Case Study 1 - Works (Reparation at No 34)
A problem has assailed us almost since we arrived at the Staithe to try and improve our lives.
A few years back, a section of our home experienced water ingress and was covered in mould, causing our young children health issues. Mould issues can be serious, with one recent case leading to the death of an infant (see the below photos of our mould issue).
An application was sent to the Board for the situation to be rectified and to replace the structure. What unfolded was an unnecessary and expensive nightmare for our family, the details of which were set out to the Shareholders in a letter of the 4 February 2022 - as per the below.
Correspondence between us and the courtyard Garage-owners (that included two sitting Board Directors, and two past Chairmen) mentioned in the 4 February letter is provided below. Our concerns and queries about their unreasonable, even vexatious demands (letter of 21 May 2021), set out in our response email of 13 August 2021 (also below), have never been answered..
From evidence we hold it appears the Board had indeed taken sides; and correspondence from a later Subject Access Request revealed that the garage-owners (including Board Directors) were attempting to hold us "over a barrel" (email of 24 June 2021).
Of course, failing to address the dilapidation also put us at risk of breaching the law and Chiswick Staithe Management Scheme’s own repair covenant. This forced us into an uncomfortable legal quandary because we had to make repair while being obstructed by the Board’s failure to grant licence.
As the letter (4 February 2022) also explains, two of the then Board Directors admitted in writing (email: 25 June 2021 to which the whole Board were copied in but made no subsequent denial) that the Board entered into some secret and undisclosed form of agreement with the Garage-owners (two of which were sitting Board Directors) whose upshot was to refuse our licence unless we agreed to unreasonable, legally baseless and very onerous demands from the Garage-owners. The Board still refuse to provide full details of this hidden arrangement. Can the Board really claim to be fair and impartial to ALL shareholders including our family?
Whilst the Board claim to always follow legal advice we question whether any reasonable solicitor would rationally recommend the Board enter into a “deal” that meant CSL directly prejudiced another shareholder. Perhaps this explains the Board’s aggressive (through expensive freeholder/shareholder funded legal aid) and persistent resistance to disclosure.
If the Board believe they have made no mistake then why will they not disclose the full details of this agreement or any other pertinent information to the shareholders and other relevant information? Ironically we have all ended up part-paying to fund solicitors to act against our family; and, due to lack of resolution, this issue still hangs over the Staithe.
It seems that, pressed on the putative conflicts of interest, the Board solicitors finagle use of “clever” legal arguments suggesting “dual roles” are acceptable and there are no conflicts of interest (such as those of garage-owning Directors of CSL). Later, however, the Board themselves admit in writing (letter to the shareholders: 17 January 2022), that at least one of these Directors’ role in determining our project was in conflict with his Board duties. Details of exactly who, when and why this Director recused themselves from being involved in elements of decision-making was not, however, disclosed. Was it once the horse had bolted? Of further note is email correspondence in a SAR (for more information on SARs please refer to this website’s section on our Subject Access Requests made under the GDPR regulations). In this case the erstwhile Chair had, much earlier on in the process of determining our application for Grant of Licence, suggested to another Director, a Garage-owning Board Director, that he recuse himself, only for that Director to apparently reject the idea.
The same email between Board members, recovered as part of a SAR, states that the Board “have to do right by the Garage owners”. The Board “doing right” by Garage-owners (which included two Board Directors (one of whom we believe was the author of the email), and other previous Directors and Chairmen), presumably by withholding our licence (that is, “doing right” to the clear detriment of another shareholder) is according to the Board’s legal teams not a conflict of interest and was thus fair, impartial and in line with the Director Guidelines (which another member of the Board's professional team emphasised were ONLY guidelines!). In this case why does the Board refuse to be open about what happened? Surely transparency would assist in dispelling any suspicion of wrong-doing, which they deny.
In other correspondence the Board was clearly acting outside its remit, by committing to involve themselves at the Garage-owners insistence, in private Party Wall matters by stating no licence would be granted without this process being completed. How can this possibly be considered fair and impartial behaviour by the Board? The Board have since admitted they should have no role in such process but still fail to provide any apology for their treatment of my family in this regard.
If the Board promised the Garage-owners something that was outside their remit they had put themselves in a bind, but, it seems, instead of doing the right thing, the Board turned straightway to another excuse to refuse us grant of licence, i.e. a hardly noticeable asymmetry between the two terrace houses. This is despite the fact that the two conservatories had never been symmetrical and the Staithe is full of aysmmetires to the extent that interesting, quirky differences between individual and groups of properties were, it seems, the intention of the original design.
Whilst heavily redacted, the SAR responses provide numerous inappropriate personal comments the Board were making about myself including an email from a Board member stating that someone needed to “...sort [me] out...”! The same email goes on to state that my family was "jolly lucky" that we were getting as much "help" from the Board as we were!! It didn't feel very lucky to us!
Of course, redactions that censor sensitive information can be reversed by a judge in a court case. Another heavily redacted email from Board Directors appears to make light of our concerns for our children’s health. The email suggested that rather than us complaining about the mould we should simply keep “them” (presumably meaning our children) away from the “offending” part of the house. This comment was made during mid lockdown at a time when we were legally confined to the indoors of our house. Another email from the Board, sometime later, echoes the same sentiment, suggesting if we were really concerned about our children we would accept the Board’s terms (which for reasons we have explained we could not).
It is common and general knowledge that airborne mould spores will spread around the house. There was no way to avoid this, especially during the winter months of COVID during lockdown.
Ultimately, given the choice of either months/years of further medical issues for our children and stressful and costly wrangling with the Board, or progressing the works without licence, we decided the latter although under threat of legal injunction from the Board.
Members of the Board then resigned and were replaced by previous Board Directors, many of who had served on the Board at the same time as those involved in our situation. Then Chairman Yan Tordoff retained a position managing the Staithe website, on which documentation is stored. The Board claimed Yan would not have access to sensitive new information or legal advice, but it certainly allowed for their close and regular communications to continue.
This new Board subsequently wrote to the residents and shareholders (letter of 27 Sept 2022) with what we feel was a defamatory, certainly one-sided account of the matter and provided us with no forum or option to respond. The New Board made clear that they saw no issue with their previous colleagues’ behaviour or decisions towards our family and made a number of unpleasant, baseless remarks about my character. The "lessons learnt" section of their letter made no reference to the horrendous treatment of our family, despite us also being CSL resident Shareholders.
We have since attempted to resolve matters with the Board offering meetings on a number of occasions all of which have been rejected.
A summary of our concerns was provided to the Board in the below email of 24 November 2023. This is painful reading, but is a blunt account of the worrying questions that remain unanswered.
We add that, whilst the Board describe themselves as unpaid volunteers, they are mostly very experienced Statutory Directors who have certainly used their knowledge and experience of company matters during this unpleasant process, incurring significant legal fees in pursuing our family (circa £40,000 from Chiswick Staithe shareholder funds) for what seems to be no benefit to the Company and significant harm to our family (a resident freeholder/ shareholder). We have incurred similar sums in defending ourselves and our right to lawfully repair our home.
Details of the Board’s experience as statutory Directors is set out in the “About the Chiswick Staithe (CSL) Board” page of the website.
We leave you to make your own judgement on our experience of “freehold” ownership at Chiswick Staithe.
Our own conclusion
As you can see, over the previous five years our family has been subjected to what we believe to be inexplicably unpleasant and potentially defamatory animosity from the current and previous Board members which raises questions about the manner in which Chiswick Staithe Limited is run and the character of the Board Directors.
With the information provided you can make up your own mind, but it is our view that something must change.
This struggle, still not resolved, has had serious impacts on our family, both financially and medically. The Board continue to deny this but refuse to disclose the internal correspondence to demonstrate the truth behind their position, always using legal privilege as their shield. We question this refusal to provide transparency.
These are important matters. They include a legal dispute that resident shareholders and anyone considering selling or buying a property at the Staithe would likely wish to be aware of.
The Garage-owners’ objections were all overridden by professional surveyors and despite accusations of dishonesty, untrustworthiness, illegal behaviour and generally derogatory remarks (see Page on GDPR SARs for some examples), the Board’s legal and management team have been forced to admit that they hold no information whatsoever to suggest let alone justify any malicious rumours. Is it not high time for common sense to now prevail?
Mould issues
As detailed in the above text, a section of our property was covered in mould as a result of a dilapidated conservatory. This was not apparent when we purchased the property as we bought in the summer months.
Despite Board approval of the designs and us having obtained planning consent to proceed with the works the Board still refused grant of licence, apparently holding us to ransom until we agreed legally baseless demands in favour of a number of Board Directors.
The Board have used legal privilege to prevent disclosure of the real reasons behind their decision-making.
Health risk
Mould, and as a occured, a raw sewage leak outside our front door from pipes within CSL common land, present health issues. The delays caused by the Board’s refusal to provide grant of licence for the renewal of a conservatory occurred at peak COVID lockdown period, a time when we were legally obligated to stay indoors. The Board were repeatedly informed that our young children were suffering mould-related medical conditions but refused to progress our licence, thus preventing us from protecting our children from harm.
Keen to progress matters, we even sent photos of our children’s rashes to the Board - only later to find through a Subject Access Request that our requests were shrugged off in conversations between Board members (see the GDPR Subject Access Request, section of the website).
We do not believe this is acceptable for neighbours, especially where there is demonstrable personal animus, to unilaterally control a necessary works process in this way.
Letter with demands from Garage-Owners (including Directors) 21 May 2021
We understand from conversations that many of the signatories were being informed by two Garage-owning Board Directors and an ex-Board Chairman who led the group; and that the Board as a whole also supported their position.
Our response to the Garage Owners' demands 13 August 2021
In a statement to the shareholders of the 27 September 2022 the Board stated that they did not believe I had acted reasonably or transparently and I was described as an "extremely difficult person". The letter cites allogations of aggressive and bullying behaviour on my part. Please see video on "About the Chiswick Staithe (CSL) Board" page of this website and judge for yourselves.
I am sure the above email, one of a volume saved, will assist you in making your own mind up on the authenticity of the Board's characterisation.
Our Letter to shareholders of 4 February 2022
Case Studies
Case Study 1 provides a freeholder's perspective of a particularly divisive episode at the Staithe. Whilst disappointing in outcome, we believe it important that freeholders (shareholders) have an opportunity to present their account of any particular situation to avoid a one-sided and seemingly unfair outcome to a situation being presented as somehow good for the shareholders. Up to now, there has been no such forum, with any such airing of concerns actively discouraged by the Board.
We hope that future cases on this page may provide success stories of more collaborative projects.
A problem has assailed us almost since we arrived at the Staithe to try and improve our lives.
A few years back, a section of our home experienced water ingress and was covered in mould, causing our young children health issues. Mould issues can be serious, with one recent case leading to the death of an infant (see the below photos of our mould issue).
An application was sent to the Board for the situation to be rectified and to replace the structure. What unfolded was an unnecessary and expensive nightmare for our family, the details of which were set out to the Shareholders in a letter of the 4 February 2022 - as per the below.
Correspondence between us and the courtyard Garage-owners (that included two sitting Board Directors, and two past Chairmen) mentioned in the 4 February letter is provided below. Our concerns and queries about their unreasonable, even vexatious demands (letter of 21 May 2021), set out in our response email of 13 August 2021 (also below), have never been answered..
From evidence we hold it appears the Board had indeed taken sides; and correspondence from a later Subject Access Request revealed that the garage-owners (including Board Directors) were attempting to hold us "over a barrel" (email of 24 June 2021).
Of course, failing to address the dilapidation also put us at risk of breaching the law and Chiswick Staithe Management Scheme’s own repair covenant. This forced us into an uncomfortable legal quandary because we had to make repair while being obstructed by the Board’s failure to grant licence.
As the letter (4 February 2022) also explains, two of the then Board Directors admitted in writing (email: 25 June 2021 to which the whole Board were copied in but made no subsequent denial) that the Board entered into some secret and undisclosed form of agreement with the Garage-owners (two of which were sitting Board Directors) whose upshot was to refuse our licence unless we agreed to unreasonable, legally baseless and very onerous demands from the Garage-owners. The Board still refuse to provide full details of this hidden arrangement. Can the Board really claim to be fair and impartial to ALL shareholders including our family?
Whilst the Board claim to always follow legal advice we question whether any reasonable solicitor would rationally recommend the Board enter into a “deal” that meant CSL directly prejudiced another shareholder. Perhaps this explains the Board’s aggressive (through expensive freeholder/shareholder funded legal aid) and persistent resistance to disclosure.
If the Board believe they have made no mistake then why will they not disclose the full details of this agreement or any other pertinent information to the shareholders and other relevant information? Ironically we have all ended up part-paying to fund solicitors to act against our family; and, due to lack of resolution, this issue still hangs over the Staithe.
It seems that, pressed on the putative conflicts of interest, the Board solicitors finagle use of “clever” legal arguments suggesting “dual roles” are acceptable and there are no conflicts of interest (such as those of garage-owning Directors of CSL). Later, however, the Board themselves admit in writing (letter to the shareholders: 17 January 2022), that at least one of these Directors’ role in determining our project was in conflict with his Board duties. Details of exactly who, when and why this Director recused themselves from being involved in elements of decision-making was not, however, disclosed. Was it once the horse had bolted? Of further note is email correspondence in a SAR (for more information on SARs please refer to this website’s section on our Subject Access Requests made under the GDPR regulations). In this case the erstwhile Chair had, much earlier on in the process of determining our application for Grant of Licence, suggested to another Director, a Garage-owning Board Director, that he recuse himself, only for that Director to apparently reject the idea.
The same email between Board members, recovered as part of a SAR, states that the Board “have to do right by the Garage owners”. The Board “doing right” by Garage-owners (which included two Board Directors (one of whom we believe was the author of the email), and other previous Directors and Chairmen), presumably by withholding our licence (that is, “doing right” to the clear detriment of another shareholder) is according to the Board’s legal teams not a conflict of interest and was thus fair, impartial and in line with the Director Guidelines (which another member of the Board's professional team emphasised were ONLY guidelines!). In this case why does the Board refuse to be open about what happened? Surely transparency would assist in dispelling any suspicion of wrong-doing, which they deny.
In other correspondence the Board was clearly acting outside its remit, by committing to involve themselves at the Garage-owners insistence, in private Party Wall matters by stating no licence would be granted without this process being completed. How can this possibly be considered fair and impartial behaviour by the Board? The Board have since admitted they should have no role in such process but still fail to provide any apology for their treatment of my family in this regard.
If the Board promised the Garage-owners something that was outside their remit they had put themselves in a bind, but, it seems, instead of doing the right thing, the Board turned straightway to another excuse to refuse us grant of licence, i.e. a hardly noticeable asymmetry between the two terrace houses. This is despite the fact that the two conservatories had never been symmetrical and the Staithe is full of aysmmetires to the extent that interesting, quirky differences between individual and groups of properties were, it seems, the intention of the original design.
Whilst heavily redacted, the SAR responses provide numerous inappropriate personal comments the Board were making about myself including an email from a Board member stating that someone needed to “...sort [me] out...”! The same email goes on to state that my family was "jolly lucky" that we were getting as much "help" from the Board as we were!! It didn't feel very lucky to us!
Of course, redactions that censor sensitive information can be reversed by a judge in a court case. Another heavily redacted email from Board Directors appears to make light of our concerns for our children’s health. The email suggested that rather than us complaining about the mould we should simply keep “them” (presumably meaning our children) away from the “offending” part of the house. This comment was made during mid lockdown at a time when we were legally confined to the indoors of our house. Another email from the Board, sometime later, echoes the same sentiment, suggesting if we were really concerned about our children we would accept the Board’s terms (which for reasons we have explained we could not).
It is common and general knowledge that airborne mould spores will spread around the house. There was no way to avoid this, especially during the winter months of COVID during lockdown.
Ultimately, given the choice of either months/years of further medical issues for our children and stressful and costly wrangling with the Board, or progressing the works without licence, we decided the latter although under threat of legal injunction from the Board.
Members of the Board then resigned and were replaced by previous Board Directors, many of who had served on the Board at the same time as those involved in our situation. Then Chairman Yan Tordoff retained a position managing the Staithe website, on which documentation is stored. The Board claimed Yan would not have access to sensitive new information or legal advice, but it certainly allowed for their close and regular communications to continue.
This new Board subsequently wrote to the residents and shareholders (letter of 27 Sept 2022) with what we feel was a defamatory, certainly one-sided account of the matter and provided us with no forum or option to respond. The New Board made clear that they saw no issue with their previous colleagues’ behaviour or decisions towards our family and made a number of unpleasant, baseless remarks about my character. The "lessons learnt" section of their letter made no reference to the horrendous treatment of our family, despite us also being CSL resident Shareholders.
We have since attempted to resolve matters with the Board offering meetings on a number of occasions all of which have been rejected.
A summary of our concerns was provided to the Board in the below email of 24 November 2023. This is painful reading, but is a blunt account of the worrying questions that remain unanswered.
We add that, whilst the Board describe themselves as unpaid volunteers, they are mostly very experienced Statutory Directors who have certainly used their knowledge and experience of company matters during this unpleasant process, incurring significant legal fees in pursuing our family (circa £40,000 from Chiswick Staithe shareholder funds) for what seems to be no benefit to the Company and significant harm to our family (a resident freeholder/ shareholder). We have incurred similar sums in defending ourselves and our right to lawfully repair our home.
Details of the Board’s experience as statutory Directors is set out in the “About the Chiswick Staithe (CSL) Board” page of the website.
We leave you to make your own judgement on our experience of “freehold” ownership at Chiswick Staithe.
Our own conclusion
As you can see, over the previous five years our family has been subjected to what we believe to be inexplicably unpleasant and potentially defamatory animosity from the current and previous Board members which raises questions about the manner in which Chiswick Staithe Limited is run and the character of the Board Directors.
With the information provided you can make up your own mind, but it is our view that something must change.
This struggle, still not resolved, has had serious impacts on our family, both financially and medically. The Board continue to deny this but refuse to disclose the internal correspondence to demonstrate the truth behind their position, always using legal privilege as their shield. We question this refusal to provide transparency.
These are important matters. They include a legal dispute that resident shareholders and anyone considering selling or buying a property at the Staithe would likely wish to be aware of.
The Garage-owners’ objections were all overridden by professional surveyors and despite accusations of dishonesty, untrustworthiness, illegal behaviour and generally derogatory remarks (see Page on GDPR SARs for some examples), the Board’s legal and management team have been forced to admit that they hold no information whatsoever to suggest let alone justify any malicious rumours. Is it not high time for common sense to now prevail?
A problem has assailed us almost since we arrived at the Staithe to try and improve our lives.
A few years back, a section of our home experienced water ingress and was covered in mould, causing our young children health issues. Mould issues can be serious, with one recent case leading to the death of an infant (see the below photos of our mould issue).
An application was sent to the Board for the situation to be rectified and to replace the structure. What unfolded was an unnecessary and expensive nightmare for our family, the details of which were set out to the Shareholders in a letter of the 4 February 2022 - as per the below.
Correspondence between us and the courtyard Garage-owners (that included two sitting Board Directors, and two past Chairmen) mentioned in the 4 February letter is provided below. Our concerns and queries about their unreasonable, even vexatious demands (letter of 21 May 2021), set out in our response email of 13 August 2021 (also below), have never been answered..
From evidence we hold it appears the Board had indeed taken sides; and correspondence from a later Subject Access Request revealed that the garage-owners (including Board Directors) were attempting to hold us "over a barrel" (email of 24 June 2021).
Of course, failing to address the dilapidation also put us at risk of breaching the law and Chiswick Staithe Management Scheme’s own repair covenant. This forced us into an uncomfortable legal quandary because we had to make repair while being obstructed by the Board’s failure to grant licence.
As the letter (4 February 2022) also explains, two of the then Board Directors admitted in writing (email: 25 June 2021 to which the whole Board were copied in but made no subsequent denial) that the Board entered into some secret and undisclosed form of agreement with the Garage-owners (two of which were sitting Board Directors) whose upshot was to refuse our licence unless we agreed to unreasonable, legally baseless and very onerous demands from the Garage-owners. The Board still refuse to provide full details of this hidden arrangement. Can the Board really claim to be fair and impartial to ALL shareholders including our family?
Whilst the Board claim to always follow legal advice we question whether any reasonable solicitor would rationally recommend the Board enter into a “deal” that meant CSL directly prejudiced another shareholder. Perhaps this explains the Board’s aggressive (through expensive freeholder/shareholder funded legal aid) and persistent resistance to disclosure.
If the Board believe they have made no mistake then why will they not disclose the full details of this agreement or any other pertinent information to the shareholders and other relevant information? Ironically we have all ended up part-paying to fund solicitors to act against our family; and, due to lack of resolution, this issue still hangs over the Staithe.
It seems that, pressed on the putative conflicts of interest, the Board solicitors finagle use of “clever” legal arguments suggesting “dual roles” are acceptable and there are no conflicts of interest (such as those of garage-owning Directors of CSL). Later, however, the Board themselves admit in writing (letter to the shareholders: 17 January 2022), that at least one of these Directors’ role in determining our project was in conflict with his Board duties. Details of exactly who, when and why this Director recused themselves from being involved in elements of decision-making was not, however, disclosed. Was it once the horse had bolted? Of further note is email correspondence in a SAR (for more information on SARs please refer to this website’s section on our Subject Access Requests made under the GDPR regulations). In this case the erstwhile Chair had, much earlier on in the process of determining our application for Grant of Licence, suggested to another Director, a Garage-owning Board Director, that he recuse himself, only for that Director to apparently reject the idea.
The same email between Board members, recovered as part of a SAR, states that the Board “have to do right by the Garage owners”. The Board “doing right” by Garage-owners (which included two Board Directors (one of whom we believe was the author of the email), and other previous Directors and Chairmen), presumably by withholding our licence (that is, “doing right” to the clear detriment of another shareholder) is according to the Board’s legal teams not a conflict of interest and was thus fair, impartial and in line with the Director Guidelines (which another member of the Board's professional team emphasised were ONLY guidelines!). In this case why does the Board refuse to be open about what happened? Surely transparency would assist in dispelling any suspicion of wrong-doing, which they deny.
In other correspondence the Board was clearly acting outside its remit, by committing to involve themselves at the Garage-owners insistence, in private Party Wall matters by stating no licence would be granted without this process being completed. How can this possibly be considered fair and impartial behaviour by the Board? The Board have since admitted they should have no role in such process but still fail to provide any apology for their treatment of my family in this regard.
If the Board promised the Garage-owners something that was outside their remit they had put themselves in a bind, but, it seems, instead of doing the right thing, the Board turned straightway to another excuse to refuse us grant of licence, i.e. a hardly noticeable asymmetry between the two terrace houses. This is despite the fact that the two conservatories had never been symmetrical and the Staithe is full of aysmmetires to the extent that interesting, quirky differences between individual and groups of properties were, it seems, the intention of the original design.
Whilst heavily redacted, the SAR responses provide numerous inappropriate personal comments the Board were making about myself including an email from a Board member stating that someone needed to “...sort [me] out...”! The same email goes on to state that my family was "jolly lucky" that we were getting as much "help" from the Board as we were!! It didn't feel very lucky to us!
Of course, redactions that censor sensitive information can be reversed by a judge in a court case. Another heavily redacted email from Board Directors appears to make light of our concerns for our children’s health. The email suggested that rather than us complaining about the mould we should simply keep “them” (presumably meaning our children) away from the “offending” part of the house. This comment was made during mid lockdown at a time when we were legally confined to the indoors of our house. Another email from the Board, sometime later, echoes the same sentiment, suggesting if we were really concerned about our children we would accept the Board’s terms (which for reasons we have explained we could not).
It is common and general knowledge that airborne mould spores will spread around the house. There was no way to avoid this, especially during the winter months of COVID during lockdown.
Ultimately, given the choice of either months/years of further medical issues for our children and stressful and costly wrangling with the Board, or progressing the works without licence, we decided the latter although under threat of legal injunction from the Board.
Members of the Board then resigned and were replaced by previous Board Directors, many of who had served on the Board at the same time as those involved in our situation. Then Chairman Yan Tordoff retained a position managing the Staithe website, on which documentation is stored. The Board claimed Yan would not have access to sensitive new information or legal advice, but it certainly allowed for their close and regular communications to continue.
This new Board subsequently wrote to the residents and shareholders (letter of 27 Sept 2022) with what we feel was a defamatory, certainly one-sided account of the matter and provided us with no forum or option to respond. The New Board made clear that they saw no issue with their previous colleagues’ behaviour or decisions towards our family and made a number of unpleasant, baseless remarks about my character. The "lessons learnt" section of their letter made no reference to the horrendous treatment of our family, despite us also being CSL resident Shareholders.
We have since attempted to resolve matters with the Board offering meetings on a number of occasions all of which have been rejected.
A summary of our concerns was provided to the Board in the below email of 24 November 2023. This is painful reading, but is a blunt account of the worrying questions that remain unanswered.
We add that, whilst the Board describe themselves as unpaid volunteers, they are mostly very experienced Statutory Directors who have certainly used their knowledge and experience of company matters during this unpleasant process, incurring significant legal fees in pursuing our family (circa £40,000 from Chiswick Staithe shareholder funds) for what seems to be no benefit to the Company and significant harm to our family (a resident freeholder/ shareholder). We have incurred similar sums in defending ourselves and our right to lawfully repair our home.
Details of the Board’s experience as statutory Directors is set out in the “About the Chiswick Staithe (CSL) Board” page of the website.
We leave you to make your own judgement on our experience of “freehold” ownership at Chiswick Staithe.
Our own conclusion
As you can see, over the previous five years our family has been subjected to what we believe to be inexplicably unpleasant and potentially defamatory animosity from the current and previous Board members which raises questions about the manner in which Chiswick Staithe Limited is run and the character of the Board Directors.
With the information provided you can make up your own mind, but it is our view that something must change.
This struggle, still not resolved, has had serious impacts on our family, both financially and medically. The Board continue to deny this but refuse to disclose the internal correspondence to demonstrate the truth behind their position, always using legal privilege as their shield. We question this refusal to provide transparency.
These are important matters. They include a legal dispute that resident shareholders and anyone considering selling or buying a property at the Staithe would likely wish to be aware of.
The Garage-owners’ objections were all overridden by professional surveyors and despite accusations of dishonesty, untrustworthiness, illegal behaviour and generally derogatory remarks (see Page on GDPR SARs for some examples), the Board’s legal and management team have been forced to admit that they hold no information whatsoever to suggest let alone justify any malicious rumours. Is it not high time for common sense to now prevail?
What, in our exemplar case, were the Board Opposing?
The Board were and are opposing the Grant of Licence for Reparatory Building Work.
However, it had previously not only complemented but also approved our works design, so it seems strangely disingenuous that their final excuse for rejecting our application for licence was a "lack of symmetry" between our neighbouring terrace (see the bottom photo for context), especially considering the then-chairman's agreement in writing that it would be unreasonable to withhold the licence if both mine and my neighbour’s project could not be constructed together.
Delay without end in sight as regards the Board providing a licence and the continued medical condition of our children meant a decision was forced. So, although by now under the threat of injunction from shareholder funded litigators we proceeded with the conservatory works. This was a stressful and unpleasant experience.
The completed roof terrace works were carried out exactly as per the Board's approved design, which their own architect had previously worked on. It had obtained statutory planning consent and was finished to the highest of standards.
We hope you agree.
Whilst we are now happy with our refreshed home, the Board Directors and their various friends made what should have been an exciting and positive project into a kind of hell whose costs were increased significantly as building costs skyrocketed during the period in which time was wasted waiting for the non-forthcoming Licence.
We wonder what the Board thinks it has achieved, other than a circa £40k shareholder bill to its various litigators.
The current, apparently "asymmetric" view from the public area that the Board used as their SOLE reason to reject grant of licence for our works.
Shareholders are expected to believe that this was the ONLY reason for the CSL Board to have spent close to £40k of shareholder funds (our money) to remunerate numerous Board litigators acting with concerted effort against my family to stop restoration of our mould-covered home.
The CSL Board continue, as of June 2025, to refuse to disclose the relevant documents, thus protecting themselves from the discovery of any wrong-doing.
We do not believe this lack of transparency is in the interest of shareholders.