FREEHOLD ABUSE
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A SOLICITOR who bought up hundreds of cheap freeholds on leasehold homes in Sheffield has been reported to the police by the local MP for sending “aggressive” letters using “scaremongering” tactics to make them buy their freeholds – including exaggerated threats of court action and pressure to hand over inflated sums within a fortnight.
“Thomas” and “June” were among those to have received two letters from solicitor Andrew Milne, of one-man band Andrew Milne & Co. The first gave the bad news: he’d recently bought the freehold of their five-bed semi in the Crosspool suburb (where leasehold houses dating from the 1940s are not uncommon), and he believed covenants in the lease had been breached. He was preparing to take them to the high court, sending “draft particulars of claim for court proceedings” to ram the point home.