grangeford.com Reviews 66

No stars would be more appropriate. Cowboys ! Crooks.
They say they posted me a demand letter in February, I never received it. 8th April they demanded an extra £937 (!!!) for admin and legal fees (original demand was £350).
Offered to pay , they said no, apparently posted letter was legally binding. Con artists ???

Utterly appalling company engaged in predatory, exploitative and threatening practice.

Purported to charge several of my neighbours more than £900 in late payment fees over a disputed buildings insurance bill which was only supposed to be about £200 per leaseholder. They also imposed a 19% administration charge, totally excessive, for arranging said insurance.

Unresponsive to emails except to threaten people with being evicted from their homes if they don’t immediately settle these late payment charges. They are racketeers and use freehold as a means to ruin people’s livelihoods.

They should face criminal sanctions. This is exactly why leasehold needs to be outlawed.

Dreadful company. I paid my ground rent and they didn’t accept that I had paid and so they charged me 1,371 as a late payment fee. They never return my money or my calls. Very dodgy

Scoundrels of the simplest sort, mendacious crooks as can be seen by the shortest search.

For legal reasons I might have to be careful with my words here…. but do not trust Grangeford! This company are unethical, they make up charges and use threats and extortion to try and extract money from their customers, especially foreigners. Never buy a property if this company are involved, I hope justice prevails and they see the inside of a prison soon for all their alleged crimes.

How are they allowed to commit what appears to be blatant fraud and nobody stops them?

Grangeford imposed excessive and unjustified charges after a single missed ground rent payment with no reminders or warnings. They ignored emails, including one from a local councillor, and refused to discuss the situation.

Their charges are not legally valid and will not stand up to scrutiny at the First-tier Tribunal. The only organisation that engaged properly was the Property Redress Scheme, who confirmed that Grangeford acted unreasonably. I have used their findings to take the matter to the Tribunal.

If you are having similar issues, go straight to the Property Redress Scheme. They will actually review evidence and help you build a proper case.

This company is the definition of scammers ! They charge enormous late payment fees and they are threating people for repossession of their properties if you don't pay their unreasonable charges.
They provide no legal basis for their claims and they are bullies.
I cannot really believe that this is happening in the UK which is a country which has a reputable legal system. How can we get protection from these scammers ?

Grangeford have charged me exorbitant Ground Rent of £335 and they charged me £732 after a delay of 42 days. They have not replied to my letter sent over a month ago asking for breakdown of £ 732. They did not send any reminders. I am writing to them again. I have complained to the Ombudsman for Leaseholders.

This is an example of a " legal" scam. The law in the UK does not protect certain leaseholders from abuse, overcharging and bullying and Grangeford takes full advantage. A truly evil company.

Grangeford is a scam company.
They are just a money making so call company, runs from a small corner shop and they threaten people in very illegal way to repossess their properties and without any notice they put late fee 10 times more than the original bill.
Be careful with this company.

If I could give a minus, I would give them a minimum of -100, and that would be just the minimum. To describe Grangeford (Grabford is a better name for them btw) that ‘company’ : CROOKS (and that is me being mild)
@Trustpilot, can you implement a minus section in what to leave as a score please?

Threatened me into paying £2030.95 for a £130.95 late payment of 3 months. No official letters just 3 emails. Threatened with bailiffs.
Now taking them to court to get my refund.
I think all us landlords need to get together and put a stop to this,

Scamming company committing fraud - i'll be reporting them and escalating this, they just messed with the wrong person

This is a company you can trust 100% to RUIN YOUR LIFE!!
Any 1* reviews you read here are totally true. Please read them. Michael Gubbay (freeholder)is interested in one thing, making money at the expense of the leaseholders health and safety. They send bills by email ( don’t bother with postal reminders)which go into junk. When the bill is paid, the money is returned so they then fine you for late payment ( usually adding on £1000 on the original bill or just threaten with repossession. They are bullies. If you don’t believe me, just Google his name. He is freeholder to over 250 properties and ruining thousands of families up and down the UK. Been in national papers.

It’s shocking how many leaseholders are reporting the same pattern of behaviour from Grangeford and the Gubbay family of companies, ground rent notices are routinely withheld, no invoices or proper accounting is provided, and yet leaseholders are hit with inflated charges and threats of legal action.

In our case, we never received a formal ground rent invoice by post, as required. Instead, we received a single email (which ended up in spam) and were later hit with demands from Property Debt Collection (PDC) for quadruple the original amount. When we tried to pay the ground rent directly, Grangeford refunded the payment and said they wouldn’t accept it until the “breach” was cleared, a breach they had created.

The common tactic seems to be:
No proper demands issued
No follow up no reminders, next thing you know you have a massive debt letter sent in the post
Refuse payment unless “debt” is cleared
Threaten legal action or forfeiture
Involve PDC to escalate fees massively!

Many of his companies are registered offshore (including the British Virgin Islands), and it appears they operate with deliberate opacity. We’ve been forced to take the matter to the First-tier Tribunal (FTT) where they eventually backed down, likely because they had no legal basis for their actions. They did it before and will continue to do it unless you really stand up to it.

This is just one aspect of it, the freeholder is notorious for skirting the law. It’s astonishing how they’re still allowed to operate.

If you’re going through the same thing, don’t be intimidated. It’s not just you, there are dozens, possibly hundreds of leaseholders facing the same aggressive tactics. I hope that one day we can organise a class action against them. Until then, the best step you can take is to document everything, challenge every charge, and push back via FTT

Without prejudice and based on personal experience aswell as those of others who have had the misfortune of dealing with organisation;
This company basically exercises legal fraud
To pay a £1000 fine for a delay of £150 ground rent after just 1 email and no reminder smacks of intentional operation. Then to be hounded by debt collectors. They caused untold misery to many people and I hope they get their comeuppance.
I can’t believe they are allowed to operate in this manner but hopefully the legal system will catch up with the despicable people who profit from other people’s misery.
STAY WELL AWAY
DO DUE DILIGENCE ON THE OWNERS

Same issue as the other reviews I have read regarding high escalation fees. After months (if not years) of unanswered emails and calls, and the stress that goes with it, the charges got dropped with the threat of taking him / them to court. Would strongly recommend anyone dealing with him as a FH, who believe they are not responsible for the charges being directed towards them, to explore the option of taking them to an FTT (quite affordable) to allow a judge to merit whether his actions are reasonable within the law or not. If you are a qualifying leaseholder (under the recent BSA) there are a lot of legal protections afforded to you against a business model of buying freeholds on complex’s that are in distress. If you are reading this Mr Gubbay, I hope it’s with a heavy heart knowing the angst your company has caused to so many people and their families. I hope one day you have a business you can be proud of. Do better. Aim higher.

I have experienced exactly the same as all the other 1 star reviews. However there should be an option for 0 stars.

Grangeford are an absolutely despicable organisation, if I can actually call them that. They also referred me to PDC to enforce late payment for ground rent as I did not receive the invoice as it went into my junk mail. They added on over £1000 for late payment for £150 ground rent. They didn’t even give me the option to pay without the fee so I challenged it.

Fortunately, they have to post the demand to my home address as per my lease so eventually along with around 20 others they waived the fee. Weird thing is the fees were all different and seemingly random without any explanation of what they consisted of.

This took weeks and was extremely stressful including seeking legal advice. It was only when I coped in my local MP, the press, the ministry for housing and the Home Secretary that they relented.

Awful company run by a greedy tyrant-Gubbay.
Beware!!!

Absolutely awful company. Use scare tactics and threaten people. Gubbay is a crook. Add on penalties and try to bully people with legal jargon, threatening court action and repossession. Atrocious.