Gratitude is the shortest-lived emotion

I started my tiny firm of accountants in 1975. The first task I got awarded was getting the books of account of a Hampstead-based property management department under control. And I thereby got introduced to Nick Holcombe.

Readers may not know the legal background to the staggering mess that is housing law in the UK. For instance, The Defence Of The Realm Act 1916 (DORA) sought to reassure tenants that they would not be turned out of their homes provided they paid a fair rent on time. The trouble was that the fair rent that emerged was insufficient to cause investment in private housing or proper repairs. It was not until getting on for fifty-five years later that some sort of governmental effort occurred to reverse the consequences of this stupidity. (Broadly speaking the value of a tenanted home was around 50% less than the market value obtained through vacant possession.)

One afflicted block in West Hampstead was one of 150 flats known as Cholmely Gardens. Here the tenants were not well off and therefore extremely cautious about taking on debt of any sort. However, Nick, who lived there, and drawing upon his time at the Ministry of Housing, realised that if he could persuade sufficient tenants to take the plunge there would be sufficient money to persuade the landlord/freeholder to take the cash and depart. So Nick persistently and patiently and above all knowledgeably spoke to all or almost all the tenants, one by one, to take the plunge. There is no doubt that the eventual success of this campaign was almost entirely down to him. Those buying doubled their money.

In due course the company Nick developed to handle the money where each former tenant had one share (as a condition of acquisition of a long leasehold interest) held an EGM. It was proposed at this EGM that the company pay Nick about £15,000 cash for all his efforts. Astonishingly, the meeting voted against this "generosity" (I use quotes since Nick's work was worth far more to the tenants than £15,000). A vote at an EGM does not bind a company if all that has occurred is some publicly-minded citizen elects to float an idea in front of a duly called EGM. And Nick had never spoken of reserving a payment to himself. This was partly because he was not a greedy man and partly because he did not want to deter tenants from coming into the scheme.

As it happens the directors could have voted at a duly convened board meeting to make the payment. But Nick did not like that approach since he profoundly opposed a private deal. That was his nature.

Anyway, he died a couple of months ago. His treatment by the tenants underlined to me that Gratitude is the shortest-lived emotion.