12/6/07
Letters have been sent out to owners advising them that sale of the Freehold will take place on the 29th of June 2007 to Triplerose Ltd, who will own Domaine Assets Ltd which it appears the buildings and estate have been packaged into. All staff are to stay. We should be hearing from the new owners shortly and hopefully they will be present at the next full Residents meeting.
25/5/07
Still no news as to who has purchased the property although once the legal bods have done their work it should be shortly after that we find out officially.
20/2/07
Well, the deadline has passed and we have yet to hear what is happening. I'd like to take this opportuninty to thank Martin Pritchard, David Walker and Dawn Sandoval from Alan Selby And Partners for all their work in preparing the original bid attempt. No doubt we shall find out in due course what is going on!
13/2/07
Well, it looks like Ballymore are not interested in selling us just the MH freehold, so it won't be possible to proceed with the bid in its current state.
Whatever happens with any new owner, we will always have the right to buy under the normal freehold acts. I propose that we do a survey every year or two because as the balance of occupiers shifts from tenants to owners we will eventually be able to buy the freehold.
In the mean time we still have the right to manage the estate as well. These avenues will be pursued by various residents to see if they are worthwhile.
30/1/07
I've received the latest figures from the letter KSB Law sent. There was approximately 40% interest from MH owners but only about a 5% interest from Seacon/Naxos owners. Thus it's unlikely that we will be able to proceed under the current proposal.
Martin and his team are considering asking Ballymore if they would consider to sell just the MH freehold to the MH owners, however in my opinion that isn't likely to happen. I have seen the brochure that Ballymore issued yesterday announcing "The sale of a ground rented property portfolio company with Freehold Assets comprising Millennium Harbour and Seacon Wharf". There is very tight deadline. Sealed offers are to be sent in by midday on the 16th of February, exchange on the 2nd of March and completion on the 16th of March.
For those wondering what the benefit would be to a potential owner, apart from the £185,950 in ground rents (increasing according to individual leases) the purchaser will also "have control of service charge and buildings insurance". There is commission to be made out of the insurance and the service charge is open to debate as to what is a good level of service and at what cost. Apparently there are about 100 interested parties already in the Freehold, so I assume people must believe they can make money out of it.
Unless somebody can come up with a viable solution very quickly, I don't think we will be in a position to purchase the Freehold at this point in time. We will always have open to us the right to buy and/or manage the estate, but that does require a minimum number of flats to participate in. The team and Alan Selby's have given us as much help as they can at the moment, but there is little else they can do.
The next step I believe, as I have already mentioned, is setting up a residents committee to look after our interests. Thank you to those that responded to the email yesterday. If there are any more people interested in being on the committee, please email me at mh_resassoc@yahoo.co.uk