The Chelsea Bridge Wharf AGM 2025 – less than 10 minutes long and no questions or dicussion
The first AGM of the Chelsea Bridge Wharf RTM company took place today, 24th November, 2025, chaired by Louis Kendall. This is an AGM and elections that the current directors have been dragged to kicking and screaming and have delayed for as long as they could get away with.
No leaseholders were allowed to speak and no motions were permitted other than the election of directors. Candidates were not allowed to speak or even read out their statement of why anyone should vote for them. Leaseholders could not ask candidates any questions or speak to each other. This is in clear contradiction to the articles of association. The meeting started at 6.30pm and finished at 6.39pm. The usual crew of former RTM opposers were elected: Kendall, Thompson, Spoerer et al.
I asked in the chat (atendees could not even see each other’s messages in the chat) why no “abstain” option had been provided and why only discretionary votes were allowed, and why the number of discretionary votes (i.e. votes cast by the Chair) would not be published. A representative from LUMI, the voting platform provider, simply kept repeating that “the election is being held on the LUMI platform,” as if this constituted an answer. LUMI also insisted that there is no difference between discretionary votes (i.e. those cast by the Chair) and the votes of leaseholders, which is an idiotic claim. This means we will never know how many of Louis Kendall’s votes (for example) were actually from leaseholders or were ‘discretionary’ votes cast by himself for himself. I mean if there was nothing to hide why would you not publish the number of discretionary votes? Why would you be so terrified to meet and debate with other candidates?
LUMI also appeared to take responsibility for the election process, so you must draw your own conclusions about how much they can be trusted. In this case their platform was used to supress leaseholder particpation and to give dictatorial control to the hosts. My suggestion is to avoid LUMI like the plague and that seems to be the general view.: 2 stars out of 5 based on 61 reviews on trustpilot. I shall be saying the same to my network of more than 6,000 leaseholders across hundreds of developments.
How much have the leaseholders been charged for this farce – by LUMI and by the lawyers who the RTM co have been taking advice from? Urang refuse to say and tell us it will be in the accounts – they are published in September 2026 (unless they are several months late again).
There has been no meeting of candidates in these elections and again Urang and the current directors refused to say why that was. I have detailed here how this election has been manipulated especially through the use of discretionary votes but also through a general lack of opputuniteis for leaseholders to engage.
It would appear that only about 130 members voted in this election (unsuprising given the lack of meetings or discussion which were ”allowed”) and yet they claimed that the meeting/vote was qourate – this does not make any sense. The articles of association state that 20% attendance is needed to be quorate – if 130 approx is a quorum then the total number cannot be more than 650 – the same number as at Right to Manage. This would mean that hardly a single member has been added since RTM happened – but Urang claim they have been working hard to increase membership and were aiming to get 75% of leaseholders as members (in which case they are several hundred short since there are 1,100 + leaseholders).
So this is ”leaseholder empowerment” at the UK’s largest Right to Manage. It feels much more like living in a dictatorship of Urang and the Chelsea Bridge Wharf Right to Manage Company – and like most dictators they are in my view cowards, devoid of any ideas except how to stay in power. Afraid to engage with leaseholders, afraid of a meaningful election, refusing to consult leaseholders. The law really needs to change to stop these abuses of the RTM process. On the plus side I saved myself an hour or so of listening to these vacous entitled people :). Thank you to those who voted for me and I can assure you that there will be fair elections no matter how long it takes to get them.