Welsh leaseholders cannot rely on the law
Welsh leaseholders rely heavily on RPT Wales LVT to deliver fairness and justice and in addition to correct very serious shortcoming in UK law that permit abuses including criminal abuses by landlords, freeholders and their legal advisors, but LVT has extremely limited scope, no enforcement powers and is therefore barely fit for purpose.
We were clients of RPT Wales LVT from June 2022 until February 2025. During this time the trial judge insisted that the Applicants (us) would without training, qualifications or support from the tribunal be held to the same standard as the legal representatives of the Respondent (CPMC under the same directors as the developer/freeholder/landlord) a law firm and a barristers' chambers.
This was a very high standard that essentially imposed a severe barrier to success. The Applicants were placed in the hands of a property management company (Warwick Estates) who we allege took money from us under false pretences and in violation of the terms of their Management Agreement 2 with CPMC, and we allege that including court permitted interest owe us on the order of £1 million in misappropriated funds and interest over 10 years.
During tribunal proceedings in December 2023 due to
violations of law, the Respondent agreed a part settlement for claims for money made beyond the statutory 18 months allowed to claim for services, but that has already been violated despite being signed for by lawyers on behalf of the Respondent. Nothing due between 2015 and 2020 has been paid in the intervening 18 months.
In addition many tens of thousands of pounds were identified by tribunal to have been inappropriately charged, a matter of public record entered on 04 June 2024 that have also not been paid, and in part this is because as just 5 (7 leases) out of 98 homeowners and leasehold owners here, we were under threat to have to pay much greater legal costs resulting from a kind of when you win you lose system, so the Applicants were forced to abandon any and all legal rights in law to continue to fight our case in order to protect the community.
The community is still under an embargo in which nobody who cannot find a cash buyer who would want a substantial discount is able to sell and escape from Cardiff Pointe, as lenders, estate agents and valuers will none of them risk association with our community.
Warwick Estates handed over £900 in total assets on 30 April 2025 out of the £103,000 collected for the period 01 January to 30 June 2025, and zero money of the £272,000 that should have been in a reserve money trust account, so we are currently essentially broke and cannot pay for services, so this elite development is becoming more and more dilapidated over time, and Cardiff Council will do nothing as they say it is a private estate and not in the public interest to assist us, meaning there is no money in it for them, but they ruthlessly pursue any unpaid council tax that is the highest in Cardiff.
Of course all this is due to an abysmal failure on the part of Parliament over the course of a number of decades to introduce competent legislation with enforceable sanctions. This begs the question is Parliament simply incompetent or is it complicit.
In conclusion we are the victims of an England and Wales wide system of exploitation by landlords and freeholders that UK legislation cannot or will not prevent, and as the cost of legal representation is prohibitive we say rule-of-law is a system that exists on paper only, not in practice, so we are effectively owed many hundreds of thousands up to £1 million that the courts can or will do nothing to remedy, but HMRC and Cardiff Council want their money all the same ... it's criminal, but that's life in UK.
We have been failed by all concerned, the landlord, the freeholder, Charles III's HMCTS, Cardiff Council, and RPT Wales LVT, but especially the judge in this case, Colin Green.
Our advice is NEVER go leasehold, avoid tribunals like the plague, expect little or nothing from councils these days, and only a fool or the desperate and hopeless rely on Parliament for anything. We are after all now complicit in war crimes and genocide, and effectively at war ... as always.