A BRIEF HISTORY OF ADMIRAL'S COURT
Part FourThe Slaves are Revolting!
Life under ‘FreeHold’ Managers was certainly a misnomer. Nothing was Free although their ‘hold’ was firm and they were anything but good ‘Managers.’ Our fifteen years under their ownership was not good from the very start and subsequently varied between awful to almost acceptable with lots of stages in between. Let us start from the beginning in 2009 when we awoke to learn we had been sold like slaves without any thought for our position. Without warning or any form of consultation J G Kelly Homes Limited had disposed of their Freehold Interests to Freehold Managers (Nominees) Limited (a London based English Registered entity with no known connection with the Isle of Man).
Space and boredom thresholds demand we stick to the main events and skip a lot of what can be described as ‘ephemeral nitty gritty’! The first that ACML knew of the change of Lessor was a bald and blunt letter from ‘Freehold Managers’ dated 17th September 2009 requesting contact details for ‘the Managing Agents’. Yes! That’s correct. They wrote to us, as the managing agents, us, demanding contact details & the address of the managing agents (us again) and even used the contact details on this website for urgency.. A great harbinger of what was to follow. That they then went on to demand a schedule of all Lessee’s addresses from our Membership records (despite these being in the public domain from our annual Return to the Company Registry) was another good indicator of their intention to treat us as their unpaid slaves to jump to their command!.. Their aspirations were soon dispelled.
On receipt of this surprising letter both Management companies promptly got together and warned their members that this could be a scam and to do nothing until ‘management’ had verified the true position.
Meanwhile ACML responded to Freehold on 18th October by letter and invited them to submit a copy of the Transfer of Title or other Legal Document verifying their claim to be the new owners of our Freehold upon sight of which we would respond further to their request. We also pointed out that our Membership records were already a matter of public record but if they preferred to use our services we would be pleased to do so upon receipt of our suggested Fee of £750.
Enquiry of JG Kelly Homes meantime had sadly confirmed that Kellys had indeed sold us down the river without even the courtesy of notifying us or indeed honouring their promises to offer us the Freehold. What lovely people they turned out to be in the end. The gist of this was conveyed to all Lessees on 27th October even though we had not, as yet, received any response from our new Lessors to our request for proof.
This was chased up on 12th November when in the same letter we advised them of a claim against them, as successors in Title to Kellys, for the works undertaken by us to remedy the faulty Sewage system.
As anticipated that letter provoked a tetchy and hectoring response from their Isle of Man Advocates (Messrs. Posh and Fullovitte trading as Sue, Grabbit & Run!) rejecting liability and ‘demanding’ we supply the current tenants’ names and addresses forthwith! Instead of our suggested £750 they offered to pay £100 plus VAT. Golly Gosh! Such largesse! This generous offer was accompanied by a blustering threat that if we did not do so within 14 days they would issue invoices to our members last known addresses and recover any extra costs from us as Management Company.
Surely this attempt to bully us was the wrong way to seek our assistance and cooperation? Which they were soon to discover. Their attitude brought forth a swift and total rebuff and a repeated request for evidence of their client’s claim to be our Freeholder. We also invited them to point out the Clause in the Head Lease that empowered their client to even demand this information let alone recover costs from us should we decline to do so!
This elicited a brief churlish reply enclosing the long awaited copy of the Conveyance of 27th August 2009 at a price of £153,100.48 but total silence on the matter of Lessee details.
From such an auspicious start began a difficult 14 year relationship where, try as we might, it was to prove nigh on impossible to get our new Landlords to submit their annual Ground demand in the correct format at the correct time as clearly defined in our Leases.
Over the years there were far too many instances of several directors genuine attempts to achieve this to recount on here. There are on record several good suggestions as to how ‘Freehold Managers’ could comply in future but despite promises to do so everyone fell like Autumn leaves (in April or May) the following year.
Several times members received invoices for the wrong amounts in the incorrect format to the wrong address and dated later than stated in the Lease. To add to the problem, when payments were withheld in protest they simply added ‘chargebacks’, that were not permitted under the terms of the Lease, until challenged to retract by one of our ACML directors. Once they even tried to commence proceedings against some of the defaulters but had to back off when it was pointed out that a Court Summons to Merseyside was hardly likely to be enforceable in the Jurisdiction of the Isle of Man.
As frequently written in the many circulars to shareholders on this topic “You could not make this up!”
On another occasion they defaulted on a written promise to re-imburse ACML for the cost of the Annual inspection of Apartments under Fire Regulations for which they were responsible. On another they wasted much postage and paper on repeatedly demanding details of our Insurance by way of seven letters posted separately to each of the five phases, plus the ground floors, plus quarterly reminders throughout 2021 and 2022 until we got through to them that such insurance was the sole responsibility of the two Management Companies.
Even this did not prevent them from demanding Ground Rents from the ‘tenants’ of several Car Parking spaces.
All this nonsense eventually came to a head when as a result of Legal action in 2024 a commitment was obtained to adopt a procedure that complied with their Covenant in the Head Lease. It will come as no surprise that this commitment did not survive as far as the very next Demand when despite an assurance on 13th March 2025 the overdue demands on 12th April were ten days late and for the incorrect amount without the promised computation.
But that same eMail also contained an intimation that at long last our thorn under their saddle had made its presence felt and “If you or a collective of leaseholders are interested in acquiring the freehold, please contact us so that we may negotiate a price.” OK! They were asking silly money but at least they were talking. It is a known maxim that “Jaw Jaw” is better than ‘War War’ so lets talk about it. After a few exchanges a price acceptable to both parties was agreed. OK so this was basically that they suggested one price and us another and we eventually split the difference. Negotiating at its finest. First offer on 13th March and an agreed offer on 28th April.
Now we can begin the process of sealing the deal. Form a company, open a Bank account and collect the purchase monies from ‘a collective of interested parties.’ Surely that can’t take long?
Can it?