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 RESIDENTS PLEASE NOTE
Click here to see the terms and conditions that could be offered to Colonel Moran's replacement!! No-one else is likely to tell you! Our Shares are Valuable. At CROC we have spent hours transferring the original share records to a spread-sheet. This is accurate up to December 2004. For shareholders who were resident then, and who are still living on the Estate we have the details recorded.
Within 3 months of the arrival of Royal Mail on our Estate the share numbers had been removed from the official share list.
Royal Mail re-listed shareholders alphabetically by surname.
This leaves the system open to mis-use. Many shareholders are not resident. For shares that have changed hands since 2005 it might not be easy to verify ownership. Any name can be added to an alphabetical list. There is no way for us (presumably the office might manage!) to connect a surname to a specific lease or to a flat.
Our Consitution states that only a leaseholder can hold a share.
Those who own multiple flats can ONLY vote with the first share they owned. The additional shares still qualify for a share of any assets, but the rule is strictly only one vote for a shareholder.
This check was brought in to protect us all.
Some while ago a particular person was attempting to take over the Estate by buying flats and thus acquiring a block vote! At one stage, and in quite a short time, that person had at least 16 flats. Most of these flats have now been re-sold.
Asset-strippers and speculators are always looking to make a fast money! As shareholders we must all remain alert or we will lose our Estate assets and our independence!
There should, currently, be at least 20 flats without a share. These are the flats that are still owned by our Company. No shares have ever been allocated to these flats.
When a flat is sold the share should be transferred to the new owner, for the nominal price of £1.
If the buyer does not want the share, and that has happened, then that share has to be sold back to the Estate in exchange for the nominal £1. That share is then removed from the share register.
A buyer for a flat that does not already have an allocated share can buy a share from the Company for the nominal £1.
Your £1 share actually MEANS THAT YOU OWN AROUND 1/230th OF THE TOTAL ASSETS OF THE OUR COMPANY.
These assets include your portion of the value of the remaining communally owned flats.
Your portion of the communally owned garages;
Your portion of the freehold of the gardens; the commonunally-owned woodland and other communally owned assets.
Should, God forbid, a private equity company suddenly appear on the horizon, your £1 share could. theoretically, be worth in the region of £30,000! However you'd be diddled in some way, and the quality of your life would plummet if outsiders gained control of the Estate! Where is your share certificate? Please make sure you know!
STOP PRESS:
The Best of ... . AGM 2008: Once again, audibly and politely, and it will thus be recorded on the official professional recording of the Meeting, CROC will ask for Minutes of the previous AGM and the one before that! to the best of our recollections official Minutes cassed to be circulated with arrival of "Moriarty", as Manager. In 2007 we asked, but for the Minutes of the 2006 AGM, but were, as usual, ignored. We will, also once again, ask the what salary of the unqualified Manager/ex-Director is. In a the December LVT Judgment a figure is given, but we were told at the 2007 AGM that such information is confidential. One wonders how the position, when vacant, is advertised without a salary scale? In March 2008 CROC wrote to the auditors and to the Manager and the Directors OFFERING TO MEET ALL THE EXPENSES for the appointment of the Electoral Reform Society to check and count the votes. This is an exact repeat of the 2006 and 2007 AGMs situation. At the AGM on 28th June 2007 CROC began by asking, audibly and politely from the floor, for the Minutes of the previous the previous AGM. This polite request was ignored. The 2006 and the 2007 AGM, and the EGM on 21st March 2007, mentioned in the LVT Judgements, listed below, were professionally recorded, at considerable expense, so that the records would be accurate. So was the "CROC Forum" in 2006. 4 important meetings PROFESSIONALLY recorded: no Minutes produced and circulated!!! Are we bullied residents??! Each November a week is set aside as National Anti-Bullying Week , although throughout the year many large organisations also initiate awareness weeks to highlight the problem of bullying. Here is a link to our Judgment for the first case on 11th Janaury 2007. The compensation OF OVER £550 for each leasholder was, and still is, a record award against a shared-freehold Estate. An attempt was made to overturn this ruling by calling an ad hoc EGM was held. The purpose of the meeting, WHICH WAS PROFESSIONALLY TAPED, was confusing and unclear, despite the fact that we are a SHAREHOLDER OWNED Company. CROC has continually maintained that this EGM was illegal, and that the arbitrary overturning of a Statutory Award makes a mockery the Law. EVERY UNSCRUPULOUS MAVERIK COULD JUMP ON THAT BANDWAGON! Regardless, the directors of OUR Estate are refusing (in writing) to pay some residents the money they are owed. Ask yourself- did our Government intend a layer of bureaucracy, designed to protect the leaseholder, should be hijacked and overturned thus? Links to other Leasehold Valuation Tribunal Judgments involving our Estate:
1st February, 2007: 1st case, or alternative link.
1st February, 2007: second case, or alternative link.
30th November, 2007: The £71,000+ lack of heating and hot water fiasco. In this Judgment you can read for yourself that the Tribunal suggested that CROC Estate residents might want to consider both the expense and the poor running of THEIR Estate. We did not prompt them. Only the Estate supplied documents to that LVT Tribunal. NO LEGAL COSTS FOR THIS PARTICULAR CASE CAN LEGALLY BE RECOUPED FROM RESIDENTS' MONIES. Ms. Maple requested this at the end of the hearing and her request was granted. During the 30th November, 2007 hearing, the LOW level of our Maintenance Reserve Fund was noted. These LOW figures had been supplied by the Estate Management. We are taking this up with the current and previous auditors. "Ms. Maple" made an official complaint to that Tribunal, Her mother had died in 2004 YET SHE WAS A LISTED respondent for "our Company" in this case that began in late 2007! Attaching the names of the dead to official documents is often aassociated with dictatorships! 4th December, 2007, or alternative link. 
Reprinted from page 3 of the Richmond and Twickenham Times dated Friday 16th March, 2007. 
You can comment on, the above article in the Richmond and Twickenham Times archive. Comments are uncensored and are via a direct weblink to the journalist! You can also comment on our latest appearance in the Richmond and Twickenham Times of Friday 21st March, 2008. page 2, by clicking on "Have Your Say".
Here is an article in the The Best of ... .. Here is a link to Leasehold Valuation Tribunal (LVT) Judgment in favour of "CROC". This was given on 11th January 2007. "CROC" was represented by a "CROC" member with no legal training. By coincidence, a second LVT Judgment , for another block of flats in our area, was given on the same day! Much to our surprise the Judgment in favour of "CROC" featured prominently in the Spring 2007 Newsletter, Issue 20 of the We are listed, the Campaign for the Abolition of Residential Leasehold. "The Leaseholder" is published and also sent by e.mail. We are listed is affiliated with the Islington Law Centre, the London Leaseholders Network and the Islington Leaseholders Association.
As a general point We are listed stresses that it is NOT only "private landlords" who try to flout the consultation rules. Here is the recent Judgment in respect of 8 London Local Authorities trying to "pull the same trick".
At CROC we are submitting the Judgment to the Guinness Book of Records for possible inclusion under the "record awards" category!
Colonel Moran logo designed by Mary Phelan. Mary Phelan is an art historian; co-founder of "artyfacts.info", the website for those interested in the arts in London; and a free-lance editor. 
So, just exactly how did "CROC" residents reach this point, bearing in mind that few of us want to be here?
... And, on page 3, we show how OTHERS might benefit from the hard and unnecessarty lessons we have been forced to learn?
The Background of "Residents with Teeth".
When searching under "concerned residents" the CROC website has been rated as no 1 on Google and Yahoo search engines since October 2005. CROC is also listed as No 1 on searches using "Bullied Leaseholders"; and CROC has a No 2 listing, after the Financial Times!, for searches of "Bullied Shareholders". CROC is also highly placed under: "Bullied Residents"; "Post Office complaints"; "Record Leasehold Valuation Tribunal Awards"; Resident Action; Residents Action Group, London; Residents Association, West London and "Royal Mail complaints". To some, for a Residents Action Group, founded in the hope that we would be listened to, and occasionally consulted, AS EQUAL SHAREHOLDERS might seem reasonable. Others feel so so threatened by CROCs very existence that they regularly go to the expense of changing locks and locking us out of common parts IN DIRECT CONTRAVENTION OF OUR LEASES. These cloak and dagger tactics make life extremely difficult for local or regular tradespeople. We are negociating for one that will cover Richmond. legitimate and reasoned views which has forced "CROC" to "go public" on this website! As Ms Marple told Colonel Moran, our current unqualified Manager, in a private conversation, with no witnesses:
Colonel Moran: "All shareholders are NOT equal and THE REST OF YOU had better get used to doing what YOU are told!"
"No way". ... The "other side" had better get used to the fact that CROC WILL NOT BE SILENCED! 
Sweeping in Change ...
"The Characters", or .... Some "Residents with Teeth". "Ms Marple". "Ms Marple" is an active and practical conservationist. Here she is pictured hanging a gate on the Golden Cap, National Trust owned Estate, in Dorset. This huge property, where members of the London Intervarsity Club regularly go, as conservation volunteers, is now known "the Jurassic Coast". The Jurassic Coast (www.swgfl.org.uk/jurassic) is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, (and a wonderful area for a UK-based holiday!). "Ms Marple" is a resident of long standing and was living on the Colonel Moran before the original leaseholder buy-out. She was the Minute Secretary to the ORIGINAL Colonel Moran Residents' Association. "Ms Marple" is a company director, and a best selling author,
member of Society of Authors, and of NAWE, the National Association of Writers in Education. 
"Jessica Fletcher"
CROC's resident sleuths came across this wonderful website! ... www.UKdata.com enables anyone with an e.mail address to track, totally free of charge, the movements of any UK company. You nominate the company you want to track, and www.UKdata.com sends you an e.mail every time that the particular company registers a legal document. Monitoring using www.UKdata.com really is as simple as that! When you know a document exists there is a charge if you look at in on the www.UKdata.com website, but you can search for the item through other sources too (see page 3 of this website). That's how we have learnt a lot of what is going on within OUR company, the Colonel Moran.
Saving our Reputation. Our Estate was, certainly could be, and will be again, a lovely place to live. We don't want to run the Colonel Moran down to outsiders. We just object to the bullies (some unelected) who see themselves as unaccountable rulers of their own private fiefdom. At CROC we know that shareholders on the Colonel Moran are all equal.
We are NOT affecting your or our property price. You can check this on or www.nethousesprices.com.
Keeping the Colonel Moran's legal costs to the minimum. We all, communally, pay these. Residents do not have bottomless pockets, and the CROC Committee does not have access to a communal war-chest! This does not mean that "concerned residents" do not have rights! "Concerned residents" know that rights bring responsibilities to see that these rights are respected. In this instance we also have a responsibility to see that that OUR company is legally run!
In the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal hearings the Colonel Moran regularly employ one of the most experienced and expensive commercial barristers in the country! "Sherlock and friends presented the CROC cases themselves.
When the Directors tried to overturn the LVT Judgment CROC members wrote individually and by public circular to tell "our directors" that they were acting illegally. They preferred to take advice from "Moriarty", the previous Manager head-hunted through a private grapewine. "Moriarty" claimed he had 2 senior Managerial qualifications that he did not have!
The directors defence for their illegal actions were:
(1) "That they were learning on the job", ... in which case why not employ a professionally qualifieid manager ...
The Directors said that they believed that the law did not "apply to them".
"Moriarty" had deliberately head-butted a resident who was visiting the Colonel Moran office. At the time of the assualt this resident was a "neutral" resident. He personally wrote to all residents to explain the assault. He and his family now suport CROC. The case went to Kingston County Count. The head butted resident initially asked for was an apology, but the Colonel Moran directors rallied behind "Moriarty", who eventually pleased guilty and was fined.
In August 2005, Ms Marple, then a junior CROC member, with a genuine complaint, was bombarded with letters from the Colonel Moran company solicitor, asking her to explain why she hated "Moriarty" "the Manager". Eventually, to stop these bullying letters arriving, she felt she had no choice but to write and say that she had made no such statement!
Our website is now the main way we have to communicate with some residents. bullying directors, urged on by "Moriarty", decided that our literature "was subversive". The current directors of the Colonel Moran continue with this policy.
Re: CROC's LVT Judgement, our calculation was that CROC members had been awarded a reimbursement of over £700 a shareholder. "Internal re-calculations" reduced this sum to £543.16 per shareholder, and an EGM on 21st March, 2007, make it extremely unlikely that most shareholders will be receive any refund! Any shareholder inclined to enter this lottery should ask the on page 3 office for an LVT claim form! There is an unlisted telephone number in the on page 3 office. 020 89?8 1112. When this telephone number is, like any other business number, officially listed, we will remove it from our website. The share has been removed will help to get any building of suitable status listed. The initial consultation and assessment can be done without the knowledge or consent of the owner. If approaching the share has been removed do make sure you read and understand the "small print", or have it checked professionally. Sometimes, (certainly not always!), the benefits of any help could be outweighed by ensuing bureaucratic formalities. The We are listed.
An e.mail from Florida ...
... How is everything going at C... ? You seem as busy as I am ATTEMPTING to topple the thieves that run the place. At least SOME justice was done in a local condo, the 84 year old president and his 41 year old girl friend are going to do some jail time for syphoning off about $2 million with the assistance of a couple of other Board Members, so that gives us a glimmer of hope. ...! Dual property owner owner, Florida and here.
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