Fergus Wilson Genius or a Couple of Sandwiches short of a Picnic You Decide

DTDfanBoy

Just stumbled upon this little gem of a thread on Property Tribes and though it deserved to be shared

http://www.propertytribes.com/fergus-wilson-what-will-do-get-your-property-t-12377.html

It provides an interesting insight into the mind of the Legendary Fergus Wilson.

So is this guy a genius that deserves his riches, is he a simpleton who got lucky, or something in between, discuss _party_

BobQ

I still do not know what you are talking about.

DTDfanBoy

BobQ wrote: »

I still do not know what you are talking about.

You mean you've never heard of Fergus Wilson, back to your hovel peasant

Generali

DTDfanBoy wrote: »

Just stumbled upon this little gem of a thread on Property Tribes and though it deserved to be shared

http://www.propertytribes.com/fergus-wilson-what-will-do-get-your-property-t-12377.html

It provides an interesting insight into the mind of the Legendary Fergus Wilson.

So is this guy a genius that deserves his riches, is he a simpleton who got lucky, or something in between, discuss _party_

I'd say somewhere in between.

He's made a lot of money so he's clearly doing something right. Buying so many very similar properties in a single area is horrible from a risk management point of view though.

Running_Horse

Fantastic wealth does not seem to have made him content. People who are happy with their lot tend not to pick up violent criminal convictions later in life. If it were me I would sell up and enjoy my retirement well out of the media spotlight, but he seems to want to be someone. I fear we have plenty more entertainment to come from the boorish oaf.

michaels

Generali wrote: »

I'd say somewhere in between.

He's made a lot of money so he's clearly doing something right. Buying so many very similar properties in a single area is horrible from a risk management point of view though.

On the other hand perhaps he spotted the opportunity to be an unregulated local utility? Generally if you are the only supplier of an essential service in a location you are subject to price regulation, think water but he has found a loophole. Plus he may have pricing power when it comes to local property values, again without the monopolies commission taking any interest....

Generali

michaels wrote: »

On the other hand perhaps he spotted the opportunity to be an unregulated local utility? Generally if you are the only supplier of an essential service in a location you are subject to price regulation, think water but he has found a loophole. Plus he may have pricing power when it comes to local property values, again without the monopolies commission taking any interest....

Fair point. The fact that you can go a few minutes down the road and get a non-Wilson place means that it's not much of a monopoly IMHO.

I wonder if he is as much of an unpleasant man as he appears to be in the papers. The newspapers can basically turn anyone into a pantomime villain. From what I've read I'd not do business with him. He comes across as the sort that would dig up the rose bushes and take out all the light bulbs or try to get a few grand off the selling price on the day of exchange of contracts.

Running_Horse

Very strange, if written by the great man himself.

RE: Fergus Wilson, what will you do when you get your property monies?

Thank you for the Confidence!


Dear Paul,

Thank you for your Confidence in me. The role of Housing Czar has been raised before and I have pointed out that I would only take on the job on a salaried basis from HMG at a rate five times the Prime Minister's Salary. I am still awaiting my invitation to dine at No 10 from David! He clearly is not reading Property Tribes!

There is a bit of a similarity with the recent bits of advice I receive from Man of Kent, Giles Peaker, not Parker.

To Property Tribes readers Read and Learn or of watching PTTV listen and learn.

I am disappearing under a Snowstorm of letters from Local Authorities about tenants called Kovacs. One moves out and another moves in. At one house we had three on the trot!

I had a tenant called Lisa Cooper followed by another called Lisa Cooper. Both about the same age and similar build, hair etc. Both were good tenants! However, there was the recipe for confusion! You can rely you will hear from a number of utilities, gas, electric, foul water, fresh water; cannot buy another BTL property. This is a gun to your head, illegal and so on but the Police will not involve themselves as they have no money to investigate.

Action Fraud is useless. It is a Recording Body set up by the Government and not an Investigating Body. When I meet with Dave I will raise it with him! Of course it is Harassment and we can thank Lisa Ferguson for all she achieved on landlords' behalf.

I do not know where she lives but there ought to be one of those blue plagues outside her house. Indeed they built a memorial to Ms Donoghue of Donoghue v Stevenson fame. Lisa Ferguson is more important to landlords but I have found Donahue and Stevenson of much benefit in the past albeit more recently I turn to the Contracts Act (Third Parties Rights) 1969.

If it sounds like a landlord needs a Ph D in law well do not worry you do not! Learn Fast and use the Internet to look these things up.

What you will find is nothing is written in tablets of stone! Very important when meeting with Dave!

In 2007 we were all set for A day! Then the Politicians changed their mind! Learn the Lesson never, never, never rely on what Politicians tell you. A week is a long time in Politics and a Day is a long time for Fergus Wilson and other large scale landlords. Things change by the second!

I will be on my way to a meeting, receive a telephone call, and have to divert to another missing the first meeting.

In three separate days in the past three weeks it has resulted in my making £400,000 each time. Learn. Divert. Some may find it erratic behaviour but it is financially savvy behaviour.

If you need a Solicitor then perhaps you are better off with a Direct Access baby barrister with five years call. I always use Direct Access barristers. Take a tip it is cheaper.

You can insure and if you have just one house then do insure but if you have a large portfolio then you are better off underwriting it yourself.

You mention leaving the Kent PCC job and focusing on a "Czar" role as more important. The people of Kent do it see it that way!

I should point out that many in Kent would like to see me as the Directly Elected Mayor of Kent. Punching Mr Wells is not a disqualification! They see the role of PCC and Directly Elected Mayor of Kent as going hand in hand!

Kent is seeking Devolution. The Council Leader, Paul Carter, has no ambition to be Directly Elected Mayor of Kent.

Paul Carter should have bee the current Prime Minister and would have been had a fellow Tory Party Member not knived him in the back! I knew he was not getting the nomination long before he knew. Paul Carter is a Landlord by the way!

I have no ambitions to be the Directly Elected Mayor of Maidstone.

Giles Peaker will understand that it is sometimes unpleasant to have an unusual time. When young Fergus was unusual in Southern England and many playground scrapes followed. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your view point, I became quite skilled in hitting other boys. That is nothing to be proud of but it did help me through University via Professional Boxing gyms. It made me who I am and all those who know me from the past say if I had beat up Mr Wells he would be very severely marked. But he was not! No suggestion of any injury. There was an eye witness who when being examined by the Judge did say she did not see my fist connect with Mr Wells, as the transcript confirms, and did Mr Wells confirm again evidenced by transcript. P C Petty said he had a Witness Report from Mr Wells saying I punched him in the face but Mr Wells denied making such a report.

Down in Kent we call such things Porkies being an abbreviation of Porky Pies - lies. I await the outcome of P C Petty's report with much interest!

Now I did nothing about it as it made little difference to me at the time. I did not appeal and did not fancy a trip to London.

It now is held to be written in tablets of stone. However if Giles does his homework he will find a large number of cases where I have represented myself in the County Court Multi Track, the Upper Property Chamber, the High Court and so on and succeeded with my Appeal.

These are all property related and the reports can be found on the Internet. What they show is that nothing is in Tablets of Stone and can be overturned even years later when out of time.

They were all on Points of Law! The Law seemed crystal clear! However, I thought it was wrong and it was not what was intended from the correct construction of the Act. It seemed to argue against itself.

The First Tier (then LVT) made a ruling against me but in so doing said that from the reading of the Act Mr Wilson did not have a case. However, it was a matter of National Importance and if Mr Wilson were mindful to Appeal it to the Property Chamber (now Upper Chamber) the panel would be mindful to grant Leave to Appeal!

Well it cannot be more clear than that can it? The Law says one thing but perhaps it is wrong!

How would Lord Denning's reasonable man look at it? (Sorry I should say Reasonable Person but live in the past).

He would say something is wrong with the law. Better change the Law! And that is what happened. It has now become Case Law!

If you are in property in any meaningful way you will come across "Rip Off Britain" in its many forms. The most common being poor communication between sections of Local Authority or perhaps the Police.

When convicted the District Judge in the Magistrates Court was a very nice man and did say you are a person of previously good Character meaning I had reached the age of an OAP at 65 without being in any trouble with the Police,

I seem to have beat up a man half my age at age 31 without leaving a mark on him!

There is no medical evidence but I think you did because you swore at him. I was not summonsed for swearing at him, which I admitted, and which turns out not to be a Criminal Offence anyway. (I thought it was but it turned out it was not).

What was the reaction of the Public. All most supportive! I do not try to belittle punching someone in the face but merely I did not. However, I was convicted. A very minor miscarriage of Justice I have it and I agree with Eric Cantona - Much ado about Nothing!

Of course it is a matter of Public Interest so we have a media presence! I can do no more than quote Eric Cantona - Seagulls often follow trawlers in the hope of catching Sardines - so it hit the press and internet!

If a man punches someone in the face it is assault! He will normally be offered a Caution! A Caution does not disqualify you from being a PCC. However, if the man refuses a Caution and exercises his civil right to go to Court and is convicted then we have the situation that on the one hand the crime is not a disqualification and on the other hand it is.

For those not too well up on the Law if you accept a Caution it is an admission of guilt.

To this we must add the hit and miss approach of different Police Forces. Jeremy Clarkson and David Moyes accepted their guilt but were both released without any Caution, Eric Cantona accepted a Caution, and I was convicted. Of the four I was the "beating" with the least severity in fact non existent.

Why the case got that far when the Kent Police guidelines are Do not Prosecute unless there is photographic evidence is a matter we shall have to await P C Petty's Review for.

These matters do not help the Police in their Public Image.

I make these points as Landlords need to grasp that in property matters there will always be these cases where it is written in tablets of stone and can never be altered and then sometime later they are.

In Kent at the moment we hear much annoyance with planners who 25 years ago said there will never be and houses built on a given site and 25 years later it is covered in houses! Forget the lawyers, the first thing is to shoot the planners!

I appealed 11 times on 11 applications for a Certificate of Lawful Development and I succeeded 11 times. Why? Planners said it is written in tablets of stone! We do not think a CLD should be granted. However the Property Chamber said it is a question of law. Have a look at the wording. The issue is.. Is it Lawful not do you think it is a good idea?

I now turn to a house in Maidstone where the 1st Tier Property Chamber found against the Council and Quashed the Council's Notice. I represented myself and succeeded again on a Point of Law!

A Managing Agent sent 29 County Court summonses and spent £28,000 and the Judge said you are trying to teach Mr Wilson a lesson! I succeeded and the Agent was sacked by the house owners who are now trying to recover their £28,000. Take a tip. Before you get a bee in your bonnet make sure you are not perceived to be the wrongdoer!

I will spare you the rest. Essentially if the point of law seems wrong then do not rely on it!

You cannot have a double standard whereas a Caution does not disqualify but a conviction does. The law needs amending on this point.

I now turn to your points:-

I am crystal clear that PSL want me to do the job. Then whatever Body has to persuade David Cameron to that view. That is the key to all this.

David Cameron is there for five years! There is no effective opposition for the lefties! The Labour Party has pressed the Self Distruct button, Liberals have eight MPs and the Greens and ULIP are off the map. Nothing is happening for five years.

The Landlord package needs to be sorted out. Very soon 25% of houses will have Private Sector Landlords (PSL). About 53% will be owner occupied and 22% Social Housing.

All the new houses will be funded by the Private Sector. David needs us. David loves us! He cannot do without us! We all need to know where we are.

Arrange a meeting with the PRS and George Osborne and next door neighbour. Remember they are only AST tenants but think they have Lifetime Tenancy!

You sat the PCC lacks credibility! I will not be drawn on the Publicity the present PCC of Kent has had!

I acknowledge however that many share your viewpoint!

I will ask Venessa Warwick to set up a TV interview between myself and David Cameron.

Regards,


Fergus Wilson
9th August 2015

Generali

Peculiar. 10.

chucknorris

Generali wrote: »

I'd say somewhere in between.

He's made a lot of money so he's clearly doing something right. Buying so many very similar properties in a single area is horrible from a risk management point of view though.

That is exactly my take on it, IMO the things that he did 'wrong' were:

1. Limited his property portfolio to one small area, this introduces problems when you want to sell up.

2. He was still buying property when he was so (equity) rich, that he would not be able to spend further profits, why continue to take on risk, when you can't spend what you can make from new investments? I think at this time he wasn't thinking, he was just running on auto pilot. Given his/their age, I think it would have been better to plan a (more than) comfortable stress free life for their remaining years. But of course people are motivated differently, and you can't impose your wants/needs onto other people.

But he has pulled it off, but it did look very dodgy for him around 2008/9. If he has got any sense he will have realised that he took on too much risk when he didn't need to, his upside was virtually nothing, but his downside was huge, and it nearly became reality.

caronoel

DTDfanBoy wrote: »

Just stumbled upon this little gem of a thread on Property Tribes

So is this guy a genius that deserves his riches, is he a simpleton who got lucky, or something in between, discuss _party_

Rarely have I seen such petty minded jealousy in a post

If he really is a simpleton, why is he wealthy beyond your wildest dreams when you live in a rented one room bedsit?

good to see that you are reading Property Tribes, perhaps you could learn a few things from them on how to make money from property.

Jealousy is deeply unattractive