My Management Company wants to bring in CPM

The_Deep

Over my dead body.

We have a new MA, Parkgate Aspen, (read the reviews).

https://www.allagents.co.uk/parkgate-aspen/

I warned the Directors that they were bad news.

Here is my opening shot (in draft), comments welcome.

I note from the Branagh Court Newsletter that you are recommending to the Directors that well known scammers, CPM be appointed to “manage” our car park.

I think t this would be most unwise, contrary to the best interests of residents, and possibly an offence under the Landlords and Tenants Acts. Sit Greg Knight is progressing a Private Members Bill in the House of Commons to regulate private parking companies. My I suggest that you watch the debate and read Hansard about these companies. I have included the relevant links below.

Once a Private Parking Company, (PPC, has eliminated rogue parking , they invariably target residents for minor infringements of their often unlawful terms and conditions, and their activities can affect the sale and rental values of properties where they operate. I suggest you read osf Coxeters unfortune experience with CPM.

https://parking-prankster.blogspot.com/2017/03/coxeter-house-get-rid-of-uk-cpm-due-to.html

You should also be aware that a few years ago Dale Varney suggested such a scheme and it was voted down at an AGM. .

This is an entirely unregulated industry which is scamming the public with inflated claims for minor breaches of alleged contracts for alleged parking offences, aided and abetted by a handful of low-rent solicitors.

Parking Eye, CPM, Smart, and others have already been named and shamed in the House of Commons as have Gladstones Solicitors, and BW Legal, (these two law firms take hundreds of these cases to court each week, hospital car parks and residential complex tickets have been especially mentioned. They lose most of them, and have been reported to the regulatory authority by an M.P. for unprofessional conduct

The problem has become so widespread that MPs have agreed to enact a Bill to regulate these scammers. It has even been suggested that some of these companies have links with organised crime.

Watch the video of the Second Reading and committee stage in the House of Commons recently. MPs have a very low opinion of this industry.

http://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/2f0384f2-eba5-4fff-ab07-cf24b6a22918?in=12:49:41

https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2018-07-19/debates/2b90805c-bff8-4707-8bdc-b0bfae5a7ad5/Parking(CodeOfPractice)Bill(FirstSittingn

You should also be aware that CPM has recently lost two cases for alleged breach of contract in county courts at Guildford and Liverpool and I am informed that several claims are in the pipeline against private parking companies for breaches of the Data Protection Act and harassment. As your agent your company could be joined in any court action which a resident of leaseholder may take. Against CPM. Any costs involved in fighting such cases would not be a charge against leaseholders but to the company and the Directors I for one would not hesitate to bring such a claim. .

You state that the law now permits more robust sanctions for offenders who fail to pay parking fines. I assume that you are referring to Beavis v Parking EYE in the Supreme Court.

Firstly, no private parking company can impose fines, only police, local authorities and transport authorities can do so for breaches of bye laws, These cases cases must be brought n n a Magistrates Court within six months of the offence. PPCs can only issue invoices, for alleged damages cause by alleged breaches of alleged contracts and in the case of Branagh Court, no such contracts can be entered into with a PPC. .

Mr Beavis lost because he overstayed in a free car park in a shopping Centre. Parking Eye paid £1000 a month to the landowners, London Land, to manage. this car park and Their Lordships ruled that the penalty clause was disengaged, and that the charge was commercially justified.

Beavis has no bearing whatsoever of residential parking and your statement is misleading. I suggest you issue a retraction.

I enclose three extra copies of this letter , please ensure that they are sent to the Directors.


Let us see how they like them apples.

nosferatu1001

Cant see a draft?

beamerguy

nosferatu1001 wrote: »

Cant see a draft?

Remember at this time of day he will be on the G&T's plus he is 102

twhitehousescat

I think CPM are an excellent cleaning company ***** (5 stars) for tidying my nans back yard

The_Deep

Now you can, and I am a strapping 78 and a quarter. I do enjoy a gin and tonic now and again, and again, and again.

beamerguy

I assume that you are referring to Beavis v UKPC in the Supreme Court. >>>> It was Parking Eye

Labouring the point about a decrease in values is good

This one sums up UKCPM

Coxeter House get rid of UK CPM due to shambolic enforcement

https://parking-prankster.blogspot.com/2017/03/coxeter-house-get-rid-of-uk-cpm-due-to.html

It will show the MA their future

Guys_Dad

Assuming that there is no existing PPC, then the introduction of a PPC is a variation to the lease and needs 75% of the leaseholders to agree it and if 10% object, they can't!

See 1987 Landlord and Tenant Act, variation of lease.

Half_way

Nothing wrong with a G&T.
One thing that may be of note, is that from what I understand under the new(ish) GDPR regulations ( General Data Protection Regulation regulations??) that replaced/added to the Data protection act, is that there is now an added element of personal liability.


So the director of Parkgate Aspen, or whatever individual signed off/approved the PPC acting as their agent could in theory be held personally liable The GDPR axe wouldnt fall in corporate land, but on the director in person, just as it would if the director was caught doing 80mph in a 30mph zone whilst driving a company vehicle

The_Deep

Thank you Half way, we have a Management Company, the Directors are elected at the AGM , it is them I shall target.

Guys_Dad

The_Deep wrote: »

Thank you Half way, we have a Management Company, the Directors are elected at the AGM , it is them I shall target.

And make sure that, if they do bring it in,

1. You want your space to be opted out

2. That their contract with the PPC allows for any resident ticketed in their own space but no permit showing to be automatically have their charges cancelled on appeal. The appointment of a PPC can only be in the interests of the leaseholders and, therefore, they must NOT be penalised.

Coupon-mad

Be ready to take them to the cleaners and the RPTS:

https://www.gov.uk/housing-tribunals

Wow,those reviews of this MA are shocking, including this one that I reproduce with no direct knowledge if it's true (but the pattern of bad reviews - like with TrustPilot - is clear):

By: 'Parkgate veteran' Apr 10,2012
Branch: London, Wilberforce HouseStation Road

Services: They manage our building
Would you recommend?: No

Truly terrible. Locked horns with them for four years, in no doubt that Parkgate Aspen are the most incompetent, difficult and frankly disturbing company I have ever encountered. They ran amok, so acute that ALL 44 flats in our block witheld their service charges for several years, a succesful Tribunal case saw us reclaim a staggering 110k in total (much still unpaid), a selection of issues include:

1) letting a contractor run wild spending 10k replacing INTERIOR communal lightbulbs in just a few months, then repeating this again in subsequent years - even the LVT described this as 'extraordinary'. Parkgate tried to claim that these works were 'electrical repairs not bulbs', a scan of the invoices revealed the truth.

2) More than doubling the management fee (worse service) without consultation, only telling us a year and half later.Accountancy costs doubled. The LVT reduced both by 50%. Almost all managerial duties delegated to a 'facilities manager' costing the equivalent of another management fee!

3) Awarding excessive, often unecessary works to their own companies without consulting, (RICS code violation) inc 5k just on a basic letter box unit for 44 flats (RPTS slashed this to £500)!

5) Parkgate try and get away with it, a striking contempt for the leaseholder (they likened us to a 'virus' in one email exchange) eg claiming that 'residents improper use of shower curtains flooded the shops below' to justify passing all costs to us, when in fact their own invoices showed the cause to be a failed communal rainwater drain! Many more similar examples!

6) Despite a maximum 50% liability for estate costs Parkgate saw no issue with making us (working class people in a poor part of London) pay 84% - representing almost all the cleaning costs for 9 major retail outlets! The RPTS redressed this. In their trial submission Parkgate retrospectively added 50k in phantom fees to the historical commercial accounts in an unbelievable attempt to disguise this inequality - a potentially very serious act, our vigiliance forced them to remove these amounts.

7) their divisive win win business model: they overcharge and challenge you to take them to the RPTS in the knowledge that most people do not have the time/knowledge to do this, if you do challenge them they will seek £several hundred per hour from your landowner for representing them and so win either way!

We were so concerned by the legitimacy of some specific charges that we threatened to report Parkgate's Directors to the police, only then did they bother acknowledging us, although they strongly denied any wrong-doing.

One of Private Eye magazine's exposures of this company was titled 'Mishcon impossible' (issue 1027 in 2001) - just about sums them up. Heed these long-standing warnings and stay away to avoid the hell we had to suffer, if they are your managing agent, consider getting rid of them before its too late, take an afternoon out to scan all invoices and challenge all irregularities, just don't let them carry on like this. Thank you to allagents for finally giving those who have suffered at the hands of this company a voice.

What agent could do to change your mind?
Please see narrative above, this company were just so terrible in all ways that I wouldn't recommend them to my worst enemy.