Welcome to my write up of what we at Leasehold Debt Recovery got up to in March, however as I sit down to write this we are almost halfway through April already. Given both the Easter weekend and also the school holidays, it doesn’t feel like there have been many working days so far this month (hence my tardiness with this latest blog entry). This being said, I’m not inclined to advocate for a reduction in the number of bank holidays just yet!
It was an incredibly busy month for us in March with exceptional performance across a range of metrics – particular highlights include the following:
- An over 11% increase in the value of debts recovered compared with the same period last year;
- An almost 75% increase in the number of instructions resolved during March compared with the previous month;
- A 150% increase in the number of instructions which were paid within 7 days compared with the previous month.
The majority of our workload in March was dealing with what I think of as our ‘bread and butter’, this being instructions relating to service charge and / or ground rent arrears which we recover from either the defaulting leaseholder or their mortgage lender. We have nevertheless also continued to deal with other matters as and when required by our clients, such matters last month having included the enforcement of a determination of the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber), assisting a landlord with its claim for possession of a property on grounds of forfeiture of the lease, and interpreting various lease clauses and advising clients accordingly.
At a company level, last month saw us file our latest accounts for the year to 31st October 2020 and which thus included approximately 7 months of trading which was affected by COVID and associated restrictions. We have been fortunate over the past year or so in that we have been relatively well insulated from the pandemic in terms of what we do and for this I am immensely grateful. However, it would be incorrect to say that we have been entirely unaffected – for instance, the closure of schools had a detrimental impact upon our productivity as it will have done for so many. In addition to this, we also both saw and felt the impact of enforced changes to our clients’ own working practices and whereby for various reasons other aspects of their work sometimes took precedence over credit control activities. This is entirely understandable, and it is because of these unique circumstances that I take such pride in our latest financial results.
With that I will conclude this post and begin to turn my attentions to what to include within next month’s entry. As always, if we can help you with any cases of service charge / ground rent arrears (or indeed any other matter in which we may be able to assist you) in the meantime then please do not hesitate to get in touch!
Nicholas Warren MIRPM AssocRICS
Director, Leasehold Debt Recovery
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