JB Leitch and Chancery St James Horror Story

LeitchTheRobbers

All,

I'm not sure if anything can actually be done about this now, but I wanted to share with everyone an utter horror story, in which a debate over £200 has now cost me over £5,000 thanks to a disgraceful organisation called JB Leitch, along with a management agency, Chancery St James.

In 2007, I bought my first home, a purpose built flat, with ground rent. As youd expect, my solicitors handled all legal paperwork, including a name change on the lease for ground rent. Under the lease terms, this should have cost £17.63.

The agent dealing with this was Chancery St James.

After a year of living in the flat, CSJ contacted me for payment of £37.50 ground rent. In their communications, they also wanted to charge me £200 for the transfer of name on the lease, which should have been dealt with by my solicitor.

Upon this contact, I contacted my solicitor (who had retired), who advised me that they had had an ongoing dispute on this matter, and they didn’t believe CSJ had the right to charge the extra money, and advised I offer to pay the ground rent, but not any more than the £17.63 stated in the lease, which I duly did over the phone with CSJ.

This dialogue went on for several years. CSJ advised several times on the phone that that would not accept the ground rent until the other matter was settled.

In 2014, I then received contact from a third party called JB Leitch, who informed me that they had been appointed, and that I now owed them £1,531.00 to them. I had several rounds of dialogue with them, in which they provided no help, and were clearly just acting as a debt collector.

I spoke with an independent legal advisor through work, and spoke with Citizen Advice Bureau, both of whom advised they felt this agency was acting inappropriately, and that I again should reach out to CSJ to try and resolve this matter, to no avail.

Everything went silent, and I never heard from JB Leitch again, and the Mexican stand off between CSJ and I continued.

During all of this, I have moved out of the flat which I decided to rent, rather than sell, and given CSJ my new address, where we have corresponded. JB Leitch were also corresponding with me at this address, and they had my email and phone number.

Last week, I had a call from my tenant saying he had some post for me to collect. To my horror, I was greeted with a letter from JB Leitch, dated 11th October informing me that they had informed Reading court they wanted to take legal proceedings - this time for £5,028.19. We'd had no contact since 2014. There was also a court summons for 25th October, which I was again unaware of.

In parallel to raising this issue with the courts, they contacted my mortgage company also, stating they were serving a Notice of seeking possession, and that the court had ordered me to pay them money..... But no court case had taken place. It was scheduled for hearing on Wednesday 25th October, but had sent a notice to the bank, prior to any decision.

The bank sent a letter to advise action was needed, or they would pay this in 10 days. This was on the 17th October. I didn’t collect these letters until today, the 7th November, so all this happened with me unaware - despite JB Leitch and CSJ having my correct address. Unfortunately, the bank didn't - it was one I had missed off the list.

Speaking with the bank today, I have been informed this has been paid, but I don’t believe there was any court order, or legal grounds for them to do so.

Upon inspection of the documents, it appears the cost breakdown is flawed, with charges for taking this to court included, despite no hearing taking place, and a line in the witness statement saying they'd had no contact with me, when they had, which I have documented evidence of.

I am reaching out to LEASE, and will be reaching out to the Legal Ombudsman for advice, as well as informing my MP, Watch Dog and Rogue traders, but I would like to know of any other avenues anyone could recommend I explore - although judging by other similar posts, I assume I'm screwed.

If not, please all treat this as a warning - these lot are absolute scum, praying on the leasehold market. Please don't fall fowl the way I have.

bouicca21

Search the forum for posts about J B Leitch. You may find it instructive (even if it is too late to be of any help).

Alyssa1964

Hi.

I'm not sure whether you could win this, as they are experts in abusing their position and exploiting their legal know how.

You should report them to Solicitors Regulation Authority, and claim they are breaching the Code of Conduct because they are failing to "act with integrity" and abusing the trust of the public.

Refer the Principles of the Code.

haras_nosirrah

if your mortgage company didn't know your new address am I right to assume they didn't know you were letting the property.

If you have complained to the bank that you didn't get the letters because you no longer lived at the property and the bank thought you were living there that may also now come back to bite you.

I could of course be wrong in that you did have consent to let the property but then the bank would know your new address...

BrassicWoman

you did not pay the perfectly normal admin fee to get the lease transferred into your name?

So at the moment you do not even own the lease of the flat you are renting out?

You have bigger problems than ground rent.

mailmannz

We had a running war with JB Leitch over exactly the same thing as you, ground rent payments!

In the end, after years of arguing and threats to take me to court they did exactly what I thought they would do, nothing.

They tried the same games with me as they did with you, adding admin charges on top of non-existing ground rent fees etc. The only problem for them and leaseholder is they never issued invoices and instead went straight to final warnings (adding more admin fees of course) and when ever Id ask for a copy of the invoice everything would go quiet and the admin fees would be removed.

Sadly there are far too many cowboys like these guys in the property space.

[Deleted User]

This whole Leasehold / Freehold / Managing agent debacle needs a good shake up and reform, it is currently full of crooks.


I have had a similar horror story with rogue managing agents who weren't even licensed to be managing agents, its an opportunity to exploit money and that is all.


Good luck OP you are not alone.

Kat2018

Hello

Did you ever get anywhere with JB Leitch or chancery st James? I!!!8217;ve just received a court date for owing £120. I!!!8217;ve been trying to contact chancery st James throughout this whole process and they went into liquidation and even contacted the liquidators but could never speak to anyone or resolve the debt and now I have to go to court or settle out of court for £4000.

I am seeking legal advice for £4000 for £120 which I have tried to contact them about constantly but they never call back, email or answer the phone. I!!!8217;ve reveived no letters chasing payment or to let me know it would go to court first and now I have no idea what to do as they want to go to court to repossess my home and for the money.

Any advice from your experience with them would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

SJos

Oh my god..! I am literally just in the same position as you with CSJ Residential and J B Leitch. After reading your post, it seems this is some kind of money-making scheme that they have in place.

I've just had an extremely upsetting letter from them out of the blue demanding over £1300 from me, despite this dispute going on with my solicitors and CSJ. None of the solicitors dealing with my house purchase (which completed nearly 2 years ago) have ever been notified that a Notice of Transfer had to be sent to CSJ.

Have you had any resolution to this so far?

byronma

Looks like the Ghost of JB Leitch (Leech) lives on. I have just opened a letter today advising that I owe close to £4000.00 for a ground rent 'peppercorn' amount of £45.00. I did not get any letter to the effect of reminding me of payment. And, they somehow managed to get the letter for demanding the sum to my address.

The sum includes:
- administration cost,
-claimant cost of £3500.00, summarily assessed on the indemnity basis, whatever that means.
-unpaid insurance rent of £946.99 - which is news to me, as I own the property outright.

Rest assured I have contacted my solicitor, BBC Watchdog and the ombudsman alerting them to this fraudulent act. I shall be speaking with JB and Leech inc tomorrow to quietly advise of my appeal and I hope they do the right thing and back down.

salahban

I think we all need to join forces and take class action.
Bullying leaseholders MUST be stopped