grangeford.com Reviews 

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.

I concur with all the other reviews this company act illegally, demanding additional payments, court action et cetera et cetera. I have asked many times to pay by direct debit they don’t offer this facility to avoid actions like this.

Grangeford Asset Management Limited and its owner, Simon Joseph Gubbay, manage ground rent companies. Grangeford are not members of a redress scheme (which they are required to be). If you have any dealings with Grangeford or Mr Gubbay, please report them to your local Trading Standards Office.

no demand letters for late payment, been charged over 1k with no notice, no statements no nothing, surely this is criminal

Without prejudice, Grangeford Asset Mangement in my opinion and my own personal experience acts fraudulently, illegally and extorts unfounded additional late payment penalties from leasehold property owners. This management company maliciously extorts additional fees by threatening leasehold owners that miss the leasehold agreement deadline for ground rent and/or service charges with repossession of the property if they do not pay very high late penalty charges that do not comply with the Leasehold Agreement. This is extortion and is in my opinion illegal under UK law as these charges are not penalties that are allowed under the terms of the Leasehold Agreement. Perhaps Grangeford extort these extra charges then keep the extra fees above the actual legal ground rent for themselves or maybe Grangeford have an arrangement to share their ill-gotten gains with the landowner. I have a UK law degree, and I intend to seek specialist legal advice from a law firm to recover the extorted overpayment I have made to Grangeford. If a "group litigation" in UK (class action lawsuit in USA) is possible, I will try to initiate a case of extortion under England & Wales law - Section 21 of the Theft Act 1968 against this illegally acting company.

While I fully accept that it’s the leaseholder’s responsibility to pay ground rent on time, Grangeford’s approach to handling this is appalling. They send payment demands to the registered company address without any follow-up through more direct or reliable communication methods. If the letter is misplaced or delayed, they very quickly escalate the situation with excessive penalties that are completely disproportionate to the amount owed.

In my case, a relatively small overdue ground rent of £175. resulted in threats of legal action and nearly £1,200 in additional charges. This level of penalty for being just a few weeks/ 1 month late is, frankly, outrageous and feels like an exploitative practice. Their lack of responsiveness—ignoring calls and emails until the last moment—only adds to the frustration. Then, they issue last on the day threatening emails demanding immediate payment of extortionate fees.

I’ve now had to set up alerts to make sure nothing is missed, because dealing with Grangeford is unnecessarily stressful. I strongly advise others to be extremely cautious and, if possible, avoid entering into any agreements with them. Their practices feel like legalised scamming!, and it’s time something was done to stop them from taking advantage of people in this way. I only wished I had more time in the day in my life to deal with these lot as I would exploit them in many ways . Scammers.

Extremely unprofessional and borderline dishonest experience with Grangeford. Despite multiple formal requests, they failed to provide a basic statement of account or a copy of the bill — yet still returned my payments without reason. They refused to clear my account even when I tried to settle it in full, which raises serious concerns about their integrity and motives to go through the enforcements and pay over £1,500 as penalties . This kind of conduct is unacceptable and feels more like a scam than a legitimate operation. I strongly advise others to be cautious when dealing with this company.

We need to get together. I have investigated what Grangeford are up to. They appear to make false claims that they have rights to repossess when ground rent is a little overdue (it can easily happen), and then make wholly disproportionate and unreasonable demands for large sums of money, with payment links that expire within a few hours, and where they do not itemise what the payments are for. They also appear to create the impression, which on investigation, appears to be false, that they have already instructed lawyers and without immediate payment, further action will be taken, giving no time for owners/landlords to look into what happened and what rights they have or to take advice. With that threat in place, they then try and intimidate owners/landlords to quickly pay the large amounts they claim. It is arguably fraud and extortion.

If I could give minus stars I would. Grangeford and Tuscola are abysmal. In fact, they’re not as good as that. No people skills whatsoever, who are hell bent on making as much money as possible with no second thought of people’s wellbeing.

Modern day cowboys.

The same problem is happening to me. I missed the ground rent ( First time) due to the demand going into the junk folder. I paid it a few days ago. They said they are returning my payment! No explanation. The ground rent was for £298. They sent this message via email a couple of days ago; “Our client is entitled to pursue forfeiture of the lease due to non-payment of the rental sums pursuant to the terms of the lease. The ground rent and legal costs in excess of the necessary criteria threshold has accrued in accordance with Section 167 of the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002 and The Rights and Re-entry and Forfeiture (Prescribed Sum and Period) (England) Regulations 2004 No.3086)” Firstly they have no court order - the time frames are in months not years as per the legal requirements. There is no supporting evidence. I received three spam emails demanding money and a dodgy link. All in SPAM ( JUNK folder) - nothing in the post. They told me most of their landlords are overseas explaining why they only email. This will explain why they get away with this. Understanding British Law is so tricky. Look up the directors. I will update with a conclusion in the future. Going legal at the moment.

I received email on 7th demanding £1088 and on 9th again for £1488 - no invoice, no explanation, no statement ! I sent email back saying you have not sent invoice. I even asked them to call me to discuss - no one called - I called 2 different numbers almost 10 times - no answers. All I received is email saying I have failed to pay and they will take court action. I just do not understand how they are allowed to carry on

I want to share my horrific experience about this company. Please help if anyone can.
Ground rent was £400. I paid the amount 17 days late. They just sent me a repossession amount of £1037. And must settled this by 12 today. So scary, I spoke to them and they said non negotiable,

I also paid £988 for an adjustment ground rent of £54 last year. This is daylight robbery.

Can anyone give me a solicitor who is on this case?

Horrible company. It actually act as it was an illegal one. For a few days delay of payment they raise the amount for more than 1000, threatening of property repossession. I had and email from them that I couldn't find anymore so wondering if the also use self-destroying emails, be careful. It shouldn't be allowed them to act as they are. I will create a f/b group to gather together please check online.