I would like to add my frustration with the rest in this forum on HOME GROUND management. I have rented my property for a short period, in which Trinity estates have changed the ground rent collection to the Home ground management. I have lived in my property for the last 5 years and i always paid all the maintanance and ground rent by direct debi and never missed a payment. Having changed the company's I was not aware and where I did not get any letters or information but when I moved in August i got a letter charging extra fees for not paying on time. I was surprised and emailed them but their reply is Email quiet harsh and not even helping to set up a direct debit. If if do not pay in 7 days they will take further where i will be paying more than £100. They have no consideration or don't even take into consideration any situations.
Help me how can take this further..

Hey CL! I'm having some issues tracking down anyone from Homeground. Similar issues to those listed on here. Please could you DM me the number you used to call?

Thank you

as mse have removed the number could you please email it to me at gedb@talktalk.net it is urgent please

Can somebody offer some advice? We paid our ground rent in February but refused to pay an admin charge as we thought it was unreasonable. Homeground have passed the account to solicitors for non-payment as they never allocated the cash. I told their solicitors we had paid but they came back with the following. It is unethical and immoral to treat us like this, but is there anything we can do about it? Thanks for reading this.



'Further to our previous correspondence, our client has investigated their accounts and has located a payment made on 21st February 2017. As this payment was not made with the required reference number of "471567002097", it was not possible for the sum to be allocated to an account. To confirm, the reference used for the transaction was "G NKANSAH+CE EVA", which does not link to any account details.

If you believe you gave your bank the correct reference number and that they used an incorrect reference, this would be an error that you would need to resolve separately with the issuing bank.

In any case, the sum was paid without the administration charges applied as a result of their final notices of 7th September 2016 and 8th February 2017, and these remain due and payable, in addition to legal costs incurred as a result of this non-payment of the full balance.

I note from previous correspondence with our client that you were made fully aware of your obligations under the lease; by not ensuring prompt payment, and by issuing payment without correct references, our client has incurred additional expenditure in the management of your account. The Fourth Schedule of your lease states that you covenant to “pay all costs charges and expenses (including legal costs and fees payable to a surveyor) incurred by the Landlord in or in contemplation of any proceedings of the service of any notice”.

We therefore require that the outstanding balance of £334.96 is paid to this office by 2pm on 18th May 2017. Should payment not be received, we may be instructed to continue recovery action, which could incur additional costs.

Please note that we are unable to accept partial payment in this matter.

You can send a cheque ensuring your cheque is made payable to “SLC Solicitors”.
Alternatively, you are able to make payment by debit or credit card (0333 0 300 200), or by automated bank transfer to the following bank account details:

There portal is very efficient at taking your payment - but its different if you are waiting for them - paid to find out the cost of buying the lease - took my money - said it would take 10 working days - I'm still waiting - with no phone number only an email - what sort of company is it ?

Hi, by any chance have you still got Homeground's contact number?

No telephone number - just an email address!

Hello all, I am new to this board. I have seen that so many of you had many problems with homeground - since 2014!

I have recently had a problem with Home ground too. Like many here building built by Taylor Wimpey and managed by Trinity. When I bought the property 3 years ago I have been paying my ground rent and service charge to Trinity. (Now that I checked the statements in detail I can see that no ground rent has been charged in the last 2 years).

Out of the blue my bank sends me a letter that the landlords are demanding payment for the ground rent and apparently sent them a Section 146 LPA notice of Forfeiture served to me. This was for an amount of £3900; my ground rent is £250!. The problem is that when the bank sent the letter to me I was on holiday, so by the time I was back the bank had already paid them the money. Now my mortgage has increased by that amount

There was no communication from the company or trinity that they had acquired the freehold. I had no letters sent that demanded any payment of ground rent, no warnings, I have not received any notices.. actually I have never been sent anything. I first found out from the bank when they have already paid them! i also happened to find out that it was homeground when i contacted the bank. Actually it is pretty scary to think that I could have lost my property while on holiday when I have actually haven't done anything wrong.

I do not understand how £250 a year ground rent ended up costing around £3900, and I do not understand how they could contact my bank directly and demand this money without even demanding anything from me. Is this legal? - They found a way of contacting my bank, why didn't they contact me. Trinity and the bank have my correspondence address, email and phone number.

Now my question is what can I do about this? The bank gave them the money, so how do I get it back? Would I stand any chance if I took them to court?

I would appreciate your responses and any recommendations for a very good solicitor!

Hi All,

The Law firm doing all Homeground's dirty work is JB Leitch. They are based in Liverpool. You may try to contact them, but don't be shocked if they get nasty pretty quickly!

search web jbleitch (for some reason I cannot post links)

tel: 01517082250

If you have already made a complaint you can take Homeground to the Ombudsman. Homeground is listed as one of the companies they could help you with.

ombudsman-services
or search for ombudsman property if the link does not show

If you feel that they have acted illegally, i.e. have not followed Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002, Section: 166 Requirement to notify long leaseholders that rent is due, then you can report them to the police as fraud.

actionfraud police uk or search for actionfraud if the link does not show

If none of the above work then you can take them to court.

First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) tel: 0845 600 3178 web: justice gov uk

or search for first tier tribunal if the link does not show

If you want to contact the owners of Homeground then you may:

call them on 0207 723 8881.

or search for longharbour if the link does not show

If you want to find out about the Lord who is chums with David Cameron and co, and see the lifestyle they have on the backs of 1000s of people they rip off go to:

vanityfair com/culture/2015/11/annabel-astor-british-noble-ginge-manor

or search for annabel-astor-british-noble-ginge-manor if the link does not show

en wikipedia org/wiki/William_Astor,_4th_Viscount_Astor

or search for Willam Astor 4th Viscount Astor if the link does not show

The difference will be all the charges they have lumped on to the original money they claim is outstanding.

Thats a hell of a lot of money to be taken from your account, perhaps query why that was paid by the bank without authorisation??

I had issues with Homeground too, they kept demanding I pay them x thousands even though the ground rent payable was only £50 a year AND they never send out demands for payment! I asked them repeatedly for copies of the ground rent demands and they never send them.

Then when I sold it took literally months for them to remove their charges (done for good will...hahahahaha!). Quite literally it was right up to the last minute before they agreed to remove all charges which meant I owed them nothing as I had paid up the ground rent anyways.

But yeah, dirty little business with dirty little business practices! Rolling in the money though so they really couldn't care less about their customers.

The whole building industry needs to be cleaned out, what with the incestuous relationship between building companies, management companies, ground rent companies etc! Really is a bit of a cartel type environment going on there.
Regards

Mailman

I’ve been paying Ground Rent to Home Ground for almost 4 years. I’ve found them to be okay to deal with so far, only ever had to contact them once and I had a reply the next day, online account works fine, demands received are correct and with sufficient notice, always made my payment on time and never had an issue.

However, I’ve just stumbled upon this thread and I’m having nightmares.

I may (waiting for clarification from the Solictor) need to pay Home Ground for an assignment pack in order to sell my flat. From what I’ve read on here this has proved difficult for many, and some have come close/lost buyers as a result of delays.

Has anyone got any recent experience of Home Ground with regards to obtaining information needed to sell?

hi there. are you able to provide me with this phone number, as we are having a similar problem with our flat potentially falling through.

I’m just about to start dealing with them to buy my freehold. On researching the company it REALLY annoyed me to find out it’s owned by a massively wealthy Tory Peer: Viscount Astor. So this leasehold scandal is truly feudal!

I've had similar experience - no phone number etc. However, I discovered that Cornhill Group perform secretarial services for Homeground. Their number is 020 7939 8150. I spoke to a very efficient sounding lady who promised to pass my issue on to Homeground. Still no direct phone contact but may be an avenue in....

I recently set up a STO to pay their biannual charges using my own deposit ISA account as their account details which was my total stupidity!!
After some delay [6 months for the first, a few days for the second payment ]I had a severe message and a penalty of £75.
I protested and received a nice message and a phone number for discussion. One further abject apology claiming stupidity and senility and a nice email waiving the penalty from Hannah.
Perhaps they are changing?

I've read this entire forum and I have not seen one response to anyone asking about a time frame for an information pack to sell their flat. I'm in the same position. how long did it take in the end to get a response? TY!!

Hello,

We've just been served a notice of legal action by JBL Solicitor on behalf of Homeground for late payment of rent, However we've never received any invoices or reminders since March 17 and are trying to demonstrate our good faith. They're now claiming a huge amount of money and we're disheartened by this situation and would like to resolve this matter directly with Homeground. If anyone has their phone number and a contact point, please let me know. Many thanks if you can assist.

PLEASE HELP !
I just came back from week holiday to find letter from HOMEGROUND with NOTICE OF LEGAL ACTION inside.
It state that my account is now "severly" overdue and solicitors (JB Leich Solicitors LLP) will now be instructed to commence recovery proceedings and no further correspondence will be entered into by homeground.

I didn't receive any invoice since 27th July 2017(which was for property insurance).
I have asked JB Leitch to email me copies of correspondence which they insist was sent to me:

- Invoice on 15th November 2017 for £250
- reminder 26th January 2018 £250
- 2nd reminder 14th February 2018 including £295 (£45 late fee)

- 16 March 2018 letter with NOTICE OF LEGAL ACTION and £395 to pay (£100+£45 late fees)
+ £222 that their Solicitors charge!

I didn't receive any letter/invoice from them between July 2017 and March 2018! only last one 4th letter on 16th March 2018

How can I prove I didn't receive 3 out of 4 letter!? why things like that are not signed for?!
Their solicitors told me that it's my responsibility to contact Homeground and pay even if there was no correspondence delivered! Really?
I'm hoping that someone here can guide me on what to do, I have never failed to pay bill in my life, they treat me like criminal!

PLEASE HELP!

According to JBleitch, Court will stand behind homeground. BUT!

My argument is that:



1. If Homeground sent 1 Invoice and 2 reminders first class and I didn't receive it, then how this can be my problem and why would I have to chase up Royal mail if THEY (homeground) paid for postage to be delivered - not me.

Seriously I can understand Royal mail could loose 1 letter perhaps 2, but 3? out of 4 ? this doesn't add up.



2. What would I even possibly gain by pretending not receiving them? I never had issues before paying.

3. They produced digital copies of all 4 letters (including missing ones), buy how can I trust that they are not forged? they could "make" them at any time. Even if it's outsourced to other company that sent them letters for them, then what guarantee do they have that letters were actually sent?

4. JBleitch say 1st class letter is "good enough is deemed as good service by courts", but hey looks like is NOT GOOD ENOUGH as some % of letter are not reaching their clients. Recorded of signed for would be 100% GOOD ENOUGH divorce papers are always signed for!

5. This smell like money making scam from miles.... in my honest opinion they could well be behind it on purpose.

Folks - I'm in the same boat as Zabique and others on this forum. We've just received a demand and 14-day forfeiture notice from JB Leitch on behalf of Homeground / Adriatic Lands 2 (GR2). We never received ANY information from either Homeground or AL2 when they purchased the freehold of our property; or any bills. In fact, since December 2017 we have been trying to find out who the freeholder is as we expected we were due a ground rent bill that we had not received and were specifically trying to avoid ending up in a situation like this. We have documentary evidence that we had tried to establish who the freeholder is and contacted the folks we were told were the freeholders (not home ground).

Interested if anyone is fighting JBL, do you already have a lawyer, have you received advice? Has anyone got in contact with Homeground directly?

Hi,

We are not in the same situation, you have more evidence to back yourself up. In my case it was word against word. Them saying letters were sent and sending it first class is good enough VS me saying that we have never received 3 of 4 demands.

After sending multiple complaints to Homeground/JBL we have agreed to pay £222 legal fees to have peace of mind, other £150 admin fees were waived.

These people found them self money making machine, I bet they do it on purpose and their "evidence" in form of electronic copies of letters is worth poo imho.
Some kind of government body should run full investigation on their practices.
They should be forced to send all reminders RECORDED mail,

I F... HATE THEM PEOPLE !