Advice of deed of variation delay

Marky4040

Hello All
To cut a long story short i have taken up the freeholder offer to remove the doubling of ground rent clause from my lease for my apartment (England). 

I started the process with my solicitor in February and to date the company collecting the ground rent (and dealing with the DOV) has not responded to my solicitor. I called them (E&M), and explained the situation and they said the legal person dealing had left and they would re-assign another legal person on their side to progress the issue. Apparently my case just went into a black hole which nobody took over. 

They did apologise and re-assured me they would respond to my solicitor with the paperwork to complete the process (as they've done 100's of them) and not to worry. Well, that was nearly 4 weeks ago and they still have not responded to my solicitor despite several attempts. It's ridiculous really this has now been dragging on for 9 months.

How do i complain about this and who do i complain too? Can i threaten legal action against E&M for how long this is taking and despite assurances over the phone they still have not responded to my solicitor.

The original freeholder was Taylorwhimpy (builder) who sold the freeholds to Backpen (next to no info on this company online), E&M collect the ground rent for Backpen and do any variations to the lease.

What realistically can i do here to get them to starts this process with my solicitor?

eddddy

Marky4040 said:

The original freeholder was Taylorwhimpy (builder) who sold the freeholds to Backpen (next to no info on this company online), E&M collect the ground rent for Backpen and do any variations to the lease.

What realistically can i do here to get them to starts this process with my solicitor?

Is this a result of the voluntary commitment that Taylor Wimpy gave to the Competition And Markets Authority (CMA) to remove doubling ground rent clauses from leases? (So you're not being charged anything.)

Unfortunately, as it's being done voluntarily, there probably isn't any way of forcing them to move more quickly.


Although E&M are members of the Property Ombudsman scheme - so you could complain to the Ombudsman about the quality of service. If the Ombudsman upholds your complaint, you might get up to about £250 in compensation for poor service.



FWIW... I suspect that behind the scenes this is a super-messy can of worms that needs to be sorted out.

• Taylor Wimpey will have sold the freeholds (and future ground rents) to Backpen for a shedload of money - because Backpen would be getting mega-doubling ground rents in the future.

• Now Taylor Wimpey are saying to Backpen "You know all those mega-doubling ground rents we sold you? We want to go-back on the deal. We don't want you to get those mega-doubling ground rents anymore."

• And Backpen are probably saying "In that case, we want the shed-load of money back that we paid you (plus compensation)."

I wouldn't be surprised if it's those arguments / negotiations that are really causing the delay - not the change of solicitors.

Marky4040

eddddy said:

I wouldn't be surprised if it's those arguments / negotiations that are really causing the delay - not the change of solicitors.

Yes, i hadn't really thought of this to be honest but they said they've processed lots of them. 
I'll call them again and see if i can get them to respond them make a complaint if they don't.