses etc but I hope what I've said makes sense so you can try it yourself. I just hope I don't need to speak to them again!!

Good luck!

arollason

Hi there,

I'm in exactly the same boat, Homeground have forwarded my unpaid bill to their solicitors and ramped up a £112 bill up to £557. No bills from them were received apart from one saying they were taking legal action for non payment and then then the solicitors letter less than a week later. These tactics surely can't be legal. Any advice about what I should do would be more than welcome!

arollason

Please please has anyone taken Homeground to court? There are loads of people who have had problems with them, but not person has shared any resolution or outcome. I'm desparate!

andrew

Bubbles18

Andrew see my post above.

We were taken to court by Homeground (at our request) as we knew they didn't have a leg to stand on.


The judge dismissed their case with no grounds for appeal and totally ripped into their solicitor for how incompetent their administration of our account had been and how useless their evidence was.

Givemeaeak

HELP!!


Redrow - the house builders recently sold the leases to a new company. Prior this we have NEVER been billed for Ground Rent. All of a sudden this company - Home Ground have sent me and other residents backdated bills for £600. It should a be noted that not all property owners of the flats have received this backdated bill. They have backdated the Ground Rent to the time period when Redrow owned the land but they themselves never billed us for it as they don't have a department to do that - we've asked and this was their reply.


Home Ground have responded to my email but not answered my questions. They have offered no option to pay in instalments and have instead threatened me with legal proceedings if I do not pay. I do not have £600 to hand.


They do not answer any questions directly just make grand statements about how they are right and state a load of legal jargon.


Where do I go with this???


Surely I cannot be made to pay something that was never billed for in the first place. Then again I'm not shocked that the land was sold without indemnity for us innocent residents. Redrow are absolute cowboys too...


HELP!!!

Bubbles18

Have you got your contract? Check it and read it, see what is said about ground rent.


Unfortunately the land owner can request payment backdated 6 years, so double check the years they are claiming for.


If they are claiming the money for Redrow - try speaking with them and come to an agreement?


Check their demands for ground rent are correct - they have to be word for word as per the government template and they have to contain a summary of the landlords rights and obligations - without that they are not legally binding and this may buy you some time to come up with the funds in the event they do legally request the money.


If everything has been requested properly (happy to have a look through the docs if you PM them to me) then you wont have much choice I'm afraid.

kathm

Bubbles18, Thanks for your helpful posts. It's pleasing to note that you 'ripped them a new one' in court. I am going to challenge them to take me to court, however can you confirm what legal route you / they took? Was it through First tier tribunal property chamber?
If I challenge them, which I fully intend to do, it would be useful for me to use the correct threat! Thanks in Advance

kathm

To those of you worrying about threats from Homeground and their solicitors, it is useful to note that an individual had their day in court and won. They made a successful challenge to the 'variable admin and legal fees' in the first tier tribunal property chamber.


Case Ref CAM/12UG/LSC/2015/0026. Applicant Duncan Simpson vs Respondent Homeground Management Limited & Abacus Land.


Further info on Lease Advice website (tribunal decision page). (search for Homeground). Sorry I can't post the url.

Bubbles18

Hi kathm,


At the time we were unaware of the first tier tribunal route so we went through county court, instigated by their solicitors (although we did request it to be moved to 1st tier tribunal once we found out about it, but that was never acknowledged).


Our defence was on many fronts, but primarily rested on the fact that we never received any written communication from them apart from the notice of legal action and that when asked for copies of documentation, we noted that the leaseholders notice of rights and obligations were missing and so all documentation supposedly sent was not legally binding anyway.


Judge found in our favour in both regards.