Singing Pig

Stabilo:

It is the kind of customer service stated in their t & c's. Clients are fully aware that this is not a get rich quick scheme and that it takes 5 or 6 years to source the properties. The loss of interest is more than made up for it in the value of the properties sourced by Passive.

Why £40K upfront?

1. It shows the client is committed to the service.

2. It shows the client has adequate funding for the service.

3. Because the clients can see the benefits of the service offered.

4. Because Passive are market leaders.

 

I'm sorry, but these answers get more and more ridiculous with every post !

Right guys - we are the market leaders for winning planning permission on No Win No Fee terms. LPA started it in 1997. (We started a risk-sharing/profit sharing project before that, starting in 1994, but that's a very sore point at present, and the subject of a Supreme Court legal action !)

The few others who also now offer No Win No Fee then copied us.

So, since we are the market leaders, send your £40,000 to us right now. Why ?  Obviously, to prove you are "committed" to our service, have adequate funding for it (and are prepared to hand it to us before we do damn all for you) , can see the benefits of our service, and because we are market leaders.

Then who knows, over the next 5 years we just might win 4 planning permissions for you - if you bung us the first £15,000 profit from each one.

WHAT ? No takers ? I'm astonished and disappointed with you cynical people !

By the way, the difference with our REAL offer is that we usually make £70,000 to £120,000+ for even our modest one-off No Win No Fee clients, or they pay us nothing. And the profit - the increase in market value we generate for them - is immediate. Indeed they have it before they pay us.

We don't work on percentages - too much scope for arguments about what value the percentage is OF. But our success fee for a single building plot for a dwelling normally works out at between 10% - 20% of the market value of the plot we have created at our risk and expense for our client.

Now THAT is what I call a "service" !

LPA,

It pains me to say this but you appear to offer an EXCELLENT service.

If you had the marketing skills of Passive Investments and an excellent track record (which you presumably have) I am confident there would be clients prepared to pay you in advance for your services. However I guess in your game you are unable to show a 100% success rate like Passive Investments.

Are some of your criticisms of Passive Investments perhaps fuelled by jealousy? Perhaps you could market your services as 'pay up front, if we fail to obtain planning permission fees are refunded'. I assume the contracts issued by Passive Investments work on the same basis i.e. if they don't source the 5 properties you are legally entitled to a refund.

Stabilo:

LPA,

It pains me to say this but you appear to offer an EXCELLENT service.

If you had the marketing skills of Passive Investments and an excellent track record (which you presumably have) I am confident there would be clients prepared to pay you in advance for your services. However I guess in your game you are unable to show a 100% success rate like Passive Investments.

Are some of your criticisms of Passive Investments perhaps fuelled by jealousy? Perhaps you could market your services as 'pay up front, if we fail to obtain planning permission fees are refunded'. I assume the contracts issued by Passive Investments work on the same basis i.e. if they don't source the 5 properties you are legally entitled to a refund.

Thank you. I don't WANT to be paid upfront actually.

But you're right that in my game nobody will never show a 100% success rate. (In fact I saw a consultancy claiming a consistent 70% success rate recently. But the only way you can achieve that - and yes, I've done it in one period way back - is to be very, very selective and take on only those appeals you are 95% sure of winning. But even then you'll still only get a 70% success rate, because Inspectors are rather unpredictable in their decisions sometimes!)

The national average success rate for all appeals is around 30%, but that reflects a lot that should never have been submitted. Our success rate varies a hell of a lot, depending on what we've taken on. (If I'm bored, I'll often take on a long shot for the sheer fun of it !)

But I'll bet PI can't show a 100% success rate either. 100 properties and not a single bad buy? No, I wouldn't believe that.

No, my comments concerning PI are not fuelled by jealousy. They are fuelled by CYNICISM and SCEPTICISM about the claims made !

I am 100% certain that if I asked MY clients to pay me before I had delivered what I promised, they'd run a mile. Planning Consultancy doesn't work that way. (Though Solicitors and Barristers seem to get away with demanding the money before they do the work.)

You do not get paid in advance because as you say you do WANT to be paid up front.

If you really wanted to you COULD. I WOULD pay you in advance (seriously, we have a plot that requires PP) and I'm sure others would. You are old school and it's just a mindset. You are working on the basis that it is more honourable to be paid when the job is completed. If you had insisted on advance payments you probably wouldn't have the pending High Court case.

Why should solicitors and barristers be any different to you?

I caught a bus the other day and guess what I paid for the journey before the bus even set off.

When I get paid in advance I work twice as hard to complete the job I have been paid for.

As for PI's success rate, I know you only like HARD FACTS but what I can say is:

1. Andy Shaw set up PI about 3 years AFTER he had bought several hundred properties.

2. Surveyors are a reasonable safeguard against making a 'bad buy'.

3. He only buys in his local market. Wouldn't you be pretty good at spotting the bargains if you had already bought several hundred in your own small town?

4. Some properties will be more profitable than others but what qualifies as a bad buy? As the policy is to 'never' sell the properties it is difficult to assess a bad buy. 

As you will be aware in your sector a small fortune can be made very quickly. Why not in other sectors?

""I caught a bus the other day and guess what I paid for the journey before the bus even set off.""

guess what  -  most bus journeys dont cost £40k  ......... 

"If you had insisted on advance payments you probably wouldn't have the pending High Court case."

Yes that's true, but it wasn't possible to get paid upfront in that instance anyway.

I personally agreed to take on the task of recovering very valuable planning permissions for sand and gravel extraction which had been arbitrarily cancelled by the County Council, and winning additional planning permissions to enhance the sale value of the land, on the understanding with the leading owning partner that I would receive 20% of the selling price of the land.

So I didn't know at the outset how much I would be due to receive, if anything. (I might have failed to win back the permissions and then been due to receive nothing.)

In the event, I won back all of the cancelled permissions and won additional permissions that increased the land value from £100,224 to £2.01million.

As soon as they had trousered the £2million+, they declined to pay what I had been promised.

Contrary to the cynicism of which you frequently accuse me, I am happy to admit that, on that occasion, I was actually far too trusting. (Ironically, I had known the leading partner for 11 years before agreeing to work with him on that project, and actually counted him as a friend. Hah - a hard lesson learned !)

So, we will end up in the Supreme Court in The Strand, London, and they will take one hell of a hiding there. (If I didn't know that, I wouldn't be suing them, but I know what documentary evidence I've got, and they don't. And NOBODY cheats me out of £420,000 and simply walks away.)

LPA,

I assume the fees are contested are they? Otherwise if this is a Limited Company that simply will not part with the money, you could issue a statutory demand and go for their insolvency if they continue to refuse to pay up. 

We are using this tactic against a Company, who despite actively seeking and taking on investors (they are a property investment company with high end properties for sale and for rent such as London apartments and Country Houses) find it impossible to pay for goods and services to the tune of a few thousand. They claim their coffers are bare.  

But hopefully soon some damn idiots will invest in them and we might get paid!  It's a great return on investment they offer, I think about 6% above base!  They suggest you release equity in your home and invest! Memories of Andy Shaw and his comparative tin pot Company are returning!

If any one is interested in this exciting and possibly roller coaster investment opportunity, I'd be pleased to send you a link to their page!  

I think it's a sad world when one puts one's trust in a Company or individuals and basically they ***t on you from a great height because they can't bear to part with their (the money) side of the bargain. 

Their are many types of businesses and trades that would simply not exist without trust; our business as do many others, rely on it. What happened to the old fashioned handshake on a deal?  It's been replaced with prepayment, yards of small writing at the bottom of contracts, insurance and health and safety risk assessments. 

Susan