February 2025 Newsletter
Hello everybody. We have several items to update you all on this month.
The next stage of a possible sale of the Club
As we said in the last Newsletter, work has begun to produce a more detailed valuation report. This is the deliverable that we were given authority to proceed upon at the AGM last September Louch Shadlock are coordinating the work of four other suppliers;
- Howes Percival have produced their legal review of the freehold of the Club and looked at the restrictive covenants in place. In summary we may need to have some indemnity insurance to cover against Mines and mineral excavation rights being exercised by authorised third parties should the sale proceed but everything else is in place to show that we are free to develop the site. They also processed the confirmation of the removal of the Charge held by Homes England with the Land Registry.
- MK Surveys Limited visited our site on the 21st January to enable them to produce a full Topographic Survey.
Now that these two activities have completed, we have three more stages of the work which are being undertaken in the coming weeks:
- V4 Architects Limited will carry out an initial design review and produce a sketch plan for residential development on the site comprising of individual homes.
- Smith Jenkins Limited will then produce a planning appraisal which will give an indication of the feasibility of any planning application being acceptable or not.
- Louch Shadlock will then pull theses deliverables into a final evaluation report which will mark the end of the work that you have authorised us to carry out.
What happens at this time will depend upon a number of factors. All of the work which we have commissioned can be used at a later date should we all wish to continue to lease the Club for now. It could be that you wish to call an EGM to vote upon proceeding to the next stage of the sale process which would be to have a pre submission planning appraisal performed followed by the full planning application being prepared and submitted. There would need to be additional legal and architects work as well. The evaluation report will have the next steps explained and costed.
At this point in time the Trustees are very happy with the state of our finances. We do, however, have to be mindful of the fragility in the hospitality sector at present. We need to be able to react as quickly as possible should the Roman Crown fail for whatever reason.
2025 Equal Contribution collection update.
At the time of writing, 4th February 2025, the raw statistics from the collections process were:
- Fully paid – 273
- Paying by instalment – 29
- No 2025 payment as yet but no arrears -88
- In arrears for previous years – 33
So we have over 70% of properties where the Equal Contribution has been paid in full or is being paid by instalments. That is a very good percentage to have achieved by the due date. Thank you all very much. It makes our job far easier when we have less chasing to do.
Over half of the properties in arrears are for minor sums from last year, typically where a monthly payment was missed. We are pursuing the other more serious cases actively. We have the paperwork prepared for five cases to be taken through the Money Claims court process should we have no payment or payment plan from them by the end of this month. Other cases have promised to pay by instalment so we are monitoring them. Some cases, which typically have arrears going back for six years or more, will be more difficult to resolve. Inaction by RPML over the years has made these cases much harder to resolve despite the very strenuous effort of your Trustees over the last 3 years or so. The fallback in these cases is that the debt has to be paid upon the sale of the property. Of course, the owners of any property in arrears cannot, as is dictated by the Declaration of Trust, vote on any motions at general meetings and will not benefit from any proceeds from the sale of the Club.
House Sales
Over the last few months we have seen some house sales on the estates which have tried to go under the radar with respect to the signing of a new Deed of Covenant by the Buyer(s). If you are selling you should let your solicitor/conveyancer know about the obligation to pay the Equal Contribution and have them contact us so we can put them in contact with our solicitors. If your Buyer does not sign the Deed of Covenant then the liability to pay the EC stays with you, the Seller.
Also please note that when selling your Equal Contribution for the whole year has to have been paid in full. Any apportionment of the EC between Seller and Buyer can be done after that. We will not sign the document for the Land Registry if the EC has not been paid. Paying the EC promptly will remove one barrier from the sale.
Property Details Update
It has become very apparent that our records of owners, agent, email addresses and the like are incomplete and, in some cases, inaccurate. Therefore, in March we will be writing to you all to obtain the definitive data from you. We will be asking for a response via email but will be setting up a specific email address just for this exercise so, please, no responses for now please.
By doing this we will be able to provide you with more timely communications and cut down our administrative costs further.
Regards,
Sharon, Chair