The CBWRA ‘co chairs’ Larisa Villar Hauser and Louis Sebastian Kendall have refused to provide notes of previous leaseholder forum meetings and have not given any meaningful reason for that. I believe the… Continue reading
Rather predictably and without consultation, the CBWRA continue their weird controlling behaviour by planning to close the CBWRA Facebook group (according to Sep 2024 CBWRA committee meeting notes). It is sad that the… Continue reading
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/04/the-observer-view-on-the-antiquated-leasehold-system Observer editorial Sat 4 Nov 2023 19.00 GMT It’s simply a money-making scam that allows landowners to exploit those who have bought their own home ‘This system is not business, it is… Continue reading
Many thanks to those who supported the motions I put forward for this meeting which focussed on freedom of speech on the CBW app, trying to ensure fair elections for the future and also trying to ensure that Right to Manage actually delivers increased power to residents not just to a handful of people on an unelected/unfairly elected committee. The meeting also included a vote on ‘ratification’ (i.e. not an election) of the committee and a new constitution. Two of the five motions I proposed were passed.
These motions (in plain language) were that:
That no residents CBW app account can be closed in an arbitrary manner without any due process (as was the case with the closure of my account in May 2022). The closure or threat of closure of CBW app accounts has carted a ‘chilling effect’ on the CBW app which means that residents are afraid to say what they think or to be critical of the CBWRA committee in any way.
That there will be quarterly meetings with the new managing agent (Urang) assuming that RTM foes ahead and they are appointed – the meetings will e hybrid (face to face with the option to attend online) and ALL residents will be welcome not just leaseholders.
The CBWRA constitution which the CBWRA committee wish to have adopted at the special general meeting on 12th September is a major backward step, increasing the control of the Chair and reducing their accountability to residents even further and handing up to four committee places to the LANDLORDS/FREEHOLDERS.? I hope this is not the case but the wording is very unclear:
CBWRA announced the results of the ‘fountains consultation’ on 5th September, They state
”A total of 253 leaseholders completed the survey. Of these:
130 voted in favour of submersible pumps
18 voted to turn the fountains back on without changing the pumps
105 voted to leave the fountains out of operation until such a time as they could be replaced.”
very bizarrely CBWRA decided not to give percentages for the results so I am happy to help them out
130 (51.4%) voted in favour of submersible pumps
18 (7.1%) voted to turn the fountains back on without changing the pumps
105 (41.5%) voted to leave the fountains out of operation until such a time as they could be replaced.”
*CBWRA plans to spend huge sums on new fountains *no meaningful response on massive service charge increases * CCTV installed in block foyers with no consultation *no action on management audit
In summary, dear CBWRA, thank you for the work that (some) of the committee are doing, but could I respectfully suggest that you please stop trying to blow smoke up the residents’ rear ends and start behaving like a normal democratic residents’ association, then we might actually get somewhere as a community of engaged residents. Even the CBWRA home page is not being straight with us – ‘a board of elected residents’?. No one on the committee is elected apart from the co-Chairs and there are many aspects of that which are questionable to say the least.
Grossly unfair elections – again! The 2023 CBWRA Chair elections were unfair for a number of reasons Two candidates stood jointly, thus pooling their votes, in a massive and clear violation of the… Continue reading
What CBWRA’s letter should have said in my view is ”we are being derecognised because we outsourced our membership management/ fee taking to Rendall and Rittner , rather than run our own membership databases, and Rendall and Rittner then withdrew that service (according to CBWRA) when they heard that Right to manage might start and we now have no way to prove we have 50% leaseholder membership”.
Thanks to all who attended these meetings and to Canonbury Estate Management for providing expert advice. The standout points are
i) The advice given by Stephen Thompson/Roger Southam/Charlie Garton-Jones/CBWRA that Right to Manage for the whole development is not possible because of the supreme court judgement of First Port v Settlers Court is categorically WRONG. David Breare of Canonbury added that in his view, any competent advisor/consultant would come to the same conclusion (i.e. it’s not a grey area),
This confirms Canonbury’s written advice of June 2022 https://chelseabridgewharf.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/canonbury-summary-advice-1.6.22-correspondence-1522672.pdf
Residents should recall that this judgement of First Port v Settler’s Court was (according to Mr Thompson) the reasons why Right to Manage was not pursued at the start of 2022 and why the management contract retendering was chosen (this failed in Sep. 2022, in my view wasting up to £15,000 of residents’ money).
ii) The current position of CBWRA (after 2 years of saying that Right to Manage is not possible) is that they will investigate RTM on a block by block basis. Canonbury were equally clear that this will not work because all blocks are linked by an underground car park, and therefore cannot be considered as separate for the purposes of RTM (they are not vertically separated).
