Category: The Buzz

We now have over 3000 members!

Issues reported and discussed by members over the last month include:

• Several prospective new build purchaser have walked away when they found out about unregulated estate maintenance charges.
• One member reports difficulties after the builder owned management company went bust. A Carillionesque sign of things to come? Certainly a long term risk for this form of privatisation of public open spaces.
• More and more examples are being reported of home owners being unable to find out exactly what they are paying for. Management companies simply ignore or refuse to answer requests for detailed a breakdown of costs incurred.
• We have heard of several instances of huge obstacles being put in the way of residents who wish to manage the company themselves, even when their legal documents say they can!
• HorNets are still working away on their MPs, highlighting the unfairness of the private estate model, and the complete lack of any effective regulatory mechanism to prevent the large and unjustified increase in charges which many face in addition to rises in council tax.

Every vote counts! Please sign this petition and get all your friends, family and neighbours to help. We know there are probably about 1 million households on private estates – so we could easily reach the target of 100,000 signatures. This important petition is asking the government to tackle the fundamental unfairness of estate dwellers funding the maintenance of public open spaces, which should be publicly owned and maintained.

This thoughtful paper written for HorNet by one of its members gives new insights into the role of councils in choosing the private estate model, and more importantly, suggests other ways in which councils can fund the public open spaces we are so unfairly paying for.

This is a revised paper. The original suggested that councils had flexibility over raising funding for estate maintenance under the Localism Act, but unfortunately this is not the case. They could however use council tax to raise funds.