Freehold Managers PLC Reviews 41

They are quoting excessive rates for leasehold extensions and taking advantage of the law that provides no way of challenging the quotes. Prices are not to government guidelines. There needs to be legal action against this company.

I am struggling to sell my property due to the lease hold, I had to pay £150 to get a quote from Freehold Managers to see how much it would cost to purchase the freehold. They came back with £13000 plus £525 and solicitors fees, there is 102 years on the lease. I explained that was too much so they said come back with another numbers, they are willing to take £100 off the £13000, 0.75% discount. I paid more than that to find out how much it would cost. Absolutely robbing and disgusting response.

After days of trying to phone and the call just cutting out and failing miserably to speak to someone, I rang at 9 on the dot, and was answered quickly by the most helpful and patient person. He was fabulous, knew his stuff and has saved me about £400. Not to mention time. They clearly need more staff and a better phone system but this guy was awesome.

Lying scumbags
Deliberately don't answer the phone, no e-mail return contact. Portal system that blocks you out and cannot access anything to communicate and yet are very quick to send court dates.
An abysmal company who are operating with zero integrity

Set the ground rent higher than the terms of the lease, only fixed after the involvement of a chartered surveyor and my local MP. Probably doing this on an industrial scale. Also charges an extortionate £40 fee to pay via an arrangement which is outrageous.

ZERO STARS

Like other reviewers I've had nothing but trouble dealing with this company who are out to screw as much money out of leaseholders as possible. Sub letting fees, car parking fees etc. etc.

They claimed not to have received my check for ground rent even though my bank statement said otherwise. I had to buy a copy of the cheque from my bank and send it to fmplc to prove I'd paid. Needless to say fmplc wouldn't reimburse me with the cost.

What annoys me is that they won't accept payments by Bank Transfer or Direct Debit. As a large company they must be unique in this respect. I'm reluctant to give them my Debit Card details, so cheque it has to be.

I wouldn't even leave one star, if I was allowed!
Cannot get any lower than this vermin. 2004 they tried to force me onto their choice of home insurance. They may own the land but not the property so its up to me who I get insurance with! Freehold Managers PLC Said "Direct Line" don't insure for Terrorist Cover. I got legal advice and was told terrorist cover was total nonsense and I can choose whoever I want. I went to Manchester Tribunal, the cowards didn't even turn up and won my case. But ever since Freehold Managers PLC have had it in for me and keep falsely claiming I haven't been paying the Ground Rent. I religiously pay my Ground Rent every December by Recorded Delivery and keep receipts. Interestingly since Freehold Managers PLC have since quit their insurance racket as it obviously hasn't been working out for them! But that doesn't stop them investing new ways to screw people for money!!! Only in England are we still trapped in Middle age serfdom laws!!!

Really really awful. In fact we we are selling up so we don’t have to deal with them any more. They seem to exist to dream up ways of getting money out of tenants for weird and wonderful reasons. For example, charging for giving permission to refit windows we pay for, quote for a rip off lease extension fee (far less if you challenge legally) which is only valid for a short time then you have to pay them all over again for a new rip off lease extension quote. a management pack which you need to have be able to sell the property then they take ages providing it - unless you guessed it - you pay ‘a quick turn around extra fee on top of what you have already paid, subletting fees, late payment fees the list goes on….. So fed up with them. I cannot sell my property until they provide a management pack. Several weeks after paying them for one, it still hasn’t arrived so sale is being held up - I suppose I now have to pay their extra fee for providing it ‘more quickly’ . Daylight robbery, I find it hard to believe it can be legal. Cannot wait to be rid of them.

We bought a flat with the freehold owned by freehold managers and what an awful company they are. One of the most galling of experiences was forcing us to pay £730 for a fire safety assessment - the entirety of our communal space is 1m X 2m and the fire. They spent the money before even checking whether it was right for our two flat house. They also organised extortionate insurance - we bought the freehold eventually and saved 50% on insurance from day one. Our management charges and accounting fees were ridiculous for what we got in return. Totally unresponsive and they once tried to justify their lack of response to me because they “had 65,000 freehold’s to manage” 😱! The eye watering profits probably don’t get much tax paid on them due to parent companies being offshored. We thankfully bought our freehold eventually but what a complete waste of money and space this freeholder is

This company is a disgrace. They simply exist to charge freeholders money for nothing and negotiate awful lease T&Cs. Avoid like the plague.

This company is absolutely shambolic. As the other reviews say, if I could I would give zero stars.
Rude, unhelpful, try to get money out of people for nothing, very VERY slow in responding, unfriendly. I was told I would have to wait for 2 weeks for a response a very straight forward email asking for a copy of an EWS1 form, but couldn't speak to anyone because they're out on lunch from 12:00pm til late afternoon. I have tried to speak to someone several times and get nowhere. I do not trust them. They're useless.

NO STARS. Shocking immoral money grabbers. They buy or 'Manage' Freeholds to then attempt to squeeze every penny out of owners, for anything that might or might NOT be in the lease. Then add late payment fees to boot, with threat after threat after threat. Check your lease these charges do not always apply. Note to Landlords from their website:
Sublet Exception
Free of Charge
Where a Tenancy Agreement expires and becomes a rolling contract, this can be registered free of charge.

It would have been zero stars if possible. Simply an appalling company to deal with. Poor communication; poor responsiveness; unfriendly, unprofessional, rude and dismissive staff. Their new website is appalling too-the old one was fairly clunky but at least I could pay online, the new portal is utterly useless and wouldn't accept card payments. The company refuse to accept direct debits and I am convinced this is because it means they rake in more money via issuing fines, given that their paperless billing system is so awful, repeatedly failing to send a notification in a timely manner leading to late arrival of a bill and necessitating late payment through no fault of mine. Awful company all round.

Horrendous organisation.
Charge a fortune for non tasks.
Keep your house sale waiting for ten weeks to provide a management pack which they should offer the same day.
No telephone contact available.
Takes weeks to reply to any email.
Are incapable of setting up direct debits for their rapacious and pointless annual ground rent.
Unethical blood suckers.

Disgraceful charges!!! I have been trying to pay my ground rent charges for weeks and face same as others. The amount quoted on their telephone line is wrong they have added charges that i do not owe!! You are not able to pay a different amount (just the ground rent).
Also been charged a £36.00 Arrears fee apparently for not paying a subletting-charge i am appealing against on time.

No one answering the phones, no email contact and as said unable to pay actual ground rent on telephone auto payments.

will probably try to charge me another late payment fee for not being able to pay the ground rent fee - due to lack of staff on thier phonelines.

Disgrace of a company. Never return calls. File charges against you because they dont send bills to the correct address.

I am trying to pay my ground rent which is proving extremely difficult. The automated phone line is not working
They are not accepting cheques due to covid, the online service to pay is not working due to their server errors
Absolutely ridiculous
No one to contact or talk to
How hard can it be to pay a bill

I own a flat which I rent out. The lease was sold to Freehold Managers plc couple of years back and they are charging me now for “subletting”, siting the clause in the deeds
Here is the clause : #####
At all times during the continuance of the Term to deliver or cause to be delivered to the Landlord a notice of every assignment disposition or devolution of or charge on or transfer of title to the Demised Premises or any thereof whether by the way of mortgage or otherwise within one month after the execution of any deed or signature to any document or after the date of any Probate Letters of Administration or other instrument or any Order of Court by which such assignment disposition devolution charge or transfer may be effected or evidenced such notice to specify the name address and description of the person or persons to whom or in whose favour the assignment disposition devolution charge or transfer shell be made to take effect and also at the time of delivering every such notice to produce the deed document instrument or order by which such assignment disposition devolution charge or transfer shall purport to be effected or evidenced as aforesaid for the purpose of having a memorandum thereof entered in registers to be kept by the Landlord for that purpose and to pay to the Landlord a reasonable fee ( not being less than £25.00 plus VAT) for each such registration#####

They are saying that ““devolve” is the transfer of a legal interest to a lower level”””, so if I am subletting – “I am required to serve notice and pay a registration fee” ( £95) and then pay for each sublet £48

The question I want to ask is : do I stand any chance of winning if I go to the tribunal -or I have no chance ?

Over a number of years, we've been having a number of problems with the inept property manager, Montalt Management. Freehold Managers plc subcontract them to manage our property. I thought I would engage Freehold Managers via their complaints procedure hoping they would take our problems seriously, investigate them properly and act upon the incompetence, negligence and deceitfulness of their agent. Unfortunately that hasn't been the case and instead we've endured a tedious, unfruitful journey which included the relevant ombudsmen and the First-tier Tribunal Residential Property.

An inexplicable mystery is that Freehold Managers are content to waste their money on legal fees rather than dealing with leaseholders' requests which in this case would be cheaper and quicker. Read on if you are a leaseholder, particularly because their habit of spending on legal fees may ultimately provide a route for leaseholders to teach them to take their contractual obligations and customer service more seriously.

Our previous interactions with Freehold Managers were limited to an annual demand for ground rent. They seem both interested and capable of collecting that. A brief bit of research shows an abundance of accountants in their company directors and the usual company structure leading to a small Caribbean island. I assumed they were just an investment company, interested in the yield from ground rent with the rest of the business being an exercise in cost minimisation but I tried to remain optimistic. I'm not sure what to think of their inclusion of plc in their company name - they are a private limited company and NOT a public limited company.

I first called them to discuss the matter. That call revealed they had no idea what was going on and did not have a policy of monitoring major work ("section 20") on their/our buildings - that wasn't a good sign. Their official complaints procedure is paper-based which is ironically detailed in a pdf which can only be accessed if you login online. Their modus operandi is an acknowledgement letter followed by a response that will tell you that everything is fine or adequate and any deficiencies will be dealt with by their agent and they have passed on feedback to their agent on matters they could improve on. The first time you read these they look reasonable, eventually you realise it's just the same spiel in every response, written by someone with the skills of a secondary school debating team and no interest in actual property management. On a minor plus point, they are fairly prompt in their responses which is more than can be said for our agent who often just ignores leaseholders. This might be useful for getting information out of an uncooperative, obstructive property manager.

I wanted to meet with Freehold Mangers but they repeatedly refused this. I find this is sometimes the best way to assess what you're dealing with and occasionally yields a quick, sensible, business-like conclusion. They also refused to conduct another customer satisfaction survey of leaseholders. A one-off survey was apparently conducted in mid 2017 but I never received this and they say only 6 responses were received. This makes me suspect it was not conducted properly. Freehold Managers refused to provide a summary of this, disingenuously omitted the fact that they had a previous complaint from 13 leaseholders and their own staff admitted in email that "nearly every leaseholder is unhappy". They've refused to provide their evaluation methodology for their property managers. I suspect that's because it's impossible for them to get an accurate, unbiased evaluation with their policy of not conducting regular, leaseholder satisfaction surveys.

Returning to the complaints procedure, it's essential to go through this as it lays the ground for future escalations and can be useful for establishing claims and facts. Their ombudsmen is worth a go as there's no cost to the leaseholder and it might help. In our case they stated that section 20 work wasn't part of their remit and suggested the First-tier Tribunal.

The First-tier Tribunal (FTT) is low-cost, "semi-legal" route for resolving disputes and one that can be used without legal representation. I would only recommend this for issues which are very serious, costly (perhaps over a thousand pounds is a good benchmark) or clear cut. If you are arguing about whether a decrepit fence needs replacing, forget it. If you have a roof that doesn't leak, an inconclusive written report and six years of questionable bungling ending in some keenness to replace that roof without justification, go for it.

The FTT costs are borne by each party unless there's unreasonable behaviour - more on this further down. As far as I can work out there are three tracks, paper judgement for very simple straightforward cases, fast track (not sure) and standard. The standard process is likely to take at least four months end to end. In our case Freehold Managers asked for an initial delay which the judge thankfully refused and I negotiated down some of the initially proposed dates. Our case was actually fairly straightforward, I don't know why the schedule was so drawn out.

My experience of the FTT was a bit mixed. The decision didn't go in favour of the leaseholders and the FTT wasn't as precise as I would expect. I wasn't sure what their standard would be for determining if service charges were reasonable (Liability to pay service charges - Section 27A, Landlord and Tenant Act 1985). Disappointingly, it seems that the standard is below what a home owner would expect IMHO - an unpleasant reminder that leaseholders are second-class home owners. It's also possible that the panel members don't read as much of the documents as you'd hope so it's worth outlining the important ones.

On the bright side, it did dump a huge amount of self-imposed legal costs on Freehold Managers who had at least two external lawyers involved. Also, Freehold Managers had not provided a key document for the case and the Judge ruled this was unreasonable conduct and therefore, unusually, instructed them to pay the applicant's costs! I'd anticipated that omission and I had already told Freehold Managers to include this document in a prior complaint. I suspect their unwise, laissez faire approach and Montalt Management's habit of omission caused this. It's still impossible to fathom why Freehold Managers would spend more money and waste 6 months when they could have simply have paid for the (cheaper) surveyor's investigation report which might have taken 1 month.

The FTT also highlighted that the fact Freehold Managers had completely failed to raise the roof problems with the developer of the property since the surveyor stated it was a construction fault. In previous discussions their agent, Montalt Management, have demonstrated ignorance of the developer and then bizarrely wavered on this matter then illogically refused to discuss it with the developer before the roofs were replaced.

In conclusion, if you have a reasonable and serious dispute then I would recommend multiple, polite, firm complaints with escalation, then go to the ombudsmen and then the First-tier Tribunal. That final step will be expensive for Freehold Mangers and will often wipe out their entire ground rent yield for the year. If you have applied to the First-tier tribunal and they are defending it then I would recommend writing to the company directors immediately to tell them what their staff are doing. This might give a quicker resolution to the dispute, I regret not doing that.