2025 Open Letter to Rendall and Rittner from the Rendall and Rittner Action Network

Rendall and Rittner – fiddling while Rome burns?

In 2020, a collective of leaseholders wrote to Rendall and Rittner to express their growing concerns about the way in which Rendall & Rittner manage our developments. We were united in our deep dissatisfaction, as Rendall & Rittner’s management (or mismanagement) of our developments had had a serious negative impact on our lives and we invited you to address our concerns and change the way in which you manage developments and communicate with residents.

Nearly five years later, we have received no meaningful response to our letter of 2020 and this dissatisfaction has become even more widespread, with over 5,900 verified signatures on a petition expressing their extreme dissatisfaction with Rendall & Rittner’s services

The writing is on the wall for Rendall and Rittner

Leaseholders are Rendall and Rittner developments are becoming ever more organised, with over three hundred leaseholders registered for an online conference in 2024 to share information and solutions in relation to Rendall & Rittner’s management of their developments.

The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act (2024), when fully in effect, and the promised Leasehold and Commonhold Reform Bill will make it much easier for leaseholders to take control of their own development through Right to Manage, enfranchisement (buying the freehold) or conversion to commonhold. When leaseholders are in charge of their own development, through whichever of these ‘liberation methods’ they choose, they rarely select Rendall & Rittner as their managing agent.

Leaseholders are increasingly forcing the great service charge rip off onto the political agenda and Rendall and Rittner have come in for particular criticism from MPs.

The level of media coverage regarding unfair service charges and poor performance by managing agents has also grown strongly during 2024 and early 2025, with numerous TV programmes and national newspaper coverage which often reference Rendall and Rittner.

Please sign and share the 2025 open letter to Rendall and Rittner (if you have not already)

Please help us turn up the pressure on Rendall and Rittner by signing and circulating the open letter.  When you click the link below you will be taken to a form which allows you to read the letter, sign it and choose where you want your name to be publicly shown on the letter to remain private. You will also be asked a few questions about your practical issues with Rendall and Rittner and service charge levels which will be helpful context for promoting the letter. Thanks to those of you have already signed the letter!

You can also join the Rendall and Rittner Action Group What’s App group by emailing residents@chelseabridgewharf.org.uk and please follow my blog for further updates about this campaign in the near future or join the Rendall and Rittner Action Group contact list 

______The 2025 Open Letter:

4th June 2025 

From:  A National Collective of Extremely Concerned Leaseholders and Residents from Developments Managed by Rendall & Rittner

To: Duncan Rendall & Matt Rittner Rendall & Rittner Limited  (Odevo Group)13B St. George Wharf London SW8 2LE

Dear Rendall & Rittner,

An Open Letter to Rendall & Rittner and their Parent Company (Odevo) Regarding Continuing Dissatisfaction with Service Charge Levels, Service and Competence. 

In 2020, a collective of leaseholders wrote to you to express our growing concerns about the way in which Rendall & Rittner manage our developments. We were united in our deep dissatisfaction, as the Rendall & Rittner’s management (or mismanagement) of our developments had had a serious negative impact on our lives and we invited you to address our concerns and change the way in which you manage developments and communicate with residents. As we write to you again, nearly five years later, we have received no meaningful response to our letter of 2020 and this dissatisfaction has become even more widespread, with over 5,600 verified signatures on a petition expressing their extreme dissatisfaction with Rendall & Rittner’s services and over three hundred leaseholders registered for an online conference in 2024 to share information and solutions in relation to Rendall & Rittner’s management of their developments.

Since 2020, leaseholders at many developments managed by Rendall & Rittner have seen service charges continue to escalate, with poorer service, deteriorating infrastructure, lack of consultation and poor communications. With very few exceptions, Rendall & Rittner have not been chosen by leaseholders but were instead appointed by the developer/freeholder. Many developments have since removed, or sought to remove, Rendall & Rittner through Right to Manage, petitions to the freeholder, or by regaining control via other means such as appointing a new agent through a tribunal or enfranchisement. When residents do regain control of their developments, it is not uncommon to find accounts in disarray but despite that, they often achieve very significant reductions in their service charge soon after as they are often able to procure services on better terms.

Rendall & Rittner’s growing litany of failures:  The concerns we raised in 2020 have been fully validated. As we have collaborated and shared knowledge across developments, we see common patterns The concerns we raised in 2020 have been fully validated. As we have collaborated and shared knowledge across developments, we see common patterns as evidenced in the 2025 survey of leaseholders at developments managed by Rendall and Rittner : 

• Unreasonable and unjustifiable rises in service charges, high management fees, and service charges that are considerably higher than other comparable developments, often above TPI averages and yet with little or no evidence of quality maintenance or resident satisfaction, and with many developments reporting a state of neglect, deterioration and disrepair.
• Failure to supply service charge accounts on time (some developments are many years behind on accounts) and failure to supply section 21 or section 22 requests for invoices, receipts and explanations of changes in service charges. 
• Failure to supply electronic copies of invoices or receipts or failure to provide facilities for residents to make copies of invoices and receipts.
• Lack of transparency with regard to service charge accounts; evidence of inconsistencies and confusing charges/ ‘statements’, and a tendency towards obfuscation in this regard. It is not clear if service charges are always independently audited.
• The failure to provide residents with clear statements regarding service charges is particularly worrying, since if leaseholders cannot see what the service charge is, they cannot easily monitor or compare, year on year, the large increases that are often being levied. 
• Flat rate so called ‘late payment fees’ are not authorised in many leases, yet Rendall & Rittner continue to charge these.
• Lack of transparency in the collection and management of service charge funds: many leaseholders have noted that payments are made into the same bank accounts, which seems contrary to FCA rules stating that each development should have a separate account. 
• Failure to consult with, or meet with, leaseholder and residents (two meetings a year is the most that is likely to happen and even then residents have to apply pressure). For the vast majority of developments there has never been any attempt to engage in research such as satisfaction surveys, no doubt because Rendall & Rittner know what the outcome would be. 
• Rendall & Rittner’s failure to properly communicate, adequately respond to or take swift action regarding leaseholders’ and other residents’ complaints, often failing to follow its own complaints policy (e.g. members of staff investigating complaints made against themselves, or simply not responding at all).
• Failure to fully comply with Data Subject Access Requests (DSARs) by omitting key emails or other communications and failure to apply Rendall & Rittner’s own complaints policy in relation to same.
• Apparently inflated costs re the Building Safety Act (which are in many cases well above TPI average and inflated cladding remediation fund claims, and unwarranted waking watch charges.
• Failure to resolve cladding remediation/fire safety issues or very lengthy delays in addressing these issues, leaving residents feeling unsafe in their property and being liable for fire warden (‘waking watch’ charges or unable to sell their property.
• Failure to obtain or provide EWS1, FRAEW, gas and electricity safety certificates, fire safety risk assessment, fire safety reports, building insurance documents in a timely way.
• Escalating buildings insurance costs, undisclosed or hidden commissions on buildings insurance (such as the captive companies scheme apparently now abandoned, under FCA pressure, but which Mr Richard Daver, a Rendall & Rittner director, claimed only a short time ago, ensured great value for leaseholders!).
• Lack of transparency in tendering processes and apparently ineffective bulk tendering process in relation to annual energy contracts and various anomalies in the tendering of energy contracts. 
• Inappropriate or incompetent handling of government fuel subsidy payments particularly in relation to communal heating systems. 
• Allowing reserve funds to run down, spending reserve funds on items for which they are not designated, and apparently failing in some cases to keep building reserve funds in a separate account (as required by law) and to be clear on interest due to leaseholders. 
• High turnover of staff, resulting in inconsistent and poor management and excessive recruitment fees for leaseholders. 
• Failure to maintain development infrastructure: Specifically with regard to build defects and problems resulting from poor workmanship and/or materials or communal systems (such as boilers, cisterns, pipework etc).
• At some developments (such as Chelsea Bridge Wharf) Rendall & Rittner have actively interfered with the residents’ association and actively sought to obstruct the Right to Manage process by trying to convince residents that it is not possible or that it would be extremely difficult and have tried to target those who have opposed Rendall & Rittner.
• Rendall & Rittner, working with the Chelsea Bridge Wharf Residents’ Association, tried to shut down a petition against them (which now has 5,500+ signatures as referred to earlier)  and refused to work with a leaseholder who was advocating Right to Manage because he was openly critical of Rendall & Rittner. 
• Despite a climate emergency, Rendall & Rittner has not demonstrated any meaningful strategy or action in relation to sustainability/COs emissions/environmental audit.

The writing is on the wall – but are Rendall and Rittner able to read it?

The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act (2024), when fully in effect, and the promised Leasehold and Commonhold Reform Bill will make it much easier for leaseholders to take control of their own development through Right to Manage, enfranchisement (buying the freehold) or commonhold. When leaseholders are in charge of their own development, through whichever of these ‘liberation methods’ they choose, they rarely select Rendall & Rittner as their managing agent. The level of media coverage regarding unfair service charges and poor performance by managing agents has also grown strongly during 2024 and early 2025, with numerous TV programmes and national newspaper coverage. Residents are also becoming much more organised (as demonstrated in The Rendall & Rittner Action Group’s National Online Conference, 2024) and are much more aware of the games that managing agents play to maximise their profits and how to challenge them. It would seem to be very much in your own interests therefore to drastically change your corporate culture and performance, if you hope to keep a viable business. 

Soaring service charges, soaring profits, meaningless ‘awards’ and declining leaseholder satisfaction

Despite these failures, and ongoing dissatisfaction of leaseholders, it seems that Rendall & Rittner’s post tax profits have doubled from 2022 to 2023 from approximately. £3.6 to £8.1 million). It is not clear how this has happened since there does not appear to have been any equivalent increase in the number of units managed by Rendall & Rittner (which currently stands as 90,000 according to your website). Rendall & Rittner continue to boast of the many awards they have won but when the awarding bodies are queried about who is involved in allocating these awards they are silent.  It seems clear that none of these awards involve any input or vote from leaseholders and are essentially meaningless. The terrible performance of Rendall & Rittner has attracted ever-growing media coverage and damning criticism from MPs such as Ruth Cadbury, in the House of Commons in December 2024:

‘’On service charges, management companies have their cake and eat it. ..excess charges, increases well above inflation, deteriorating service and opaque bills. Management companies are often too closely aligned by ownership with the freeholders. The same names keep coming up: Rendall & Rittner and FirstPort appear to be hoovering up the management contracts for a range of blocks, including housing association, shared ownership and resident management companies, all the while providing an appalling service to the leaseholders’’.

Leaseholders are pressing for managing agents to be regulated and licensed, with a register of approved agents and the government has announced its intention to strengthen regulations and consult on further regulation.

Impact

Rendall & Rittner’s multiple failures continue to have a profound impact on us as leaseholders and residents. As a direct result of their failings, we often find ourselves:

• Unable to sell our homes or re-mortgage; facing financial detriment (including loss of value in properties as buyers are put off by the huge service charges or the state of the development).
• Losing significant amounts of time reporting issues on our developments, filing complaints and chasing for replies, trying to get accounts and/or accompanying invoices and receipts,  conducting our own research and investigations, and attempting to hold Rendall & Rittner to account through ombudsman or tribunal actions. 
• Often suffering extreme stress and poor mental health due to issues that have remained unresolved for long periods of time.
• Often feeling uncomfortable, unhappy or unsafe in our own homes.

Immediate actions sought  

We demand that Rendall & Rittner swiftly addresses and resolves our concerns and we reserve the right to pursue legal action on an individual or group basis if a meaningful response is not received.

• Reduce service charges and management fees so that they are fair,  justified and in line with those

of comparable developments managed by other agents and TPI averages. 

• Work with the freeholders to make our developments safe and secure.
• Exhibit complete transparency and best practice with regard to tendering,  accounting and communications.
• Commit to a new and improved way of managing whereby you take swift and comprehensive action as soon as an issue is raised, and rectify all issues promptly and within the shortest possible timeframe.
• Accept responsibility for Rendall & Rittner’s failures, and compensate leaseholders where they have been negatively impacted as a result.
• Cease interference  in residents’ associations – it is not appropriate for a managing agent to decide which residents’ representatives they will work with, nor to impede Right to Manage in any way.  

We look forward to your response (contact email address below) within 14 days of receipt of this letter.

Yours sincerely ,Mike O’Driscoll (Rendall & Rittner Action Network) contact: residents@chelseabridgewharf.org.uk and residents from many developments managed by Rendall & Rittner  (Appendix with list of public signatories will be published in near future). NB if you have signed and asked to remain private please be assured that that will be respected.

N.B. If you have not already signed the letter you can do so here