Talacre Coverage mainly re Overage from 9.7.20. Latest at top
Dear Editor,
Interesting to see Richard Olszewski ushered in as new leader of Camden Council.
It was with Olszewski – and Danny Beales now MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip– that Nick Harding (labelled ‘vexatious’ by Camden, but in reality indefatigable) and I had an hour Zoom call in October 2020.
Nick, in particular, had been hammering away at Camden Council over a dozen years for failing to collect £3 million-plus in ‘overage’ from the appalling Talacre development. This was a debt owed to the people of Camden, but which – according to Olszewski and Beales. – could not be collected from the developers because the contract, drawn up by council officers, was ‘unenforceable’.
The Zoom meeting elicited an apology, but despite Harding’s arguments for negotiating a settlement, Olszewski and Beales said their legal advice was that nothing more could be done and the debt was written off.
They were unable to provide us with the questions asked of the legal experts (let alone the answers) but promised to get back with a written response.
Despite subsequent pressure, nothing was ever received; as Harding said at the time ‘This is embarrassing for Camden and I don’t think we will ever get a proper reply.’
Of course, this scenario (of not replying on difficult matters) will be unsurprising to many Camden residents.
Not only did Olszewski fail to reply as he had promised to do after the Zoom call, but the council also failed to supply information about the collection of ‘overage’ from other developments in Camden, despite Hardings Freedom of Information request.
I do hope we can all look forward to a period when the public interest is better served by our new council leader.
Brian Lake
With reference to Brian Lake's letter (Any advice on getting £4m owed? November 25), perhaps Camden Council, with its reluctance to take any legal action against the owners of the Princes Park flats in Talacre because of the potential costs involved, should offer Withers and Sir Geoffrey Cox MP a contingent success fee arrangement for taking up the case in the British Virgin Islands. If the overage due is £4 million, I suggest a maximum success fee of 20 per cent (£800,000) of the total overage if they will take on the case on a no win / no fee basis.
In the best outcome Camden would receive £3.2million of the £4million which at the moment it is making no effort to collect.
Peter Ratzer, Camden councillor 1974-78, 37 Gayton Road, London NW3 1UB
Any advice on getting back the Talacre £4m?
SIR Geoffrey Cox MP is of particular interest to us in Camden. He’s a leading barrister, QC, and former Attorney General.
He has represented a number of senior government figures from the British Virgin Islands (BVI) and he is a consultant with the well-known law firm of Withers.
Here in Camden we have been witnessing our council maintaining that it is owed a substantial amount of money which can’t be collected because it doesn’t know who owns the land it sold.
Camden doesn’t know because the company now owning it is registered in the BVI and in the BVI, unlike almost every other country, the shareholders of a company do not have to be disclosed.
The land in question is, of course, that on which the Princes Park flats at Talacre were built.
Sold in a Land Sale agreement for £325,500 to be increased by what is known as “overage” if the 36 private flats were sold for more than a defined amount.
They were. The £325,500 assumed the private flats would sell for £8.5million. They sold for £21million.
So perhaps Sir Geoffrey can, with his MP’s & Withers’s hats on, and his knowledge of the BVI, advise Camden Council whether the following two pieces of legal advice we have are correct and if so, what should be done to collect the substantial amount of overage due. We reckon it to be £4million.
First: “These documents like the Land Sale Agreements are binding on successors in title which will include future purchasers of the freehold land and leaseholders of the flats. So, all persons who own Talacre whether freehold or leasehold are subject to these agreements.”
Second: “We are of the view that should any overage be due to Camden, the liability rests upon the existing owner regardless as to where it is domiciled.
“Further that should the existing owner fail to pay such overage, Camden would be able to sue in the English courts and, in the event of the defendant failing to pay any sum awarded to Camden, Camden would be entitled to take steps to recover it, including foreclosing on the property”.
Sir Geoffrey Cox’s opinion on this matter, which is causing so much embarrassment to Camden Council that even our MP, Sir Keir Starmer, cannot get an answer out of its leader Cllr Georgia Gould, would be very useful.
BRIAN LAKE, NW1
About that £4million...
Many readers will have followed the situation on the Talacre development known as Prince’s Park.
The flats were completed and occupied in 2014.
Any profit as defined in Camden’s agreement to sell the land needed, was to be shared between the owner and Camden, an arrangement known as “Overage”.
After numerous requests for information from Camden, they have confirmed only in the last year that the owner, the freeholder, owes Camden a substantial amount of overage; but they say they have difficulty in collecting it from the owner who is in the British Virgin Islands.
Also in the last year we have received legal advice the precise text of which is
"These documents like the Land Sale Agreements are binding on successors in title which will include future purchasers of the freehold land and leaseholders of the flats. So, all persons who own Talacre whether freehold or leasehold are subject to these agreements".
That overage agreement allows Camden, in the event of a dispute, to appoint an “Expert”.
Camden has so far been unwilling to do that which leaves the obligation of paying overage hanging over not only the owner of the freehold but also the leaseholders of the 36 private flats. So until the overage obligation is satisfied, one way or another, any buyer of a flat should be advised of this potential liability and take it into account; a highly unsatisfactory situation for the existing leaseholders unless they persuade Camden to declare that the overage obligation has been fulfilled.
I estimate the amount due to be in the region of £4 million. Camden says they believe it is not so much but that it is “substantial”.
The land was sold for £325,500 based on the estimated selling price for the private flats of £8,819,500. Those private flats were sold for £20,757,590, hence the overage that becomes due.
So, it is clearly in the interests of the existing private leaseholders, as well as us Camden citizens, to enforce the Overage agreement and make the owner/freeholder in the BVI pay what it owes to us.
Until that happens the leaseholders will suffer unless Camden in some way declares that the overage agreement no longer applies. Can they do that? Should they do that?
Therefore, it is up to all of us, voters and councillors, to require that Camden continues to claim the overage and to set in motion the defined way to establish how much is owed and then to demand it from the freeholder.
NICK HARDING
St Ann's Gardens, NW5
Press for debt repayment
You featured a letter from Paul Braithwaite (Failure to collect £3m debt stinks, July 8) in which he referred to the outstanding investigative work done by Nick Harding, the late Eric Gordon editor of the CNJ ,and others into the Talacre development scandal.
There is much murkiness here that Camden Council does not wish illuminated.
I urge your paper to continue its excellent campaigning work.
Camden council should be pressed into taking action to reclaim the £3 million it is owed, instead of covering up its staff incompetence and suggesting there is nothing to be done now.
Lucy Morgan N7
Failure to collect £3m debt stinks
I write with regard to Nick Harding’s Forum (So much for transparency on the debt July 1) exposing Camden’s Council’s continuing cover-up of the Talacre Development.
This cause was rightly championed by the New Journal's now deceased founding editor, Eric Gordon, who knew a scandal when he sniffed one.
It’s part of Eric’s legacy and it’s unfinished business.
Our council leader Georgia Gould has remained aloof but it’s time for her “Nothing to see here” stance to stop and for some long overdue honesty and transparency.
Quite simply, Camden's failure to collect £3million that is owed is deplorable and it stinks.
Nick Harding’s forensic detective work, despite the Council’s obfuscation and prevarication, is a revelation and it warrants proper pursuit.
For eight years from 2006 I was a Camden Councillor and I can confirm that Nick Harding is correct to assert that the two most senior legal Camden officers were in situ then and remain so today.
While juniors in Camden’s legal team may have signed off on sloppy drafting of the overage payment agreement it was ultimately the responsibility of senior officers.
It’s not acceptable to brush it all away by reporting that the junior members of the legal team have long since left. It’s also not acceptable to say it’s dead and buried and ancient history.
Camden Council needs to change its tune to proactively and aggressively pursue the debt and all other unpaid overages.
It’s time to take responsibility Cllr Gould and show some steel.
Paul Braithwaite
Bartholomew Villas, NW5
So much for transparency on the debt
For more than 12 years Nick Harding has been questioning Camden Council over a block of flats built at the edge of Talacre Park in Kentish Town
THE email from the senior Camden officer, Martin Olomofe, you reported upon (Blunder robs Town Hall of millions, June 3), contained assertions which I was convinced were at best a massaging of the facts.
So I checked with the correspondence in my files which goes back to before 2009 when the two most important members of the legal department were in post.
It doesn’t all speak ill of Camden, in 2010 the assistant director of regeneration and planning had the grace to apologise to me for their continual failure to provide accurate information on the Talacre development and even offered me financial compensation.
I and others had been fed inaccurate information about the contractual situation during a time when planning decisions were being made. It was clearly either deliberate or incompetence.
So far Camden have not been willing to show us what leads to the conclusion that this overage cannot be sued for and collected.
What we know and is confirmed by Camden is that there was a contractual obligation to pay overage in the contracts dated 19.4.05 and 6.7.07 signed between Camden and the buyer of the land.
We know the private flats were sold in 2013 for amounts that causes Camden to agree that overage became due to Camden.
We know that the obligation is inherited by later freeholders, wherever they are domiciled.
We know that Camden have employed (using their words in responses to freedom of information requests) “Independent external consultants” (6.9.16).
“The assessment is being carried out with the support of external legal, technical, and professional advice” (23.10.17).
“Officers – with the input of lawyers and inquiry agents – have been continuing their active efforts” (6.4.18) and “Further legal advice from external counsel” (3.2.20).
We don’t know what these professionals were asked concerning overage and neither do we know what they advised. That so far is secret.
So much for transparency. We do know that the land in Kentish Town remains in Kentish Town and it has a building on it that is the subject of the overage agreement. And that the overage is due from its owners.
If there is ever an enquiry, and I can pass on all the information I have, people will be astonished; not least about the section 106 agreement to which most attention was given in the early days.
It still exists whoever is involved. It is definitely enforceable and has been little mentioned recently.
Camden actually hold over £1million available to ensure its terms are fulfilled. Those terms haven’t been and aren’t being fulfilled.
The owners simply ignored these obligations and Camden accepted evidence from a subsidiary of the developer that it wasn’t necessary to do so.
Perhaps the manifest absence of co-operation from the owner on overage now will cause Camden to look seriously at the past and correct all their failures.
Another example came in 2009 when I found that the Land Registry was recording an agreement between the landowner and Camden that was not in Camden’s records.
When I asked Camden about it, the response I got was all of 15 words, “Information concerning the status of the second property contract is not held by Camden Council”.
They appeared totally unconcerned that, whether intentionally or otherwise, false information was being put out to the public.
A similar answer, this time via the then head of property, finance, told us that the legal department said: “This error will be brought to the site owner’s attention”.
Anyone wanting more can find it on https://sites.google.com/view/talacrefacts/Home.
Nick Harding
njhnw5@gmail.com
• For more than 12 years Nick Harding has been questioning Camden Council over a block of flats built at the edge of Talacre Park in Kentish Town. He discovered they had sold the land for just £320,000 but the block itself was later sold for several millions. The retired accountant calculated that the owner or developer owed the council as much as £3million having failed to honour original agreements. The council now acknowledges there is a debt…
NICK HARDING, NW5 Njhnw5@gmail.com
The Talacre project debt will not be forgotten
YOUR piece (Blunder robs Town Hall of millions, June 3) has the suggestion from Camden that overage on the Talacre project cannot be collected due to the discovery that an unnamed officer in the legal department had made an error.
That an error had been made, one doesn’t doubt but that doesn’t mean that overage is not owed. What the council are now saying has all the hallmarks of a damage limitation exercise.
Admit to the world at large that an error was made; find a scapegoat in the form of an officer who has left; suggest its ok because “lessons have been learned”; maintain it is of less consequence because was all a very long time ago.
And hope it will be forgotten. Well, it won’t be forgotten.
We will press for Camden to carry out the terms of the sale agreement which allows an “expert” to be appointed to evaluate the amount that is owed. And then seek to collect.
The freeholders of the building may be in the British Virgin Islands but the building is still in Kentish Town.
BRIAN LAKE, Great Russell Street
Come clean over £3.8m
Thank you to Tom Foot for his report on Camden’s admittance of incompetence in drawing up the original agreement on the Prince’s Park development which means that the people of Camden have missed out - so far - on £3,800,000.
I have no doubt that Council Leader Gould, Councillor Olszewski, and the Camden Labour Party hope that the statement – by a council officer, not an elected member - means the end of the affair.
It doesn’t.
Who was responsible for the error?
What officers in the legal department from the time when the ‘faulty’ agreement was made are still working for Camden?
Can we be told exactly what went wrong with the wording?
Why hasn’t an ‘expert’ been appointed to settle the amount owed by the developers – and then legal steps taken to recover the debt? Why does it appear impossible for Camden to make a clear public statement on other overage payments which may also not have been collected due to faulty legal paperwork?
Similarly, why can’t Camden now tell its constituents how much it currently collects from developers on an annual basis – just like other councils such as Westminster and Southwark?
And what every resident of the borough wants to know is: Has every possible effort been made to collect what is owed?
If it has, show us all the paperwork. If it hasn’t, make the effort now to settle the debt, and demonstrate that Camden is not just walking away from a problem.
Without complete clarity about this shabby affair, a black cloud will continue to hang over Prince’s Park itself, the current owners and leaseholders – as well as Camden Council.
VALERIE PYOTT Montpelier Grove, NW5
Arrogance
THANK you CNJ for continuing to report on the unflinching effort by Nick Harding to bring about a satisfactory (not) conclusion to Camden's bungling and obfuscation over lost millions of overage payment for the Talacre development.
Without his persistence Camden would never have come clean: even attempting to discredit him as vexatious when he refused to give in. Their arrogance is breath-taking.
Even now, while admitting "fundamental error", they wash their hands of any responsibility blaming "The officers who dealt with the land sale left the council many year ago so they can't be "held to account".
That's it then is it? We can just subside back into our reverie safe in the knowledge that all is well with our taxes!
"Vexatious" campaigner uncovers legal team's mistakes.. but no one will be "held to account"
Blunder robs Town Hall of millions
by Tom Foot
A legal bungle left council chiefs unable to claim millions of pounds owed to the Town Hall in a property deal, it was claimed this week.
Fresh details about “mistakes” in the fine print of the sale of land next to Talacre park in Kentish Town were discovered by campaigner Nick Harding, who lives nearby and was once branded “vexatious by the council for his repeated requests for information.
Camden thought it had agreed to sell the land, by Kentish Town West station in Prince of Wales Road, for £325,000 with a condition that when a proposed block of 36 flats was built and then sold, some of the profits would come back to the council with what is known as “overage” payment.
At the time it was estimated the flats would sell for around £8m,, but they ended up going for £20m. This, according to Mr Harding’s calculations, means the Town Hall should have been able to recoup £3.8m. The council says the true figure is lower, but accepts it is still “substantial”.
Now, Mr Harding has produced an email from Camden’s head of asset strategy and valuations which says the money will not now be clawed back due to a “fundamental error from Camden’s legal team in 2008.
“Obviously it is a matter of regret that mistakes were made by the officers who worked for the council in 2008 but we can’t turn back the clock 13 years.” the message said, adding that an unnamed lawyer, who no longer works for Camden, made a mistake in drafting the overage conditions.
“The fundamental error was that the lawyer dealing did not protect the overage provision,” the email said. “The essential fact is the overage was not secured in a legally enforceable way”.
It added: “We can’t retrospectively change or correct the fundamental error from 2008. The officers who dealt with the land sale left the council many years ago so they can’t be ‘held to account’ for the mistakes or even be asked to explain what happened. Furthermore, at a time of huge pressure on resources, it would be a waste of council funds …in pursuing a legal case I am advised we will not win.
The email said the council’s strategy was to focus on ensuring it did not make the same mistakes on future projects.
Mr Harding said this week: “Camden has come up with all sorts of excuses to escape from this embarrassment. If Camden is saying they have had legal advice that they cannot get the money back … well, we’re not going to take that seriously unless they show us the advice and tell us what questions were asked.”
He added: “The main aim is to get the money back. We want them to confirm they are not going to say they have given up on claiming it. If they say they have given up, it releases the developer from a very onerous situation. Could there be some sort of inquiry, in view of the incompetence that has been admitted?”
The ownership of the land has moved through several companies since the original sale.
The New Journal asked the council whether it was confident other overages owed to the council had not been collected because of poor legal drafting, and whether it would consider an inquiry.
Finance chief Cllr Richard Olszewski said: “We have spent a great deal of time carefully reviewing this sale and ensuring that the necessary steps have been taken since so that our overage clauses are always legally enforceable. We have also been very open about our legal position regarding this sale.
“However, it is important to note that the sale took place 13 years ago and that the officers involved in the land sale have since left the council.”
He added: “At the time we complied with our legal obligations to get the best consideration for the sale and to deliver public benefit. We also added an extra clause designed to secure the additional windfall overage payment. However, this failed to deliver as it was not protected through a charge.
“While we simply can’t turn back the clock by more than 10 years to correct this, we have learnt valuable lessons since then and our land sales now are no longer structured in that way and they deliver real benefit for our residents.”
Cllr Olszewski said: “In fact, we now have some of the toughest policies in the country on developers requirements to provide affordable housing and in two recent cases we have recovered windfall overage payments of up to £2m.”
He said an upside was Camden securing family-sized affordable housing on the site.
Following the death of Eric Gordon (who also wrote under the name "John Gulliver), Talacre and Overage were mentioned in three of the many letters which paid tribute to him. Eric was for very many years the owner and editor of the CNJ. He wrote on several occasions as can be seen below, supporting the campaign to get Camden to collect the overage due on the Talacre development.
Answers are needed on the failure to collect the Talacre debt
THIS is to bring your readers bang up to date on the scandal of Prince’s Park development, next to Talacre open space, Prince of Wales Road, where the council is failing to collect a minimum of £3million owed to the people of Camden.
Because of Camden’s failure so far to collect its agreed share of the profit, council leader Georgia Gould invited us to have a Zoom meeting in October with the two relevant executive members, Cllr Danny Beales and Cllr Richard Olszewski.
Without committing themselves on how much is involved (we reckon up to £4million) they agreed an amount is due but maintained it is difficult to collect because of weakness in the agreement under which Camden sold its land.
They promised us a full report on the situation within a few days: “…we will get a written summary of what we have discussed and (send it to you)…” Over five months later, nothing but promises have been received.
So we decided that the time has come to broadcast the key facts to all 54 councillors and beyond. We hope this leads to a proper settlement and the saving of Camden’s reputation.
Here are the facts.
The land was sold for £320,000. In the sale agreement of 2007 the estimated selling price and profit for the 36 private flats, was £8,197,639 and £1,987,180.
Both those amounts were provided by the developer’s partner and accepted by Camden. Locals and anyone else knowing London prices thought those amounts were too low.
However, we were able to draw comfort because the contract required Camden to receive a share in any increase in profits.
The flats sold for £20,757,590 in 2014. We estimate the total profit to be shared to be over £15million, with Camden’s share under the formula in the sale agreement, to be up to £4million.
So why can’t it be collected? The two executive councillors told us it is because of difficulty created by the contract wording.
When earlier we probed this through a Freedom of Information request, a reply dated 16.6.20 included: “Any suggestion that this documentation was not drafted to professional standards is not accepted”.
Our legal advice is that the money owed to Camden is, indeed, collectable even though the contract makes it harder to collect than it should have been because our council allowed the flats to be occupied before the amount due was settled.
We now ask that Cllr Gould, reconcile two apparently anomalous positions. It’s agreed by all parties that the overage payment is owed to Camden.
However on one hand the council argues that the “documentation is professional” and on the other “Overage cannot be collected”.
Please can the citizens of Camden have a proper answer? This debt to the people needs to be settled.
Paul Braithwaite Bartholomew Villas NW5 2LL
*
Sadly, Camden’s high-handed obfuscation of the Talacre development scandal continues. This despite the vigilance of the Camden New Journal’s comment columns and the perseverance of concerned residents Nick Harding and Brian Lake. At this rate Camden will be named and shamed in Private Eye’s “Rotten Boroughs” page – and deservedly so.
Two facts scream out: The Council is legally owed millions in uncollected overage payments from the developer’s massive profits from the sale of 36 flats. And the formal investigation response promised almost six months ago to the above pair of residents by Cabinet Councillors Danny Beales and Richard Olszewski has not been delivered.
Read the details of the shabby tale of Camden’s actions can be found online.*
Shame on both Camden’s Leader Georgia Gould and her Cabinet.
Lucy Morgan
Money that is owed
Nick Harding and Brian Lake’s Forum piece (A scandal that remains unresolved, December 31) gave a useful update on the unpaid overage money - estimated at over £3million of “the Talacre Saga”.
But people in Camden need to see action,- which should come from their elected Councillors.
Unbelievably, Camden (officers and councillors), agreed to sell valuable land to a private developer for a price to be defined after its completion with only a part paid at contract signature.
Because of how their lawyers wrote or enforced that contract, all the private flats were occupied and the developer received the full sales prices before the full amount owing to Camden was established or paid.
Years later this amount has still been neither defined nor paid and when this situation is challenged the same Camden Council legal department that created the problem is asked to advise.
There is a conflict of interest here because clearly they would like this matter to be forgotten.
Their case is that they have behaved professionally.
For example, in a response to a Freedom of Information request last June it was stated: “Any suggestion that this documentation was not drafted to professional standards is not accepted”.
However, we have seen that other London boroughs have successfully reclaimed large sums in overages from their developments, and willingly produce detailed records of these when asked.
Camden Councillors should be providing leadership at this point of crisis in confidence.
They should listen to their constituents who want to see this unpaid debt collected.
And they should not be swayed by employees who want the matter forgotten because it reflects badly on them.
A scandal that remains unresolved
At the end of a year in which we have seen much publicity but no action from Camden to collect £ms owed for valuable land sold, here is where we are.
Camden agreed over 15 years ago when it sold valuable public land at Talacre, Prince of Wales Road, to developers for £325,000, that if the 36 flats were sold for more than a defined amount, Camden would receive a share of that profit. This extra payment is called ‘Overage’.
The flats sold for very substantially more than was originally estimated. Camden know and accept that. The agreement states how the profit is calculated, using if necessary an “expert” as defined in the contract to determine the amount owed.
In mid-2020, it became apparent that Camden’s officers had given up attempting to collect the Overage payment on behalf of the people of Camden. It is difficult to come to any other conclusion than that officers wanted the whole matter to be forgotten. That is when we, with considerable help from the CNJ, became publicly active.
We appealed for answers to Camden’s leader, Georgia Gould, on 10th September and she asked two Cabinet members - Councillors Danny Beales and Richard Olszewski - to discuss the situation with us.That discussion took place on 5th October. The Councillors accepted that a substantial amount is due to Camden.
Cllr. Beales promised that a summary of the discussion would be sent to us and our questions answered.
Now, over 3 months later, all we have received is a two-line email from Cllr. Beales telling us on 30 November that he is sure Cllr. Olszewski will contact us. Since then, nothing.
Writing again to Georgia Gould on 2nd December has yielded no reply.
At the heart of the matter is Camden’s response in 2016 to a Freedom of Information request for details of previous contracts containing Overage clauses. This is what Camden said: “Unfortunately, we do not hold a digital record of the information you requested relating to cases of Council land sold to developers in the last 12 years. We consider that to collate, extract, examine and produce this information (i.e. possibly paper-based), would exceed the appropriate staff time limit and cost under the Freedom of Information Act 2000”.
This invites the question, which we hope will be asked – are there other cases where Camden has failed to obtain payment of overage similar to what we have been seeing on the Talacre development?
If Southwark and Westminster Councils are able to provide full details of all Overage payments collected for the public purse, (John Gulliver, 3.12.20) why cannot Camden?
If Camden’s contracts contained an obvious clause preventing occupation of flats before payment of Overage, it clearly hasn’t been enforced.
Who in their right mind would sell their property for less than its potential full value without security for the balance? One reason now given by Councillors for the failure to collect what is due, is that all the Council Officers involved have left Camden’s employ. This is not so.
Collection of Overage is above all a legal matter. The Borough Solicitor was and still is employed by Camden. The senior solicitor to whom he delegated authority and who was responsible right from the very beginning, is still employed.
Who has allowed this falsehood to be presented to the public? And what about the Councillors who, at least in theory, were in control of the original contract? Many of them remain Councillors to this day.
For several years, the unsatisfactory nature of the whole affair – public land sold for a pittance, has been apparent to those living around Talacre. They have tirelessly pointed out the absence of concern for the public interest.
In the absence of replies to our enquiries, we now insist that Camden takes the necessary action to tell the public what money is owed to the Borough by developers and the means by which Camden will pursue claims on behalf of all residents.
Nick Harding & Brian Lake
Dubbed "vexatious" by council
One of the signatories to this letter (Nick Harding) was declared to be “vexatious” and unable to obtain Freedom of Information responses. Consider what he was told by the aforementioned senior solicitor on 10 September 2012:
"I have been passed your e-mail of 31 August 2012 by the Borough Solicitor. As you are aware a decision has been made that the Council will not enter into any communication with yourself in relation to the Dalby Street Scheme and you were declared a vexatious correspondent for freedom of information purposes on 25 January 2010 in relation to the matter. That being the case the Council will not be responding to your e-mail.
Principal Lawyer, Legal Services
London Borough of Camden”
Prince’s Park
A MESSAGE to the Labour leadership of Camden Council:
Send officials to other local authorities like Westminster, run by the Conservatives, to see how much better they are at collecting debts developers owe them.
Developers may owe Camden large sums of money but no one seems to mind. The money may often lie uncollected. Eventually, it is written off as a bed debt.
According to emails received from several local authorities by that imperturbable enquirer after the truth Nick Harding, a Kentish Towner, they showed how, for instance, Westminster Council, collected more than £4million owed by a developer – and all done in a routine manner.
And, as if that, does not irritate Labour councillors, they could take a look at Labour Southwark Council which collected several million owed by developers’ schemes known as “Overage payments” which, in effect, are a part-payment of profits made from private sales.
Mr Harding pointed out these examples this week in an email to the two senior councillors Richard Olszewski and Danny Beales with whom he and a neighbour, Brian Lake, had an online meeting recently in which they had set out Camden Council’s failure to collect a debt of possibly several million pounds owed as an “Overage” payment for the development of the block of flats, known as Prince’s Park, at the edge of Talacre Park in Kentish Town.
Readers who have been following this scandal may know that the land was sold to the developer about 17 years ago for just over £300,000 – a “snip”, as they say, in the property world. How public land could have been sold so cheaply remains a mystery.
In his email to the two councillors Mr Harding pointed out – as he said he had in their original Zoom meeting – that they had maintained it was difficult to chase the debt because the officials who had dealt with it had left. In fact, that was not the case, because at least two senior officials were still at the Town Hall, claimed Mr Harding.
He hopes, as a citizen, the council will begin to take this matter seriously. At one point, officials said, three years ago, that legal counsel had advised them that the debt was a “lost cause” yet later emails suggest they are still pursuing the debt.
Either way, the money is owed to the public purse. Who is going to take responsibility for that debt?
THE scandal around the controversial block of flats in Talacre Park,
Kentish Town, deepened this week with evidence that One Housing association had to spend £1million to make good botched workmanship before their tenants could move in.
An email sent by a senior manager at One Housing setting out a list of jobs exposes the poor standard of building. It was sent five years ago by the manager but has only surfaced this week.
“As you will be aware,” said the manager “…we share your frustration about the amount of time, money and resources required to bring these properties up to standard.”
The manager points out that the Section 106 agreement with the developer enabled him “to sell the private flats and ignore our concerns about the quality and standard of all the affordable homes”.
He refers to the removal of ceilings, replacement of kitchens, gas pipes, boiler flues, all of which meant One Housing spent more than £1m, resulting in an extended contract.
Whether the costs were reclaimed from the developer remains unclear. Meanwhile, it is understood the council is still trying to claim up to £3m in a special payment owed by the company which is based in the British Virgin Isles, a tax haven.
Two senior councillors, Richard Olszewski and Danny Beales, briefed by officials about the growing scandal, have so far not followed up a Zoom conference with a Kentish Town resident, Nick Harding, who brought the scandal to light many years ago.
Freehold sale now adds to the saga of those missing millions
THE property company thought to owe Camden Council millions of pounds as an unpaid debt is offering the freehold of a controversial block of flats for sale for a price of £4.3million.
This is the latest astonishing twist in a saga that goes back years after the council made a deal with the company allowing them to build the block in Talacre Park, Kentish Town.
The prestigious site on the edge of the open space was sold for just over £300,000, leading ultimately to the sale of 36 private flats for an estimated total of £21m.
Part of the “conditional sale of agreement” committed the company to make a special payment based on the profit made on the sales – known as an “overage” – estimated to reach nearly £4m.
But this was never paid to the council despite debt-chasing efforts by officials. Frustrated officials then sought legal advice only to be told by a leading lawyer three years ago that it was a “lost cause”.
All this happened behind the scenes and may never have been made known to the public until a retired Kentish Town forensic accountant, Nick Harding, embarked on dogged detective work several years ago firing off scores of emails to the Town Hall and requests for Freedom of Information documents and checking the property credentials of the company at the Land Registry. His one-man campaign irritated council officials who at one time dismissed him as being “vexatious”, but he ploughed on.
After I began to cover the growing scandal, two senior councillors, Richard Olszewski and Danny Beales were briefed by officials and then held an online discussion via Zoom a few weeks ago with Mr Harding and fellow Kentish Towner Brian Lake who lives near Talacre Park.
The councillors confirmed that the debt had not been collected – one of the many hurdles was that the company was based in a tax haven, the British Virgin Islands, not easily subject to legal redress in Britain. Critics of Camden’s housing development policies have warned of the risks involved in dealing with overseas company but the practice continues. Recently, land has been sold in Somers Town to an overseas company which has been allowed to build a massive tower of private flats in exchange for “affordable social housing” and a contribution of millions of pounds to help build a new school.
The councillors picked to investigate the scandal have not been in contact with Nick Harding or Brian Lake since their Zoom meeting – and it looked as if the council had abandoned the debt.
But in the past week two of the leaseholders at the block contacted both campaigners – and this newspaper – to reveal that the property company, Hazlewood Properties Ltd, is offering the freehold for the building for £4.3m to all the leaseholders. It is understood that under the law, a freeholder should first make an offer to their leaseholders before putting it on the open market.
The letter sent to all the leaseholders – which I have seen – came from a well-known West End firm of solicitors, known to this newspaper. Then, suddenly, to add another chapter to this mysterious turn of events, it seems the property company is now using another firm of solicitors based in Holborn
The letter to the leaseholders set out, among other things, the ground rent each occupier is responsible for, which range from £350 annually to £600. This is important because a potential investor would wish to know the gross value of the annual ground rent of the block.
The individual ground rents for the leaseholders are standard, but somewhat exceptional is the annual £194,000 rent chargeable for the ground floor Medical Centre.
In contrast, the total from all the individual flats would be around £10,000. This means a freeholding owner of the block would collect more than £204,000 a year, which would make it a sound long-term investment.
But it remains puzzling how the NHS which, effectively funds the Medical Centre, could have agreed to pay such a high annual rent of nearly £200,000 for a 20-year lease signed in 2014.
Hanging over the block is another shadow – alleged poor workmanship carried out as it took shape more than eight years ago. Two leaseholders have contacted me with complaints involving boilers and their flues.
A leaseholder told me this week that it was “indeed strange” how much the Medical Centre pays in annual rent. But his main concern, and that of other leaseholders, apparently, is the difficulty in contacting the owners who have changed solicitors. “We wrote to the new solicitors about the freehold offer days ago but have still not had a reply,” he said.
“I am also concerned that the company apparently owe Camden Council money and all this means the public purse has had to bear the cost of the debt.”
Faced with the latest revelations that the owner, Hazlewood Properties Ltd, is apparently attempting to cash in on the block through a freehold sale, Nick Harding wonders whether the council will lose out again.
As for the council, it seems unaware of the latest activities of the company it is supposed to be chasing for a scandalous debt that some believe could be recovered through legal action.
INSET (Part of) The notice of sale of the freehold sent to tenants
The Qualifying Tenant
Xxx
52 Prince of Wales Road
London NW5 9LN
Dear Qualifying Tenant
Re 52 Prince of Wales Road, London NW5 9LN
Our Client: Hazlewood Properties Limited
Service of LTA1987 Section 5 and SA Offer Notice
We write in relation to the above-mentioned property.
Please note that we act for the landlords, Hazlewood Properties Limited who own the freehold of the building of 52 Prince of Wales Road, London NW5 9LR.
We enclose by way of service on you a notice served pursuant to Section 5 and 5a of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987.
Our Client intends to sell the freehold of the building by private treaty.
We suggest that you take independent legal advice upon receipt of this notice.
Profit and Somers Town’s loss
This is an extract from a long article about the Brill Place Tower in Somers Town.
Of course, there’s the controversial development in Talacre Park – exposed in this column through the research of a retired forensic accountant, Nick Harding – which allowed a foreign investor to buy a piece of public land, for a giveaway price of just over £300,000. This enabled him to build a tall block of private flats – and move on after making a handsome profit of millions, all untaxed in this country.
That happened 17 years ago – and is only now coming to light through the determination of Mr Harding.
From Celine La Freniere, Talacre Road, NW5
Talacre land scandal – still “looking into it”
“I suspect there are many who want the scandal surrounding the sale of land at Talacre to go away.
This must not be allowed to happen. As someone who has followed this for over 10 years, that is what I fear. We are talking of only £300k paid and several £ms owed.
Looking at the Talacrefacts website where Freedom of Information responses are shown, we find that more became due from the owner on 21.8.2015. Between that date and the middle of this year, the Council’s response was always that they were looking into it. For example, in February 2020 they responded thus “We are in the process of obtaining further legal advice from external counsel and may be in a position to provide further clarification after receipt of that. We recommend submitting a further request in 3 months’ time”.
Then we heard seemingly contradictory information such as –Money is owed but its not collectable, due to “weak documentation” (Zoom meeting 5.10.20)
“Any suggestion that this documentation was not drafted to professional standards is not accepted” (FOI response 16.6.20)
“Everyone in the Town Hall involved has now left”. Not a good reason, and not true.
“We are where we are” and “lessons have been learnt”.
“No expert has been appointed” (FOI response 3.9.20).
Either or both sides are entitled to require an “expert” from the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors to be appointed to decide how much, if anything, is owed.
Camden has not sought to have one appointed.
The public is surely entitled to be given the full facts.
Until that happens and there is an enquiry in which we can all participate, the suspicion will continue that we are witnessing a cover-up.
Forum similar to letter, as in online edition
Missing millions: key questions remain
Retired accountant Nick Harding has calculated that the council is owed as much as £3million over a deal involving a block of flats built in Kentish Town, and now councillors have finally acknowledged there is a debt…
Nick Harding: ‘Let’s hope there are people in the Town Hall that are passionate about getting what we are owed, paid’
JOHN Gulliver (Video call sees debt apology collected, October 8) was able to provide background and some detail of the Zoom meeting we held with the two executive councillors.
First the goodish news. The meeting was held. Previously reliance had to be placed on Freedom of Information requests and no opportunity for dialogue seemed to exist. And, as John Gulliver said, it was conducted in a “civil and mature manner”.
But, importantly, no final decision has been made about pursuing what is accepted as being a debt; even if the amount is not known. We were convinced it should be pursued using the disputes clause in the sale agreement. Which is precisely what it is there for.
What is bad was that we had sprung on us a new “party line”. Time and again the councillors repeated that the reason for not pursuing the debt was “Weak documentation”. It almost became another cliché like “we are where we are” and “lessons have been learned”.
It seemed to contradict the FOI response received on June 16 this year which included “Any suggestion that this documentation was not drafted to professional standards is not accepted”.
If that was the line then, it has clearly been abandoned since. Those who drafted or agreed to the documentation – the sale agreement have now been thrown to the dogs. If I am wrong, I hope someone will explain the contradiction.
There seems to have been legal advice supporting the “documentation is weak so fatal” line but we were unable to find out what was the question the outside lawyers were asked, their response and whether the conclusion it was fatal to the prospect of success came from Camden or outside lawyers. The familiar claim of legal privilege was produced.
We pressed hard on this as you can’t judge the response to a legal question if you don’t know exactly what was asked. We were told they will try to help on this, but I am not holding my breath.
The previous party line had been that because the company responsible for overage is in the British Virgin Islands and wouldn’t respond, Camden couldn’t proceed to use the disputes clause in the agreement.
I thought they might have dropped that line following my passing on legal advice clearly saying that responsibility for overage rests with the owner who, wherever s/he comes from, can be sued in England.
The disputes clause says that, in the event of a dispute, an “expert” from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors can be appointed. In spite of the councillors constantly talking of it as “arbitration” it specifically says it isn’t.
If one side won’t co-operate, the expert should be able to proceed anyway. Camden won’t go down that route on the grounds that it would be throwing good money after bad.
I, and I hazard the public, would be interested to know what is the fatal weakness to the prospect of success from appointing an “expert”. S/he would certainly have to address problems as one would expect in a dispute.
As well as any refusal by the British Virgin Islands owner to respond, there is the failure to define the cost of construction, but that is not uncommon in overage clauses. Also, a slight change in scope after the sale agreement was signed.
My estimation of over £3million due probably involved the sort of estimates the expert would need to make. Disputes are seldom easy!
To add to the two clichés I mentioned, I hope we can add “justice must be done and be seen to be done”.
The fear many have is that Camden would welcome this going away regardless of the overall chances of success. If a current officer believes his predecessor would welcome no action being taken, how will he react to this dilemma?
Let’s hope there are people in the Town Hall that are passionate about getting what we are owed, paid.
• FOR more than 12 years Nick Harding has been questioning Camden Council over a block of flats built at the edge of Talacre Park in Kentish Town. He discovered it had sold the land for just £320,000 but the block itself was later sold for several millions. The retired accountant calculated that the owner or developer owed the council as much as £3million having failed to honour original agreements. Now councillors have finally acknowledged there is a debt…
– njhnw5@gmail.com
1 St Ann’s Gardens, NW5 4ER
£1m cheque from tower developers
A cheque for just over one million pounds was sent to the Town Hall a few weeks ago by developer Brill Place Ltd in part payment for permission to build a massive tower block of private flats in Somers Town.
The publicly owned land in Brill Place was bought for more than £16m from the council to be topped up with special payments to partly cover the cost of a new school in the area and other facilities including “affordable” flats.
A payment for what is known as a Section 106 agreement totally £1,194,732 was sent by Brill Place Ltd based in the off-shore tax haven of jersey. More than £2m is still outstanding according to the “receipt published this week by the council.
Readers will be aware how payment outstanding on another development in Talacre Park, Kentish Town is now being considered as a “bad debt” because the owner of the site is based in yet another tax haven, the British Virgin Isles.
My sources suggest the Talacre debt is now so old – it goes back more than 15 years – that it is almost irrecoverable because of a “statue [sic] of limitations” that lays down that monies cannot be reclaimed for debts that are more than six years old.
This was left a secret, unknown to the public, until a lone Kentish Town campaigner began to investigate the scandal. After this column took up Nick Harding’s cause, two senior councillors, Richard Olszewski and Danny Beales, admitted recently that the debt had become a lost cause. At least it seems the council is now acting more prudently by publishing facts about monies owed n the Brill Place tower block.
The redoubtable Mr Harding doesn’t accept the council’s sense of defeat and believes it is still possible to pursue the “missing millions” owed on the Talacre development through the courts. He told the councillors that Camden should seek forfeiture of the block and take it back under public ownership. See Forum, page 23
Video call sees debt apology collected
Revelations about the council’s failure to collect a debt of possibly millions were officially admitted by two senior councillors on Monday – but in an extraordinary manner.
The councillors held up their hands, as it were, in what may be a “first” for the council – a Zoom video meeting with the two Camden campaigners, Nick Harding and Brian Lake, who had been questioning them about the debt.
It could be a significant step in making the council a more democratic body with councillors linking up by video in debates over local affairs.
None of this would have happened if it had not been for the persistence of retired forensic accountant Nick Harding who has been questioning council officials with emails and requests through Freedom of Information for more that 12 years over a block of flats built at the edge of Talacre Park, Kentish Town.
He discovered that the land was sold by the council for a mere £320,000 around 2003. Within a few years a block had been built and occupied – and sold off privately for several millions. Mr Harding calculated that the owner or developer owed the council as much as £3m in failure to honour original agreements.
And to make debt reclamation difficult for the council their registered office was in the British Virgin Island – not in Britain’s legal jurisdiction.
After years of council officials essentially ignoring Mr Harding’s quest for the truth – at one time they refused to correspond with him for being “vexatious” – he turned to the New Journal. This column took up his case and saw an email sent by a high-ranking official several weeks ago which disclosed that the council had been advised by outside “legal counsel” that it was a lost cause – that the debt was effectively irrecoverable.
However, following our revelations, the council agreed that two senior councillors, Danny Beales and Richard Olszewski, should meet Mr Harding so that the debacle over the debts could be discussed – perhaps for the first time in public – via a Zoom meeting.
Readers can judge for themselves why the controversy over the Talacre block has never become the subject of public debate before: why, in effect, it had been kept a secret and why councillors – aware of Mr Harding’s one-man campaign – ignored it.. Answers to these questions may throw a light on the degree of democracy in public affairs in Camden.
However, the one-hour meeting passed in a civil and mature manner as the councillors and the two campaigners sparred over the council’s failures going back at least 12 years.
Both councillors repeated what this column had disclosed recently that council officials were now claiming that all the officials who had been involve in the shaky original agreements had left, so verification of claims were difficult to establish, and the “counsel’s” advice in 2017 was essentially that the bad debt was a lost cause.
However, this was countered by Mr Harding who showed that a senior official who had been part of the team involved in the early years of the agreement was in fact still employed at the Town Hall because his name popped up in recent emails.
When Nick Harding and Brian Lake challenged the councillors with a statement that they had been advised by an experienced “property” solicitor that the company in the British Virgin Islands could be taken to a British court, the councillors were of the opinion that could not happen, that the case would have to be contested in the BVI’s jurisdiction.
Nick Harding also pointed out to the councillors that, contrary to the “legal opinion” of 2017 dismissing all chance of reclamation of the debt, a recent missive sent to him by a Town Hall official stressed that the possibility of a legal challenge was still being investigated. Te councillors did not seem aware of this. It should be understood that the councillors – who were not, I believe, involved in any way with the original agreements – were relying upon a briefing document drawn by officials.
Nick Harding also questioned them about the failure of the owner or developer to adhere to an agreement to provide traffic “marshals” to allow parking for the clientele of the popular Talacre sports club that lies a few hundred yards from the block of flats.
Generally, Mr Harding was saying that there was enough evidence of the case to go before a court of law and that the council could claim forfeiture and take over the block.
Does all this belong to the past? No. Because an agreement to sell public land in Somers Town was made a few months ago so that an overseas company – thought to be based in a tax haven – could build one of the tallest blocks of private flats at the edge of the King’s Cross scheme.
Apparently, it was agreed that in exchange for the purchase of the land the developer would pay several million for a revamped local school as well as a small number of “social housing “ units.
What happens if something goes wrong with this deal? Would the overseas company be out of the legal reach of the council as it is, apparently, with the controversial Talacre block? Have any lessons been learned?
Those “missing” Talacre millions
AS I reported the energetic Nick Harding will meet two senior Labour councillors – Danny Beales and Richard Olszewski – next week to discuss a “missing” £3million which Harding maintains the developers of a block of flats in Talacre still owes Camden – 15 years after families moved into the flats.
I have written about Harding’s quest for the truth in the past months and Labour leader Georgia Gould agreed he could meet the two councillors closely linked to what some regard as a scandal.
A novel development is that Harding will be joined in a video meeting with the councillors by another campaigner, Brian Lake, who is quite separately – taking up a case with the Ombudsman over the controversial cycle lane changes in Prince of Wales Road.
I am a great believer in participatory democracy, not simply representational democracy, and the meeting between Harding and Blake [sic] is a kind of “citizen’s watchdog” meeting where members of the public can question councillors face to face and not simply in deputations at the Town Hall which are curtailed and limited in scope and time.
Top level talks on that £3m
THE redoubtable citizen of Kentish Town, Nick Harding (right), who has been pursuing the council for years over an alleged unclaimed debt owed by developers of the block of flats in Talacre, is to meet senior Camden councillors for the first time for a top-level discussion.
The meeting may take place within a few days and the question will be; Does the developer owe an “overage” debt or any other form of debt – a sum that may run into £3m – and if so can it be reclaimed. Or, because it goes back more than 15 years, is it now an unreclaimable bad debt?
I have featured Mr Harding in recent weeks, highlighting his scores of emails sent to the council over several years, asking questions about the overage. I gather he is scheduled to meet councillors Danny Beales and Richard Olszewski at the “other” Town Hall in St Pancras – both of them represent the council in what is proving a controversial development and have apparently been briefed by top Town Hall officials.
Legal opinion seems to clash – a Town Hall-appointed “counsel” apparently advised the council three years the debt was “lost” and nothing could be done.
Another legal opinion, I hear, believes it is still quite feasible to claim the debt of the company in question even though it is based in an offshore tax haven. And that it is even possible to sue the company and foreclose on the property in Talacre.
Whether that would mean it would revert back to the ownership of the council remains to be see. It is worth many millions on the property market.
From Emily Harper, Hampden Road
Information on Talacre
Following my letter (Questions that arise, July 16) I submitted a Freedom of Information request to Camden Council requesting details of any expert that had been appointed regarding the sale of the freehold at the Talacre site in Kentish Town.
The response received on September 3, stated only that “No expert has been appointed”.
This appears to contrast with a previous FOI request reply dated October 23 2017 which stated “The current situation is still being assessed…carried out with the support of external legal, technical and professional advice because of the complexities…”;, on February 3 of this year that “We are in the process of obtaining further legal advice from external Counsel”;, and on 16 June this year that “the matter is still subject to internal review service” .
In the same response of September 3 in respect of the recovery of funds from Hazlewood Properties Ltd Camden simply confirmed that the company is registered in the British Virgin Islands, bur refused to provide further information as ‘”he advice you requested is not a matter for FOI ( which simply allows access to recorded information). You can seek an opinion from your own legal advisor”.
The question again arises as to why Camden is continuing to be evasive, for reasons unknown, in an issue regarding a significant amount of public funds.
If errors have been made then surely full disclosure with a plan for the recovery of money owed is the only way forward.
Briefing into a festering £3m scandal
I was once de-briefed by a bespectacled, clerkly Mr Bracewell after I had left China many years ag. I knew, of course, he was “someone” from the Ministry of Defence, attached to our security people.
It wasn’t a bit like a John le Carre interview, more chatty and friendly and no doubt Mr Bracewell was satisfied with our conversation for I heard no more from him.
I have also been “briefed” many times with background material while preparing for an interview.
So I can imagine how two of the council’s “finance” chiefs, councillors Danny Beales and Richard Olszewski, must now feel because I understand they are the two senior councillors who have been given a full brief on what I can only describe as a scandal involving a great sum of money which the Town Hall has allowed to become a bad debt.
The money owing is something in the region of £3million following the development of a multi-storey block of flats in Talacre Park, Kentish Town. An “overage” agreement had been reached which tops up the original price paid by the developer, with a final figure worked out on the basis of the total market price of the flats sold in the block.
The “overage agreed about 17 years ago has never been realised.
Undoubtedly, council officials will regard the debt as an error, a sum of money difficult to track, an accident of accountancy, as it were.
Common sense would see it more forensically as a slipshod handling of public money.
I revealed a month ago that a briefing note was being prepared for two councillors and by now they will have received it, and, if so, will begin to see the enormity of the festering debt.
Nick Harding, a Kentish Towner, and a forensic accountant, exposed the astonishing failure of the council to collect the “overage” showing me his trail of emails with council officials over many years in which he questioned and probed their systems.
I can only hope that Cllrs Beales and Olszewski will interview Mr Harding after studying their brief. I don’t envy their task. The have mountainous ledger entries to double-check that must run into hundreds of pages.
Those missing millions
SENIOR councillors and influential Labourites have been drawn into the growing row over the dismal failure of the town hall to collect an unpaid debt of millions following an agreement with a developer over a block of flats built in Talacre Park, Kentish Town.
A councillor said the council was still looking into another unpaid debt over the sale of sports grounds in Barnet and that as far as the “overage” method of payment covering the Talacre block of flats was concerned, the town hall would structure it differently in future – and that in any case the council would always seek to recover a debt. His statements seemed heavy with political spin.
Under the overage system an agreement is made with the developer that the price paid at first for the sale of the land will be “topped up” when all the flats have been sold and the final net profit can be evaluated.
Several London councils have reached successful overage agreements with developers and money owed has been paid. But in Camden’s case, a debt estimated to run into several millions remains unpaid for more than 15 years since the Talacre block was completely sold off.
Nothing was done about the bad debt until a lone resident Nick Harding exposed the shenanigans through this column a few weeks ago. Now alarm bells are sounding – and a full report is being prepared by council officials for two senior councillors to study. Whether it will raise the right questions – who, if anyone it will blame, how much of it will be made public? – still remains unknown.
From Martin Plaut, NW5
Something off about this scheme
I have read the recent coverage of the Talacre situation with considerable interest having first become aware of it in 2007 following which I was part of a delegation to an Executive (Environment) Sub-Group meeting in the town hall.
Even in those days, tit seemed to me that there was something odd and suspect about the development.
It wasn’t just that the Council had a duty to fulfil planning regulations, it was that whenever there was a conflict between the developer and his obligations, Camden made an exception in favour of the developer.
Mr Harding referred to two truly astonishing examples in his Forum article (August 20).
Your diarist John Gulliver has drawn attention to the absurd valuation of the site which has led to Camden only receiving £325,500 for it so far. That was based upon a valuation prepared by someone who represented the developer at that sub-group meeting. He was described by the chair as someone “who needed no introduction”.
We had no idea what he was talking about.
Six years since the building was occupied, we now learn from recent freedom of information responses that more may be owed, that it is “complicated”, and that “the matter is still subject to internal review service” - whatever that means
We are told that the document requiring more than the £325,000 to be paid if the private flats were sold for more than the pitiful valuation used to justify the low price for the land, was drafted to “professional standards”.
None of this seems to make much sense.
A briefing document is apparently being prepared for senior councillors.
But how will the author(s) reconcile the apparent contradictions? Will they say millions of pounds are owed but can’t be collected?
Will they say that the document requiring the additional sums to be paid was perfect? And that allowing the flats to be occupied before the amount of overage was even established, let alone paid, was in the public’s interest?
What is needed is an independent view of this entire issue and assess all the evidence coming from outside as well as inside the council. And to make public what can be done to recover the sums we are owed and put right the current situation.
What will be the next step? Of course, they will be expected to compile a detailed report for fellow councillors – and waiting in the wings will be a public hungry for information, recommendations, and action.
Some problems in an institution are often buried – and forgotten. This, hopefully, is one that will not slip away. Too much public money is involved.
One of the riddles behind the development is the sale of the land in Talacre Park in 2003 for as little as £300,000 – a piece of land on which was built a block of flats that were sold for about £20m. Whatever the scale of the intervening overheads a tidy packet was made. So far, the public are paying the price. Perhaps Cllrs Beales and Olszewski can make sure right will at last be done.
Uncollected: Council’s £1m football transfer fee
Clause suggests Camden is still due money from Barnet FC's stadium deal
CAMDEN Council is still investigating whether it is due a £1million football transfer fee from the sale of playing fields – three years after they were sold off to make way for a new soccer stadium.
With the Town Hall’s ability to chase down payments it is owed under scrutiny, it was confirmed yesterday (Wednesday) that Camden has yet to receive any money for the Prince Edward Playing Fields in Edgware.
It is now home to Barnet FC, the professional football club which narrowly missed out on a return to the football league in this year’s play-offs, and its stadium, The Hive.
The site was once part-owned by Camden and used by the borough’s schools, who would bus children there for PE lessons and sports events. In 2001, the ownership was transferred to Harrow Council but a sell-on clause in that deal was supposed to mean Camden would get 50 percent of any future sale.
The land was sold to Barnet FC in 2017 for £2 million as the club looked for a new home, but there is no record of Camden receiving its £1million share from the sale.
The council responded to our investigation last January saying they were examining the details. Harrow East MP Bob Blackman, a Tory, had told the House of Commons that “Camden has only just woken up to the fact that it owned the site and that it should be entitled to some funds were the site to be sold.”.
Last month, it was revealed on John Gulliver’s diary page in the New Journal that Camden may have missed out on millions of pounds in overage payments from a developer at the site next to Talacre Gardens, raising questions on how money owed to the council is tracked. One Barnet supporter who saw that coverage urged us to check whether Camden would ever get the money due for the playing fields.
Camden’s finance chief Labour councillor Richard Olszewski said: “The council is still in the process of examining how the complex agreements transferring the land from Camden to Harrow in 2001 should be interpreted and whether, ultimately, Camden is owed money for the sale of this land.
“However, I’d like to reassure residents that the council is continuing to work to conclude this and will always seek to recover money that is proven we are owed where it is in the interest of our taxpayers and the services we provide.”
He said “valuable lessons” had been learned from the Talacre case and that “overage clauses are no longer structured in this way”.
Cllr Olszewski said Camden now had some of the “toughest policies in the country” to ensure developers were required to provide affordable housing.
It’s time for a public inquiry. Nick Harding has yet more questions about this controversial development in Kentish Town
John Gulliver tells us that “a briefing document is being prepared for two senior Councillors” about Overage owed for the Talacre development (CNJ 6 August).
Can we be confident that those councillors will be given the full facts or will those providing the briefing stick to Camden’s party line?
Camden’s response to a Freedom of Information request in June states that “Any suggestion that this documentation was not drafted to professional standards is not accepted”.
This referred to the document that constitutes the sale agreement for the land for which Camden has received just £325,500 – and has been unable after six years to get the further amount of several millions of pounds that it is owed.
In earlier FOI responses, Camden officers said, time and again, that the issue of overage was “complicated” and that made it difficult to make progress in recovering it.
What sort of document should a lawyer propose to his client that can’t be sued on because it’s complicated?
And shouldn’t Camden, as the seller, have expected the full amount owed to it (and thus to us, the residents of Camden) to be settled before flats are occupied?
So this very sorry tale has seen a document drawn up for the sale of highly desirable land valued at a fraction of its worth, with an agreement to increase that amount when the flats are sold - but which failed to ensure the increase was agreed and paid before it was too late to collect it.
How will Camden officers, briefing the councillors, reconcile these facts with that FOI response.
No, what is needed is two things.
First, Camden needs to act swiftly and take vigorous action to establish and recover what is owed for overage.
Secondly to have a form of public inquiry where those of us who have followed this saga for over 10 years can bring out the many instances where the public interest has been ignored
Here are just two examples -
- One. Talacre sports centre was built from funds given by Sport England and the development required the consent of the Mayor of London. Sport England wrote to Camden objecting to the scheme on the grounds that it made access to the sports centre more difficult. Camden replied that “The route through Talacre Park is short, well-lit and safe”. However the park is closed at night and always had been. Before we were able to point this out, the mayor had made his decision to support the scheme.
2. An agreement, separate to the sale agreement and known as a section106 agreement, required there to be a marshal on duty outside the Sports Centre when it was open for all of the future. The marshalling lasted a few weeks at most. The owner then claimed that there was no need for a marshal as so few people visited the sports centre.
A traffic survey covering eight days was presented to Camden showing relatively few cars using the road to the sports centre entrance.
Camden accepted the survey’s figures.
That survey was carried out by Citidwell Ltd, previously Findon Property Management Ltd (name changed a year earlier). An associate company to Findon Urban Lofts, the developer.
I wonder if it is normal to accept a traffic survey from an interested party?
Anyway. I made some observations and took some video clips during that period. They showed many more vehicles.
From PETER G CUMING, Chair, Friends of Talacre Town Green
What price the land - £300k or £7m?
John Gulliver is right (What should puzzle a Talacre inquiry, August 13) to point the finger at the suspicious, under-priced sale of £300,000 for a prime piece of parkland the developer paid to build his 36-flat Talacre development.
The total price received from the sale of such flats is, according to campaigner Nick Harding’s calculations, some £21million.
In the industry it is well known that such a development would normally be broken down as follows: one-third for the land,; a third for the material and construction, and a third for profit. Using this well-known equation the price for the land should have been worth some £7million.
So what is the excuse of the then Camden Council to let such a prime piece of land go at such a reduced price?
What is needed now is:
- An inquiry as to what happened and who was responsible; and
- Camden should sue the freeholder to recover the overage due to them.
More questions come to mind however.
Even taking into account the social housing flat provided, why did Camden agree to an overage and why they did not hold a lien against the property until they had recovered all the payments due to them?
No one in Camden should rest until we have the answers.
From GERRY HARRISON, Former Labour Camden Councillor, Laughton, Sussex
Clearly a scandal
I’ve just seen the article about what is clearly a scandal associated with the Talacre development (One week with John Gulliver, August 6) and the first question that sings out is surely, who are the lawyers that have allowed this, and decided on behalf of Camden residents that the alleged debt of £3million of public money was not worth recovering?
Most of us and even most councillors from whichever party, have not the energy to pursue these recurring issues, but we should salute the heroic efforts of those who do, such as, in this case, Nick Harding.
When I was a councillor Nick and I did bump up against each other but I always admired his tenacity. From what I read in the CNJ he has pursued his suspicions for well over 10 relentless years, investigating the sale at the Land Registry and filing scores of Freedom of Information requests.
Council officials, who should have supported him, have branded him as “vexatious”. Is there, therefore, something to hide?
I have always believed there was a nasty smell about this development, from the closing of the small traveller park to the ensuing vast profits made by a succession of developers. One developer even rang me up to invite himself around to discuss his proposal.
This was Camden’s land, for which the people of Camden deserve some benefit. But, no, it was swept away for little financial return and under a blanket of secrecy.
If the councillors and officials involved have since left Camden, surely they should still be pursued, if alive, and there remains a case against them.
Now it is up to Camden cabinet members Danny Beales and Richard Olszewski to show some moral courage.
What should puzzle a Talacre Inquiry
Calls for a Town Hall inquiry into my expose last week of the Talacre scandal may soon emerge among several councillors.
It isn’t so much the council’s failure to collect a “top-up” extra payment from the developers of the block of flats at the edge of Talacre Park, Kentish Town, - built and sold about 15 years ago – that should puzzle an inquiry but the suspiciously under-priced sale of the land for a mere £300,000 when it’s true value may well have been three or four times that amount.
From PAUL BRAITHWAITE, Bartholomew Villas, NW5
An apology is surely due when “vexatious” means “vindicated”
I write with regard your John Gulliver full page revelations ("Forget £3million debt” - p19, 6th August).Back in 2014, when I was Camden’s “Cycling Champion Councillor” and chair of what was known as “Rucksack” (the cyclists and walkers group), I had a lot of dealings with Nick Harding.
He was as vociferous and persistent then as now. But I was truly horrified to learn that the then Assistant Director(AD) for Environment and Transport* had had Nick formally designated as “vexatious” by the Borough Solicitor*. I confronted said AD officer to his face on 11th November, 2014 as to WHY. I was gobsmacked by his riposte that Nick was taking too much of his team’s time. Being “vexatious” meant that officers were no longer under any obligation to respond to Nick. I was truly disgusted and said so.
What Camden needs is more such persistent citizens who are prepared to pursue obvious financial failures and cover-ups by officers, as has happened with the ghastly Talacre block, with such expensive-to-the-Council consequences.
I think Nick Harding is owed an apology. For him to have been formally declared “vexatious” by his Council seems to me to be grounds for a possible claim of defamation - particularly as, in this case, Nick’s concerns have been fully vindicated.
We live with the Talacre carbuncle and a £3million hole.
From MIKE GEORGE, Queen’s Crescent, NW5
Methods to avoid being ripped off
Regarding the report on the Talacre development scandal (John Gulliver, CNJ August 6), there are better methods of ensuring the people of Camden do not get ripped off again by greedy developers.
A type of “garnishee” order could be placed on all funds from flats sold until the developers have paid back the true value of the purchased land as promised.
The “overage” system that’s currently in place, is based largely on an element of trust, which allows developers to use the council like a bank, with the added benefit of avoiding paying any interest or putting up any collateral.
It gives the developer the privilege to defer paying the true value of council land until after they have sold all the units: which means that each time the council sanctions such a deal, it is gambling on the promise that all developers are honest. Participating in such a loose financial arrangement, not only creates the element of risk but it can also produce the potential for corruption.
A cloud of mystery still hangs over the identity of the person who valued this prime land for such a low price of £300,000, on which the developer built 36 units that he sold for £21million.
The loss of more than £3million caused by the council’s lack of due diligence over the deal, together with its reluctance in pursuing the debt, has meant that the people of Camden have missed out on vital resources which could have financed numerous needy programmes and reduced the cuts in others.
Meanwhile, in some distant offshore tax haven account, the missing millions of Camden are safely stashed away, allowing another developer to sail blissfully into the sunset, leaving the council to contemplate how best to retrieve it.
From CELINE LA FRENIERE, Talacre Road, NW5
Land loss was horrendous
Your brilliant article about the suspicious behaviour of the developer of the 36-flat Talacre development (Lawyers tell Town Hall: Forget £3 million debt, August 6) and Nick Harding's persistent attempt at exposing the failure of Camden to collect overage monies owed to them was long overdue.
Little known about this particular developer is how he caused such alarm, locally, that he managed to bring a community of diverse residents together. One thing did that: The serious threat posed to their cherished local park Talacre Gardens.
The land on which the developer finally built his project was designated park land prior to his involvement. In Haverstock Ward where Talacre Gardens was the only open space for its 11,000 residents, 25% of them under the age of 19, the loss of this precious piece of land was horrendous. That it should have gone for a mere £300,000. was unforgivable.
It didn't stop there, however. Not content with his ill-gotten gains, the developer tried to grab another piece of land on the south side which is currently used as a picnic area in order to make room for the sitting area for a restaurant. Worse than that, Camden was in the process of granting permission for the developer to build a vehicular road across the park, slicing it into two parts.
That was the last straw. Residents got together and formed a 250 strong team of campaigners in the name of Friends of Talacre Gardens. A three-year battle ensued during which hundreds of letters landed in the CNJ post bag. And there were endless meetings with Camden and involvement with the Open Space Society. Mercifully our councillor Matt Sanders joined the battle and single-handedly won the case for the Talacre Residents.
In 2010, he persuaded the Council to designate Talacre as a Town Green, hence making an end to the threat posed by the developer or others in the future.
That £3million which he still owes Camden would be enough to maintain Talacre Town Green till Kingdom come.
From CHRISTIINE GERAGHTY, Address supplied
Public Hearing
Good to see the CNJ devoting space to the issue of the Talacre development (August 6)
But given the long history of debate over the controversial development, is it really satisfactory that the resolution proposed is a briefing for two senior councillors by council officers?
How can the public be sure that this briefing will be fair to the points raised so persistently by Nick Harding and others?
And what about the claim that Camden can recover millions of pounds of public money?
A more public hearing is surely required.
From LUCY MORGAN, Address supplied
Investigation
I was interested to see your piece on the flats in Kentish Town in front of the Talacre sports centre.
I was involved in the campaign against it in 2011 because my children did many activities at Talacre.
It was always obvious to local people that the proposed development would have a negative impact on the area.
How such an oversized, overhanding, private, development got approved was shrouded in mystery. But many of the councillors who voted for it had already moved on even by 2011
In my view an investigation should be undertaken into the council decision-making and what the developer might have offered to get it through.
Things got to a low point when Nick Harding – who is an actual local hero – was labelled “vexatious” by Camden Council for trying to hold the authority and developer to account.
The new road built for access is too narrow, dangerous, congested and – bizarrely considering it provides access to Camden’s outstanding Talacre sports centre- privatised.
I used to use the disabled parking bays before the development, as my son is a wheelchair user, but these are too difficult to access now.
Lawyers tell Town Hall: Forget £3million debt – it can’t be collected.
The 36-flat Talacre development that’s built on a land sale scandal
Lawyers advised Camden Council officials three years ago to abandon attempts to reclaim a debt several million pounds over the sale and development of a large block of flats in Kentish Town because the developer, who ran a chain of offshore companies, was beyond their reach.
I can disclose that council sources show that this piece of legal advice was given in 2017 though there does not appear to have been any discussion or decision-making process involving the borough’s elected representatives.
It seems as if there was an aura of confidentiality about it.
The scandal revolves around an extraordinary exposure by a Kentish Town resident, Nick Harding, a retired forensic accountant, who has been pursuing the ramifications of the sale of land at the edge of Talacre Park since development plans emerged 17 years ago.
He sent officials countless emails questioning aspects of the sale over the years as well as Freedom of Information requests. His bombardment of officials resulted in him being dismissed at one stage as “vexatious”. But nothing seemed to deter him. He was so concerned with what appeared to be unsatisfactory replies from officials that he carried out his own investigation at the Land Registry, as well as contacting several councillors. But the years passed by – his first questioning emails go back more than 10 years – and he approached me recently with his allegations. By then his dossier of enquiries and replies ran into scores of pages that clearly were making a substantial case.
He was convinced that the developer had reneged on an agreement to pay an additional amount, over the above the agreed price for the piece of land, a payment known as “overage” by which the developer tops up the price depending on the final total sale price of 36 flats in the block.
The land was sold initially by the council for £300,000. The flats were sold for nearly £21million.
According to Nick Harding’s analysis this figure was reached after he had carried out his own investigation into the information supplied publicly by the Land Registry. At that level his research can hardly be questioned. Nonetheless I showed his cache of correspondence to an experienced architect who agreed that Nick Harding had developed a prima facie case.
According to council sources, a recent document refers to Nick Harding’s enquiries as well as my piece in the New Journal and stresses that one of the difficulties facing the Town Hall is that all the officials involved in the land sale appear to have left the council which seriously complicates a thorough investigation.
This would in fact be the case if it were – as it no doubt is – a civil matter and not a more serious form of investigation though there appears to be a ready acceptance of events.
Nick Harding told me this week that he believes he knows one official from his early inquiries who is still employed by the council but this has yet to be tested
However, faced with this impasse, it is understood from sources that a “briefing” document on what is certainly a scandalous affair is being prepared for two senior Labour Councillors, Danny Beales and Richard Olszewski.
The admission that the “overage” – a kind of promissory note – cannot be pursued, that Camden Council has lost, according to Nick Harding, more than £3m, opens up several questions that need to be debated in the public domain.
It should be known that several local authorities in London have successfully arranged overage deals over the years with developers and payment has been honoured. What has happened in Camden appears to be exceptional.
However, is there nothing Camden can do to put matters right?
Nick Harding argues that though the developer may be an offshore company it is possible to pursue the debt through the courts by applying for the right to foreclose on the freehold status of the block which, at the moment, is owned by the developer.
One of the mysteries that hangs over the sale of the land in the first place is why did the council – and the councillors who endorsed it – accept such a low price of £300,000 for a prime piece of land in one of the most sought after parts of London. That is the sort of price of a backstreet garage that can be developed into a small block of three or four units. Not, as in this case, the purchase of land, overlooking a park, near an Overland railway station, and on which 36 flats can be built.
From the exchange of emails between Nick Harding and council officials it can be seen that at the time of the sale of the land if appeared it was assumed that the total sale of the flats would fetch about £8m, whereas they were eventually sold for nearly £21m, almost three times that amount.
Then a further question arises. On whose valuation was the original sale agreement made? Though an air of controversy hung over the development plans as they unfolded 17 years ago – the scheme was on the Council’s agenda in the early days of the Lib-Dem/Conservative coalition - the apparent low price offered for the land by the developer did not seem to have met stern opposition.
The promise of a later additional payment – the overage – may have assuaged concerns felt by some councillors but it surely should have been recognised that to claim and settle a “top up” figure at the completion of the block, three or four years later, would have to be carefully monitored and not allowed to become a bed debt. In fact this is what happened though only now is an admission of the council’s inability to collect the debt emerging.
As for council’s three year-old advice that the debt is uncollectable one assumes it was copied to the council’s chief executive. Was it also made known to the then Labour leadership? If it wasn’t, a question looms over what is an unacceptable level of secrecy at the Town Hall.
Of course the legal advice may have been put to one side while allowing attempts to recoup the debt to continue.
In an emailed reply to a Freedom of Information request by Nick Harding sent on June 16, an official in the Information Rights department informed him that the “matter is still subject to internal review service”.
Does this mean that two departments at the Town Hall are pursuing different courses of action – one abandoning the debt, the other formally chasing it?
In one of his earlier email exchanges with officialdom, Nick Harding was told that the collection of the overage was very “complex”. Now, after his years of dogged pursuit, an admission appears to have been made by the council at a high level that, essentially, he has been right after all. His efforts are even recognised by officials who have taken note of his emails requesting replies under Freedom of Information.
Bearing all this in mind, surely something is wrong with a system which manages to conceal a debt of this nature involving such a large sum of public money over such a long time – and that it takes years of stubborn probing by an individual member of the public to bring it to light.
From Emily Harper
“Questions that arise. Why not recover the missing millions”. CNJ letters
“John Gulliver “Mission to uncover missing millions” CNJ 9th July is astonishing.
I was born and bred in Camden and used the facilities at Talacre for many years including later with my young children so this really hits home.
If even half of what is said is correct, we are looking at a major scandal so let’s hope Camden’s leader, Cllr Georgia Gould will confirm or otherwise the facts and tell us what Camden is doing to remedy the situation.
Because either there has been massive incompetence or something else.
Let her answer these questions-
- Was the Conditional Land Sale Agreement which can be found in the Land Registry an enforceable agreement which contains the Overage agreement and other conditions?
- Was [the valuation of the land sold by Camden of] £651,000 based upon an estimated value of the sales of private flats to be £8,197,629 as shown in the Development Appraisal in the Sale Agreement?
- Were the private flats sold less than 7 years later for £20,737,590?
- Did the agreement allow for the flats to be occupied before the overage was paid and if not, why was there not such an obvious requirement?
- If there is Overage owed, why has it not been collected? It must be owed by the present owner of the property, a company in the British Virgin Islands. It owns the freehold to the leased private flats and the medical centre. If you or I owned such an asset and owed £millions we would expect to be sued if we failed to pay and risk having the asset foreclosed.
I cannot comprehend why Camden would not pursue much needed funds. What is stopping Camden?
From PETER CUMMING, Talacre Road, NW5
Why not recover the missing millions?
It seems odd that Camden Council (Mission to recover missing millions, John Gulliver, July 9) cannot provide a park keepers’ toilet at Talacre Town Green when the developer of the adjacent land owes some £3million to the borough coffers.
We all wish Nick Harding well.
When he is successful he will deserve the “campaigner’s star” and an OBE for services to the community at least.
I have followed the saga for almost as long as Nick and I am dismayed those elected to serve us have not appeared to have striven for a complete recovery of funds.
Perhaps they know too much? Well done Nick.
Mission to uncover missing millions. John Gulliver comment CNJ 9.7.20
There are missing millions due to be paid to Camden council by developers – what has happened to them?
This is not a figment of someone’s imagination but the calculation of a retired forensic accountant who can produce prima facie evidence hat the missing millions go back more than 15 years.
The man who is setting out to expose what he sees as the failure of the council to collect a recognised debt is Nick Harding who lives in Kentish Town.
His quarry is the development at the edge of Talacre Park that resulted in a block of flats almost overhanging Prince of Wales Road.
I have been shown his calculations and his trail of email exchanges going back years to a well- known architect who gave the opinion that the council has a case to answer. Can it? A lot of public money is at stake.
Harding sets out to show that the original deal to build the block in 2003 at a selling price of £651,00 was based on an agreement to share he profits once the building had been completed and the flats had been sold. According to Harding’s investigation the flats were sold in total for £20,757,590 so the amount owing the council under this kind of agreement known as an “overage” could run into something in excess of £3million.
The idea of the council and a developer finalising the share out of proceeds from a development of a project was suggested in this column recently by the Conservative councillor Steve Adams in his observations about a request for permission to build extra floors to a planned tower block in Somers Town.
Apparently the idea of an “overage” arose out of the early development plans for the King’s Cross site- now housing giant offices of Google as well as a “campus” version of the Town Hall – because councillors and housing experts were disappointed that the massive site appeared to provide sol little social housing and social facilities.
Harding has sent me reams of emails trailing exchanges between council officials and himself going back several years. A dogged investigator, he does not give up easily.
He looked into the original sale agreement and found the Schedule that set out the agreement for Talacre development, and accordingly sent it to me.
Moreover, he scoured the copious details provided publicly be the Land Registry and noted the price paid for each flat in the block, hence he knew they eventually went for more than £20m.
In one response from a council official four years ago confirmation was given that no “overage” had yet been paid, pointing out that the “mechanism for payment” was “extremely complex”, depending on “assessment of multiple factors, many of which are so commercially sensitive and that require in-depth experts analysis”.
At one point, a council official stresses legal restraints hindering the disclosure of information and emphasises that “it is in the public interest that the decisions taken by the council are taken in a fully informed legal context. It is considered that the public interest in withholding the information outweighs the public interest in disclosing it”
Harding of course has persisted in keeping in close contact with council officials who sometimes ask for more time to provide him with information. Meanwhile no firm information has been provided by council officials who are still seeking exemption to provide it in a timely manner.
Harding says he cannot understand why the settlement of an “overage” figure should take so long as other London councils have, apparently, settled similar agreements with developers.
Bearing in mind the Talacre development goes back at least 16 years, one is left wondering why the debt has not yet been paid. Harding believes only a public inquiry could settle it. While current Labour councillors are aware of the mystery that hangs over Talacre and the missing millions, the political class appear to have taken no action.
,