Experience with Homeground Management Ltd

Hateforgomeground

We must collaborate and get as many as possible to join this forum at change.org and voice our absolute DISGUST with these filthy robbing scammers!!
We have to start the ball rolling and begin HITTING BACK at these PUNKS!!
I think approaching WATCHDOG and/or PANORAMA is an absolutely fantastic idea!!
Has anyone on here alerted Trading Standards or the Financial Ombudsman to the presence of these DIRTY STINKING COWBOYS??
This abuse of leasehold landlords and property owners cannot be allowed to continue!! WE WILL NOT TOLERATE IT!! :mad:
Trinity Estates were a billion times better to deal with than these USELESS and DISGRACEFULL rip off merchants when they were responsible for collecting my ground rent!!
Why oh why did you have to sell my Leasehold to Homeground??
Anyone but Homeground!! :(:(:(

westernpromise

sandsailor3 wrote: »

I have just had major issues with this company as well.
My ground rent was due at the beginning of January and yes i admit i completely forgot about it.
However what i find hard to accept is that today i receive two letters, one dated 4th February saying my balance was overdue and the other dated 25th February saying its not with their solicitors.
I call the solicitors and explain that yes i had forgotten about it and that although i received the letters, both only arrived today.
They say no problem, your ground rent was £125 but now i owe £537 as it is "severely overdue".
How is it ethical to for this to happen, i did not dispute the fact i had forgotten about it but had only received the reminder and notice of action yesterday.
I asked if they would allow me to pay it off in two instalment, the answer was no.
The only options i were given was pay now or go to court and they will apply for it to be added to my mortgage.
This company really needs to re evaluate its morals, ethics and customer service.
Needless to say i have contacted them via the only way possible and emailed them through their online portal stating that in future any written correspondence they wish to send to me should be done so by recorded delivery and that if it isn't then they can assume that anything they do send has not been received thereby avoiding the same thing happening again.
I am waiting for their reply and see what they have to say.

I can't help with this except to relate that a few years ago my brother died. I was his executor and Homeground were the management company of his block.

They did the same trick of sending him a letter demanding in effect a fine because ground rent was overdue. I replied to say he had been unable to pay because he had died, and that they'd have to wait awhile for payment as a dead person cannot pay and I didn't as yet have control of his estate (i.e. probate).

Their lawyers didn't give a !!!!, they still demanded their fine.

My probate solicitor wrote them one of those lawyers' letters that while icily polite is actually rude, in which he wondered how far they thought they'd get with this one in court.

They lowered their demand to £50, but they didn't drop it at all and remain scum in my view. Everyone else I had to deal with, at a pretty distressing time, was spectacularly helpful and tactful, even Tower Hamlets Council of whom I had low expectation.

The bit of your post that I've bolded doesn't work, I'm afraid. First you will have signed up to their terms which will stipulate how they communicate, and secondly, I believe courts take the view that if someone sends a letter in duplicate in separate envelopes by normal post, you received the letter.

This is also why, when dealing with borderline criminals such as bailiffs and Homeground, you are best advised to keep the envelopes as well as the letters. You may later need to show to a court that two letters dated 3 weeks apart were in fact posted by them on the same day.

Nevern

sandsailor3 wrote: »

I have just had major issues with this company as well.
My ground rent was due at the beginning of January and yes i admit i completely forgot about it.
However what i find hard to accept is that today i receive two letters, one dated 4th February saying my balance was overdue and the other dated 25th February saying its not with their solicitors.
I call the solicitors and explain that yes i had forgotten about it and that although i received the letters, both only arrived today.
They say no problem, your ground rent was £125 but now i owe £537 as it is "severely overdue".
How is it ethical to for this to happen, i did not dispute the fact i had forgotten about it but had only received the reminder and notice of action yesterday.
I asked if they would allow me to pay it off in two instalment, the answer was no.
The only options i were given was pay now or go to court and they will apply for it to be added to my mortgage.
This company really needs to re evaluate its morals, ethics and customer service.
Needless to say i have contacted them via the only way possible and emailed them through their online portal stating that in future any written correspondence they wish to send to me should be done so by recorded delivery and that if it isn't then they can assume that anything they do send has not been received thereby avoiding the same thing happening again.
I am waiting for their reply and see what they have to say.

Hello, I am currently having the exact same experience with Homeground and JB Leitch their bulldog of a solicitor. We paid late last year after our tenant "Forgot" to forward on the letters from Homeground, after informing them at the time that they need to send it to our home address (and receiving no response), we have been caught out again this year. This year however, unlike the £45 fee we had to pay last year the fees have now escalated from £150 to £562 in a matter of 10 weeks!


I have sought advice from several ombudsmen (Financial/property/housing) as well as seeking advice on whether the practice of their solicitor is entirely above board. It seems there is nobody regulating this area and so nobody to turn to. They have sent over evidence of letters that my tenant swears have never arrived.


Please let me know if you have had any success with your pursuit, the aggressive and disproportionate escalation of the demand (now close to 4 times the original amount) must surely be underhand? It's certainly immoral.


I am looking to write to them to appeal to their better nature however I have appointed a solicitor to write to them if that fails. Best of luck!

WeeBob

How about reporting this to the police? I'm still awaiting an invoice for ground rent for the past 2 years. I'm sure when it arrives the numbers will be wrong and not in my favour. Go to your local station and ask if they can take statements to be passed onto the City of London police who have (so I'm led to believe) a dedicated fraud unit for business' and the likes.


I'm not taking any more cra p from these punters. I'm waiting for them to contact me as that's what the law says I can do. My lease states nothing about fees. If they cant quantify their charges and use threats of court etc then this is surely a criminal matter. I'll complain to the police and they can investigate.

d_p_s

I also have negative experience of Homeground, unfortunately I don't have any choice in the matter. They never even sent me a bill with the correct ground rent, instead they added an extra charge to it (which is illegal, unfair trading, etc).

I would suggest either paying them the proper amount and a covering letter saying their extra is not due or making a direct payment to the landlord. If you do the latter it might be a good idea to tell them that you have done so. While home ground won't tell you the landlord's name and address spending £3 at the land registry's website will.

If they send me an incorrect bill again then they will get a letter give them 8 weeks to get it right before I pay the landlord and attempt to make a formal complaint about their business practice. If enough people do this then OFT will hopefully take action.

I will, of course, suggest that the landlord terminate homeground's contract as soon as possible and hide somebody that treats customers fairly and does not violate the law. If anybody wishes to bring a class action law suit against this outfit then I would be willing to be part of it.

WeeBob

d_p_s wrote: »

I also have negative experience of Homeground, unfortunately I don't have any choice in the matter. They never even sent me a bill with the correct ground rent, instead they added an extra charge to it (which is illegal, unfair trading, etc).

I would suggest either paying them the proper amount and a covering letter saying their extra is not due or making a direct payment to the landlord. If you do the latter it might be a good idea to tell them that you have done so. While home ground won't tell you the landlord's name and address spending £3 at the land registry's website will.

If they send me an incorrect bill again then they will get a letter give them 8 weeks to get it right before I pay the landlord and attempt to make a formal complaint about their business practice. If enough people do this then OFT will hopefully take action.

I will, of course, suggest that the landlord terminate homeground's contract as soon as possible and hide somebody that treats customers fairly and does not violate the law. If anybody wishes to bring a class action law suit against this outfit then I would be willing to be part of it.

Good advice. I too am looking into just paying the landlord directly. Then hopefully it would show these idiots up and hopefully contracts will get cancelled.


This leasehold thing is an unregulated area of business, but as for their lap dog solicitors, JB Leitch, if they try any tricks with me in the future, they will most certainly earn themselves a complaint to the SRA.

BRM777

Does anyone have a phone number for these guys?

I'm trying toget info needed to sell my flat and they're not replying to email!

Thanks

leethepotter

I'm currently in the same boat as many others here. I don't live in my flat and unfortunately rarely get letters when they arrive,

For a debt of £225 I have been charged a total of £895 which my mortgage provider paid before I even knew anything about it.

I have been in contact with the horrific solicitors that are JBLeitch over the unfairness of the whole thing. And then today I have been served with a further bill of £545 for a £150 ground rent bill that is 6 weeks overdue (which I mistakenly thought was included in the previous bill, so in total I've been charged around £1400 for bills that should have totalled just £375.

Has anyone had any success with taking either Homeground or JBLeitch on?!? I'd happily fight them but do t think I have a leg to stand on.

LJS2014

I am in the process of selling my flat, the land owner had recently changed and we were waiting to be advised of the company who would collect 2015's ground rent. I had arranged with the buyer that I would pay across the funds owing for the ground rent as the new company had still not been advised. Last week I received a letter from Home Ground advising they would now be in charge of collecting these funds and giving me a deadline to pay them by. I wanted to call them to find out what their handover procedure was etc. Then I found this thread and now understand why I can't get hold of them!

Now I am thinking I will just register the online account, pay the ground rent and print a receipt proving I paid the fee and hand all the details over.

One thing I did find strange about their letter to me - they sent me a letter dated 29.05.2015 advising me their registered address had changed in March 2014 - just a typo maybe but don't know why it would be included.

Good luck to everyone having issues with them, from reading your issues I am hopeful this will be the first and last time I deal with them.

J13jnm

In need of help.

My solicitor and I have been trying desperately to get a response from this company but with anything other than an automated response. I am trying to sell my flat and cannot get a statent of account for the ground rent. Can anyone help were supposed to be completing next Friday.:mad: