A lot to be achieved in the sector

I find myself sucked into issues and online comment, from specific matters to general queries. I am finding everything that I have said or written in the past is scrutinised and quoted back at me as some rallying call for what we should be doing going forward.

The one thing I am old enough to know is that I will never please all the people and when you have a population as diverse as leasehold property this is even truer.

In February LEASE held a day conference, which was paid for, and attracted managers and lawyers, and in the evening we held a free conference for leaseholders. During the day I was asked to step in when the Housing Minister was detained at Parliament because of the Rotherham Council debacle.

I thought the 15 minutes I talked would be fairly uncontroversial, asking for the professionals involved in the leasehold sector to communicate more effectively and to work with the leaseholders. I was surprised to hear a couple of comments from attendees outraged by my message to them.

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Well, had they been present in the evening session they would have been stunned to see nearly 100% of the audience of leaseholders put up their hands when asked if they thought their managers were trying to rip them off!

There is a lot to be achieved in the leasehold sector and I am committed to ensuring LEASE plays a full part in moving the service levels up and ensuring everyone involved is delivering a quality service. LEASE exists to give free advisory service to leaseholders.

It would be unrealistic to think that there will never be any issues because of the amount of layers involved in developing and running the properties. I am sure that more can be done to explain processes and areas that would aid understanding and knowing where and how things can be addressed.

If you have any issues then LEASE is there for you and if you go to the website (www.lease-advice.org), a wealth of information exists, providing help, guidance and solutions. You can always fill in the online contact form if you have a more detailed query.