ethics

Homeground Management contact number – Complaints

What is the contact number for Homeground Management? ethics

If you’ve arrived on this page, you are probably hoping to speak with HomeGround Management Ltd about an issue with a tenancy, ground rent or leasehold property. You will find however that despite dealing with peoples’ homes, this dubious company hides behind an anonymous email address and PO Box. Read on to find out why I have written this post. Meanwhile…

The contact number for Homeground is: 0207 723 8881 (via another company, Longharbour.co.uk which is owned by the same directors)

You can also contact them via their email: enquiries @homegroundonline.com or write to them at Homeground Management Ltd, PO Box 6433 London W1A 2UZ

I decided to write this post as I feel it is in the public interest to expose HomeGround as the bullying, nasty organisation in my opinion it is.

In a nutshell I own a flat and the ground rent is collected by Homeground Management Ltd, which has recently apologised for an error and is paying compensation.

In December I paid the ground rent as usual. However, Homeground wrongly attributed the payment to someone else’s account. Of course mistakes happen. But rather than double check when sent proof of payment, Homeground continued to ignore bank statements and claim I hadn’t paid, loading the ‘missing payment’ with extortionate fees and issuing court proceedings.

Homeground is faceless. Its website is poorly written, hard to navigate and spammy with  only an anonymous PO box and email address.  When Homeground responds to emails (and they often just don’t respond) they do not put a name on them or contact number on them – just from Homeground. They do not respond by phone –  they boast you cannot ring them. They ‘endeavour to respond to emails within an average of five days.’
Faced with court action and no way of speaking to anyone to sort this out, I was forced to spend hours of my time tracking down their directors and found another company of theirs with a phone number. After telling them I would be writing an article about their appalling company – which has already been branded ‘toxic’ in media reports, is linked to the leasehold freehold scandal and has a massive number of complaints on the internet – their PR guy rang. Needless to say – presumably after realising I was a genuine reporter – within minutes this issue was sorted, an apology made and compensation is being paid.
The PR guy said they don’t have a phone number because it would not be cost effective to have people ringing them ‘and possibly engaging in long conversations.’
However I am mostly concerned how vulnerable people – someone who is unable to write for example – would contact them. Also for someone in debt or suffering from mental illness, the sort of bullying harrassing emails I received could be enough to send them over the edge.
If ground rent is not paid, someone can lose their leasehold home by forfeiture.
I believe any organisation such as Homeground, which frankly is raking in money from tenants,  should by law have to invest in a team of qualified staff to man phone lines.  No one like this should be allowed to hide behind a PO box and an anonymous email.

As well as speaking with my MP to bring in legislation to make such companies provide proper contact details, I am currently putting together an article for one of the national publications I write for – obviously were I not a journalist then it appears Homeground would have quite happily just taken me to court.

If you have had a similar experience and would like to contribute to this article – and force Homeground to invest some of their profits in a helpline, please contact me using the form to the right of this page >>>

  • Arthur J Gallagher Insurance Brokers Limited, whose contact details appear on the Homeground website have asked me to point out: ‘beyond the arrangement of insurance Gallagher has no involvement with the provision of any other services.”

HomeGround Management Ltd spokesperson Deepti Sharma said my experience was ‘not reflective of the standard of service that we aim to and do provide… services are subject to scrutiny by an independent Government approved consumer redress scheme, The Property Ombudsman, to whom any customer can escalate their complaint if they are not satisfied by the way we have addressed their issue.  Whilst very few customers feel the need to contact the Ombudsman, we are focused on continually improving our standards of service, and we take note of all feedback from our customers in this regard.”

Alison Smith-Squire

Alison Smith-Squire is a writer, journalist and media agent selling exclusive real life stories to newspapers, magazines and TV. She owns the sell my story website Featureworld.co.uk, which was set up to help ordinary people sell their stories to the press.

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