Category Archive: Rendall & Rittner
Rendall and Rittner featured in BBC’s ‘Rip Off Britain’
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001zhps/rip-off-britain-series-16-4-paying-1-per-mile-for-car-insurance Residents at New Little Mill development in Ancoats, Manchester tell a story which will be familiar to most leaseholders at Rendall and Rittner managed developments. Inflated service charges, unclear statements. It is… Continue reading
Rendall and Rittner petition edging towards 5,000 signatures
https://www.change.org/p/rendall-and-rittner-and-odevo-group-enough-is-enough-residents-demand-change-and-an-answer-to-our-petition Help us get to 5,000 signatures and the submission of this petition to Rendall and Rittner Residents from a rapidly growing number of developments managed by Rendall and Rittner (approximately 4,700 residents… Continue reading
CBWRA’s absurd attempt to rewrite history
The latest email update to leaseholders from CBWRA ‘co-chair’s Larisa Villar Hauser and Louis Sebastian Kendall gave me a good laugh. In their email of 22.10.23 they state: ” We thank you for your… Continue reading
Update on Special General Meeting 12th September – two important motions passed despite improper voting procedures, CBWRA’s attempts to supress discussion and chronically low resident engagement
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 ‘Special General Meeting’ on 12th September 7pm – please attend and vote against ratification of the CBWRA committee, constitution and 140% fees increase – vote FOR freedom of speech, fair elections and resident control of service charge expenditure
vote AGAINST ratification of committee (because they are not consulting residents, the consultations they do carry out are biased/ leading and the proposed quarterly ‘forums’ are too infrequent and exclude non-leaseholders. Also there is not freedom of speech on the app, and the CBWRA committee misinformed residents about RTM and have not explained or apologised for that). Also that there should be ELECTIONS not ‘ratification’
· VOTE AGAINST the ratification of the constitution because we are only being given 10 days to see it before the meeting (it will only come around on 30 AUG)
· VOTE AGAINST CBWRA fees rise CBWRA have never given any meaningful justification for the 140% increase in fees which they carried out in Feb this year. They claimed it was partly for legal fees to do with RTM but they have also said Urang (the proposed new managing agent) are covering all fees or will recover them through the service charge.
I also encourage residents to consider withholding all payment to CBWRA until they adopt normal standards of governance in respect of fair elections, free speech and resident consultation. #NOSAYNOPAY
£450 a night Airbnb in Howard Building – apparently CBWRA and Rendall and Rittner have only just noticed it
It has been reported to the author of this blog that a property in Howard building has been used as an Airbnb for at least two years and possibly longer. The property is listed here:
https://www.airbnb.co.uk/rooms/6683135
The property, which goes for upwards of £450 a night, was apparently purchased in 2015 for £1,025,000 and is currently valued at up to £1,022,000 (according to themovemarket.com).).
Chelsea Bridge Wharf Residents’ Association has chosen a managing agent for Right to Manage application – your view does not matter.
CBWRA announced today that they are ‘recommending” Urang as the managing agent to handle the Right to Manage application for Chelsea Bridge Wharf. Except that it is not really recommending – the decision has been made. Residents are offered the opportunity to meet with Urang online on 30th May – but none of the other companies have been invited! Residents have been provided with some incredibly weak and superficial ‘analysis’ document, supposedly the basis on which Urang are recommended but detailed examination is only provided for Urang and not the other bidders. So this is not a consultation, it is in true CBWRA style, a decision made without resident consultation and then they insult our intelligence by asking for feedback after the decision. If such a consultation were carried out in any private or public organization it would be dismissed as heavily biased, or in plain language, a token consultation on a done deal. This is pretty pathetic given that millions of pounds of service charge are involved here (I believe Rendall and Rittners’ overall revenue, i.e. the total service charge collected, is in the region of £3 million a year at Chelsea Bridge Wharf) and that 2.5 years have been wasted by CBWRA telling us that Right to manage is not possible. So this is the biggest decision that a residents’ association can make and rather than doing it in an open and inclusive way, the decision has pretty much made already by a small cabal of mostly unelected people. ‘Consultation’ is happening AFTER their decision has been made.
The CBWRA Annual General Meeting April 2023.
*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.
Rendall and Rittner – the failure of ‘bulk tendering’ of Electricity supply and 40%+ service charge increases
It appears that Rendall and Rittner’s electrical supply tendering strategy has failed. Rendall and Rittner have tried to tender for electricity supply on a huge bulk scale at a time when energy companies were risk averse /energy prices were very volatile and thus there was almost no response to the tender. This has left us at the mercy of EDF (existing supplier) and a new contract was signed with them at a 333% increase. Had Rendall and Rittner negotiated for Chelsea Bridge Wharf on single development basis (and given that our freeholder has no credit rating issues) it is likely we could have got a much better deal.
I am not convinced that Rendall and Rittner have behaved reasonably in this matter and I will be paying service charge under protest until further notice while I investigate further and obtain advice.
In the meanwhile I suggest a plan for the urgent reduction of electricity consumption in communal and external areas should be drawn up, in consultation with residents, and the fountains should be a central part of that.