Harry Scoffin centre stage

Something has gone wrong at the PLSA  and I shouldn’t be the only person worried about it.

Let’s start this story with Harry Scoffin, young and brutally direct – Greta to the ground renters

But what is this “industry” that invoices innocent pensioners? Well I can tell you from personal experience that the agents acting for my freeholders are demanding a doubling of an already outrageous ground rent on the basis of a made up formula determined by pound/per sq. ft valuations that have never been achieved and are 50% above the levels that our flats sell for. And yes – we’re all pensioners.

So you’d think that the organisation representing the pension schemes that pay us the money to pay our ground rent would be on our side – wouldn’t you?

Well no and then yes. The PLSA are caught on the horns of the mother of all conflicts that see them siding with the freeholders who are helping pension scheme funds achieve “gilt + returns” on their risk free assets and against the pensioners who are being ripped off with outrageous rent demands.

Watch the video above to see the smooth talking PR agent of the Freeholders getting eviscerated by Barry Gardiner , check out the pensioner paying a small fortune to get nothing from here freeholder and then figure out why reform of the mess around ground rents is underway.

Read Norma Cohen’s just anger at the way ground rent is destroying value for leaseholders

How much further do the values of leasehold flats have to fall behind those of houses before property developers accept that fewer and fewer people want to buy into a financial sandpit that swallows their savings? https://t.co/R7u7bwRzSa

— Norma Cohen (@NormaCohen3) February 10, 2024

Sadly, rather than recognising that the Freeholders Association is holding out to support the most outrageous of practices, the PLSA has actually been siding with the Freeholders till rather embarrassingly they discover this is taking the capitals out of all three letters of ESG and promoting the interests of the property management industry over the members of the schemes they are supposed to be representing.

Before the Public Bill Committee closed on February 1st, @ThePLSA submitted a letter to MPs seeking to trivialise the significance of their September 2023 statement to us and to delegitimise leasehold campaigners. Here is our open letter to the Chief Executive. (1/2) pic.twitter.com/rf2fT226Yh

— Free Leaseholders (@FreeLeasehlders) February 8, 2024

Hurry up Harry – come on!

We note the @RFAssociation are promoting this misleading letter. @ThePLSA’s September 2023 statement was NOT some throwaway comment on a casual phone call, as is being claimed. The group’s last minute flip flop on ground rents undermines the credibility of their protest. (2/2) pic.twitter.com/nZIQA3jXlk

— Free Leaseholders (@FreeLeasehlders) February 8, 2024

So let’s unpick this.

Here’s the PLSA letter that has caused such concern

And here’s the letter from the leaseholders

We have a PLSA conference coming up. It’s an investment conference and I’m trooping up to Edinburgh to hear an agenda which , I have to say. does not look very challenging.

So I will take this up with Harry Scoffin and I will talk with the great and the good. Because , like the mighty Norma Cohen, I see ground rent as an issue to determine just who the PLSA is really interested in.

The PLSA has a hard choice to make; if it does not retract its trivialisation of the @FreeLeasehlders group, it risks being exposed as dishonest. Hmm. https://t.co/9x32HGaoH3

— Norma Cohen (@NormaCohen3) February 8, 2024

I think I know where Norma is on this

I’m there too.